Alan Cumming has condemned the practice of circumcision for religious reasons. Denouncing it as "ridiculous", he proceeded to compare it to female genital mutilation in a recent interview with The Guardian, where he recalled his experience of living in America as an uncircumcised man.
"I never thought anything about my foreskin," the Scottish actor told the publication, "and then I came to America and I was having sex and people would just be gasping because they’d never seen a foreskin before. I was made to feel weird and freakish because I had an intact body."
"It’s genital mutilation. And I think people say: ‘Oh, that’s hysterical.’ But we do it to girls and it’s called genital mutilation," he continued, adding that he believed the religious grounds for circumcision were "ridiculous".
Per the Independent, the USA has one of the highest rates of circumcision in the world, with around 81 per cent of adult males aged 14 to 59 having no foreskin.
In the interview, Cumming also touched on his podcast, sexuality, and his experiences with the disgraced producer, Harvey Weinstein.
"It shows you how clever those people are," he said regarding the convicted rapist. "There’s a difference between: ‘Oh, he’s a bit of an old lech,’ and being a rapist. That was shocking to me."
Cumming claims he was bullied with Weinstein, and said he pressured him to take roles he didn't want: "I remember being at the premiere of The Hateful Eight … and I’d just said no to Harvey to doing this thing. He was very persistent. I saw him coming, he was on his phone, and I hid in this doorway to avoid them, because I just didn’t want to have to deal with them. He was scary and also he was just overwhelming as a personality."
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