Circumcision: a Pillar of American ignorance

[WOPR]

"So what did you do this Christmas?"

"Oh you know, the usual, had turkey for dinner, watched movies with the family around an open fire, then I logged into an internet forum to discuss the cosmetic value of minor surgery in altering male genitalia."

On topic, I'm European, and I wouldn't bother with it on my children, and I've never heard of anyone getting circumsised (or anywhere that does that) Over here that really isn't a tradition at all. It would pretty much be like suggesting you cut off your middle toe.

Dude, I wish I lived there now...

now as for on topic
as I've said before, I see nothing just about mutilating the genitalia of male babies
people flip the heck out if you talk about doing surgery on a baby in ANY other cosmetic way, why is this so different?
why is getting the pleasure center of your dick hacked off considered fine while getting minor botox is news worthy? (no I'm not saying EITHER is okay, I'm just saying this is a bad sign that stupidity is considered a bigger problem then evil)

also, why can't we cut off girls clitorial hoods at birth?
I'm sorry, what was that generic american civilian I've had this conversation in the past with?
it's evil and diminishes a womans sense of pleasure during sex?
then why is it okay to do it to men?
...because your religion says it is?
...
your god's a douche.

 

[WOPR]

(or for spread of HIV: poor sex education)

I just HAVE to comment on this because it's so easy

I agree with that 100%
what other country considers this education
"Well class, today we have to cover sex-ed... so here are some teachers to help you talk about it!" -health/safety teachers come in-

Whole class is spent talking about where you stand on pot legalization...

next day, they actually cover sex! ...by talking about all the different positions and styles you can do it and telling us the safest way (oral/single condom) so that we won't get infected (no comments on how you get infected other then "you do it" and no telling us what said infections do) and pretty much the rest of the semester was off topic conversations like acne and stuff but never actually covering sex ed except for that TINY part I mentioned above

then on the last day they pretty much told us that they need to protect us from sex, but asking teenagers not to do it is like asking a dog not to bark (or some other stupid metaphor) then passed around a basket of condoms and a second of deodorant saying "just be sure you use these when you DO do it"

course all the nerds kinda passed on the basket of condoms and got laughed at by the jock who took a handful rather then just one

Side Note: this is Humboldt county, the same place that cares about pot A LOT (hence the first day conversation...) and the same place where SOME people still think you can catch HIV in the air from being around gay people.

 

[Hugh Intactive]

What a load of bullshit. Real world numbers show that circumcision DOES NOT protect against the HIV. That damn table again:

PS: foreskin doesn't offer more pleasure, as pleasure is FAR more complicated than simply number of nerve cells. Only the concentration of nerves would suggest more pleasure, In my experience it merely means more pain!

Maybe your phimosis makes you just an itty bitty unreliable to judge that.

Not in my case, buddy. Don't give me medical advice on my own genitals.

Nobody's doing that. It's the genitals of men with foreskins and without phimosis we're talking about. One important aspect of the pleasures of the foreskin is its rolling action. In phimosis that is obviously comprommised.

Your "real world numbers" are far too broad. It's like comparing proportion of gun deaths in USA and Switzerland against prevalence of gun ownership, it doesn't address what might be the actual cause of violent crime: deprivation (or for spread of HIV: poor sex education). And your statistics do not paint a clear picture, they are not a scientific comparison with control. Where is the control group? It cannot be completely different countries!

Lies, damn lies and statistics. Your table does not account for time or incidence or further infection, it seems like an incredibly lazy study. It does not look at WHEN they were circumcised and if the rate of transmission has gone down SINCE they have been circumcised. Did this study factor for how people who are AT RISK might go out of their way to have a circumcision? You know, the so called "volvo effect" where people get a sense of safety then take greater risks that offset the safety benefit itself.

Your table data is irrelevant for it's critical lack of detail.

I remember reading in the New Scientist a study with control groups that did show much lower prevalence of infection amongst circumcised men. Now once infected they transmitted it just as much as any other (in ejaculate) but the transfer in reverse. I could find it but I'm looking at a 1-foot high pile of back issues and have no idea which week it came out.

That table is not a between-country comparison, it is a series of between-men comparisons in different countries. Much stronger. Your other criticisms would be valid if anyone was trying to use those figures to prove that circumcision INcreases the risk of HIV to men. What they do show is a complete absence of "60% reduction".

The original claim about circumcision was based on cherrypicked between-country comparisons. The three random controlled trials in South Africa, Kenya and Uganda have multiple flaws, as spelt out by Boyle and Hill in a study published this month:
researcher expectation bias;
participant expectation bias;
inadequate double blinding;
lead-time bias;
selection and sampling bias;
attrition bias; and
early termination. (Boyle GJ and Hill G, Sub-Saharan African randomised clinical trials into male circumcision and HIV transmission: Methodological, ethical and legal concerns, Journal of Law and Medicine (Australia), 2011;19:316-34)

Contacts were not traced so we don't even know which if any of the men got HIV from women or even by sex. Non-sexual and male-male transmission are large and unaddressed issues in Africa (expecially not gay sex in countries like Uganda, where to even admit to being gay is dangerous). Circumcision does nothing to prevent either.

 

[MaxwellEdison]

can we ban circumcision threads? This has to be the 4th one in two years.

Are you serious? 2 threads per year, and it pisses you off so much that you want to ban the topic? Can you not just, idk, ignore a topic you dislike discussing?

 

[Treblaine]

Infections that are resistant to antibiotics ARE called super infections. These infections are incredibly rare, and they "may" be a problem in the future is not an argument. EVERYONE is susceptible to these infections, regardless of what kind of skin they have on their penis. Not only that, but to get an infection in your foreskin requires you to try hard. It doesn't matter if you have a foreskin or not, if you get a super infection you DIE.

circumcision does nothing to stop HIV. Only condoms and education can stop it. Only the third world tries to use circumcision to combat HIV because no one has any access to educations or even condoms. To argue circumcision to fight HIV is frankly stupid, especially in a first world country.

A problem that only effects a mere 5% of the total population does not make a foreskin a liability. All of the "problems" you try to bring up either effect a small majority or unrelated to the foreskin entirely and effect everyone.

You claim parents make decisions for their kids. How many of these decisions are surgeries with NO MEDICAL NEED at BIRTH? A surgery is not a name, a surgery is not telling a kid to go to bed. A surgery is a SURGERY with irreversible effects and questionable necessity. To call a surgery trivial is irresponsible. I doubt you would be the saying the same if you was you on that operating table when there was no need to have it.

At the end of the day, I invoke the same ironclad logic used to disprove God. If there is no medical necessity, you don't do it. Anything else is irrational and fear based.

Well "Super Infection" is not a serious name nor is it accurate, it is a fearmongering term you used and I did not. These infections are not necessarily more virulent (spread quicker nor kill quicker) merely harder to treat with antibiotitics. Your immune system finds it just as easy/hard to fight the infection.

"circumcision does nothing to stop HIV."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6176209.stm

argue with these scientists, not with me.

"How many of these decisions are surgeries with NO MEDICAL NEED at BIRTH?"

A surgery is surgery, so what? In terms of "surgery" it is one of the simplest procedures in human history. I've asked doctors -surgeons (not GPs) - and they DO consider it utterly trivial procedure, for infants. For adults it is not trivial.

Disproving god doesn't go as far as banning all that is ever associated with religions of god! Remember people can have circumcision for NON-religious and NON-paranoid reasons, and it's their decision.

Are you seriously advocating the police should raid Synagogues to arrest Rabbis and the child family during a Bris Milôh? Buddy, I ain't going there. And you'll have to do the same in the mosques as it is Islamic tradition to circumcise as well. I think of myself as a tolerant person.

What happened to religious tolerance? This is NOT the same as female genital cutting that is destroys the ability for a woman to enjoy sex. Only semantically similar.

 

[Irony's Acolyte]

Eh. I'm circumcised and have never really had a problem with it. I can understand how other guys wouldn't want their dicks clipped though. And I probably won't have it done on any of my kids unless necessary. The main reason why they do it so early is so that the kid doesn't remember it I think. Also there might be a problem with adult circumcision.

Also, I'm not sure if this was brought up in all these 12 pages (it probably was), but there's no conclusive evidence one way or the other that circumcised guys like me have 'less pleasurable sex' than uncircumcised guys. Some studies say they circumcision reduces pleasure, other's say it doesn't, both sides aren't entirely conclusive. And I get plenty of pleasure as is. Getting more at once might just decrease my 'endurance'.

 

[Treblaine]

Infections that are resistant to antibiotics ARE called super infections. These infections are incredibly rare, and they "may" be a problem in the future is not an argument. EVERYONE is susceptible to these infections, regardless of what kind of skin they have on their penis. Not only that, but to get an infection in your foreskin requires you to try hard. It doesn't matter if you have a foreskin or not, if you get a super infection you DIE.

circumcision does nothing to stop HIV. Only condoms and education can stop it. Only the third world tries to use circumcision to combat HIV because no one has any access to educations or even condoms. To argue circumcision to fight HIV is frankly stupid, especially in a first world country.

A problem that only effects a mere 5% of the total population does not make a foreskin a liability. All of the "problems" you try to bring up either effect a small majority or unrelated to the foreskin entirely and effect everyone.

You claim parents make decisions for their kids. How many of these decisions are surgeries with NO MEDICAL NEED at BIRTH? A surgery is not a name, a surgery is not telling a kid to go to bed. A surgery is a SURGERY with irreversible effects and questionable necessity. To call a surgery trivial is irresponsible. I doubt you would be the saying the same if you was you on that operating table when there was no need to have it.

At the end of the day, I invoke the same ironclad logic used to disprove God. If there is no medical necessity, you don't do it. Anything else is irrational and fear based.

Well "Super Infection" is not a serious name nor is it accurate, it is a fearmongering term you used and I did not. These infections are not necessarily more virulent (spread quicker nor kill quicker) merely harder to treat with antibiotitics. Your immune system finds it just as easy/hard to fight the infection.

"circumcision does nothing to stop HIV."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6176209.stm

argue with these scientists, not with me.

"How many of these decisions are surgeries with NO MEDICAL NEED at BIRTH?"

A surgery is surgery, so what? In terms of "surgery" it is one of the simplest procedures in human history. I've asked doctors -surgeons (not GPs) - and they DO consider it utterly trivial procedure, for infants. For adults it is not trivial.

Disproving god doesn't go as far as banning all that is ever associated with religions of god! Remember people can have circumcision for NON-religious and NON-paranoid reasons, and it's their decision.

Are you seriously advocating the police should raid Synagogues to arrest Rabbis and the child family during a Bris Milôh? Buddy, I ain't going there. And you'll have to do the same in the mosques as it is Islamic tradition to circumcise as well. I think of myself as a tolerant person.

What happened to religious tolerance? This is NOT the same as female genital cutting that is destroys the ability for a woman to enjoy sex. Only semantically similar.

So just because I called religious reasons irrational, I am suddenly intolerant and want to raid religious buildings?

(relevant part is around 4:25, the age old "why are you attacking my beliefs" argument.)

Emotional blackmail is not a valid tactic. Your views are not being "savagely attacked," its being scrutinized. They have failed to hold up, and are dubbed irrational.

If I said an invisible man on a cloud told me to cut my foreskin and the foreskins of my sons, I would be admitted into an asylum. What makes religion any different? Because its written in an old book? A tome that has been edited throughout time?

If religious doctrine is so flawed, why follow it in the first place?

At the end of the day, you fail to bring any actual reason for the surgery to take place. Just because there are more complicated surgeries does not excuse circumcision for infants. An irreversible operation, done without reason and without consent, is just irrational.

For your information, FGM is divided into 3 categories. You are confusing type II, and III with type I. Type I is the most common, making up 90% of the procedure.

Not only that, but other poster pretty much covered HIV with you.

As for the non medical and non paranoid reasons circumcision is done. Try to suggest one done at birth, then.

Just to note, I'm not religious. Why would you assume my argument for religious tolerance means I must have a personal stake? I'm not black, but I oppose racism against black people.

I know religious views are irrational, but I've learned the hard way that is no excuse for intolerance. I see irrationality EVERYWHERE EVERYDAY! And not just the religious variety, but political, social, personal and logical irrationality so much I used to rant and rave against it till i realised I myself was as guilty in my own way, I am now far more thoughtful and careful of what I rail against. I don't hold up "rationality" as a weapon to excuse oppressive practices.

Realise states like California are trying to have an outright blanket ban on all circumcisions for anyone under the age of 18. That is going too far and it is a ban I have heard on these boards before.

I've never heard of a man being unable to achieve an orgasm due to lack of a foreskin. Unless they have some other sort of wider psychosis beyond merely physical disability. It is such a benign procedure. It's like piercing or tattoos.

PS: it's a logical fallacy that something must have other examples to be valid. Circumcision itself can be valid without some other example.

 

[chinangel]

I don't get why so many people here are all bent outta shape tbh. I mean..it's not like they're castrating you. If this was really such a horrible thing they'd have outlawed it, but it doesn't do anything bad.

Why do people bother replying to a thread they obviously did not read, and talk of things about which they are completely ignorant?

completely ignorant...yeah okay. Ummm..eh I may as well out myself then. I'm a transsexual, male-to-female. I was circumcised when I was born. I fail to see the issue, even from the viewpoint of a tranny.

 

[Kinokohatake]

can we ban circumcision threads? This has to be the 4th one in two years.

Are you serious? 2 threads per year, and it pisses you off so much that you want to ban the topic? Can you not just, idk, ignore a topic you dislike discussing?

That was a rough guess. After using search, it has been 9 in a year. How's that? Is 9 too much?

 

[monkey_man]

Circumcision is a non invasive non damaging procedure that has little effect on ones life.

For the record I am circumcised, I was circumcised as a baby and I am content because I don't know what I missed out on and quite happily live the life of any normal penis owner.

Also: The evidence I have seen on both sides is a large amount of hot air. One thing that is fact is that people without foreskins will find it easier to clean the penis. Does this mean that people with foreskins will have unclean penises? NO of course not it can be cleaned with effort. So once again no difference. Less sensitivity? bull crap you don't know what you have missed. Quite frankly it's hard to imagine a higher level of pleasure than sexual if you are circumcised so you can't even IMAGINE what you have missed.

Also to those who think nobody should be circumcised:

Man you people who say nobody should be circumcised and it is just done because of religion. You are enforcing your opinions on others just as much as the fanatics you speak of, given the chance you would ban circumcision. Well how about this how about I pretend I am a religious fanatic I should say that "Nobody should be uncircumcised, its unnatural because it is against gods word". Who are you to define natural, who are you to be so selfish."

So it's selfish to try and protect your infant from penile mutilation. And even if you are circumcised, you can still miss having a flap if you've seen one, and think: Golly, I sure wish I had one too! This is what is important. Parents should NEVER force something so drastic on their children EVER! If a child does not want your religion, you should let him be happy with being a(nother ) theist! If a child is gay, let him be! And never EVER make decisions that does something irreversible to their body without their consent! And yes, I detest religion for what it does and has done to society, but I think it's still wrong to cut off someone's skin just because it said so in an outdated book!

If it's said in the Bible that the toes on the most left of your left foot, and most right on your right foot should be removed. And if a way is found to remove one's little toes without any harm to the person, and suddenly every religious person starts doing this to their children too, because "it's the word of god" Wouldn't it still be wrong? Even though the little skinflap on the penis serves no "valid" cause (protection and cleansing, but apparently not important) Does that mean you should cut it off? Of course not!
Addendum, if God was really real, why is it there in the first place? He's God! He could have made us without it, or remove it with his power after we're born! He shouldn't force us to mutilate our young! What sick God does that?!

Addendum 2: If you are circumcised for medical reasons, I am absolutely fine with that. I have no obligations against said event.

 

[agentorange98]

It is absurd to perform surgery based on cosmetic reasons unless of some horrible deformity or mutilation.

I disagree here for a two fold reason: firstly because individuals should be able to choose their own image, the same way that we shouldn't be able to ban what people where, it's a personal choice and it doesn't physically harm anyone so infringing on it is taking away personal liberty. Secondarily cosmetic surgeries offer a huge boost in cash flow for any hospital, that's money that's filtered back into the hospital's infrastructure to pay for additional nurses, medicine, and equipment, so loosing that revenue stream would severely cripple any medical establishment.

 

[Magnus]

Well I haven't had it done, Kojack needs his rollneck pullover.

 

[Rodrigo Girao]

I disagree here for a two fold reason: firstly because individuals should be able to choose their own image, the same way that we shouldn't be able to ban what people where, it's a personal choice and it doesn't physically harm anyone so infringing on it is taking away personal liberty.

If people should be able to choose their own image, that's a reason to ban infant circumcision. Another reason, mind you, it that it does physically harm you.

Secondarily cosmetic surgeries offer a huge boost in cash flow for any hospital, that's money that's filtered back into the hospital's infrastructure to pay for additional nurses, medicine, and equipment, so loosing that revenue stream would severely cripple any medical establishment.

Thus, doctors should perform unnecessary procedures to fill the hospital's coffers. I have a name for that: fraud.

 

[MaxwellEdison]

can we ban circumcision threads? This has to be the 4th one in two years.

Are you serious? 2 threads per year, and it pisses you off so much that you want to ban the topic? Can you not just, idk, ignore a topic you dislike discussing?

That was a rough guess. After using search, it has been 9 in a year. How's that? Is 9 too much?

No. Considering most of the posts in those threads are discussion, it appears other people are perfectly happy to talk about the issue. Let them. Ignore 9 threads a year.

 

[Iron Lightning]

It is absurd to perform surgery based on cosmetic reasons unless of some horrible deformity or mutilation.

I disagree here for a two fold reason: firstly because individuals should be able to choose their own image, the same way that we shouldn't be able to ban what people where, it's a personal choice and it doesn't physically harm anyone so infringing on it is taking away personal liberty. Secondarily cosmetic surgeries offer a huge boost in cash flow for any hospital, that's money that's filtered back into the hospital's infrastructure to pay for additional nurses, medicine, and equipment, so loosing that revenue stream would severely cripple any medical establishment.

No reasonable person here is talking about banning voluntary cosmetic surgery, we're talking about banning forced cosmetic surgery.

If you're of the age of consent and you want to cut off your foreskin then I'm perfectly fine with that. However, I do have a problem if you want to forcibly cut off a child's foreskin then I do have a problem with you for obvious reasons.

 

[agentorange98]

I disagree here for a two fold reason: firstly because individuals should be able to choose their own image, the same way that we shouldn't be able to ban what people where, it's a personal choice and it doesn't physically harm anyone so infringing on it is taking away personal liberty.

If people should be able to choose their own image, that's a reason to ban infant circumcision. Another reason, mind you, it that it does physically harm you.

Secondarily cosmetic surgeries offer a huge boost in cash flow for any hospital, that's money that's filtered back into the hospital's infrastructure to pay for additional nurses, medicine, and equipment, so loosing that revenue stream would severely cripple any medical establishment.

Thus, doctors should perform unnecessary procedures to fill the hospital's coffers. I have a name for that: fraud.

I'm not debating the question of infant circumcision with my argument so much as I am debating the place of plastic surgery. Specifically because of your statement that "It is absurd to perform surgery based on cosmetic reasons unless of some horrible deformity or mutilation." My point being that plastic surgery has its merits and banning it is an infringement on freedom of choice and freedom of speech.

As for Hospital's and fraud, it's not that they're preforming a procedure that doesn't do anything cause they are, it's like saying that it's fraud to have your car be painted a different color because it's an unnecessary procedure.