But there’s one group of men who are acutely aware of these double standards and who feel irrevocably damaged by them – men who were circumcised by their parents as infants and now see it as a profound violation.Patrick Smyth is a trustee with 15 Square, an organisation that campaigns for non-consensual, non-therapeutic male circumcision to be made illegal in line with FGM.
For Brian Earp, an expert on the science and ethics of circumcision at the University of Oxford, the difference in attitudes to male circumcision and FGM has more to do with culture than science."I think much of the underlying dynamic here has to do with a problematic, patriarchal stereotype that says that men and boys are, or should be, tough, strong, almost invincible – that their bodies are somehow ‘resistant to harm or even in need of being tested by painful ordeals’,” he says. "But everyone feels pain, can suffer indignities, can be in need of support and protection