This is a revolting development.
One of the world's most prestigious health journals has lashed a fast-growing trend in the United States and Britain for "designer vaginas," the tabloid term for cosmetic surgery to the female genitalia.The fashion is being driven by commercial and media pressures that exploit women's insecurities and is fraught with unknowns, including a risk to sexual arousal, the British Medical Journal (BMJ) says.
Known as elective genitoplasty, the surgery usually entails shortening or changing the shape of the outer lips, or labia, but may also include reduction in the hood of skin covering the clitoris or shortening the vagina itself.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that the practice is spreading fast in the United States as well as in Britain, but the picture is unclear, the BMJ says.
If we in the West are going to continue to decry the genital mutilation of young girls for religious and cultural reasons, how can we countenance the mutilation of women in the developed world for reasons of fashion?
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Comments on A New Level Of Decadence
Hah - classic crap journalism. Can't believe you're playing along.
|| Posted by Dan, May 25, 2007 07:25 PM ||Yeah, Dan -- British Medical Journal. Sounds like crap to me.
|| Posted by Rhymes With Right, May 25, 2007 08:45 PM ||I know accuracy is not your forte, but it's the BMJ, not the British Medical Journal.
Besides, it's a silly article based on anecdotal evidence that is only interesting because of its shock value. Of all the problems in the world, this one manages to attract your attention not because of its seriousness, or impact on female health, or anything other than the fact that it excites a little rightwing prurient opportunity to talk about vaginas and how bad other people are. Yawn.
|| Posted by Dan, May 26, 2007 08:16 AM ||Actually, Dan, Thje proper Name of BMJ is "The British Medical Journal". Sort of like the Journal of the American Medical Association is commonly referred to as JAMA.
Abbreviations -- a concept you might choose to become familiar with (sort of like satire).
|| Posted by Rhymes With Right, May 28, 2007 07:48 AM ||Ahem - you do exist in a fact-free universe, don't you? Go read this - http://resources.bmj.com/bmj/about-bmj, and come back and apologize.
Truth, a concept you might choose to become familiar with.
Accuracy, a concept you might choose to become familiar with.
Research - oh, never mind - you'd never bother, when making stuff up is so much easier . . .
|| Posted by Dan, May 28, 2007 08:55 AM ||Gee, Dan, I don't know how much clearer your ignorance could be, given that the very page you insist proves your point contains a statement that does in fact, prove mine.
What does BMJ stand for?
British Medical Journal. The name was changed in 1988 (vol 297).
How much clearer can that get, Dan.
Your apology is accepted in advance.
|| Posted by Rhymes With Right, May 28, 2007 10:19 AM ||"The name was changed."
You claimed "Actually, Dan, Thje (double sic!) proper Name (sic) of BMJ is 'The British Medical Journal'."
You were correct. In 1988. But now, the (or Thje) proper name (or Name) of BMJ is BMJ.
Really, this was a pretty simple one, and it would be nice if you could acknowledge your mistake for a change. Why do you have a pathological need to claim that you are constantly correct, when, sometimes, you are demonstrably wrong?
|| Posted by Dan, May 28, 2007 11:22 AM ||Oh good grief, Dan -- either citation is correct.
|| Posted by Rhymes With Right, May 28, 2007 12:49 PM ||Truthiness.
I agree it's a tiny deal, hardly worth pimping you about, but it's yet another instance of you being wrong and refusing to admit it.
And it's still crap journalism.
And it's still outrageous to compare a woman choosing to alter her vagina for her own reasons to forcibly scraping off a girl's clitoris with a rock.
You're wrong about that, too, but until you accept your fallibility on minor things, there's little hope for you being open minded to the bigger mistakes in your thinking. I'm trying to help you along with baby steps.
Now, for instance, do you agree that "the" should not be spelled "Thje"? Can you walk with me that far?
|| Posted by Dan, May 28, 2007 03:22 PM ||No, Dan, you are niggling over a minor point over whose citation of the journal's name is more correct. And the fact that you reduce yourself to a typo flame is clearly an indication that there is nothing in your comment that merits being taken seriously.
And sorry, it isn't outrageous to compare the alteration of female sex organs to meet with the demands of a patriarchal standard of female appearance and sexuality to the alteration of female sex organs (in part) to meet the demands of a patriarchal standard of female appearance and sexuality If you don't recognize that, then i guess you cannot understand my larger point.
|| Posted by Rhymes With Right, May 28, 2007 03:48 PM ||And, humorously enough, you're wrong (again) when you claim that either citation is correct. "When citing the BMJ please use either BMJ or BMJ (British Medical Journal)." Looks like simply citing it simply as the British Medical Journal doesn't cut it.
|| Posted by Dan, May 28, 2007 04:30 PM ||Dan -- I'm done with your crap on this one.
|| Posted by Rhymes With Right, May 28, 2007 04:56 PM ||One is by choice by adults. One isn't. Pretty big difference.
|| Posted by Dan, May 28, 2007 07:37 PM ||Lie I said, Dan, you can't understand my larger point.
|| Posted by Rhymes With Right, May 28, 2007 07:44 PM ||"Lie I said". Indeed. More and more often lately.
(Now, how can you expect me to eschew typo flaming when you make such an admission. Freudian, perhaps?)
Actually, I have thought about your "larger point". I fear that your larger point may be that women are incapable of making choices of their own. Little girls who are held down and have their clitorises (sp?) scraped off are the equivalent of women who make a personal choice for their own reasons to have elective surgery done. You disagree with their choice, and I suspect I would, too, but I've never discussed this surgery with anyone who's had it, so I'm not willing to sit here with my circumcised dick and tell them they are wrong.
|| Posted by Dan, May 28, 2007 08:11 PM ||N, Dan -- to your entire post. Indeed, no to every point you have attempted to make on the entire thread.
|| Posted by Rhymes With Right, May 28, 2007 10:26 PM ||Comedy gold.
|| Posted by Dan, May 29, 2007 06:38 AM ||Post a comment