Monday, January 28, 2019

The body we were born with

Let's suppose we were talking…about children's…bodies…And the issue is…whether anyone should be permitted to deny her the uses of a clitoris. And now here I am suggesting that it is a girl's right to be left intact, that parents have no right to mutilate their daughters to suit their own socio-sexual agenda, and that we as a society ought to prevent it. What's more, to make the positive case as well, that every girl should actually be encouraged to find out how best to use to her own advantage the intact body she was born with…For one thing, the effects of circumcision are final and irreversible…For another, circumcision involves the removal of something that is already part of the body and will naturally be missed…To be deprived of the pleasures of bodily sensation is an insult on the most personal of levels…

This was obviously written by a transphobic fundamentalist culture warrior, right? This is the kind of religious bigotry that fuels teen suicide, when transgender minors are denied the right to transition. Denied the right to undergo puberty blockers and sex-reassignment surgery to resolve their gender dysphoria. The kind of child abuse practiced by Christian fundamentalist parents.

Well, actually not. This is by a secular psych prof. in a lecture oft-quoted and oft-cited by secular progressives. Cf. Nicholas Humphrey, "What Shall We Tell the Children?" Amnesty Lecture, Oxford, 21st February 1997. 

His target was the Muslim practice of female genital mutilation. Notice, though, how his arguments parallel arguments against "gender confirmation" surgery for minors. So how could he get away with such a politically incorrect position? Why isn't this hate speech? Why is (was?) his lecture so popular among secular progressives?

Because he gave this lecture back in 1997, before transgenderism became a fad, the new social mascot, the latest human right. He wouldn't dare use this illustration now. 

That demonstrates how arbitrary secular ethics is. How dangerous secular ethics is. What was taken by the liberal establishment as unquestionably wrong a few years ago becomes unquestionably right a few years later, and vice versa. It's not grounded in science, human nature, or objective moral norms, but raw political power. Which radical faction has the most power at any given time.

1 comment:

  1. Inb4 zoophilia is finally recognized as an equally valid sexuality.

    This will happen when secular humanists realize that they are already imprisoning, enslaving and murder-eating animals WITHOUT THE ANIMAL'S CONSENT.

    Rather than accept a theological basis of morality (one way out of this conundrum of hypocrisy) or become strict vegans (another way), they'll just go all the way down the slippery slope and admit that raping an animal without the animal's consent is fine actually.

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