[Thor]

As Brian says

Given that both male and female forms of genital cutting express different cultural norms depending upon the context, and are performed for different reasons in different cultures, and even in different communities or individual families, how shall we assess the permissibility of either? Do we need to interview each set of parents to make sure that their proposed act of cutting is intended as an expression of acceptable norms? If they promise that it isn’t about ‘sexual control’ in their specific case, but rather about ‘hygiene’ or ‘aesthetics’ or something less symbolically problematic, should they be permitted to go ahead?

But this is bound to fail. Every parent who requests a genital-altering surgery for their child – for whatever reason under the sun – thinks that they are acting in the child’s best interests; no one thinks that they are ‘mutilating’ their own offspring (whether female or male). So it is not the reason for the intervention that determines its permissibility, but rather the consequences of the intervention for the person whose genitals are actually on the line.

As the social anthropologist Sara Johnsdotter has pointed out, there is no one-to-one relationship between the amount of genital tissue removed (in males, females, or indeed in intersex people), and either subjective satisfaction while having sex, or a feeling of having been personally harmed because one’s ‘private parts’ were altered before one could effectively resist. Medically unnecessary genital surgeries – of whatever degree of severity – will affect different people differently. This is because each individual’s relationship to their own body is unique, including what they find aesthetically appealing, what degree of risk they feel comfortable taking on when it comes to elective surgeries on their reproductive organs, and even what degree of sexual sensitivity they prefer (for personal or cultural reasons). That’s why ethicists are beginning to argue that individuals should be left to decide what to do with their own genitals when it comes to irreversible surgery, whatever their sex or gender.