One is that FGM is not an inexplicable primitive oddity: it is part of a wider culture which sees sexual relations in a completely different way from the choice- and pleasure-based principles of the modern West — as part of tribal relations, family, gender and religious duties and the care of children.


So when we attack FGM, we are attacking much else besides. The other question is what will happen if our worry about FGM transfers to what we do not (yet) call male genital mutilation? Suppose some expert purports to show, with medical evidence, that male circumcision causes physical or psychological harm to boys, what then? Will one of the defining practices of both Islam and Judaism come under sustained attack? Will ‘MGM’ become, literally, a casus belli? We had better think carefully.