German court bans circumcision of young boys

[zeggman]

Are you saying that nerve-endings are the same as the cut-off tip of a nerve fibre? If so, you're wrong. A nerve-ending is a sensor, the cut-off tip of a nerve fibre is like a webcam cable without a webcam.

I guess I have a lot of "phantom webcam" remaining in the dangling shards of hamburger that is all that's left of my penis.

I believe there is a product on the market called "Heet" which could, if applied to the penis, bump the intensity of signals which are sent to my brain.

I have never felt that my sex life would improve if I used that product.

'Nuff said.

 

[zeggman]

I agree 100% with this. Unfortunately these days it's difficult to get objective facts for all the wild-eyed anti circ propaganda that's out there not to mention in here.

Even though I'm here fighting some of that wild-eyed propaganda myself, I have been convinced (as a man who was circumcised as an infant and still managed to enjoy sex for six years before I got to enjoy it with a woman, and for more years than I care to reveal since) that the routine circumcision of infants is an unnecessary and POTENTIALLY harmful surgery which should probably be eliminated in most cases.

Just in case someone is coming late to the party.

 

[Ryokan]

I agree 100% with this. Unfortunately these days it's difficult to get objective facts for all the wild-eyed anti circ propaganda that's out there not to mention in here.

Same as how difficult it is to get objective facts about homeopathy and psychic powers for all the anti-woo propaganda on sites like randi.org? Just because a site is anti, doesn't mean it doesn't contain facts.

 

[Darat]

It's not a matter of basic anatomy. Basic anatomy says that all the sensation of which you're conscious happens in your brain. The only way the evidence of a sensation can travel from a fingertip to a brain is through an unbroken pathway of nerves. If the nerves which remain are capable of generating the same signals when stimulated, the brain isn't going to know the difference.

...snip...

Bloody hell the matrix rears its ugly head. You have to be joking.

 

[zeggman]

Bloody hell the matrix rears its ugly head. You have to be joking.

Yeah, the matrix, that's EXACTLY what they were testing with the study I referenced, which you soundly refuted mocked said you don't give a damn what stupid science says, you have a magic foreskin that puffs out a genie when you rub it and gives you anything you wish for.

Listen, if it floats your boat to think that you have had / are having / will have some wonderful sensation which poor pedestrian me will never experience, you just keep floating that little baby. I don't believe you. The guy who HAS a before and after experience to relate doesn't believe you. But as long as YOU believe you, that's what's important.

 

[Bram Kaandorp]

I guess I have a lot of "phantom webcam" remaining in the dangling shards of hamburger that is all that's left of my penis.

Not in the spot where your foreskin used to be.

Also, phantom sensations are the result of being so used to having a certain part of the body, that when it's removed, we still think it's there.

Not so much the case in neonatal circumcision.

 

[Oliver]

you have a magic foreskin that puffs out a genie when you rub it and gives you anything you wish for.

 

[mutile]

Apparently not.

Double-blind studies would be difficult, and other studies have reached different conclusions. One study, apparently published in BJU (I'm assuming that's British Journal of Urology, not BJs Unlimited) said
So, I don't know, maybe if you're using your penis to read braille, you'll find your reading speed slowed by circumcision. As a PTMI (pity me, "Post-trauma mutilated infant") I have no before and after stories. Another study from J Urol described at the same site says Hmmm, decreased sensitivity and improved satisfaction? Perhaps JAMA (same site) can explain it:

So your test to see whether a foreskin is sensitive is to test the penis with the skin pulled down, brilliant.

Are you going to argue next that artificial testicles are as sensitive as real ones.

 

[zeggman]

So your test to see whether a foreskin is sensitive is to test the penis with the skin pulled down, brilliant.

Are you going to argue next that artificial testicles are as sensitive as real ones.

I'm not sure I understand your objection. Does it lose sensitivity when it's retracted?

 

[mutile]

I'm not sure I understand your objection. Does it lose sensitivity when it's retracted?

I'm not sure I understand your position. Does it have sensitivity when it's removed?

 

[zeggman]

I'm not sure I understand your position. Does it have sensitivity when it's removed?

No, my position is that the parts which aren't removed have so much sensitivity that few can tell the difference.

Have you ever observed a total eclipse? I have, once. We all stood in bright, ordinary daylight until about ten seconds before totality. Of course, it wasn't really full daylight -- for more than an hour we were getting less than half of the usual dose of sunlight, then less than a quarter, then less than a tenth, but it still looked like an ordinary sunny day. Clear, crisp shadows, no "twilight" like you see leading up to sunset, just what looked like normal, ordinary sunlight.

I'm sure scientific instruments could have detected the dimming, and we could (using our eye protection) look at the sun and see how eaten away it was, but just looking around us nobody could tell the difference, until it was almost completely gone.

I suspect that the logarithmic nature of sense data means that, much as you'd like to believe otherwise, you experience pretty much the same level of sexual pleasure that I do. I suspect that whatever difference in "amplitude" that little bit of skin adds is a complete wash when the brain interprets it as "decibels" so you can know how loudly and how rapidly to groan "OGODOGODOGOD".

That's what the study claimed, and that's what brazenlilraisin said his first-hand experience confirmed ("the difference is negligible"). You'd think that on a skeptical website, evidence like that would count for something, but I'm still hearing "Sacre bleu, it cannot be".

So I'll ask again -- is there some reason you think retracting the foreskin prior to testing for sensitivity (I'm told this is its "maximum-arousal" configuration anyway) invalidated the experiment?

 

[mutile]

No, my position is that the parts which aren't removed have so much sensitivity that few can tell the difference.

Have you ever observed a total eclipse? I have, once. We all stood in bright, ordinary daylight until about ten seconds before totality. Of course, it wasn't really full daylight -- for more than an hour we were getting less than half of the usual dose of sunlight, then less than a quarter, then less than a tenth, but it still looked like an ordinary sunny day. Clear, crisp shadows, no "twilight" like you see leading up to sunset, just what looked like normal, ordinary sunlight.

I'm sure scientific instruments could have detected the dimming, and we could (using our eye protection) look at the sun and see how eaten away it was, but just looking around us nobody could tell the difference, until it was almost completely gone.

I suspect that the logarithmic nature of sense data means that, much as you'd like to believe otherwise, you experience pretty much the same level of sexual pleasure that I do. I suspect that whatever difference in "amplitude" that little bit of skin adds is a complete wash when the brain interprets it as "decibels" so you can know how loudly and how rapidly to groan "OGODOGODOGOD".

That's what the study claimed, and that's what brazenlilraisin said his first-hand experience confirmed ("the difference is negligible"). You'd think that on a skeptical website, evidence like that would count for something, but I'm still hearing "Sacre bleu, it cannot be".

So I'll ask again -- is there some reason you think retracting the foreskin prior to testing for sensitivity (I'm told this is its "maximum-arousal" configuration anyway) invalidated the experiment?

It is not relevant to what I said, I didn't argue that the perception of sensitivity is decreased and I think those saying the difference is negligible actually support my statement unless negligible is a synonym for nonexistent.

A study that focuses on the penis might be relevant if I said the penis is less sensitive, but I didn't, the fact that you can't agree with my statement which is an objective fact shows you can't rise above your emotional bias.

 

[zeggman]

A study that focuses on the penis might be relevant if I said the penis is less sensitive, but I didn't, the fact that you can't agree with my statement which is an objective fact shows you can't rise above your emotional bias.

I'm going to assume that English is not your first language, agree that a foreskin has no sensitivity whatsoever after it's been disconnected from a functioning brain, and admit that, yes, I do have an "emotional bias" against being described as mutilated and dysfunctional.

 

[Checkmite]

I empathize; however, a functional part of your body was cut off and "mutilation" is simply the correct term for that sort of thing.

 

[zeggman]

I empathize; however, a functional part of your body was cut off and "mutilation" is simply the correct term for that sort of thing.

No, it isn't, even by the definitions provided at your link.

1. To deprive of a limb or an essential part; cripple.

I wasn't deprived of a limb, or crippled.

2. To disfigure by damaging irreparably: mutilate a statue.

I wasn't disfigured, or damaged irreparably.

3. To make imperfect by excising or altering parts.

I was born imperfect, and being circumcised didn't make me "more imperfect".

If your objective is to describe precisely what was done to me, the way to do it is to say I was circumcised. If you choose instead to employ a term which can mean anything from having my arms and legs lopped off to having my face melted by acid, please do me the favor of not pretending you do so with "empathy".

 

[Checkmite]

A part of your body was damaged in an irreparable fashion. That part cannot regenerate; it was completely excised.

 

[zeggman]

A part of your body was damaged in an irreparable fashion. That part cannot regenerate; it was completely excised.

And, as I have said before, when people use "mutilation" to describe a tonsillectomy, an appendectomy, and the excision of wisdom teeth, there will be a stronger case for those who claim they are simply using words to convey meaning rather than to inflame emotions.

 

[Checkmite]

A surgery that removes a body part in order to stop an extant disease or infection from damaging the rest of the body can be justified; in such cases the body part was damaged irreparably before it was removed; so no, those things would not be mutilation.

 

[jdp]

First I appreciate that you've come around on this.

No, it isn't, even by the definitions provided at your link.
2. To disfigure by damaging irreparably: mutilate a statue.

I wasn't disfigured, or damaged irreparably.

I think whether two applies is up to the individual. I would consider a penis that was circumcised to have been disfigured. As I've pointed out previously, one born without a foreskin is actually born with a birth defect, Aposthia

And, as I have said before, when people use "mutilation" to describe a tonsillectomy, an appendectomy, and the excision of wisdom teeth, there will be a stronger case for those who claim they are simply using words to convey meaning rather than to inflame emotions.

Especially for the first two, and often for the third, there is therapeutic intent involved. With circumcision, there is usually none. And I would likely say that any obvious signs of surgery (such as a scar) is in a technical sense a disfigurement but it's one that is typically justified with the therapeutic intent.

Related I again ask you the question posed here:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8433789&postcount=343

 

[zeggman]

A surgery that removes a body part in order to stop an extant disease or infection from damaging the rest of the body can be justified; in such cases the body part was damaged irreparably before it was removed; so no, those things would not be mutilation.

Where in the definitions you linked is this exception noted?

And neither my tonsils nor my wisdom teeth were damaged irreparably (or at all) when they were removed, so presumably by your definition they WOULD still be mutilation. I still have my appendix.