Skip to Content

On the most recent episode of 90 Day Fiance: The Other Way, fans watched Ariela Weinberg give birth.

Now, it’s almost time for her son’s circumcision … if Biniyam Shibre gets his way. Ari has real concerns.

Ariela and Biniyam for 90 Day Fiance: The Other Way
(TLC)

"I knew he was always going to be circumcised," Ariela admits.

"But," she acknowledges, "I really feel like I’m taking away a choice for him in his life."

Well, it’s hard to argue with that.

"This is his body," Ariela correctly states, "and he should be able to decide what he wants to do with it." 

Sounds like a good description of fundamental human rights.

However, Biniyam has his own ideas about what is "best" for their newborn son.

"It is good for him, for [the] baby now, if you cut him," Biniyam insists.

Possibly espousing the debunked theory that newborn babies do not feel pain, he adds: "He doesn’t feel, like, too much." 

"Don’t worry — I’ll decide for you," Biniyam then says, which is just … never a smart thing to say to your significant other.

"I don’t want him to hate me when he’s older," Ariela explains.

She worries that her son might realize what was done to him and resent her "because he thinks I mutilated him or something."

Well, that would meet most definitions of mutilation, so the only thing up in the air would be how her son comes to feel about this irreversible cosmetic procedure.

"I don’t feel good about it," Ariela expresses.

"But I know there’s no way Biniyam would not let me do this," she adds, meaning to say that Biniyam will insist upon it.

"Certain people in my family would not agree with it," Ariela adds, "so I feel certain pressure to do it as well."

It sounds like Ariela is feeling torn between her love for her partner and for her father’s side of the family and her love for her child.

Ariela has to go to the bathroom. 

When she returns, her son is being prepared to lose part of his genitals forever. In an adult, the foreskin would amount to 15 square inches of extremely sensitive tissue.

Ariela becomes increasingly nervous.

Biniyam seems irritated by her anxiety — or perhaps by his own inability to understand it.

"This is how it’s done," he complains. "I don’t know why she is stressed."

The Hollywood Gossip Logo

It’s very important to note that Biniyam, despite his obvious confusion over Ariela’s distress, is not a stupid person by any means.

Not only is he communicating in a second language, but he has not been exposed to as many ideas and cultures. As a result he is set in his ways.

When you see the world only one way for most of your life and are not exposed to anything else, it might not occur to you think "wait, is this right?"

The Hollywood Gossip Logo

This is yet another example of Ariela and Biniyam seeming to be unprepared for major conversations that anyone should have shortly after pregnancy, if not before.

(We get it, this was an unplanned pregnancy, so it would be weird to discuss irreversible cosmetic genital mutilation of infants with a random hookup)

In fairness, this time, it looks like Ariela had previously been willing to go along with Biniyam’s wishes, but seeing and bonding with her newborn is giving her second thoughts about doing this to him.

The Hollywood Gossip Logo

They will also have to continue to talk about Biniyam’s desire to baptise their son within his church.

In addition to the usual ethical concerns of pledging a baby’s soul to to a deity that the baby cannot understand let alone consent to, there is the demand that Ariela also convert, which she does not wish to do.

Biniyam believes that the baby could be at literal risk of literal damnation to literal Hell, so this is a complicated topic that they are unlikely to easily resolve. We’ll watch all of that play out on the show!