Is Circumcision Right or Wrong?
- Thread starter Tylervo
- Start date
-
- Tags
- circumcision
ZirconBlue
Sole Survivor of L-Town
It's a dumb argument. I don't recall ever even seeing my father's penis, let alone comparing mine to his. I don't think my experience in that regard is atypical.
pgwenthold
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2001
- Messages
- 21,821
And even in places where it is easy for kids to compare themselves against their parents we don't care if they don't look alike. As I've asked before, I'm bald, so does that mean that we need to shave our kids' heads to make sure they look like me?
It's claim that fails on so many levels. If that's the best someone can come up with, you know that they haven't put any thought into it at all.
abaddon
Penultimate Amazing
If you knew my father you would know for certain it was atypical.
My father is a very private man.
Captain Obvious
Unregistered
- Joined
- Jul 20, 2011
- Messages
- 323
Circumcision is wrong, whichever way you cut it.
ZirconBlue
Sole Survivor of L-Town
Always glad to help.
The pun was appreciated but I might modify this to instead be, 'non-therapeutic circumcision of infants and children is wrong, whichever way you cut it.' Essentially meaning the routine circumcision that occurs mostly in North America, the US in particular.
There are a few therapeutic reasons why infants and children may need to be circumcised. And adults should be free to "personalize" their bodies in which ever way they see fit.
Schrodinger's Cat
Unregistered
- Joined
- Feb 11, 2010
- Messages
- 3,456
Came across this article the other day:
It's titled "In defense of Circumcision" andthe doctors arguing in its favor are from John Hopkin's University, one of the most prestigious medical schools in the country.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/oct/04/news/la-heb-circumcision-20111004
This is why I really take issue with people who portray Americans as evil or horrid for circumcising their children.
For the longest time, I was in favor of circumcision, because whenever I see articles in favor of circumcision, they are usually backed up by doctors of an impeccable pedigree. Very well respected medical journals have also encouraged circumcision, mostly on the basis of arguments like this:
Which is a good point. But the other point is that teaching your kid safe sex can accomplish the same goal without the need for circumcision.
On the other hand, whenver I saw anti circumcision articles, they were invariably from woo sources. The kinds of people who also wrote articles against vaccination and chemotherapy. These were literally the only places I ever saw people arguing against circumcision.
In fact, in the article above, the doctors actually do compare not circumcising a child with not vaccinating a child, which is an argument I've heard a lot from the medical community. It is portrayed as irresponsible not to circumcise your child.
The only reason I even found out more information about circumcision, or that it isn't practiced routinely in Europe, was because I lived in Europe and went to saunas and saw, woah, none of these guys are circumcised, and then happened across some blogs there by people like Christopher Hitchens and others (mostly Europeans) on science blog discussing the practice. It was simply not information that was prevalent or easily available to me.
It's one thing to fault the medical establishment and media in America's portrayel of circumcision, but another to fault the parents. Many of them think they are doing the medically appropriate thing.
The other thing is aside from forums like this, I don't ever see the media portray stories of men who fault their parents for circumcising them, but I have seen many in which uncircumcised men rail against their parents both for social consequences of not being cut (i.e. a girl is turned off by it, they are teased, etc) or because they had to have it later in life for medical reasons, and faulted their parents for not having it down in infancy when it was a simpler, less dangerous procedure (as the risk factor is higher when you do it at an older age), and also at an age where he wouldn't have been old enough to remember the pain and discomfort that follows a circumcision.
Americans are presented with a very one sided argument. I've tried to talk to my hubby about this but he's incredibly pro circumcision and there's just no convincing him otherwise. But as we don't plan to have our own kids, just maybe do foster care or adopt older children, it's not really worth arguing over.
You were split off from your son and grandchildren over this? May I ask who cut off communication, you or your son? Feel free to not go into it, just curious.
It's titled "In defense of Circumcision" andthe doctors arguing in its favor are from John Hopkin's University, one of the most prestigious medical schools in the country.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/oct/04/news/la-heb-circumcision-20111004
This is why I really take issue with people who portray Americans as evil or horrid for circumcising their children.
For the longest time, I was in favor of circumcision, because whenever I see articles in favor of circumcision, they are usually backed up by doctors of an impeccable pedigree. Very well respected medical journals have also encouraged circumcision, mostly on the basis of arguments like this:
Which is a good point. But the other point is that teaching your kid safe sex can accomplish the same goal without the need for circumcision.
On the other hand, whenver I saw anti circumcision articles, they were invariably from woo sources. The kinds of people who also wrote articles against vaccination and chemotherapy. These were literally the only places I ever saw people arguing against circumcision.
In fact, in the article above, the doctors actually do compare not circumcising a child with not vaccinating a child, which is an argument I've heard a lot from the medical community. It is portrayed as irresponsible not to circumcise your child.
The only reason I even found out more information about circumcision, or that it isn't practiced routinely in Europe, was because I lived in Europe and went to saunas and saw, woah, none of these guys are circumcised, and then happened across some blogs there by people like Christopher Hitchens and others (mostly Europeans) on science blog discussing the practice. It was simply not information that was prevalent or easily available to me.
It's one thing to fault the medical establishment and media in America's portrayel of circumcision, but another to fault the parents. Many of them think they are doing the medically appropriate thing.
The other thing is aside from forums like this, I don't ever see the media portray stories of men who fault their parents for circumcising them, but I have seen many in which uncircumcised men rail against their parents both for social consequences of not being cut (i.e. a girl is turned off by it, they are teased, etc) or because they had to have it later in life for medical reasons, and faulted their parents for not having it down in infancy when it was a simpler, less dangerous procedure (as the risk factor is higher when you do it at an older age), and also at an age where he wouldn't have been old enough to remember the pain and discomfort that follows a circumcision.
Americans are presented with a very one sided argument. I've tried to talk to my hubby about this but he's incredibly pro circumcision and there's just no convincing him otherwise. But as we don't plan to have our own kids, just maybe do foster care or adopt older children, it's not really worth arguing over.
You were split off from your son and grandchildren over this? May I ask who cut off communication, you or your son? Feel free to not go into it, just curious.
Last edited:
I am not sure if that I would call them evil but misinformed. Something you've clearly observed when you discuss the matter.
Personally, I find the analogy with vaccines to be very poor. When I think of vaccine, I am thinking of long term, substantial risk reduction to infection from just about any possible source. For example the measles vaccine, I believe, has an efficacy in excess of 95%. The small pox vaccine eradicated the disease in nature and polio is today being targeted for eradication too. Having that in mind I think it is irresponsible, and even dangerous, to even consider drawing such an analogy.
Besides that there are other mitigating factors. We have an HPV vaccine which is again extremely effective and available to boys. And the prevalence of HIV in most first world countries is low, especially the risk for F->M transmission which is what that value applies too.
I would disagree Schrodinger. There are plenty of non-woo sources where the same information had been assessed and a separate conclusion was reached. For example, the Royal Dutch Medical Association put out a formal statement last year and followed up with this press release only a few months ago.
Doctors from the Norwegian medical association made a similar statement the year before.
And the Australasian Royal College of Physicians 2010 position statement available on their site.
They do go on to say that despite the fact that there is no evidence of substantial benefit, parent's should still be able to choose it. To me that's a bit of a cop out.
I think that argument is nothing but sophistry.
I think this contributes to American's misunderstanding of the issue. If you spend your whole life immersed in a culture that says such a thing is OK it is difficult to see how that may not be the case. Consider how difficult it might be for an American 10 or 20 years ago to dig up what doctors in other parts of the first world thought about this procedure, as a routine one that is.
It's one thing to fault the medical establishment and media in America's portrayel of circumcision, but another to fault the parents. Many of them think they are doing the medically appropriate thing.
I saw an interesting new study that pretty much told me something I already knew.
Basically, those who are circumcised (doctor or not) are going to believe that there was/is a good reason for it. Those who are not are going to be a bit more skeptical.
Schrodinger's Cat
Unregistered
- Joined
- Feb 11, 2010
- Messages
- 3,456
Well, remember, I'm specifically talking about Americans here, and you've listed all foreign sources.
But in any event, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying these sources don't exist out there in the world, or that there aren't any non woo sources in America.
I'm just saying that's not what you see in the media, in my experience anyways. When I've read major American publications, be it journals or news magazines or newspapers, etc, I've only seen pro circumcision arguments, backed up by prestigious doctors, hospitals, and medical journals. Whereas whenever I've seen stuff that was anti circumcision, it was always on a place like Huffington Post or some such organization that is known for peddling anti science woo, often by authors who I knew also to be, for example, also vaccination. So I never took them seriously.
I'm not saying there aren't credible sources out there, only that I had to go looking for them to find them. They weren't just available to me as an average American. And as you state, in a culture where it is so common as to be considered routine, people aren't that likely to go looking for information. I certainly didn't, I just took it for granted that circumcision was medically appropriate. I just happened upon it on pretty obscure blogs that opened my eyes.
Last edited:
I know, but it seemed to me as if you were saying that you never see any reputable sources that argue against circumcision. I am just saying to see that, if you're in the US, you really have to dig a bit. I think the reason you see this is because circumcision is so fossilized into our culture that critical thinking on the matter rarely takes place at any level from layman to researcher to doctor.
I am a man.... You misunderstood what I was saying I think.... I was saying that all that stuff they do is to FOOL men....not that men actually demand it.
I agree with Cornsail.....women, mostly, do all that for other women really, more than they do it for men.
I used to BEG and PLEAD with my wife to stop putting on makeup and stupid me… I thought that she was doing it for me and if I told her that I liked her more without makeup, then she would stop....how stupid was I….. I don’t even know what her real hair color ever was.
If women stopped buying meaningless crap half the national debt would be halved. Just stopping redecorating the house twice a year and then having a party to show it off, may actually bring us out of the depression…
JJM 777
Illuminator
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2004
- Messages
- 4,060
Here in Finland a Jewish father recently was sued to court for violent assault, after getting his son circced. Circumcision is practically unknown here, and the national doctors association takes the stance that removing healthy tissue for no reason is against their ethical code. In some ways the frontline is in Scandinavia and Netherlands etc. where mankind evolves forward. (OT side note: the Dutch evolve also physically though, they are the tallest people on earth.)
Last edited:
Is that a test case, or is the Jewish population in Finland close to zero? Or was there something unusual about this particular case? Just wondering why that should happen now.
Um, what?
Last edited:
Professor Yaffle
Butterbeans and Breadcrumbs
Last edited:
JJM 777
Illuminator
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2004
- Messages
- 4,060
It happens now and not 50 years ago, because nowadays the law is critical about circumcision. The Finnish population did not do it 50 years ago either, but neither was there much immigrant population who would do it and draw public attention to the issue.
Circumcision of boy children is not directly illegal in Finland. Not yet. But it is extremely rare, only done by our few Jews and a growing population of Muslim immigrants. Which tells a lot about its reasonability already. 99% of doctors are neither of these, hence their ease to take a critical and objective stance about the issue.
Last edited:
The links Professor Yaffle gave suggest that this case (I assume both links refer to the same case) was unusual in that the normal procedure was not followed, and there were complications.
Meed
boy named crow
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2009
- Messages
- 5,206
If women stopped buying meaningless crap half the national debt would be halved. Just stopping redecorating the house twice a year and then having a party to show it off, may actually bring us out of the depression…
Saving is a good thing to do individually, but you have it the wrong way round. It's overspending that's good for the economy and the government's tax revenue.
Meed
boy named crow
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2009
- Messages
- 5,206
I wouldn't take a vaccine that had an equal chance of damaging me due to complications as it did preventing a disease, that involved cutting off part of my body and that lead to decreased sexual pleasure.
The fact that it's an infant just increases the number of cons: lack of personal choice and the chance that inflicting that kind of pain on an infant may be psychology dangerous considering how developmentally critical the first couple years of a childs' life are.
When you look at it purely in terms of the reduced HIV/herpes risk, of course it's going to seem great.