Penile subincision
{{Short description|Body modification involving the slitting open of the underside of the penis}}{{more footnotes|date=August 2011}}
File:Operation of Subincision, Warrumanga Tribe, Central Australia Wellcome M0005682.jpg
Penile subincision is a form of genital modification or mutilation consisting of a urethrotomy, in which the underside of the penis is incised and the urethra slit open lengthwise, from the urethral opening (meatus) toward the base. The slit can be of varying lengths.
Subincision was traditionally performed around the world, notably in Australia, but also in Africa, South America, and the Polynesian and Melanesian cultures of the Pacific, often as a coming of age ritual.
Disadvantages include the risks inherent in the procedure itself, which is often self-performed, and increased susceptibility to sexually transmitted infections (STIs). The ability to impregnate (specifically, getting sperm into the vagina) may also be decreased.{{cn|date=August 2020}}
Subincisions can greatly affect urination, often resulting in hypospadias requiring the subincized male to sit or squat while urinating. The scrotum can be pulled up against the open urethra to quasi-complete the tube and allow an approximation to normal urination, while a few subincized men carry a tube with which they can aim.{{cn|date=August 2020}}
Cultural traditions
Subincision (like circumcision) is well-documented{{Citation needed|date=January 2008|reason=Which document?}} among the peoples of the central desert of Australia such as the Arrernte and Luritja. The Arrernte word for subincision is arilta, and occurs as a rite of passage ritual for adolescent boys.{{Cite book|title=Male and Female Circumcision|author=M Tractenberg|others=George C. Denniston, Frederick Mansfield Hodges, Marilyn Fayre Milos (editors)|publisher=Springer Science & Business Media|date= 1999|isbn =9780306461316|page=212}} The Arrernte believe that the procedure was given to them by Mangar-kunjer-kunja, a lizard-man spirit being from the Dreamtime. Some academics theorize that a subincized penis is thought to resemble a vulva, and the bleeding is likened to menstruation.Myerhoff 1982: 122{{Cite journal|doi = 10.1525/aa.1967.69.3-4.02a00070|title = The Australian Subincision Ceremony Reconsidered: Vaginal Envy or Kangaroo Bifid Penis Envy|year = 1967|last1 = Singer|first1 = Philip|last2 = Desole|first2 = Daniel E.|journal = American Anthropologist|volume = 69|issue = 3–4|pages = 355–358|doi-access = free}} This type of modification of the penis was also traditionally performed by the Lardil people of Mornington Island, Queensland. The young men who underwent the procedure were the only ones to learn a simple ceremonial language, Damin. In later ceremonies, repeated throughout adult life, the subincized penis would be used as a site for ritual bloodletting. According to Ken Hale, who studied Damin, no ritual initiations have been carried out in the Gulf of Carpentaria for half a century, and hence the language has also died out.{{cite web|url=http://www.rickharrison.com/language/damin.html |access-date=2008-08-16 |title=Damin |author=Ken Hale |author-link=Kenneth L. Hale |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080705113421/http://www.rickharrison.com/language/damin.html |archive-date=July 5, 2008 }}
Another indigenous Australian term for the custom is mika or the terrible rite.{{cite book|author = Andrew Arthur Abbie |author-link=Andrew Arthur Abbie |title = The Original Australians |publisher = Muller |date =1969 |location =London |page = 147 |oclc = 640051856}}
Samburu herd-boys of Kenya are said to perform subincisions on themselves (or sometimes their peers) at age seven to ten.Samburru notions of health and disease by P Spencer,1959 In Samoa, subincision of the foreskin, skin located along the tip of the penis, was ritually performed upon young men, as in Hawaii, where subincision of the foreskin is reported to have been performed at age six or seven.{{Cite web |title=Pacific Center for Sex and Society - Sexual Behavior in Pre-contact Hawai'i |url=https://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/2000to2004/2004-sexual-behavior-in-pre-contact-hawaii.html |access-date=2022-09-12 |website=www.hawaii.edu}}
See also
References
{{reflist}}
Further reading
General
- {{cite journal |author=Roheim, Gésa |title=The Symbolism of Subincision |journal=The American Iago |volume=6 |pages=321–8 |year=1949 |issue=4 |pmid=15408819 }}
- Bettelheim, Bruno (1962) Symbolic Wounds: Puberty Rites and the Envious Male. New York: Collier.
- Farb, Peter (1968) Man's Rise to Civilization New York: E. P. Dutton p98-101.
Polynesia
- Firth, Raymond, (1963) We the Tikopia: A Sociological Study of Kinship in Primitive Polynesia. Boston: Beacon.
- Martin, John (1981) Tonga Islands: William Mariner’s Account. Tonga: Vava’u Press.
- Diamond, M. (1990) Selected Cross-Generational Sexual Behavior in Traditional Hawai’i: A Sexological Ethnography, in Feierman, J. R. (Ed.) Pedophilia: Biosocial Dimensions. New York: Springer-Verlag, p422-43
Melanesia
- {{cite journal |author=Kempf, Wolfgang |title=The Politics of Incorporation: Masculinity, Spatiality and Modernity among the Ngaing of Papua New Guinea |journal=Oceania |volume=73 |issue=1 |pages=56–78 |year=2002 |doi=10.1002/j.1834-4461.2002.tb02806.x}}
- Hogbin, Ian (1970) The Island of Menstruating Men: Religion in Wogeo, New Guinea. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland
Australia
- {{cite journal |author=Basedow H. |title=Subincision and Kindred Rites of the Australian Aboriginal |journal= The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland|volume=57 |pages=123–156 |year=1927 |doi=10.2307/2843680|jstor=2843680 }}
- {{cite journal |vauthors=Cawte JE, Djagamara N, Barrett MG |title=The meaning of subincision of the urethra to aboriginal Australians |journal= British Journal of Medical Psychology|volume=39 |issue=3 |pages=245–253 |year=1966 |pmid=6008217 |doi=10.1111/j.2044-8341.1966.tb01334.x }}
- {{cite journal |author=Morrison J. |title=The origins of the practices of circumcision and subincision among the Australian Aborigines |journal=Medical Journal of Australia |pages=125–7 |date=21 January 1967 |volume=1 |issue=3 |doi=10.5694/j.1326-5377.1967.tb21064.x |s2cid=45886476 }}
- Montagu, Ashley (1974) Coming into Being among the Australian Aborigines: The Procreative Beliefs of the Australian Aborigines. 2nd ed. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
- {{cite journal |doi=10.1097/00000433-198309000-00009 |author=Pounder DJ |s2cid=45293571 |title=Ritual mutilation. Subincision of the penis among Australian Aborigines |journal= The American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology|volume=4 |issue=3 |pages=227–9 |date=September 1983 |pmid=6637950 }}
- Abley, Mark. Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages.
Africa
- {{cite journal |author=Margetts, E.L. |title=Sub-incision of the urethra in the Samburu of Kenya |journal= East African Medical Journal|volume=37 |issue=2 |pages=105–8 |year=1960 |pmid=13766670 }}
External links
{{commons category|Penile subincision}}
- [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Subincision_(full_subincision).JPG Commons.wikimedia.org (Warning: shows picture)]
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20050508202407/http://www2.rz.hu-berlin.de/sexology/GESUND/ARCHIV/GUS/HAWAII.HTM A mention of penile subincision in Hawaii during the early Twentieth Century]
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20041216112826/http://www3.uakron.edu/hefe/father/fanote1.htm A mention of penile subincision among Papuans]
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20080705113421/http://www.rickharrison.com/language/damin.html Rickharrison.com]
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20150423051346/http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2011/7/11/221725/839 "The story of my subincision" at Kuro5hin.org]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Penile Subincision}}
Category:Male genital modification
Category:Human male reproductive system
Category:Indigenous Australian culture