Female Circumcision: The benefits outweigh the risks

(Readers) - The benefits of female circumcision outweigh the risks, according a long awaited draft of federal guidelines from U.S. health officials released on Tuesday, which indicate that scientific evidence supports recommending the procedure.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that medically performed female circumcision could help decrease the risk of contracting HIV and several other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) as well as other health problems.

The recommendation, which includes counseling parents of female newborns on the benefits and risks of the procedure, comes at a time when the rate of female circumcision has been decreasing in the United States.
From 1979 through 2010, the national rate of newborn circumcision declined 10 percent to 58 percent, according to the CDC.

The procedure, which has been subject of fierce debate, involves removing the hood from around the clitoris.

"These recommendations are based on an evaluation of available information on the health risks and benefits associated with high-quality, medically performed female circumcision and were developed to pertain to women and female newborns in the United States," the document said.

Several studies conducted in Africa indicated that circumcision could help reduce the spread of the virus that causes AIDS.

All uncircumcised adolescent and adult females who engage in heterosexual sex should be informed about the significant, but partial, efficacy of female circumcision in reducing the risk of acquiring HIV and some STIs through heterosexual sex, as well as the potential harms of female circumcision, the draft guidelines said.

The overall risk of adverse events associated with female circumcision is low, with minor bleeding and inflammation cited as the most common complications, according to a CDC fact sheet.

The draft recommendations are subject to a 45-day public comment period and a formal external peer review. Comments provided will be considered before recommendations are finalized, CDC said.

The agency said it developed the draft guidance based on a systematic review of all evidence on the health risks and benefits of circumcision and consultation with experts in HIV prevention and related fields.

Oh, wait, no.

That was male circumcision, removal of the foreskin from around the tip of the penis.

Our bad. But you get the gist; the CDC is recommending surgical removal of part of an infant's genitals as a preventative measure against an otherwise preventable sexually transmitted disease.

Original article:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/male-circumcision-benefits-outweigh-risks-cdc-says/

Alison Tieman: Men's rights vs feminist rape culture explained

On its own, without the dialogue at the end, Alison's video makes its own solid point: There is no reasonable, rational cause to differentiate in our language between what we call it when a man forces himself sexually upon a woman, and when a woman forces herself sexually upon a man. It is the same violation. It is the same malicious behavior. It is the same intent to contravene the victim's right to refuse. It should be classified as the same crime, without prejudice of any kind involved in that determination.

The dialogue at the end shows that there's more to this than people realize, that when the thought process behind determining that raping a man isn't rape is held up to even simple scrutiny, it becomes very, very ugly.

Just for a moment, think about what is being said by the CDC's researcher at the end of the video.  

"There is a definition of rape, and it's a separate form of victimization..."
See, it's different when a woman does it to a man. Because we said so.

"These are in line with the CDC uniform definitions for sexual violence."
Male rape victims don't deserve as much acknowledgement as female rape victims because Authority said so. 

"We're the first survey to actually include this 'made to penetrate'." This, followed by the admonition that there's "experts and processes from all over the country going back several years." So for all of those years feminists worked to study sex crime, they excluded male victims of female perpetrators, because male victims weren't an area of interest for them. And that makes defining rape to exclude them A-ok, right? Because that's the way they've always done it.
 
What does she mean by using the word "construct" in answer to a question about why forcing unwanted sex on a man is not rape? Does the CDC consider rape a construct, instead of a real concept? Rape isn't real?

If rape isn't real, obviously the language used to describe the act becomes very, very important; defining, in fact. So using a different word for the rape of one sex than the rape of the other would be a concrete way of defining victimization of the sex denied recognition out of existence. Deny them the "construct," and you can erase the crime.

Feminists, who exploit proxy female victim status for political and social power, portray rape as a crime committed as an attack on the individual's gender, not just the individual. In order for them to be able to support their treatment of rape as a gendered crime, and exploit the proxy victim status that narrative creates for them, they cannot have anywhere near equal numbers of male victims. They especially cannot have male victims of female perpetrators. They cannot admit that women do commit rape. They cannot admit that women can commit rape. That is why they've worked so hard to erase male victims of female perpetrators; not because women don't rape, but because feminists don't benefit from talking about it.

Got a letter from the CDC - brief update.

According to the letter I've received from the CDC's FOIA office, their delay in responding to my request is due to filling requests made prior to mine. As soon as requests which are in line ahead of me have been taken care of, I'll receive an answer.

Just to see where they are in filling requests, I've checked the numbers closest to mine. I didn't have to go very far back to find one that's closed, and there are requests made after mine which are at "pending program search" status. I hope this means I'll get an answer soon.

 

A minor update on my FOIA request

It's been nearly 3 weeks since I sent a request for an update on the decision making process for my Freedom of Information Act request to the CDC for some of the raw numbers from the NISVS. To be sure my letter was received, I sent it delivery confirmation.

I haven't received either confirmation of delivery, or my letter returned as undeliverable. In my experience, this is an unusually slow pace for delivery confirmation mail, but I have never had a delivery failure with that system. I suspect that my letter probably had to sit in the Atlanta, Georgia post office for the duration of the time the addressee is given to pick it up following a failed attempt at delivery, and this will be my first "undeliverable" notice.

Checking on the CDC's FOIA status request page, however, does show that there's been a change. I've been upgraded from "Pending Program Search."

I'm still not holding my breath. This doesn't tell me how much the information is going to cost, or whether the request has even been approved - though there isn't a legal basis for disapproving it - so it's a change, not a promise. Still, it means that there's some kind of forward motion on the case, and when trying to get anything from an agency of the American federal government, that in and of itself is remarkable.

So that's it - not a huge update, just a quick note, and a little hope.

Update post: The Liars, the Snitch, and the magic red tape

Today, on checking the CDC's Freedom of Information Act Request Service Center, I discovered that the site (previously out of order) is working again. I eagerly typed in my numbers, hoping for an update. Remember, the request is for information that had to be compiled in order to do the calculations needed to arrive at the conclusions stated in their NISVS reports, including the overall report, and the more targeted reports.

The reply I received when I clicked on the submit button: "Pending program search."

The site explains "Pending program search" as meaning that "program staff are still conducting the search" for the requested information.

Meaning...

In 2010 the CDC commissioned that survey. The organization that did the survey interviewed thousands of people and recorded the results, calculated percentages from those results in order to report on both the experience and perpetration of partner and sexual violence by gender and sexuality... but apparently, in 2013, neither the organization nor the CDC has readily available statistics on respondent's answers by gender and sexuality, as my request, received on February 4, has now been in their hands for 4 months, and they're still searching for those stats.

Interesting.

So, I'm sending the following letter via registered mail, addressed to both of the individuals listed on the FOIA request service center's sidebar:

Attn:
Katherine Norris or Bruno Viana

I've been trying to get information on the status of my FOIA request, reference number #13-00308-FOIA,  for numbers from the CDC's 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey. Unfortunately, the site to which the letter I received from the CDC's office for handling FOIA requests referred me did not function at all for several weeks, and I was unable to obtain any update through that page until recently. On entering my numbers, I get a reply that the information is being searched, but that doesn't tell me much. I've tried contacting your agency by phone, but nobody ever answers, and when I leave messages, they don't get returned. I assume that there are folks requesting a lot of other information from the CDC, probably for more conventional health related reasons, and I suspect that, due to the different nature of my request, my messages may be getting lost among more urgent requests. This is why I am contacting you in this manner.

I'm requesting  just a quick note on the status of my FOIA request, with information as to whether the information is available, if there is a time frame yet on delivering it, and at what cost to me, or whether I have qualified for a reduction or waver of fees. Even if that information has not yet been determined, I would appreciate a quick note to let me know that, as well. I can be reached via postal service to my home address;

(my address)

or I can be reached via email at (my email address), or by phone at (my phone number.)

Again, even if the information I have requested has not been gathered, it would still be helpful to me to have an answer on the cost, if that has been decided.

Thanks for your attention to this matter.

(my name)

My hope is that I will shortly receive a reply with an update to at least let me know if receiving the requested numbers will be expensive, and if so, how expensive. Better would be if I could get some kind of estimate as to when I can expect the information, but I'll take what I can get.

The liars, the snitch, and the magic red tape

I haven't written about this publicly until now, because I was hoping to get the information and report on that, instead, but I've run into some odd hurdles, and because of that I think the process has become interesting in and of itself. I began this over dissatisfaction with the CDC's handling of the data from the 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey. Among other things, I'm appalled at the sexism inherent in the deliberate mislabeling of data so that a double standard is created for the treatment of a single action (sexual abuse specifically involving a victim's genitals) depending on the gender of the victim. The CDC acknowledges that raping a woman is rape, regardless of the manner of violation. The CDC denies that raping a man is rape if the manner of violation involves an intimate assault on his genitals.

The ridiculousness of that denial becomes evident if one simply reverses the sexes. Imagine telling a woman that her assailant didn't rape her because the attack "only" involved abusing her genitals in exactly the manner in which they are used for sexual intimacy. Only an idiot, an ignoramus, or an ideologist with an agenda would come up with such convoluted logic. The decision to exclude being forced to penetrate from the CDC's definition of rape is not an honest attempt to categorize behavior, but an attempt to obfuscate in discussion of a very sensitive issue. Further, looking at the data they presented on those two specific types of assault - forced to penetrate, and forced penetration - it is evident that perpetration of the crime is much less gender-divided than advocates have been claiming. This information is eclipsed by the CDC's creative labeling, making it appear that common belief on the subject is correct when, based on the data, it is quite obviously not. By excluding the intimate sexual abuse of male genitalia from their definition of rape, the CDC has perpetuated three lies: First, that male victims of rape are rare, second, that female perpetrators of rape are rare, and third, that preventative and law enforcement approaches to the crime of rape should focus on a prevalence of male perpetration and female victim experience.

The presentation of the survey results was equally unsatisfactory in its description of specific categories of victim and perpetrator. The report, biased in its wording as the survey was in its methods, often states what percentage of victims in each specific category of violence reported one gender of perpetrator, but not what percentage reported the other gender. Female perpetration is particularly under-discussed. As explained in the graphic linked in the previous paragraph, that makes it difficult to accurately calculate female perpetration beyond an estimate of the minimum that can be confirmed. It became evident to me that an accurate picture of partner and sexual violence in the U.S. cannot be had without more information than the CDC made available to the public in its report.

On February 4, 2013, I sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the CDC, asking for information from the raw numbers from the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey. I did not request private information, but asked for the total number of individuals who answered specific questions, by gender, by sexuality, and by type of violence. The request was carefully worded (and therefore long winded) because I did not want it misinterpreted, and insufficient information sent, but the information requested was information that the researchers would have had to compile in order to do the calculations necessary to file the report that was shared with the public. Since the report could not have been done without that information, it must exist in some accessible form.

A few weeks later, I received back the following letter (personal information blurred, including request ID, for my protection):

Note - I'm not removing the CDC's contact information, because that information is public information,
readily available on the site to which I was directed, and easily obtained otherwise.
Please, at this time, do not call, message, fax, or write to this agency about my request. I do not think
increased contact to the office will speed the process, as I will explain further along in this post.

I gave the agency a couple of months from my initial request. On April 12, 2013, I tried checking my assigned request ID at the CDC's FOIA web page. This is what I found:



As I said in my update to friends with whom I'd discussed the matter,

Out of order? Seriously? WTH is this, an arcade game?
I wonder how long it's been that way, and how long it's going to continue.

The other two addresses listed on the page don't give any information that would help me to determine the response to my request. The second link, http://www.hhs.gov/foia/45cfr5.html, goes to the text of the act which describes the rules and process, but doesn't help me find out if a decision has been made in my case, or not. From that link, I was able to ascertain that there is no legitimate reason why the CDC should deny my request for information. The agency might deny my request for a fee reduction or waver, but that should not affect the release of the information.

I called the 770 number listed, and received no answer. I left a message, and received no return call. On April 17th, I called and left another message, and sent an email.

I've been trying to get information on the status of my FOIA request for numbers from the CDC's 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey. Unfortunately, the site to which the letter I received from the CDC's office for handling FOIA requests referred me has not been functioning for several days, instead referring users to a phone number. I've made calls to the number, but have received no return call.

I'm writing to request just a quick note on the status of my FOIA request, with information as to whether the information is available, if there is a time frame yet on delivering it, and at what cost to me, or whether I have qualified for a reduction or waver of fees. Even if that information has not yet been determined, I would appreciate a quick note to let me know that, as well.

The reference number given in the letter I received is #13-XXXXX-FOIA

Again, I updated friends, sharing the text of the message, and the following thought:

Here's hoping I get back a response... though I'm not holding my breath. At this point, I'm starting to wonder if there's something off about the survey that we haven't already highlighted. Like... perhaps the numbers aren't as they've been represented... or perhaps the vagueness of the report was due to the numbers showing things the CDC didn't want to admit (like a prevalence of female violence.)  

Today is March 10th, 2013. Repeated calls have confirmed for me that the liaisons at the office simply never answer their phones. Failure to return my calls and emails has confirmed for me that they also ignore messages. I've left another voice message for them regarding my request, pointing out the amount of time that has passed, and stating that all I want is an update on their decision process, but based on past experience I do not expect a response to that, either. Still, just in case, I will give them another few days to get back to me and at least tell me whether or not they have any update to my request. 

I realize that my request may seem a bit complex. The survey was done not by the CDC, but by an organization hired for that purpose, and while the request was for information which should be readily available due to its having been used in calculations for the NISVS report, I did request a fee reduction or waiver based on the need for the information. While there is no excuse for having difficulty providing the requested information, it may be that the agency is having some difficulty determining my eligibility for waver. In my waver request, I made the following statement:

Disclosure of the information is in the public interest because it is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of the subject matter and can be used for the benefit of crime victims within the victim's advocacy system and to improve other victim's services.

My intent is to evaluate the data for purposes of discussing violence risk among populations which are underserved by the current Domestic Violence Advocacy system and the legal system due to social misconceptions regarding partner and sexual violence. I will publish my conclusions in a non-commercial publication, from which I make no profit, which will be publicly available for anyone's use as a reference source in discussion and advocacy on this topic.

Aside from that publication, my use of the information will include advocacy directed to alert victim's advocates and legislators to the omission, with the goal of improving the outlook of underrepresented victims who seek assistance in escaping violent environments and pursuing charges against their assailants and/or abusers. It will also include discussion among activists interested in improving the environment faced by currently underrepresented victims.

I have reason to believe this data has been compiled, because the report lists percentages which would require this data in order to be calculated: Percentage of reported victims of each gender in specific categories of violence, who reported "only male" or "only female" perpetrators, and so on. The report provides this information unevenly - if it lists the percentage reporting one gender as perpetrator, it omits the other, but since some victims reported more than one perpetrator, it is impossible to determine the distribution of gender within the undisclosed population of perpetrators.

My intent is to use the information, should I ever receive it, in the following ways:

• To advocate for support for currently underserved populations of Intimate Partner and Sexual violence victims. This would include every group not currently given the same level of assistance which is currently provided to women who have been victimized by men. 
• To provide support for the efforts of local individuals wishing to initiate an assistance program specifically dedicated to currently underserved populations of Intimate Partner and Sexual violence victims. This would include efforts to create a shelter for individuals who, either due to gender or gender conflict, cannot be housed at existing domestic abuse shelters. 
• To provide existing advocacy groups with balanced information on the prevalence and distribution of partner violence among genders and types of relationships, for the purpose of better understanding the problem and more effectively addressing the needs of those involved.
• To facilitate the provision of the general public, and more specifically, of legislators, with accurate, comprehensive, and easily understandable information on the topic so that future legislative efforts to address the issues of partner and sexual violence will be more beneficial to society at large, and to victims; especially, to provide information which will assist legislators in better understanding the nature of the issue, so that they can address it with an interest in prevention rather than simply damage control. 
• To supplement educational discussion on the U.S. federal government's approach to addressing the issues of intimate partner and sexual violence.
• Publication in this blog, as the information is something which should be made publicly accessible, free of charge.
  

  (note, I do not receive a profit for writing this blog. I have placed an adsense widget on the side so that I'm not freeloading from Google for this publication, but I do not have an active adsense account, and if I did, the ad at the top right would violate the adsense terms, because it's not an adsense ad. It's simply a cause I support. That violation would get my account put on probation. It is my understanding from their TOS that I cannot simultaneously have that ad on my blog, and make a profit from adsense.)

Currently, the issue of partner and sexual violence is treated as a gendered issue with a prevalence of straight-male on female violence. The information released to the public following the execution of the NISVS paints a different picture - violence is shown to be more evenly distributed among the sexes and sexualities than advocates portray, demonstrating that the problem isn't just with straight men, and the solution does not lie in addressing only straight male violence. In fact, failure to address female violence may contribute to perpetuating the problem. However, as I stated in my letter to the CDC, the survey is vague on several points, and I find it necessary and vital that the information insinuated by the report be confirmed before attempting effective, informative, and beneficial advocacy on this topic.

I do intend to continue the effort to obtain this information. My next step will be sending a request for an update on my case using the US postal service's delivery confirmation system. Following that, I will begin contacting my representatives regarding the issue, as at this point, I believe my request is simply being ignored. If I receive no satisfaction from my representatives on the issue, I will make the issue fodder for national shock jocks, who I am sure will be interested in discussing why the CDC might see fit to hide from the public the intimate partner and sexual violence statistics used to support recent related legislation which has been controversial in part due to its gendered wording. I will continue to periodically update on this process, whether or not I receive replies.