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ABSTRACT
Male circumcision maintains a strong connection with religious responsibilities and masculinity construction in Turkey, but some Muslim men oppose this ritual today. This paper argues that opposing approaches to male circumcision on religious grounds do not necessarily enable a critical view of masculinity in general. Muslim men’s opposition against male circumcision shows four interdependent approaches about the juxtaposition of male circumcision, religion, and masculinity: (1) ‘Defending anti-circumcision’ as an example of practicing religion correctly, (2) ‘practicing religion correctly’ as a necessity for piety, (3) ‘piety’ as a requirement for masculinity, and (4) hence defending anti-circumcision as an obligation for ‘masculinity.’ The fourth point takes us back to the first one, and this creates a cycle which also shows how these men construct their own masculinity. The study shows that being circumcised and uncircumcised can both be positioned as a strategy that supports masculinity and internal hegemony in the same geography.
Acknowledgements
Earlier versions of this study were presented at the 2021 Interdisciplinary Conference on Men and Masculinities (virtual), University of Washington-Tacoma, 17–20 June 2021, and Kadir Has University Core Talks, 22 February 2022. For quite useful comments and suggestions on earlier drafts, I am grateful to Figen Uzar Özdemir, Nurseli Yeşim Sünbüloğlu, and anonymous reviewers of Turkish Studies.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Morris et al., “Estimation of Country-Specific and Global Prevalence.”
2 Rızvı et al., “Religious Circumcision.”
3 Abu-Sahlieh, Male and Female Circumcision, and Sev’er, “Male Circumcision.”
4 Rızvı et al., “Religious Circumcision,” 15–16.
5 Barutçu, “Türkiye’de Sünnet Ritüeli,” and Doyle, “Ritual Male Circumcision.”
6 Angulo and Garcia-Diez, “Male Genital Representation.”
7 Dunsmuir and Gordon, “The History of Circumcision.”
8 Vincent, “Cutting Tradition.”
9 Fox and Thomson, “Foreskin is a Feminist Issue”; Mager, “Youth Organisations”; Sev’er, “Male Circumcision”; and Zoske, “Male Circumcision.”
10 Bourdieu, “Masculine Domination,” 195.
11 Demetriou, “Connell’s Concept.”
12 Harrison, “Rethinking Circumcision,” 302.
13 Fox and Thomson, “Foreskin is a Feminist Issue.”
14 Mager, “Youth Organisations,” and Zoske, “Male Circumcision.”
15 Dharani, Vergo, and April, “An Intersectional Approach to Hegemonic Masculinity.”
16 Morris et al., “Estimation of Country-Specific and Global Prevalence,” 5.
17 Sev’er, “Male Circumcision,” 78.
18 Gerschick, “Masculinity and Degrees.”
19 Ervo and Johansson, Bending Bodies.
20 Mehta, “Collective Violence,” 206.
21 Fox and Thomson, “A Covenant,” 465.
22 Clark, “The Vulnerability,” and Simpson and Adams, “Male Perceptions.”
23 Connell and Messerschmidt, “Hegemonic Masculinity.”
24 Everitt-Penhale and Ratele, “Rethinking ‘Traditional Masculinity’”; Gerschick, “Masculinity and Degrees”; Magodyo, Andipatin, and Jackson, “The Role of Xhosa”; Morrell and Swart, “Men in the Third World”; Niang and Boiro, “Social Construction”; and Sev’er, “Male Circumcision.”
25 Fox and Thomson, “Foreskin is a Feminist Issue,” 196.
26 Mager, “Youth Organisations.”
27 Akkayan, “Bedenin Kültürel Gerekçelerle Sakatlanması”; Barutçu, “Türkiye’de Sünnet Ritüeli”; Kırımlı, “Yetişkinliğe İlk Adım: Sünnet”; Taşıtman, “Cultured Bodies”; and Toksoy and Taşıtman, “‘Ceremonial Circumcision’.”
28 Barutçu, “Türkiye’de Erkeklik,” and Selek, Sürüne Sürüne Erkek Olmak.
29 Türkoğlu, Sayılan, and Haywood, “The 1st International Symposium,” 181.
30 Ozbay, “Gendered Space,” 558.
31 Taşıtman, “Cultured Bodies,” 55.
32 Nagel, “Masculinity and Nationalism.”
33 Taşıtman, “Cultured Bodies,” 104.
34 Ula, “Making National,” 6–7.
35 Alimen and Askegaard, “Religious Ritual,” 226.
36 Barutçu, “Türkiye’de Sünnet Ritüeli”; Sev’er, “Male Circumcision”; Taşıtman, “Cultured Bodies”; and Toksoy and Taşıtman, “‘Ceremonial Circumcision’.”
37 Lee, Park, and Choe, “Parental Concerns”; Mavhu et al., “Unpacking.”
38 Sardi and Livingston, “Parental Decision Making”; Svoboda, “Genital Integrity”; and Tiemstra, “Factors Affecting.”
39 Kudat, Kirvelik.
40 Ataseven, Tarih Boyunca Sünnet, 28.
41 Kudat, Kirvelik, 19.
42 Mfecane, “Theorising Xhosa Masculinity”, “Decolonising Men”; Palmer, Rau, and Engelbrecht, “Changing Cultural Practices”; and Pyke, “‘Pausing’ to Reflect.”
43 Sev’er, “Male Circumcision.”
44 Adibi, “Sociology of Masculinity”; Barutçu, “Türkiye’de Sünnet Ritüeli”; and Toksoy and Taşıtman, “‘Ceremonial Circumcision’.”
45 Ndangam, “Coverage.”
46 Svoboda, “Growing World Consensus.”
47 Hill, “The Case against Circumcision,” and Silverman, “Anthropology and Circumcision.”
48 Krill, Palmer, and Palmer, “Complications of Circumcision.”
49 Mehta, “Collective Violence,” 222.
50 Gerschick, “Masculinity and Degrees,” 374.
51 Allan, “Phallic Affect”; Kennedy and Sardi, “The Male Anti-Circumcision Movement”; and Sardi, “The Male Neonatal Circumcision Debate.”
52 Boyle, “Ending the Forced Genital Cutting,” 8.
53 Karaca, “Women’s Islamic Movements,” 153.
54 Eser, “Framing Gender Politics,” 353.
55 The newspaper also targeted the presentations about LGBTI+ studies at the symposium and made the news with the title “Scandalous Homosexuality Symposium”. Despite this news, the symposium was organized safely, but the session which was openly targeted by the newspaper was canceled due to security concerns.
56 See Allan, “The Foreskin Aesthetic,” and Castro-Vazquez, “The ‘Beauty’ of Male Circumcision.”
57 Rızvı et al., “Religious Circumcision.”
58 Gatrad, Sheikh, and Jacks, “Religious Circumcision,” 78.
59 Akkayan, “Bedenin Kültürel Gerekçelerle Sakatlanması,” and Kırımlı, “Yetişkinliğe İlk Adım: Sünnet.”
60 Barutçu, “Türkiye’de Sünnet Ritüeli”; Taşıtman, “Cultured Bodies”; and Toksoy and Taşıtman, “‘Ceremonial Circumcision’.”
61 Alimen and Askegaard, “Religious Ritual.”
62 Sev’er, “Male Circumcision,” and Verit, “Circumcision Phenomenon.”
63 Sengul, “Cultural Politics.”
64 Morris and Krieger, “The Contrasting Evidence.”
65 Allan, “The Foreskin Aesthetic”; Castro-Vazquez, “The ‘Beauty’ of Male Circumcision”; Simpson and Adams, “Male Perceptions.”
66 Jacob, “The Ethics of Circumcision.”
67 Fox and Thomson, “The Law”; Hill, “The Case against Circumcision”; Svoboda, “Genital Integrity”, and Svoboda, “Growing World Consensus.”
68 Bollinger, “Lost Boys,” 88.
69 Güneş-Ayata and Doğangün, “Gender Politics.”
70 See Magodyo, Andipatin, and Jackson, “The Role of Xhosa.”
71 See Castro-Vazquez, “Gender, Pride and Medical Circumcision.”
72 Demetriou, “Connell’s Concept,” 348.
73 Ibid., 341.
74 Ibid., 355.
75 Sev’er, “Male Circumcision,” 83.
76 Alexander and Welzel, “Islam and Patriarchy,” and Ozdemir-Sarigil and Sarigil, “Who is Patriarchal?”
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Atilla Barutçu
Atilla Barutçu works at Zonguldak Bülent Ecevit University in Zonguldak, Turkey. He studied sociology at Middle East Technical University and received his PhD in Women’s Studies from Ankara University. He is a member of the Initiative for Critical Studies of Masculinities (ICSM), based in Turkey, and of the editorial board of Masculinities: A Journal of Culture and Society and Feminist Tahayyül: Akademik Araştırmalar Dergisi. He is particularly interested in men and masculinities, body and performance, queer theory, city and space.