The death rate for girls with FGM is significantly higher than that for circumsized boys in first world countries. As JennaB84 mentions above, the most severe forms of FGM remove all of the external genetalia and sew up the opening almost completely. The female equivalent to the typical male circumcision is the…

Actually, almost all of the "acute damage" in the 1 in 500 factoid was for bleeding. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/130/3/…

A. Circumcision did not start as a societal attempt to diminish sexual pleasure! Circumcision started- as far as people can tell- as a hygienic measure (not much soap & water in the desert), a religious ritual/ test of bravery, and in Judaism, a prerequisite for being READY for sex. I mean, I don't think any of these…

How prevalent is male death from circumcision? And what percentage of circumcised men lose the ability to experience any sexual pleasure? How many boys have their entire penis removed instead of just the foreskin? How many boys are circumcised with the express purpose of making them an acceptable match for marriage?…

Fuck cultural sensitivities. The only reason foot binding was so quickly and effectively banned in china is that Mao not only banned it, it was swiftly and vigorously enforced without any regard to cultural sensitivities. Harmful cultural practices have to be eradicated and the only way to do it is to remove tha taboo…

Cultural relativism does not = moral relativism.

How can someone legitimately defend this practice?

Or the people hijacking the thread to discuss male circumcision.

Cue the cultural relativists showing up swinging out of the woodwork. :)

agreed. The title definitely has a bias in its framing, as does the writing commentary by the non-artist. It sets up a certain, well-worn narrative about women receiving plastic surgery — that they're ashamed, that they're disquieted, etc. I don't feel like this article really did the project its true justice. I'm not…

Well said. I fucking hate that kind of attitude.

Fairly positive Jez covered this a while back when it first came out. I've definitely seen all of these photos before, quite a while ago.

Well, that's certainly damning with faint praise.

Right, so I think we would both agree that any rational biodiversity conservation effort needs to make informed decisions based on forecast amounts of climate change in the home ranges of species, how the home ranges will change in light of climate change, etc.
But that's all super tangential to the article, which is…

This article is about human-induced changes on sea cucumber populations due to over-harvesting of particularly "delicious" species. So humans could avoid, stop, or alter current threats to those species by reducing human harvesting of them. We agree on that, but, I just want to use your words to illustrate why your…

There is just no way to avoid, stop or alter, the dynamics of this reality
Well. Saying as how this article is about human causes of sea cucumber population decrease, there is a very obvious way to avoid, stop, or alter the dynamics of this particular extinction event.

The Chinese are a fucking menace to the natural world.

Why is it that whenever there's a species about to be wiped out causing an ecological disaster it's always China.

you clicked on a link about a robotic arse, that was your warning.