Poll: Poll: If you ever have a daughter, will you have her circumcised?

[Palademon]

I'd be a good parent. I wouldn't touch my child's genitalia.

With men I've never heard of it being very common, and with women it just sounds evil.

Male circumcision is the most commonly practiced surgery in the Western hemisphere. So yeah, it's kinda common. It needs to stop, too.

Around here I've never heard of people even mentioning it otuside of Judaism.

 

[Uncreation]

for men, circumsision is a matter of hygiene: it's not necessary, but it's more hygienic.

for women, there is zero advantage to being circumcised, and in fact poses many health risks during the operation.
i would die before i let anyone touch my daughter with a knife in that place for no good reason whatsoever.

As far as i'm concerned, hygiene as a reason for circumcision is bullcrap. You want to know how to maintain your hygiene? There's this thing called soap. You mix it with water and it works pretty well. Plus, you can use it on the rest of your body as well, not just your penis. Seriously, some people make it sound like it's dificult to wash your penis if you have your foreskin intact. Bull Shit. I've never had that problem and i doubt someone has had a hard time with it.

Also, i doubt people here would be ok with circumcision on their daughters, knowing what that does, and knowing that it has some pretty bad consequences.

 

[Dags90]

Around here I've never heard of people even mentioning it otuside of Judaism.

About half of all men in the U.S. are circumcised. Especially younger men. I figured it'd be pretty well known, what with the U.S. being a large producer of the world's pornography. I guess that makes them "Jewish from the waist down".

 

[Palademon]

Around here I've never heard of people even mentioning it otuside of Judaism.

About half of all men in the U.S. are circumcised. Especially younger men. I figured it'd be pretty well known, what with the U.S. being a large producer of the world's pornography. I guess that makes them "Jewish from the waist down".

Ah, now I remember. Me and my brother were watching Jackass 3 and they were playing with the super strong glue, and they asked if anyone wasn't circumsised. I was like "Wut", and then my brother said "Yeah, Americans are weird".

 

[Dags90]

Ah, now I remember. Me and my brother were watching Jackass 3 and they were playing with the super strong glue, and they asked if anyone wasn't circumsised. I was like "Wut", and then my brother said "Yeah, Americans are weird".

Yeah. It wasn't always like this, it's a pretty modern thing. I think it'll be known as one of the stranger fads, up there with 80's hair and 90's denim. What were we thinking!?

 

[Exterminas]

Tomorrow on the Escapist:

"If you ever have a child, will you canibalize it?"

() Yes, for religious reasons
() Yes, for other reasons
() Yes, so I can get a badge for it
() No, I don'T like the taste.

Why do we need a thread that asks about the right or wrong of barbaric mutilation?

 

[Zykon TheLich]

Yeah. It wasn't always like this, it's a pretty modern thing. I think it'll be known as one of the stranger fads, up there with 80's hair and 90's denim. What were we thinking!?

The cynic in me wonders what the correlation with the spread of private healthcare would be.

 

[PhiMed]

I'd be a good parent. I wouldn't touch my child's genitalia.

With men I've never heard of it being very common, and with women it just sounds evil.

Male circumcision is the most commonly practiced surgery in the Western hemisphere. So yeah, it's kinda common. It needs to stop, too.

Around here I've never heard of people even mentioning it otuside of Judaism.

Well, the popularity of the procedure here can be traced to:

a) "The Great Awakening", a period of fundamentalist protestant revival that swept the Americas during the 19th century. People found that little boys who were circumcised were less likely to fiddle with themselves.
b) A period of health faddism led by the Kelloggs during the same period of time that led to all sorts of weird practices like "colonic cleansing", raw diets, and the spreading of several elective surgeries like male circumcisions and tonsillectomies.
c) For-profit medicine, which preferentially reimburses procedures as opposed to office visits. Circumcision is low-risk, incredibly quick, and supposedly requires no anesthesia when performed on an infant (the idea being that the infantile nervous system is too immature to require it). Thus, it's pretty much the ideal money-making machine in both the American and Canadian medical systems.

None of these little idiosyncrasies made the trip across the Atlantic, and you're probably better off for it.

 

[Yureina]

Absolutely not. I'd kill anyone who tried to do it to her, or a son of mine as well for that matter. I understand cultural relativism and all that, but to me it is wrong.

 

[BlindTom]

The different approaches to mens and womens chests raises a very interesting point. Why do you think some boobies are illegal and others aren't? My uncle is a fat fuck but he can get his chumba wumbas out whenever he wants. My nan has no boobs but her nipples could provoke a response from the SWAT.

 

[Shuswah_Noir]

Yeah, see, the rest of the world considers the practice of "female circumcision" that's culturally sanctioned in Africa (and parts of southeast Asia, a few other places) to be barbaric mutilation of a woman's genitals practiced for entirely misogynistic reasons. Comparing what is inflicted upon those poor women to male circumcision is entirely disingenuous - the pervasive nature of female circumcision, or female genital mutilation [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_cutting] as us Westerners normally refer to it (because that's what it is) on the African continent is evidence of systemic institutionalized abuse, nothing less.

Imagine for a moment if you will that when go to the doctor (or are taken as an infant) to be circumcised, instead of performing a 'relatively benign' procedure (however pointless it might ultimately be, that's another discussion entirely) they just chop off your damn penis. Wincing in sympathetic agony yet? Hard to imagine that medical procedure becoming a common practice isn't it? Well guess what - hacking off the old block and tackle, as horrible a prospect as that sounds to most guys, is in fact the closest analog to what is commonly done to underage girls without their consent: "female circumcision" is cutting off a ladies genitals, and in about 10% of cases is then followed by crudely sewing her vagina almost entirely shut, leaving just a small opening to pee through.

[HEADING=2]There is no medical reason to ever do something like that.[/HEADING]​

No, the motivation behind it is some ridiculous notion of "purity" that you can logically only instill in young ladies by cutting their sex bits off and sewing them shut, with practitioners often claiming a religious basis for performing those mutilations. Funny thing about that though, religious authorities can't stress enough that they absolutely do not support the practice - for instance, the highest religious authority in Egypt issued a statement saying that FGM has no basis in core Islamic law or any of its partial provisions, and that it is harmful and should not be practiced.

With that in mind, I shall now be exercising my provided option to fling crap at the OP for even bloody asking a horrible question like that - you might as well ask us "Would you gouge out your firstborn son's eyes for basically no reason?" or "How do you feel about throwing acid on your wife's face so she won't start cheating on you because now she's too ugly for anyone else to want to sleep with?". Female genital mutilation is an awful bit of cultural detritus that needs stamped out yesterday - nobody who is in their right mind should ever consider doing something like that to their own flesh and blood; if you ever need evidence of just how asinine it is when our multiculturalism revering educational establishments tell you that "You can't judge other cultures!", female genital mutilation is there to point out that "No, actually you absolutely can (and should) do that - just because something is 'cultural' doesn't mean it isn't bloody WRONG".

This.

Thank you for articulating it so well.

 

[Dags90]

The cynic in me wonders what the correlation with the spread of private healthcare would be.

Well, private healthcare hasn't really "spread" in the U.S. It's the only thing we've ever known. That said, doctors' clear vested interest in promoting a highly profitable elective procedure was probably a factor in it becoming a widespread practice. Sort of like how a plastic surgeon will never say "your boobs like fine natural".

supposedly requires no anesthesia when performed on an infant (the idea being that the infantile nervous system is too immature to require it).

Actually, infants are routinely restrained during circumcision. They can feel pain just as anyone else, the main argument is that "well, they won't remember it" and the obvious reasons against anesthetizing an infant.

Captcha: Comple family

 

[PhiMed]

The cynic in me wonders what the correlation with the spread of private healthcare would be.

Well, private healthcare hasn't really "spread" in the U.S. It's the only thing we've ever known. That said, doctors' clear vested interest in promoting a highly profitable elective procedure was probably a factor in it becoming a widespread practice. Sort of like how a plastic surgeon will never say "your boobs like fine natural".

supposedly requires no anesthesia when performed on an infant (the idea being that the infantile nervous system is too immature to require it).

Actually, infants are routinely restrained during circumcision. They can feel pain just as anyone else, the main argument is that "well, they won't remember it" and the obvious reasons against anesthetizing an infant.

Captcha: Comple family

I know they're restrained. I've been present at over 50 of them. And you're incorrect about the main argument.

The argument is that they actually perceive pain differently than someone with a mature brain does because of the different composition of the anterior parietal lobe. Because the arrangement of neurons in the organizing sensory cortex is different than an adult's, with fewer synapses, most pediatricians who advocate for the procedure say that the infant is actually incapable of perceiving and processing pain in a way similar to the way an adult does. Of course they won't remember it, but the argument is that it literally is not a traumatic experience, even short-term, due to this phenomenon. They argue that any response an observer may see is not an actual behavioral response to pain, but a primitive reflex with little to no cortical (read: conscious) involvement.

It's nonsense, of course, but that's what people who want to continue the procedure anesthesia-free claim.

 

[BlindTom]

Circumcision should be mandatory. Penises with foreskin are uglier, removal of the foreskin does not impact the sensitivity of the penis, and it prevents disease. But women should also have their clitorises removed for similar reasons; it does not change the pleasure of sex, it removes vaginal odors, and it prevents disease.

Maybe some day we can progress enough as a society to get our other dangerous body parts removed, like our breasts, prostates, and teeth.

 

[Shuswah_Noir]

Circumcision should be mandatory. Penises with foreskin are uglier, removal of the foreskin does not impact the sensitivity of the penis, and it prevents disease. But women should also have their clitorises removed for similar reasons; it does not change the pleasure of sex, it removes vaginal odors, and it prevents disease.

Maybe some day we can progress enough as a society to get our other dangerous body parts removed, like our breasts, prostates, and teeth.

You're wrong. Completely and utterly wrong.

Penis' aren't the most attractive thing in the world either way. And during unprotected sex the sensation is different, at least for the female, between circumcised and not. If you don't think they're nice to look at, don't look at them. It's simple.
If not for the clitoris, many women wouldn't be able to achieve any kind of orgasm. So essentially you're taking away their ability to find sex pleasurable. And for what? So their vagina wont smell as bad if they don't bath.

Neither cause having a disease, that argument is beyond invalid at this point.