'Cultural relativism' is not a belief - it is simply an excuse used to disguise (draw a veil over?) a lust for power. That is all there is to it - deep down even its proponents do not believe in it.

Tedious rant making the usual claims that FGM is religious (it isn't) & that it only happens in Muslim countries. It's actually far more practiced in other/Christian countries; Somalia & Egypt are exceptional in their attitudes/practices. You say it's Islamic because you have an agenda. Similarly Gaddafi's rape/abuse of girls was his character/misogyny nothing to do with Muhammad. ..that's like saying an Iris man who is caught abusing a girl is doing it because he's Catholic. ..maybe he's just an as hole. Like Gaddafi.

Any operation on a baby or person under the age of majority, which is not medically necessary, is a violation of the person's rights. Thus any circumcision whether male or female is a crime. There may have been a time when there was some force of reason to justify male circumcision e.g. lack of proper sanitation in areas of the world where the climate aided disease. In a similar way forbidding the eating of shellfish in caught in warm waters fed by effluent from areas of habitation was once sensible, but we have moved on from there both in knowledge and practice. In the modern world any genital interference when there is no infection to be dealt with remains an assault on that person.

This article is brilliant and spot-on. Well written and argued. Can we see more of Julie Bindel in Standpoint please?

An excellent informative article. Julie Burchill is defending Ms Bindel over at the Spectator. Also well worth a read and listen.

Bindel's analysis is, as you would expect, wonderfully skewed, exhibiting the result of Edward Said's pigeons 'coming home to roost'. Thus we have reference made to two published works without further comment (why would she comment - that would require knowledge of Islam) and reference to a fictional character called 'Laurie Penny', a woman writing upper middle class narratives in an attempt to free a working class of whom she has no direct experience, and whom she would loathe (except insofar as they could be hired as cheap labour). Pathetic.

Great piece, Julie. You're very courageous. Which is more than can be said for Germaine Greer. She really let the side down, didn't she? Mind you, the threat to life from the devotees of Islam is very real. Just ask Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Or indeed the family of Drummer Rigby. We shouldn't pussyfoot around the issue. Islam is a threat to the human race. If we continue to kow-tow to it at every turn, by self-censoring, then we're doomed. The sooner Islam disappears off the face of the earth the better. When will we wake up and see these damned religions for what they are? Patriarchal madness that has no place in 2014. There all the same when it comes down to it. Scams dreamed up by propheteers (no pun). The story never varied: "Give me your money, your women and your children, for I have a direct line to the creator of the universe." Strange how that creator was, and is, always male, eh? Meaning "He" must have a willy, a pair of balls and a beard. You couldn't make it up. But they did and continue to do so.

I couldn't take this seriously, much as I wanted to, after reading "male circumcision isn't mutilation... it is beneficial for men and their partners". In an article calling out cultural relativism, you have done exactly the same, completely ignoring the range of severity of both FGM and MGM; people focus on the worst of FGM and normalise MGM, when worse forms exist, and it is often performed under the premise of religious freedom (for parents to cut their babies?!) - a thorough look at this hypocritical view is presented by a medical ethicist here; if you read nothing else on the topic, make it this: http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2014/02/female-genital-mutilation-a... Pure falsehood. What about it is not mutilation? Strapping down babies, or getting men to stand naked in a clearing (if we're comparing across cultures here), and slicing off the most erogenous piece of tissue from their genitals, again often without anaesthetic. Sounds pretty similar to me. No effect on function? Not so. Sorrells 2007 and Hoebeke 2013 on sensitivity and function; circumcision removes the most sensitive area of the penis: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17378847 and http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1464-410X.2012.11761.x/abst... Beneficial for women? Frisch 2011 reported on circumcision harms to women: “Frequent Orgasm Difficulties in Danish men… and a range of frequent sexual difficulties in women” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21672947 American women are often known to say "eww a turtleneck? Gross! Smegma is stinky" - how similar to disturbing assessments of vulva appearances and calls for "neatening up". It is not a "snip", it is violence against children, affecting their sex lives forever. I could go on but I won't, this hypocrisy will not save children, it will only perpetuate the fight. To end FGM we have to convince people that children have the right to bodily autonomy. If you go back on that simply because the genitals in question are more typically male? Sorry, I cannot take your argument seriously.

Hard to argue with any of this...really. So I'll instead suggest you check your white cis platformed privilege...or something along those lines. Or do I go with transphobic useful-idiot of the white supremacist patriarchal overlords? Nothing personal, you understand. Your argument's well-formed and water-tight. But, y'know how it is...I've gotta try to look edgy and radical, avant-garde and ideologically pure...and if I said I actually agreed with you all my cool mates would call me racist.