Free Sex, Culture, and Justice: The Limits of Choice by Clare Chambers Page A

excessive desire and their relationship to the intact penis. At present, American society is regulated according to an alternative power/knowledge re- gime, purporting to understand and control physical problems such as cancer and aids and their supposed relationship to the intact penis. It now seems fairly obvious to us that the nineteenth-century scientific ‘‘knowledge’’ justifying circumcision was deeply flawed, and more a reflection of contemporary morality than of reliable evidence. Katz be- lieves the same is true of twenty-first-century ‘‘scientific’’ justifications. He surveys the current clinical findings on the benefits of circumci- sion, and writes, ‘‘My conclusion from the examination of all these arguments is that no cogent justification has been brought forth in support of routine prophylactic circumcision. What motivates its pro- ponents is uncertain, but their commitment remains unwavering, and they change their arguments as each one offered fails.’’ 51 In South Korea, to take another example, doctors who advocate rsc mistakenly believe that it is practiced in countries which they see as technologi- cally, medically, and economically advanced. Thus the majority of doc- tors believe that rsc is practiced in Sweden and Denmark, and that Japan but not North Korea has high levels of circumcision. In fact, only 1–2 percent of newborn boys are circumcised in Sweden and Den- mark—hardly routine—and neither Japan nor North Korea practice rsc . South Korean doctors’ advocacy of rsc is thus based in part on a normative view of its connection with progress, a view which contra- dicts the facts. 52
    In a fascinating discussion of a form of fgm or female circumcision
This point is often made concerning the funding of medical or scientific research by private companies: the problem of the research being biased toward the interests of the funding body is a very real one. See Lise Lkjaergard and Bodil Als-Nielsen, ‘‘Association Between Competing Interests and Authors’ Conclusions,’’ 249–52.
Katz, ‘‘Compulsion to Circumcise,’’ 58.
Pang et al., ‘‘Male Circumcision in South Korea,’’ 74.

    in the United States, Sarah Webber similarly argues that an apparent discontinuity in the reasoning behind the practice can be explained by continuity in gender discourse. Webber states that removal of the clito- ral prepuce was practiced in the United States from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century so as to reduce female sexual response and prevent masturbation and nymphomania, and from the late nineteenth century to the 1970s so as to increase female sexual response and facilitate female orgasm during marital sex in the mis- sionary position. She argues that this apparent discontinuity in justifi- cation actually conceals a continuity: ‘‘The history of female circumci- sion in the United States is the history of an operation used to direct female sexuality into culturally and medically appropriate behavior: missionary-position heterosexual sex with the husband.’’ 53
    The second way in which knowledge is power-laden is that once a certain knowledge is in place, it has normative implications. If a con- nection is found between the foreskin and penile cancer, it follows that circumcision ought to be practiced, and that normative sanctions exercised by doctors, friends, and the media can be applied to parents who do not circumcise their sons. The discovery of aids , to take an- other example, prompted a shift in sexual morality, one in which pro- miscuity, casual sex, and homosexual sex were (re-)cast as immoral in certain discourses. 54 Genealogical analysis involves seeing each set of knowledges, each discourse, as a regime of power, a way in which norms and practices complement and support each other. A disconti- nuity in practices, or a discontinuity in the justification and ‘‘evidence’’ in support of one particular practice, represents a shift