(Im)perishable Pleasure, (In)destructible Desire: Sexual Themes in U.S. and English News Coverage of Male Circumcision and Female Genital Cutting

Abstract

Under what conditions do sexual pleasure and desire get addressed in news coverage of sexual health issues like female genital cutting (FGC) and male circumcision (MC)? In this study we employed an embodied ethnosexuality approach to analyze sexual themes in 1,902 items published from 1985 to 2009 in 13 U.S. and 8 English newspapers and news magazines. Journalists' discussions of sexual pleasure, desire, control, problems, and practices differed in quantity and quality depending on the practice and nation to which they pertained. News coverage in both nations presented FGC as impeding female sexual pleasure, desire, and activity in ways that reinforce (hetero)sexist understandings of sexuality. The English press depicted MC as diminishing male sexuality, whereas U.S. papers showed it as enhancing male sexuality. These patterns are influenced by, and serve to reinforce, cultural norms of embodiment and ethnosexual boundaries based on gender, race, and nationality. They may, in turn, shape public understandings of FGC and MC as social problems.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Rene Almeling, Susan Bell, Monica J. Casper, Joanna Kempner, Michael Kimmel, Kasie Luttrell, Constance A. Nathanson, Harmony Newman, Kendall C. Park, Jennifer Reich, Katherine Clegg Smith, and the members of Vanderbilt's Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities seminar on Representation and Social Change, especially Bonnie J. Dow and Terence McDonnell.

Notes

¹Boyle and Hoeschen (2001) aggregated newspaper data from multiple countries.

²Rather than analyze news from across the United Kingdom, we limited our analysis to England, thereby holding constant institutional differences (e.g., Scotland's separate parliament), distinctive patterns of religious turmoil and immigration (e.g., Northern Ireland), and variations in news outlets (e.g., Welsh papers do not ordinarily circulate nationally). However, when citing research by others, we repeat the (sub)national designations that they used.

³Recognizing that the terms people use for these practices imply particular positions, we employ what appear to be the least value-laden—FGC and MC—and use the abbreviation “MC” to make the terms more parallel. The term MGM is used chiefly by anti-MC activists; some anti-FGC activists prefer the term FGM while others prefer FC, a term also used by practice proponents.

⁴Ages at FGC vary across cultures from near-infancy to late adolescence (Rahman & Toubia, 2000). Routine MC is performed in infancy, MC to cure health problems (as in the United Kingdom) in childhood, Jewish MC on the eighth day of life, Muslim MC and traditional MC (in African cultures that practice it) at various times in childhood or adolescence (Gollaher, 2000).

⁵Whether either practice is inherently disfiguring is part of the debates surrounding them.

⁶We chose to examine Los Angeles, New York, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, DC, because they are centers for immigration from countries where FGC is prevalent and (except Minneapolis) also have large Jewish and/or Muslim communities; San Francisco and Bismarck because they are major sites of anti-MC activism; and Atlanta because it was the site of two major MC malpractice cases as well as a landmark FGC trial.

⁷The major English papers circulate nationally, in regional editions across the United Kingdom.

⁸Stories were coded as mentioning MC or FGC in passing if the practice appeared in only one or two sentences and was not essential to the import of a story. Using this definition, 29.9% (174) of MC and 36.1% (112) of FGC items in the U.S. sample mentioned MC/FGC only in passing, as did 45.8% (268) of MC and 48.7% (229) of FGC items in the English sample.

⁹We omitted from our sample items that mentioned STIs but not other sexuality themes.

¹⁰Of course, journalists may not hail from the country in which they work; we use this phrasing for convenience.