ABSTRACT
In 2014 a South African surgeon performed the world’s first penis transplant on a Xhosa man, injured in a botched circumcision. This highlights the extraordinarily complex nature of current harm in this rite of passage. Whilst harm might originate in physical injury there are psychological, social, and ethical implications for each injured Xhosa man and therefore the patriarchy. Paradoxically, despite intending to be beneficent, the surgery has negative ethical implications in a resource-stretched South African health system; this raises the ethical issue of a right to circumcise versus that to well-being. I have explored these implications by placing the event in the context of increasing evidence for injuries and deaths. This compares with far fewer cases in the historical record. Surprisingly, Soga’s early discussion on the value of the practice in the 1880s, indicates that many of his concerns about the amaXhosa have salience today. N. Gasa (2003, The Making of Manhood in Xhosa Society, Challenges for Gender Equality. Cape Town: Harold Wolpe Foundation [Unpublished Paper]), another autochthon, insists that the strength of their people lies in a capacity to constantly overcome problems, be they social or as a result of political adversity. In so doing, Gasa places harm into the context of a re-invention and engendering of a culture that has survived colonisation, apartheid, and now, engages robustly in a South African democracy.
