On NPR [Feb 5, 2007], Author Ayaan Hirsi Ali talked about her new book, Infidel, and discussed her life as a fugitive, how to fight radical Islam, and the need for intolerance against female circumcision. Without a doubt, female circumcision is barbaric and horrific, but what about male circumcision? This series explores the question of male circumcision given that female circumcision is a slam-dunk-no-tolerance issue. The history of male circumcision is bizarre, entangled in religions [not just Islam], and like female circumcision, is just a bad idea that should be nipped. Ouch.

Circumcision by David Gollaher, 2000, Edited Excerpts

A History of the World’s Most Controversial Surgery

Stripped of medical or scientific support, circumcision is now viewed as the province of the unenlightened, an outrageous throwback to primitive ideas about women, disregarding women’s suffering and their right to control their bodies. Our revulsion toward cutting the genitals of girls should give us pause, however, for the themes the Western world abhors – removing part of the genitals to reduce sexual pleasure, carving children’s bodies to conform to certain social ideals, visiting pain on helpless children – are all fully present in the history of male circumcision.