Note: I was inspired/compelled to write this diary due to a Tweet by the esteemed associate editor of The American Prospect, Dana Goldstein. As such, please direct all complaints to her-in 140 characters or less.
Yes, it turns out that circumcision is indeed a sexist procedure. Not male circumcision vs. female genital mutilation, mind. Male circumcision is itself a sexist procedure.
Circumcision may help protect men from the AIDS virus but it does not protect the wives and female partners of infected men, researchers reported on Thursday.
The disappointed researchers had to stop the trial, which they had hoped would confirm early suggestions that circumcision would protect men and women alike.
Mind you, it's not a total loss for women. It's true that the status of one's partner's foreskin does not, according to the article published in the Lancet Medical Journal, does not directly reduce HIV infections of women.
HIV incidence was not statistically different for women whose HIV-infected partners were randomised to undergo circumcision compared with those whose partners remained uncircumcised.
However, the researchers say that the efficacy of male circumcision is alone effective enough to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS and thus provides an indirect benefit to women by decreasing the likelihood of infection of their partner.
However, the efficacy of male circumcision for prevention of HIV in uninfected men is clear, and reductions in male acquisition of HIV attributable to circumcision are likely to reduce women's exposure to HIV-infected men. Male circumcision programs are thus likely to confer an overall benefit to women
And men in Africa are indeed lining up to get circumcised. Even in South Africa, where despite the comparative (to the rest of Africa) wealth of the country, the government has devoted little resources to it
"I’ve done 53 in a seven-hour day, me, myself, personally," said Dr. Dino Rech, who helped design the highly efficient surgical assembly line at this French-financed clinic for cutting off foreskins.
However, as it turns out, there'll not all doing it just for HIV protection.
But some said they were also drawn by a surprising, if powerful, motivation: They had heard from recently circumcised friends that it makes for better sex. You last longer, they said. Your lovers think you’re cleaner and more exciting in bed.
"My girlfriend was nagging me about this," said Shane Koapeng, 24. "So I was like, ‘O.K., let me do it.’ "