{"id":1521,"date":"2007-02-05T16:06:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-05T11:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chris.dwan.org\/?p=1521"},"modified":"2007-02-05T16:06:00","modified_gmt":"2007-02-05T11:06:00","slug":"conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chris.dwan.org\/?p=1521","title":{"rendered":"Conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>People talk about some very weird and very private stuff at Starbucks.  Sometimes I sit here with my headphones on, but no music, so they&#8217;ll feel more free to talk.<\/p>\n<p>This afternoon&#8217;s edition was a rather impassioned argument about female circumcision, also known as &#8220;female genital mutilation.&#8221;  This, <!--more is under this cut, and is pretty spectacularly graphic-->for those of you who have managed to avoid hearing about it thus far in your lives, is a spectacularly barbaric practice in which the clitoris is cut out at or around puberty &#8230; and that&#8217;s the least damaging version.  There are more extreme versions too &#8230; in which the external genetalia are removed, and the opening of the vagina is sewn mostly shut to ensure &#8220;purity&#8221; for the girl&#8217;s eventual husband.<\/p>\n<p>In the best cases, the victim merely loses a great deal of sexual function and the ability to achieve orgasm.  Sometimes they get infected and die.<\/p>\n<p>Please, please save me the trouble of going ballistic on you:  Don&#8217;t make the pedantic comparison with male circumcision.  If you can still achieve orgasm, and were never at risk of severe infection and death from the procedure, you&#8217;re not in the same ballpark, okay?<\/p>\n<p>Shockingly, right here in Seekonk, MA, we had a guy (big, African looking man) who was in favor of it as a &#8220;traditional, cultural practice.&#8221;  He was being soundly torn to pieces by a white woman who seemed to be a physician of some sort.  I was stunned that we still have anyone around here who would stand up in favor of this kind of crap.  I really wanted to go over and just start hitting him &#8230; but she was doing fine.<\/p>\n<p>This is why we need to lose the cultural prohibition about questioning &#8220;cultural&#8221; or &#8220;religious&#8221; beliefs.  We need to question everything, and figure out what other absolutely obscene and barbaric practices we&#8217;re countenancing in the name of &#8220;tolerance.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>People talk about some very weird and very private stuff at Starbucks. Sometimes I sit here with my headphones on, but no music, so they&#8217;ll feel more free to talk.<\/p>\n<p>This afternoon&#8217;s edition was a rather impassioned argument about female circumcision, also known as &#8220;female genital mutilation.&#8221; This, <\/p>\n<p> <span style=\"color:#777\"> . . . &rarr; Read More: <a href=\"https:\/\/chris.dwan.org\/?p=1521\">Conversation<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chris.dwan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1521"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chris.dwan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chris.dwan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chris.dwan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chris.dwan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chris.dwan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1521\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chris.dwan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chris.dwan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chris.dwan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}