Subincision
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2008-07-09T10:48:57Z
PruitIgoe
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Undoing damage done by vandal in previous edit. Readded the previous cultural traditions section that was deleted.
{{Citations missing|date=December 2006}}
'''Subincision''' is a form of [[body modification]] consisting of a urethrotomy, in which the underside of the [[penis]] is incised and the [[urethra]] slit open lengthwise, from the urethral opening ([[urinary meatus|meatus]]) toward the base. The slit can be of varying lengths.
Subincision is traditionally performed around the world, notably in [[Africa]], [[South America]] and the [[Polynesia]]n and [[Melanesia]]n cultures of the [[Pacific Ocean|Pacific]], often as a [[coming of age]] ritual. The practice has been taken up in the [[western world]] in recent years for the purpose of sexual pleasure or aesthetics.
Disadvantages include the risk of surgery, which is often self-performed, and increased susceptibility to [[Sexually transmitted infection|sexually transmitted infections (STIs)]]. The ability to impregnate (specifically, getting [[Semen|sperm]] into the [[vagina]]) may also be decreased.
Subincisions can greatly affect [[urination]] and often require the subincised male to sit while urinating. The scrotum can be pulled up against the open urethra to quasi-complete the tube and allow "normal" urination, while a few subincised men carry a tube with them to aim with.
==Cultural traditions==
Subincision (like [[circumcision]]) is widespread{{Fact|date=January 2008}} in the traditional cultures of [[Indigenous Australians]], and is well documented{{Fact|date=January 2008}} among the peoples of the [[Central Australia|central desert]] such as the [[Arrernte]] and [[Luritja]]. The Arrernte word for subincision is ''arilta'', and occurs as a [[rite of passage]] ritual for adolescent boys.{{Fact|date=January 2008}} It was gifted to the Arrernte by Mangar-kunjer-kujaIt, a lizard-man spirit being from the [[Dreamtime (mythology)|Dreamtime]]. A subincised penis is thought to resemble a [[vulva]], and the bleeding is likened to [[menstruation]].<ref>Myerhoff 1982: 122</ref>
This type of modification of the penis was also traditionally performed by the [[Lardil]] people of [[Mornington Island]], [[Queensland]].{{Fact|date=January 2008}} The young men who chose to endure this custom would be the only ones to learn a complex ceremonial language, [[Damin]]. In later ceremonies, repeated throughout adult life, the subincised penis would be used as a site for ritual bloodletting.{{Fact|date=January 2008}} According to [[Kenneth L. Hale|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.{{Fact|date=January 2008}}
[[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Indigenous]] cultures of the [[Amazon Basin]] also practise subincision, as do [[Samburu]] herdboys of [[Kenya]], who are said to perform subinicisions on themselves (or sometimes their peers) at age seven to ten. In [[Samoa]], subincision is traditionally a [[coming-of-age]] ritual. In [[Hawaii]], subincision of the foreskin is reported to have been performed at age six or seven.
==Related modifications==
* Splitting the urethra only to the base of the glans is called [[meatotomy]].
* Some people split the top of the penis as well, to achieve [[genital bisection]].
* Splitting the [[glans penis|glans]], but not the shaft, is known as headsplitting.
* Splitting of the top of the penis only is known as superincision.
==External links==
* http://www.bmezine.com/news/people/A10101/subint.html (Warning: contains graphic content)
* [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=6637950&dopt=Abstract Some medical research on this matter ]
* [http://www2.rz.hu-berlin.de/sexology/GESUND/ARCHIV/GUS/HAWAII.HTM A mention of penile subincision in Hawaii during the early Twentieth Century ]
* [http://www3.uakron.edu/hefe/father/fanote1.htm A mention of penile subincision among Papuans]
* http://www.rickharrison.com/language/damin.html
==See also==
* [[Modern primitive]]
* [[Body modification]]
==References==
'''General'''
*Roheim, G´esa (1949) ''The Symbolism of Subincision.'' The American Iago 6:321–328.
* Bettelheim, Bruno (1962) ''Symbolic Wounds: Puberty Rites and the Envious Male.'' New York: Collier.
'''Polynesia'''
*[[Raymond Firth|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'''
*Kempf, Wolfgang (2002) ''The Politics of Incorporation: Masculinity, Spatiality and Modernity among the Ngaing of Papua New Guinea''. Oceania 73(1):56–78.
*[[Ian Hogbin|Hogbin, Ian]] (1970) ''The Island of Menstruating Men: Religion in Wogeo, New Guinea''. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland
'''Australia'''
* Cawte JE, Djagamara N, and Barrett MG (1966) ''The meaning of subincision of the urethra to aboriginal Australians.'' Br. J Med. Psychol. 39: 245-253.
* Morrison J. (1967). ''The origins of the practices of circumcision and subincision among the Australian Aborigines.'' Medical Journal of Australia, January 21, p. 125-7.
*[[Ashley Montagu|Montagu, Ashley]] (1974) ''Coming into Being among the Australian Aborigines: The Procreative Beliefs of the Australian Aborigines.'' 2nd ed. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
* Pounder, Derrick, J. (1983) ''Ritual Mutilation: Subincision of the Penis among Australian Aborigines.'' American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology 4(3):227–229.
*Abley, Mark. ''Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages''.
'''Africa'''
*Margetts, E. L. (1960) ''Sub-incision of the urethra in the Samburu of Kenya,'' East Afr Med J 37,2:105-8
[[Category:Genital modification]]
[[Category:Penis]]
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[[he:פיום שופכה]]
[[ja:尿道割礼]]
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