This video explaining why so many Americans are circumcised is funny…but it’s also accurate.
There really is a cultural inertia — a kind of mass stupidity — in which a fad infects a society, and then it just keeps going and going because ‘we’ve always done it that way’. Human beings are simply not rational animals.
The video does repeat that claim that circumcision protects against AIDS, and it’s one I’m dubious about. When a weak scientific study reinforces an irrational trope, I have to question the results — scientists can be irrational too (I’ll let you be the judge of whether I’m the irrational one, or it’s the scientists trying to prove that chopping off your foreskin is good for you). This is especially true when the whole field is tainted with fanatics like Brian Morris.
It seems the arguments for penile mutilation all more or less boil down to ‘it’s so hard to teach a little boy proper dick hygiene’.
Yep. Every “benefit” to circumcision is either cosmetic or can be better taken care of with good hygiene and condom use, with the exception of medical conditions like phimosis. Challenge a supporter with that, though, and you’ll see a level of reaction typically reserved for abortion or communism.
I bet most boys spend far more time then necessary washing down there that hygiene wouldn’t be a concern anyway.
It at least says “somewhat” and mentions condoms do the same thing with less side effect. Is there any comprehensive sex education out there that actually advocates circumcision as comparable to proper condom use? Frankly, the risk of relying on a circumcision to prevent AIDS transmission sounds insanely risky.
Anyway, just because your parents decided something one way doesn’t make it right, but if you want a truly depressing story read As Nature Made Him, about David Reimer, whose parents raised him as a girl on the advice of doctors after a botched circumcision. There are a lot of other issues addressed in his case, but it’s a frightening example of just how wrong a totally unnecessary practice can go. (Fortunately his identical twin most did not get circumcised after what happened to David.)
Like how it showcases how dumb people can be about this issue.
He contradicts himself when he says “If you like being circumcised, fine. There’s no harm in it.” right after the driver finished explaining how “The foreskin plays an important role in sex. It’s a natural lubricant, it contains millions of sensitive nerve endings, and protects the glans from being desensitized.” Should be more like “If you like being circumcised, fine. There’s not much anyone can do about it now. Just keep what I’ve said in mind if a doctor ever asks if you want to have the penis of a little baby cut.”
Isn’t it racist to assume that men in Africa consciously AVOID condom use and therefore need some sort of “natural/inherent” protection, even if the protection is only marginally more than absolutely none? Nevermind the cost and inconvenience of acquiring such ~raincoats~, which, my racist mind thinks, must be rare and difficult to locate in the Africa hinterlands. Even in the cities of Africa, … akkk
I can’t think that way… akkkk :-(
akkkk I must be unconsciously racist. That must be why I read “Africa” while the OP wrote “America”.
I’ll slink away now, most shamed :-(
Let’s just say that I find the fact that studies in the USA (where circumcision is extremely common) often find some weak evidence of benefits while studies from Europe (where circumcision is much, much rarer) don’t rather telling. Even scientists are personally invested and more likely to see things along the lines of the status quo of their local cultural and other circumstances.
IIRC*, the effect disappears after controlling for the period of complete abstinence immediately following circumcision.
I.e. it’s not that being circumcized leads to less transmission, it’s that not having sex leads to less trasmission.
*At least one study had this flaw. I’m not sure about others.
From what I have read (including some of the published reviews), there is some evidence that in Africa, circumcised men are less likely to be HIV positive than non circumcised men, but these studies did a poor job of controlling for other cultural factors. It is also the case that if you circumcise a man so that he can’t have sex due to painful penis for a few weeks, then bring him back in once a month to check him and remind him of the benefits of safe sex, he is less likely to get HIV in 6 months than someone left to go their own way.
Generally, the disease arguments seem like post hoc rationalisations, and for most people, it’s either “I want him to look like the other boys in the shower” (though in many, maybe most places, boys no longer take naked communal showers), or “I want him to look like his father” which is pretty odd
Once someone has done it, there is considerable pressure on them to rationalise – no one wants to think they subjected their child to a painful experience that is likely to reduce sexual pleasure and has no benefits, similarly many people like to think well of their parents, so can use the same rationalization for their own circumscision
Methinks gshelley has hit the nail on the head, and saganite has pre-emptively provided evidence for their theory.
I wouldn’t be surprised by the HIV claim. During erection, the foreskin can be stretched quite a bit, especially in those with phimosis. This can lead to small breaks in the foreskin, which is undoubtedly bad regarding HIV transmission.
Marshall
So cutting off the foreskin so that all of the skin on the penis is even more taut during an erection reduces the chance of tears how?
I keep seeing the claim that “circumcision has no effect on sensitivity” repeated. Am I correct that this “conclusions” was arrived at by asking men who’ve been circumcised if sex felt good, and asking men who haven’t been circumcised if sex felt good, and noting that they both say “yes?”
(The one anecdote I have, secondhand, from someone who was circumcised later in life was “it’s like the difference between black-and-white TV, and color TV.)
the original reasons given in the video for circumcision being rooted in “Victorian morality” fits very well with the US’s general attitudes with regards to sex and sexual morality. I for one never looked into it before and thought it odd that it was practiced so widely seeing how it was culturally connected to Jewish tradition and the US not being known for being all embracing of Jew and Jewish traditions.
Nice to see that as is so common with irrational ideas it has failed in all of its goals. Regardless of any desensitizing it has not reduced sexual activity, masturbation, STD’s, out of wedlock births or the sexual obsession of society at large, and we still keep doing because reasons?
uncle frogy
As someone who underwent a medically-indicated circumcision as a child, these threads can feel quite personal.
Unnecessary removal of a foreskin is certainly mutilation, but the tone and rhetoric of some commentary is a tiny bit degrading when the discussion misses that target.
The discussion around sexual satisfaction is particularly difficult, and I say that as someone who has a good and satisfying sex life. I’m not arrogant enough to be beyond self-doubt, and the tone of these discussions can make me feel slighted or judged, or perhaps just a little inferior. (I’m sure I am not unusual in having been socialised to incorporate my sense of sexual performance – for want of a better word – into the core of my identity.)
I’m just pointing this out as an FYI.
Perhaps some of the vicious rhetoric directed at the advocates of universal circumcision – possiblt rightly earned – also causes some minor splash damage.
as regards the desensitizing, I have no way to know if it does or not nor do I see anyway to even measure to compare circumcised and uncircumcised men for sensitivity of their penis. One would think that desensitizing the penis by circumcision would tend to delay ejaculation but Judging from the common complaint of premature ejaculation it has failed to do that also.
uncle frogy
I’m not circumcised, would not be circumcised unless I absolutely had to for medical reasons, and my wife and I were adamant not to have my son circumcised (that was in the ’90s, when the default for hospitals was to routinely circumcise; we actually ended up getting charged even if it was not performed). So, my position is that it is a mutilation and I see no rational reason for it as a routine procedure, especially when it’s on a child that cannot consent.
That said, Bernard Bumner has it exactly right. Harping on supposedly better sexual pleasure and/or performance for the uncut is not at all helpful — and I strongly suspect unfounded: Sex is an emotional act, and the same penis, cut or uncut, will perform and elicit pleasure in vastly variable ways, depending on circumstances, partner, place, mood, etc. A piece of skin, sensitive or not, is likely one of the least consequential factors. Anyone who’s had sex more than once probably knows this.
I am in the UK, where circumcision is uncommon. Due to phimosis, I was circumcised when I was 31, almost 9 years ago. I had a full and satisfying sex life before the operation and continue to do so after it. However, it most definitely effected sensitivity for me.
I have read that circumcised men are more likely to injure their partners due to having to go at it more roughly (sorry about the phrasing, I did try to think of a more polite way to put it, but failed) to feel what an uncircumcised man would do normally. And I can absolutely understand how that could be (though I, personally, find going slower, to maximise contact, feels better). I have certainly had to change things to compensate for my lack of foreskin.
Which is a legitimate medical diagnosis, which may indicate circumcision as a treatment. Obviously, medically indicated circumcision is not what we’re objecting to. We’re objecting to the general practice of circumcizing infants regardless of medical indications.
Now that that’s clear, I trust I’ll never have to address that strawman again.<FatChance>
Or rather:
</FatChance>
unclefrogy wrote:
Well, now it’s tradition! Why are you trying to take away our traditions?
An excuse to tell a very embarrassing story. When I was much younger, I saw some Jews wearing tfillen (SP?), the little black box worn on the forehead during prayer. I asked a Jewish friend of mine what the boxes were and what they contained.
My “friend” asked if I knew about circumcision. In those days I was inordinately proud of my ecumenical knowledge and told the whole story of Abraham and the covenant with God. He then asked, “did you ever wonder what we did with the foreskins?”
I hadn’t wondered (this was before I heard the joke about the retiring mohel who was given a wallet), but was eager to learn. He then told me that the foreskins were put inside the tfillen, and Jews would wear them to remind themselves of the covenant with God during prayer.
Made sense to me, or at least as much sense as weekly ritual cannibalism.
As my “friend” no doubt knew I would, I later recycled this bit of ersatz information in mixed company, to predictable results.
One of these days, I’m going to find him and kill him.
http://www.despair.com/tradition.html
“A boy should look like his father.”
Because why? How often is your son going to see your penis? And even if he does, yours is a grown man’s penis and his is a little boy’s, so they’re going to look different. And what if you have a piercing? Would you think it was okay to decide that your baby son should have one too so that he’ll ‘look like you’?
Oh, and as I penis-loving woman, I don’t discriminate against men who’ve been cut, but I think foreskins are marvelous. Unless there’s a genuine healthy-function-related reason to permanently modify any part of child’s body, parents should respect their child’s right — yes, I said RIGHT — to bodily integrity. Adults can consent to have their own bodies modified however they like, but they shouldn’t be allowed to cut their child’s genitals merely because of aesthetic or religious preference.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/130/3/585
http://www.cochrane.org/CD009129/NEONATAL_newborn-circumcision-for-the-prevention-of-urinary-tract-infections-in-infancy
In case you are not up on how medical scientific studies work, randomized controlled studies are not going to be done on babies and pregnant women due to ethical concerns.
Must resist urge to send video to uncircumcised son in his early twenties. Dear hubby was born in Canada, so is quite complete.
@paxoll I glanced at your links. They seem to be US – centric. As mentioned in previous comments, these results do not seem to be reproduced when those studies are performed in EU, where the cultural bias goes the other way.
No matter, the effects even when seen in favorable light seem as not big enough to preventively cut pieces of skin off of babies who cannot consent to the pocedure. In all cases good hygiene and use of condoms have much better outcomes (are a stronger factor) overall on all supposed effects. As for urinary tracts infections – their incidence in boys is much lower than in girls, and most certainly not high enough to routinely perform irreversible surgery on 100% boys.
Reasoning advocating preventative circumcision seems to me as analogous with advocating global teeth extraction out to prevent cavities (not perfect analogy, but I think pretty close).
You are right charly, they are not significant enough for them to recommend surgery on all boys. It IS significant enough to mention to parents and let it be their choice. Your analogy is ridiculous as the risk benefit ratio for extracting teeth is far on the risk side, a better analogy would be do we leave kids with cleft lips until they are old enough to make a decision on if they want it cosmetically altered to be more “normal” appearing? That answer is no, we say, there is a small benefit to the child with making the change young (and a reduction in UTIs is NOT a small benefit) so we surgically alter their face. As for the whole choice issue. We do not give children choices in most things because they are not capable of making an informed choice, and when do you determine they are capable of making that choice? Yes hygiene and condoms are a reasonable choice and so is circumcision. I included the Cochrane study precisely because it is a comprehensive review of all the reliable literature including EU studies.
We’re certainly irrational creatures, with a limited understanding of risk: people will circumcise their sons for no good reason, but avoid vaccines for totally imaginary reasons.
paxoll
Fail analogy. Cleft lips are fixing something that has several medical complications and life impact while circumcision is removing something functional for a possible maybe benefit.
There’s actually men who wish they weren’t and there are efforts to re-grow foreskin. Such regret is not present with cleft lips.
so why not err on the side of body autonomy and consent?
—–
johnrockoford
And then give their children bleah anemas.
paxoll
Having an intact foreskin is not anywhere near equivalent to having a cleft lip/palate. You fail on three fronts: the foreskin in most cases does cause discomfort or disrupt normal function (no need for surgery until problems actually arise), the foreskin has not been consistently associated with any significant risk of increased illness, and the foreskin is normally not visible except to medical professionals and intimate partners.
Is it appropriate to perform surgery on intersex infants or others with ‘ambiguous’ genitals to make them ‘normal’? I say fuck no. So why is circumcision with its shitty rationalizations and inconsistent record of suspected benefits any different?
The fact you don’t have a sensible socialised health service over there is also a contributory factor. We here in England went in for Victorian sexual prudishness in a big way (I always wonder at Americans using “Victorian” – surely you would have been Rooseveltians or whatever), and in the early 20th century the fad for unnecessary circumcision took off on these shores too.
However, when we finally created our beloved NHS after the war we started to judge medical procedures on whether they were actually of benefit to recipients. We did not wish to pay for superfluous operations out of taxpayers’ money. So within a generation the fad was pretty much dead – a lot of British men who are in their late sixties and seventies today were routinely circumcised, but hardly anyone younger than that.
paxoll:
It was kind of you to provide the link to the study. But did you read this part:
Which clearly shows that the medical benefits are tiny and often questioned; nowhere near as important as they are in the case of a “cleft lip”, to which you refer. Hardly a basis for supporting an irreversible surgery that occasionally goes horrifically wrong.
Matt, you are wrong, it is very much associated with “significant risk of increased illness” and a UTI is very much cause for discomfort and disruption of normal function. We are comparing 2 elective surgical procedures, both with benefits to the child, both of which can be managed reasonably well without surgical intervention. The visibility of the area of concern is also a concern for boys when they are at the age when they are showering in locker rooms. That is not even a reasonable argument since the impact of social judgement is so subjective. What is more damaging, having a physical attribute that people see every day and you get used to dealing with, or having a peer group see it in the shower for the first time at a very emotional and judgmental time of your life? Finally, the “inconsistent record” is NOT inconsistent, you should try doing research. Maybe get an education in how to understand research, and then do research.
paxoll
Do you actually think cleft palate is just a cosmetic problem?
cartomancer
Huh, I did not know that (any male relatives of that generation about whom I might have known one way or the other arrived in the UK after this). One more thing to be grateful to the NHS for, then.
Cleft lip is not a parallel as already pointed out, paxoll, but extracting all teeth comes pretty close to being a usable analogy – you’re far more likely to be “saved” from the occasional bad tooth by full extraction than you are to have any protection from HIV or STDs by circumcision, and the cost in both cases is loss of a very useful and beneficial body part.
Imposing it on babies is utterly unacceptable, obviously.
I did not say cleft palate, I said cleft lip. I will not repeat myself thumbs, but will point out that “useful and beneficial” body part is completely wrong. Why not get the OP, the evolutionary biologist, to comment on the purpose and evolutionary background on foreskin.
paxoll
Yes, and you’re still fucking wrong about cleft lip. Or does this little girl on the Wiki with only a cleft lip look just “superficial” to you?
Why assume the commenters don’t know shit or aren’t evolutionary biologist? I know we’ve got plenty scientists running around and I doubt PZ is the only such biologist here.
Besides, he didn’t say purposeful or anything about evolution. Plenty of men find it useful just for the fact they can masterbate without lube.
O/T
paxoll @38:
1- it is generally considered good form on this blog to refer to the individual you are speaking to by their nym. The nym they use, rather than a shortened version, unless they’ve given the ok to use an abbreviated form. In this case, the nym is opposablethumbs, not thumbs.
2- it is also considered good form to reply to that person either by referring to the comment number you’re responding to or by quoting the material and the comment number (it’s not a rule, just a practice that is appreciated by many commenters, including myself).
In case you’re uncertain how to quote correctly, if you do this:
<blockquote> copy/paste text to be quoted here</blockquote>
You’ll get this:
paxoll, 35
from llewelly @ 34 quoting your own damn source:
–
Indeed, but most infants do not get UTIs (5 to 8 per 10,000 per year) and only a very small fraction of those actually require any sort of treatment beyond antibiotics. Circumcision is surgery, and like any other surgery it carries the potential for serious complications. Thus without a very clear and very strong scientific consensus of its proclaimed benefits outweighing the known complications and serious ethical issues, it should only be recommended when there is no other choice (such as phimosis not treatable by topical steroids, or the adult idjit that repeatedly stuck pop-rocks under his foreskin to masturbate and never cleaned it so that it eventually became completely encrusted, turned gangrenous, and required removal).
refer again to the above quote from your source.
One of these is not like the others. One has an obvious cosmetic effect with immediate functional issues. The other might possibly have occasional functional issues some time during the 60+ years of life and the only social issues are due to tradition, lack of education, and failure of adults to combat harassment/bullying.
Several points here:
1) Other than some sports teams (which tend to be one big clique already) after practice/games, when do children actually shower together? I went through all of K~12 and college without being even the least bit encouraged – let alone required – to use a communal shower despite being required to attend plenty of PhysEd/Exercise courses and several years on soccer teams in that time period.
2) If doctors and parents were well informed of the actual historical reasons for circumcision and its generally useless ‘preventative’ effects (compared to condoms and personal hygiene; maybe a run of antibiotics if non-surgical prevention fails), would there really be so many children cut that it would remain a source of bullying/ostracism/harassment?
3) If children actually received a comprehensive, evidence-based sex education that included discussion of the social and medical reasons some might have been cut, why would anyone care if others were cut or intact?
4) A biggie. Any school official, teacher, or coach that would permit anyone to be harassed for being cut or intact is in need of serious reprimand. Any adult encouraging harassment should not be permitted employment anywhere near schools or sports teams.
Again, the answer is comprehensive, evidence-based sex education with special emphasis on consent, gender identities, and the spectrum of genital configurations/modifications. Not simply rattling off a list of STIs with no mention of the mechanics of sex.
Even your own source is incapable of finding a consensus in the literature. Of the studies regarding HIV/AIDS, how many actually find any preventative effect against infection beyond the first year post-surgery (abstinence due to healing)?
…said to a cut guy trained as a research engineer with an undying love of learning about many varied subjects and that had multiple untreated abrasion/stretch tears during early puberty because of insufficient excess skin, useless catholic sex-ed, and catholic guilt.
Since this thread is making me need to be somewhat cheered up… <TMI warning>
Thanks to catholic sex-ed in 5th grade (nothing on anatomy or the mechanics involved in sex, just listing a bunch of STI names that some of the douchebags in class started using in their usual insults), two crappily sketched diagrams of circumcision in a biology/anatomy text book in high school, and nothing in the way of relationships, I did not actually realize I was circumcised until a bit into college. Not long thereafter, I trolled the speech comm class I had to take to ’round out’ my degree by giving an ambiguously worded epideictic speech for my foreskin. My ‘really damn bad’ anxiety (which contributed to accidentally dropping the note cards during the speech) fed the mood of depression and mourning right up until the last words (‘you were my friend. you were my comrade. you were my foreskin’).
This is the problem with quoting research, you have no idea what you are looking at. You don’t understand medical research, when they say
Fuck this formatting shit. And sorry Tony, but I’m not going to type your full “nym”, if there was another Tony posting then I would.
Children aren’t property. Fuck off, troll.
paxoll
Shape up.
@paxoll I am aware, that analogy with tooth extraction is not perfect (I mentioned it!). You made my day, however, by spectaculartly failing to find any problem with it and answering with “better” analogy that actually completely fails with regard to the issue at hand.
And you try and chastise others. How amusing. I let here a few following bullet points as an excersise for you. Try to find which two can be seen as analogous.
Routine circumcision -> surgery removes healthy tissue.
Cleft lip -> surgery corrects developmental abberation.
Routine tooth extraction -> surgery removes healthy tissue.
Cavity -> surgery corrects or removes damaged tissue.
Impacted tooth -> surgery corrects developmental abberation.
Phismosis -> surgery corrects developmental abberation.
Hypospadia -> surgery corrects developmental abberation.
Foot binding -> development of healthy tissue is restricted in order to conform.
Head binding -> development of healthy tiissue is restricted in order to conform.
And yes, I am laughing at you.
Despite repeating, you still seem to fail to grasp one essential issue:
The consensus you mention is not worldwide, it is USAmerican consensus. EU physicians do NOT accept this consensus. That indicates that this consensus is heavily burdened with cultural bias leading to ad hoc/post hoc rationalisations. Lack of clear, world-wide consensus among physicians is in itself clear indicator, that circumcision is at best cosmetic surgery that is net neutral with regard to health.
Therefore you are not advocating for parents making informed health decision for their child – even physicians world-wide still argue about that! – you are arguing for giving the parents an ad hoc health explanation so they do not have to think about the real moral issue at hand – that is, if it is okay to cut piece of their child off for purely aesthetic/cultural reasons.
Unless of course its the woman you ask, and then… what was it one said – “the difference was a bit like sex with a broom handle, compared to a well oiled piston…” or something to that effect. But, heh, who ever gave a damn about how the women involved where effected by such things, right? :p
paxoll @44:
1- you didn’t close your tag correctly. You missed the forward slash to close the tag.
2- I don’t mind people just referring to me as Tony (it is my real name after all). Though I will point out that it’s easy to copy/paste the entire nym of a commenter.
****
apologies to all for drifting O/T
Oh, one piece of tangentially related information:
If you’re intact, you need to put a condom on slightly differently: pull the foreskin all the way back, apply it to the head with the usual caveat about squeezing out bubbles and leaving space for semen, unroll it about halfway down, then pull the foreskin back up over the glans of the penis so that a section of the condom remains in contact with it and is now inverted, continue unrolling. This dramatically improves the sensation (having the foreskin slip back up over your glans under the condom it mid-intercourse leaves you basically numb), probably improves the durability, and was never even fucking MENTIONED in any sex-ed I saw before I was about 27.
On a slightly less related note, some perspective.
paxoll
Do you belief parents should be able to order preventative removal of their child’s appendix considering that it will kill them if it becomes infected and they do not get rapid treatment? How about the tonsils? Or toenails? I had a serious infection in my left big toe’s toenail in middle school that required partial removal of the nail and still requires monthly maintenance of the nail (grows in three pieces: main nail, thin slice on left side growing mostly under the main nail, and somewhat independent thick slice on right side). Or fingernails? I’m always getting hangnails and torn cuticles, and sometimes those result in hotness, redness, and a bit of puss squirting out after some squeezing. I have simple incomplete syndactyly of two toes on my left foot, should my parents have let my grandfather take a pair of scissors to it since it is ‘disfiguring’ and eventually made it a little difficult for my right-handed-self to orient the clippers to trim the nail on one of the toes? Ooh, should we revive the old tradition of forcing left-handed children to write with their right hands or suffer punishment just to satisfy authoritarian assholes? Not even any surgery needed to correct that one.
I suspect the attempted snark was too strong in that last comment of mine. Must sleep lest my spelling and judgment get any worse.
Interesting and useful information, Azkyroth, thank you.
paxoll, I’m afraid you are too blinded by what seem to be your US-centric preconceptions to stop and think clearly. Charly has put it very well in #47; you really are talking about a surgical procedure which is not medically necessary, imposed on an infant who has of course no power to make an informed choice, because a tiny fraction of all such infants – 5 to 8 per 10,000 as Matt P helpfully linked – get UTIs that can be treated non-surgically anyway. Seriously, what planet do you live on where this makes sense or can be justified? We cut a bit of healthy tissue off our boys so they will look the same as other boys, just in case they might see another boy’s dick some time? Wow, what a great reason for perpetuating the custom – because it’s a custom! How about piercings, scarifying, tattoos, FGM … should cultures do all those in infancy too, because they’re the custom and all the adults have them?
Please, compare the figures for UTIs in the US and across Europe (maybe a little unfair, as we seem to have on average better access to healthcare and sex-ed, but still a reasonable comparison). Honestly, you beggar belief.
Azkyroth, B*Cos[F(u)]==Y @50
LOL, thanks for that , really.
As an intact man I have always had problems with putting on condoms. I had very little sex ed in the 80s which certainly didn’t cover condoms. In every demonstration I’d seen pre and post internet I was shown how to slip them over all sorts of things like bananas and cucumbers which of course have nothing resembling a foreskin.
Its not like I’m going to rush off and try it now , but you may well have saved me some embarrassing fumbling and cooling off time. Next time I have a reason to I will think of you.
every day really is a school day :)
MattP #41
So many “ick” levels.
#50 Azkyroth
o.O
I had no idea. Now I’m trying to think of a way to get this information to my roommate without it being awkward and embarrassing. Hmm…
@ Paxoll
JAL #39 said:
I can attest that this is indeed very useful. I am able to do so because I was not born in some nutjob country that mutilates children’s genitals as a matter of course.
The idea of needing lube just to have a wank is incredibly strange.
paxxol
That wasn’t an emotional plea, you nitwit. It was correcting the fact you brush off cleft lips without a cleft palate as merely cosmeti. It was a link with information. I just delivered it snarkily.
Oh damnit, I got paxoll’s nym wrong and left out a c at the end of cosmetic. My bad.
Thumper: Who Presents Boxes Which Are Not Opened
Arrggg. What I get for not rechecking my sources. Knew it was unlikely, but did not remember it being that crap (tabloid). Also, it was apparently supposed to be Fizz Wiz, not Pop Rocks.
Lubrication to wank? Is that a common problem? (Not one I’ve had.)
I get some sense that there is a certain pride in being uncircumcised which goes beyond mere consideration of the issues. Too much apparent glee at all of the problems apparently associated with circumcision (and which certainly aren’t universal) and too much near-gloating about how superiorly functional your penis is, what with its natty foreskin and all.
Am I just thin-skinned and reading into comments tone which doesn’t exist on this issue? (No pun intended.)
@48, Kagehi – am I to understand that sex with me is actually like fucking a broom handle? Oh dear – I never knew that it must be so unpleasant for my sexual partners.
Seriously – this is why such callous generalisations are so unpleasant. Have I been inadvertantly causing discomfort to my sexual partners, who were then too polite or fearful to tell me? Certainly, my wife has never complained, perhaps because during enjoyable sex she provides sufficient lubrication? Still, describing someone as being like having sex with a broom handle is just harsh – extending it beyond a specific experience is particularly unhelpful.
If barbaric practice of circumcision had something to do with health, how did our long ago ancestors survive and why are there a billion plus of Indians and Chinese today? People who practice circumcision are child-abusers and perverts. Christians don’t even follow their book of myths as St. Paul wrote against the practice. Those who do the circumcisions should be put in jail for years. What other surgical procedure is allowed to be done by other than, well, surgeons?
For a much lesser case, if certain food restrictions like not eating pork or whatever had ever had any health reasons, then why since the beginning up to now are billions of healthy people pork eaters? Thise who follow such religious prohibitions are simply stupid.
I recommend this paper.
It’s fictitious anyway. I was never taught any, unless you count reading the biology textbook in the 8th or 9th grade of school, and have never had any health problems localized to thereabouts.
Oh, so that’s why I had never heard of a baby or child with a UTI.
I’m pretty sure such things are a matter of individual variation in sensitivity.
Speaking of individual variation… basic size and shape of the whole penis differ a lot among 12-year-olds even in my very limited experience.
1) You’re reading this in America, where everything is a competition…
2) Individual variation again. Male-bodied people (and others) vary greatly in how sensitive they are; female-bodied people vary greatly in how much lubrication they produce and how easily they do so.
Let me just repeat: Christians outside the US (and to a lesser and decreasing degree Canada) don’t practice or advocate circumcision. With the abovementioned temporary exception in the UK, they never have.
Wait, I’m not sure about the Ethiopian church. They follow a number of “Old Testament” customs no other Christians follow.
Bernard Bumner I can see how people’s sheer head-desking frustration with the more dogged advocates of the practice can tip over into insensitivity, yes, and that raising voices to a high volume in arguing for an end to circumcising infants can probably sound something like gloating sometimes, and for that I’m sorry.
@David Marjanović #65,
“Individual variation…”
Yes, I’m sure. The same variation which renders it such a lottery of outcomes for children who undergo unnecessary circumcision.
@opposablethumbs,
I appreciate that.
I have sympathy for those frustrations because I entirely agree that tradition and weak/absent clinical evidence are very bad reasons to perform surgical amputation of healthy body parts. That is mutilation. The arguments in favour are far too flimsy justifications for causing potential harm.
This is one of few issues which push my buttons as a very personal issue, and I can rationally say that hurt feelings are a small harm to me, but I’m certainly not a Vulcan.
I would much rather people speak against the routine practice than not.
Anyway – more, more than enough about me. I’ve vented my frustrations – derail over.
Bernard Bummer @67
Your comments were unique, insightful, nuanced, and not a derail in the slightest.
(btw, yes, lubrication to wank :)
Bernard Bumner,
Kagehi was out of line with that comment.
There is no good reason to:
1. Jump out of a perfectly good airplane.
2. Cut off parts of the genitals of children.
Terska @70:
Perhaps you could amend #2 to account for the cases when it is deemed medically necessary to circumcise a child…because *sometimes* there is a good reason (and no, tradition doesn’t count as a good reason).
Is that the case with alternative types of condoms.. Oh, right, forgot… you can’t find too many of those because the deck has been stacked against them in everything from testing to labelling, and so everyone knows they suck, not just in breakage, but feel, but no one has a solution that is “acceptable”. Just read a fun article on this:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/04/latex_condoms_are_the_worst_why_after_all_these_years_don_t_we_have_a_better.html
Huh? I didn’t say I personally thought anything of the sort. I said that at least one woman, some place else, described the difference like that. Obviously she was exaggerating to make a point that there is a functional difference, and that difference “does” effect how sex feels to the woman. If someone was “out of line” it would be her, not me, and even then… it wasn’t intended to be taken that bloody literally in the first place. I swear… its like we need a special font for, “This is supposed to be an exaggeration/sort of funny.”, so people don’t jump to absurd conclusions, or something… But then, as we all know, humor, sarcasm, or just about anything else you might imagine, translates very badly in plain text.
Charly: no surgery/medical treatment is necessary, each is a risk/benefit calculation calling it a “developmental aberration” does not change the fact that the tissue is perfectly healthy. The risk/benefit which I pointed out in one of my FIRST posts as why your analogy is COMPLETELY WRONG. This also is for Matt, when any medical intervention has a greater benefit to risk, then it is recommended. E.g. tonsils were taken out routinely for years before the scientific evidence showed the benefits did NOT outweigh the risks. AND right now appendixes ARE routinely removed when abdominal surgery is recommended for other reasons. That way, the risk of surgery is already accounted for by the other health problem.
Also, thank you for proving me right on how you completely disregard the scientific consensus I reported with a wave of your hand, no mention that European bias is equal or worse since they have socialized medicine and must consider the costs. I’m still trying to figure out where you got your incidence rate, when the link takes me to an abstract with that information nowhere to be found, it does talk about office and ER visits which according to some basic math is…up to 2%, or 2 in 100 incidence, but we are not really talking about adults which have a much lower incidence of UTI, we are talking about children getting cut before they can make the decision themselves. There is no good data on how many children get UTI’s which was the limiting factor in the research, the european websites say that for febrile children (kids likely to need treatment) the incidence rate http://www.patient.co.uk/doctor/childhood-urinary-tract-infection#ref-2 was 4 times higher for uncircumcised boys, but the source material was 10x higher http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18316994?dopt=Abstract . Which I’m sure was a honest mistake. BTW, if you don’t know, that pediatric infectious disease article is what is called a Meta analysis, which is the highest ranking level of evidence in medicine. Parents have rights to make the medical decisions for their kids, and regardless of your lame exercises in ethics, the medical evidence is NOT neutral, and medical ethics dictate that parents get the best up to date evidence available and get to make the decisions.
True enough but that usually doesn’t happen until later in life.
You know, comments in support of culture-based (vs. the rare medically necessary) circumcision remind me of (mostly) men who say, “Kids should be hit from time to time to keep them in line. My father did it to me and I turned out okay.” Invariably, there is ample evidence to dispute the claim.
At 56, I can still get angry when I contemplate being violated in this way. I have never regretted not subjecting either of my sons (born ’82 and ’99) to such violence.
I, also, am 56 and circumcised. I don’t think about it much, because there is nothing to do about it, but once in a while I give it some thought, and find it as teeth-chatteringly traumatic as the worst stuff that has happened in my life. And I am not as oriented on my own penis as most guys that I know.
There is an online copy of Kellogg’s book. I am not looking it up from here. It flat-out says that the intent is to inflict pain. I guess guys were supposed to get through the pain to get their women pregnant, and pretty abstain from all else.
By the way, the crazy Doctor Kellogg invented rolled cereal flakes as bland, healthy food, so his attitude toward sex was along the same line. His brother, the other Kellogg, put sugar all over the cereal flakes and cribbed off the healthy guy’s fame. (Corrupting health food goes ‘way back.) If you don’t think that Kellogg’s ideas about circumcision are the motivation for it, you go walk down the cereal aisle and see how much the crazed git has affected your breakfast – he was very famous and his influence lingers.
(If you want another reason to hate the guy, before breakfast was cold cereal, the standard was beefsteak and beer.)
Huh. I didn’t read this thread at first, because literally _every comments thread I’ve ever seen anywhere even remotely touching on this subject_ gets infected by (male, obviously) anti-circumcision activists who go crazy enough about it to actually make me want to disagree with them. Well done, everyone, the only serious awfulness on display this time is paxoll, going the other way.
So. The Vicar (via Freethoughtblogs)
Do you think that paxoll is the reasonable voice on this thread?
@Tony! & Beatrice,
Thanks. I just wanted to ensure that I wasn’t diverting discussion away from what really is a very important harm towards a special complaint of my own.
@Kagehi,
“…absurd conclusions…”
They aren’t very absurd. As I clearly said – it was a harsh description of her personal experience, and by quoting it to more broadly rebut a point about how to measure the effect on sex, you generalised it.
You also seemed to imply that there was some general disregard for a common effect on women, including by men who may cause their partners discomfort – “…who ever gave a damn… about the women involved?”
Some subjects are not well served by a humorous approach, and callous humour often serves no discussion well. It may also mask some unexamined assumptions and unsupportable generalisations.
I understand that you were rebutting a frustratingly undercooked line of questioning, but it was still an unpleasant response, even with good intentions.
Right, I am going to stop talking about myself, but I hope you can see why generalisations can touch raw nerves.
I’m going off with my family to enjoy the four-day Easter weekend here in the UK- one of the best vestiges of religion, along with the chocolate eggs. I hope everyone else has a good weekend/next four days.
Very cute. PZ, you GOTTA post this one too:
https://youtu.be/nBuDoNl0XQI
@79, chigau (違う)
Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a reading comprehension failure as large as the one you just did. Mind if I take a few screencaps as a memento?
Whatever floats your boat.
I have no idea what I meant by that comment.
Now I remember
I stopped reading, literally.
My bad.