protruding ears
In many countries these are routinely corrected, because they are a known source of problems in social relations and self-esteem, at least in childhood and teenage. Owners of these get bullied and have a harder time being popular on the mating market.
I fully support routine corrections of protruding ears, and I fully oppose routine circumcisions.
That's an interesting position.
If I slip a finger behind each ear, and make them protrude, it's undeniable that I can hear sounds in front of me more loudly than when they don't protrude.
It seems to me that performing cosmetic surgery on ears, arguably to the detriment of hearing, and performing cosmetic surgery on a penis, arguably to the detriment of Darat's secret sensation, would be equivalent.
I am, of course, in favor of letting the parents decide in both cases. If potential teasing or mating preferences are a valid consideration in one case, I think they're a valid consideration in both cases.
I think they need to be distinct for an important reason, the bar for evaluating the acceptability of something done for a prophylactic reason needs to be necessarily higher than for something done for a therapeutic reason. The reason being that in the former case, the individual is healthy. And when this is cast into the context of prophylactic reasons done via proxy consent, the bar needs to be raised even higher still, again because we start off with the one essential fact, the individudal is healthy.
So I find the two concepts to be related but not necessarily the same:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/therapeutic
Fair enough. I was using "therapeutic" as a way of implying some vague medical benefit, but I have no problem adopting "prophylactic" instead.
I disagree that the individual is necessarily healthy when we are speaking of prophylactic surgery. One of my life-long friends has recently had a double mastectomy, even though cancer was only found in one of her breasts.
As a side note, I would never be so crass that I would describe her as "mutilated".
Technically, extracting healthy teeth could be described as a mutilation. I already pointed out that ear piercing, face-lifts and breast reduction are mutilations. It's a word. It's quite remarkable how many people get their knickers in a twist about it. You'd almost think they were a bit defensive, or compensating or something.
Since you are employing disparaging language to describe my flawless phallus, and I am not stooping to criticisms of yours, I think it's pretty clear who is "a bit defensive, or compensating or something" here.
