Through the lens of a contemporary antifemale genital mutilation discourse, this field note provides background on how psychoanalysts and feminists have written about the practice of female circumcision. The authors provide preliminary ethnographic data, obtained from women and men in two indigenous groups in Kenya, on the subjects' firsthand views of the practice. Their views are consistent with control of women's sexuality, but also implicate an adjacent discourse on blame and responsibility for HIV. These findings are considered in terms of how political stances are affected by insider and outsider positioning and the role of judgment in political activism.