Nordic countries may finally ban circumcision.

[Craig B]

Really? All those pictures in Google Images of penises damaged or destroyed by circumcision as infants don't exist?

They don't exist, and there's not even any chance that they exist!

 

[TheGoldcountry]

Oh context! But wait, thegoldcountry, you left off the post colander was replying to, and the one that the post that colander was replying to was replying to, and ... Etc etc etc.

what a silly, silly argument. Particularly in light of the fact that you bizarrely cut off most of the post to which I was replying.

In fact, he said that it was dishonest to assert that he should be expected to come up with evidence that circumsized men report a "loss of sensation" despite the fact that he was advancing that very claim.

Anyway, I enjoyed your comments! Irony can be hilarious, particularly when advanced as stridently as yours.

I was only addressing one point of his post. You routinely ignore entire posts while advancing arguments refuting POVs that no one has come close to expressing.

But you go ahead and have fun. I'll continue to enjoy your meaningless posts while taking you as seriously as any other troll. Carry on.

 

[The Norseman]

The evidence says so, that's why. Studies of men circumcised as teens or adults find a much higher rate of loss of sexual feeling up to total sexual dysfunction. Meanwhile, there has never been any study that reliably shows that men circumcised as infants suffered any loss. And, seeing as Jews are managing to reproduce without difficulty, it doesn't appear as there is any problem.

I believe that the reason for the difference is that newborn infants have not mapped their pleasure and pain receptors to specific parts of their body. They may know they're in pain, but they can't tell the source of the pain. My beliefs, however, may be wrong. The reliable evidence still stands.

Ridiculous. You were missing out on something - something identifiable, objective and measurable. There was an objective standard by which your vision could be measured. You could have been fitted with a pair of binoculars, but since that is not normal human vision the doctor didn't do that. You could have been fitted with infrared optics. They didn't do that, either.

I know of no objective scale for pleasure. Hospitals have found that the best measure of pain, however, is a subjective scale where the patient rates his own pain. Most all hospitals now have a smiley face, simple 1-10 system. Going by a subjective scale, there is no evidence that men circumcised at birth experience less pleasure. There is, however, evidence that men circumcised in their teen and adult years do.

We might speculate that men who derive less pleasure from sex will have less sex, experience more sexual dysfunction and, possibly, have fewer children. However, there is no evidence that Jewish men are experiencing less fulfilling or fruitful sex lives.

More than just Jewish men get circumcisions, so I'd ask that you refrain from singling out Jews in these discussions; it's not only factually inaccurate, but also continues the falsehood that anti-neonatal-circumcision laws are antisemitic in nature.

 

[The Big Dog]

I was only addressing one point of his post. You routinely ignore entire posts while advancing arguments ......

Hahaha! Magic!

Fantastic!

Thanks for posting.

 

[The Norseman]

Again, it's not up to us to plead with you that we should continue to be allowed to raise our children like we've been doing for thousands of years. It's up to you to convince us what's the harm. So far you guys have been all crickets on that front.

It's rather that you dismiss any concerns brought up, not that there aren't any.

Look, it comes down to this: if history is any indication, if your country outlaws infant circumcision, Jews will either leave your country or they will break your law, and then I guess you'll have to round them all up and put 'em in jail, and I guess you can put their circumcised babies into foster care or something.

Real talk: does that strike you as an improvement over where things stand now?

Why the hurry? Why can't a person achieve some measure of age and autonomy of their own body, to choose the religious ceremonies they wish to do when it comes to permanent alteration of their bodies?

If it doesn't actually correlate to increased chance of deleterious physical or psychological outcomes, in what meaningful way can it be termed "abuse"?

It does actually correlate to increased chance of deleterious physical and psychological outcomes, all of which you have conveniently ignored to promote some strange sense of victimhood.

 

[Mycroft]

...The only justification should be (if this is indeed the case) that infant male circumcision does so little harm that it is not expedient that the law should take notice of it.

Which seems to be the case.

 

[Mycroft]

But that depends on what makes it culturally important. Do you really think that cultures where circumcision is a rite of passage are going to accept those reasons to change when they do it?

Who, in Nordic countries, performs circumcision as a rite of passage?

 

[Craig B]

Rule of thumb: if it's not as bad for a child as having a parent put in prison, then you probably shouldn't impose criminal penalties on parents for doing it

do you see where I'm going with this?

Not quite. In many particular cases when a parent commits theft it's bad for a child to have the parent imprisoned, and it would be better to have some other punishment imposed, and this is often taken into account during sentencing. But that's not an argument for not imposing criminal penalties in cases of theft. For that matter, here is a reductio ad absurdum argument. If it's not as bad for a child as having a parent put in prison for murder, then you probably shouldn't impose criminal penalties on parents for doing it. Many unfortunate children suffer greatly because their parents have been imprisoned, quite rightly, for serious crimes.

 

[Craig B]

Who, in Nordic countries, performs circumcision as a rite of passage?

Jews do that in Nordic countries, as elsewhere.

 

[Mycroft]

More than just Jewish men get circumcisions, so I'd ask that you refrain from singling out Jews in these discussions;

Since Jewish men are predominantly circumcised, Loss Leader is entirely appropriate in pointing it out if Jewish populations don't seem to have these problems one might expect if they believed circumcision is as harmful as claimed.

it's not only factually inaccurate, but also continues the falsehood that anti-neonatal-circumcision laws are antisemitic in nature.

Except it most likely is, at least in part.

 

[Mycroft]

Jews do that in Nordic countries, as elsewhere.

Maybe I read it wrong, but I interpreted "rite of passage" to mean something that happens later in life. Such as the onset of puberty.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Rule of thumb: if it's not as bad for a child as having a parent put in prison, then you probably shouldn't impose criminal penalties on parents for doing it

do you see where I'm going with this?

So that's a yes for it being fine to cut off your infants' toes, then.

 

[One Tenth]

Here is the argument against circumcision:

1. Bodily integrity is a human right.
2. Persons of age have the autonomy to trangress this.
3. With persons not of age, the legal and ethical standard is "best interest of the child".
4. Prophylactic interventions must have overwhelming benefits compared to detriments.
5. Removal of the male prepuce/frenulum does not meet the criteria in 4.
6. Religious/cultural reasons are not an exception to 3.

As far as I can tell, proponents of circumcision disagree with some of 4-6. 4 is the medico-ethical standard, and has been for some time. I don't see how a survey of the literature could put 5 in doubt. At best, the evidence is conflicting. Take away the the US based studies, and the evidence is squarely against circumcision.

As for 6, as noted in this thread there are many other possible violations of bodily integrity of infants that are far less intrusive, and yet (most) people do not think they should be allowed.

 

[Ethan Thane Athen]

As answered above, no study has shown any difference in pleasure or dysfunction due to neonatal circumcision. Thus, whatever physical differences there are, no evidence exists that the physical differences have any effect.

I don't know whether you have an invisible dragon in your garage, either. You are the one arguing the positive position. Provide evidence.

Actually I'm not really arguing it. I'm explaining that I understand a certain logical argument that losing a piece of your anatomy with loads of nerve endings specifically designed to give you pleasure during sex may mean the pleasure is lessened (not taken away, plenty of other nerve ending left to ensure pleasure) and wondering how you could actually judge whether it had been lessened if you (effectively) never had it in the first place.

Perhaps another analogy might help. If I lost my little finger soon after birth, I'm sure I could still catch a ball and otherwise function normally* as I grew up such that, to me, it only felt like a 'cosmetic' difference as I had never really experienced life with it. I could however, easily accept a logical argument that I must have lost some dexterity, just that, as I had grown up with it, I had automatically compensated. I don't think such a charge would upset me, I'd just shrug and say 'Yeah, probably, technically, but it doesn't really make much difference to me' and I wonder why people who've been circumcised react so vehemently to the suggestion that, logically they will have lost some sensation, even if practically it is no hindrance to their enjoyment of sex.

I really don't see how questioning people who've (effectively) never had a foreskin could ever elicit any useful judgements as to what they may have 'lost'.

*I would say it would affect my guitar playing but Tony Iommi and Django Rheinhart would beg to differ.

 

[Darat]

...snip...

So, "but it is our tradition/religion" is basically all that the defenders have left in the end. But so what? Hey, enslaving black people was a common thing for quite a long time. Anyone want to argue that it is a bad idea that we got rid of that in many countries? Honour killings are tradition in some countries still, so i guess that is a-ok because, well, it is tradition?

...snip...

For me it also exposes the special pleading being used.

Female genital mutilation is widespread in some cultures and women who aren't mutilated will find that they are deemed unsuitable to be a wife and may even be shunned by their community as not being "real" women. This is just (if not even more firmly entrenched and enforced) as much a tradition in these cultures yet it seems no one argues that female genital mutilation should continue because it is traditional, yet some will argue that male genital mutilation should be allowed to continue because it is a tradition.

 

[Ryokan]

Maybe I read it wrong, but I interpreted "rite of passage" to mean something that happens later in life. Such as the onset of puberty.

With Muslims, the operation is done at different ages according to the country and culture they're from. I know circumcision is a big event for boys in Turkey, around puberty.

 

[ddt]

Even better, There is not even any chance of these, seemingly, let alone any measurable incidence of them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer:

David Reimer (August 22, 1965 – May 5, 2004) was a Canadian man who was born as a healthy male, but was sexually reassigned and raised as female after his penis was accidentally destroyed during circumcision. [...] He later committed suicide, owing to suffering years of severe depression, financial instability, and a troubled marriage.

That's also a death attributable to a botched circumcision.

 

[spin0]

Who, in Nordic countries, performs circumcision as a rite of passage?

In Nordic countries parents with various ethnic backgrounds and religions are willing to mutilate the genitals of their infants and children for non-medical reasons. And between ethnicites and religions there's a lot of variation of when, how, why and to whom.

For example in the current court case in Finland the father facing charges for aggravated assault is a Christian from Nigeria. As another example in Germany a court has forbidden a woman from having it done to her six-year old child. I don't know her religion but she's of Kenyan descent.

The unnamed woman from Dortmund, who is German-born but of Kenyan descent, wanted to have her son circumcised before visiting Kenya, where it is normal practice for boys when they are very young babies.

More than 80 percent of the Kenyan adult male population is circumcised. The woman had worried her son would not be accepted as a real man by his relatives there unless he had the operation.

The court said the 31-year-old mother was not fit to make the decision about the operation because neither child nor mother were aware of the risks involved in the procedure - including psychological harm, the newspaper reported.

Court: circumcision too risky for six-year-old

 

[Craig B]

Maybe I read it wrong, but I interpreted "rite of passage" to mean something that happens later in life. Such as the onset of puberty.

You wouldn't call infant baptism or naming ceremonies "rites of passage"? You call the onset of puberty a "rite"? Is it not a physical bodily process?

 

[Ethan Thane Athen]

For me it also exposes the special pleading being used.

Female genital mutilation is widespread in some cultures and women who aren't mutilated will find that they are deemed unsuitable to be a wife and may even be shunned by their community as not being "real" women. This is just (if not even more firmly entrenched and enforced) as much a tradition in these cultures yet it seems no one argues that female genital mutilation should continue because it is traditional, yet some will argue that male genital mutilation should be allowed to continue because it is their tradition.

I've taken the liberty of inserting a word in bold to my quote of your post...