The Sensitive Issue of Circumcision

volatile said:
I wrote an encyclopaedia entry on the practice of subincision... If you have any questions, ask away. :)
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All reading about those kind of practices does for me is to make me realise, despite our pretensions, how rotten and cruel humans can be.
 
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Rasmus said:
People doing it because they just kinda like the idea or were curious what it'd look like on them or wanted to find out what sex would be like once circumcised should be in a small minority.
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So, again, I repeat, the fact that the majority of uncircumcised men choose to remain so in no way demonstrates an objection to circumcision. Whilst I maintain that it could equally show an indifference, I suspect that the vast, vast majority of uncircumcised men, if positively presented freely with the choice, would flatly refuse, as would I.
 
Southwind17 said:
So, again, I repeat, the fact that the majority of uncircumcised men choose to remain so in no way demonstrates an objection to circumcision. Whilst I maintain that it could equally show an indifference, I suspect that the vast, vast majority of uncircumcised men, if positively presented freely with the choice, would flatly refuse, as would I.
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Most likely because of the three weeks of icepacks on the groin, and fear of getting aroused? And, medically, nothing about adult circumcision has much bearing on doing it an infant, so treating the two as equivalent is another instance of fanaticism leading to wrong/dishonest thinking.
 
I got put off contibuting more to this thread as it grew faster than my inclination to keep up with it; but the following study
http://www.cirp.org/library/anatomy/taves1/
seems to have some bearing here. Doesn't it claim that having the foreskin over the glans when penetrating the vagina leads to a reduction of the force required? Doesn't this suggest that sex is improved with a foreskin?
 
Ivor the Engineer said:
I'm not surprised you think I have not presented any convincing evidence, since you have already stated you require an impossible standard of evidence to change your mind. No matter - I'm not trying to convince you (or Loss Leader).

All the evidence I need you have already quoted:

Facts:

1) Less than 1% of boys contract a UTI in their first year of life. Thus ~100 boys are circumcised for no medical benefit. If you adjust for other factors, the ratio becomes even larger. IIRC, the uncirc./circ. UTI incidence was ~1 in 140 / ~1 in 550 in one of the studies you quoted. That's a RR of less than 4.

2) It is recommended to avoid unnecessary traumatic experiences, since these can affect the establishment of breastfeeding.

3) The complication rate for circumcision is estimated at about 2%, though it depends exactly what is classed as a complication.

While you like to call people who disagree with your irrational opinion 'anti-circumcision', I can assure you I am not against circumcision at all. All I require is a rational justification for the procedure to be carried out on a child. I.e., an obvious physical defect, or, more generally, likely serious harm if the procedure is not performed. You know, the normal, rational and ethical reasons for parents choosing (and a physician performing) irreversible surgery on a child.

As for Africa, here's a story I found some time ago about what's going on there (copied from another thread):


The article also reveals that circumcision costs $69. How many condoms could be provided for $69?
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I've read similar article describing the very real possibility of dis-inhibition; one recent article from Rwanda had this gem:

"Mister, these Aids people have spoken for long about fighting the disease, but they had never come up with a practical solution as good as this one. Don’t have sex, don’t do this, don’t do that. Eh, man, how can a young man such as I forfeit sex, eh? And the condoms – where is the sense in putting on a condom when you are having sex? Sex is about feeling, and so no young person likes them!"
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wwwDOTnewtimesDOTcoDOTrw/index.php?issue=13438&article=4113

I have a feeling that this attitude will be very common in Africa and they may undo a lot of the hard won progress made in those countries over the past 20 years or so. BTW, I believe I read somewhere that at the bulk rates that these agencies buy condoms at they cost about 0.03 cents each.
 
volatile said:
I can assure you that there are men who choose to get circumcisions in adulthood.
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I can assure you that I know this. I can also assure you that effectively zero percent of them do it "on a whim." Which is the whole point of my argument.
 
Southwind17 said:
And out of the total World male population what percentage, approximately, would you say you know the circumcision-on-a-whim status of? Feel free to cite your sources.
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Feel free to cite your sources to the contrary. Can you find me any examples of men who have circumcisions on a whim?
 
JoeEllison said:
And, medically, nothing about adult circumcision has much bearing on doing it an infant, so treating the two as equivalent is another instance of fanaticism leading to wrong/dishonest thinking.
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I'm not sure I agree. I reckon if you were to ask those same uncircumcised men whether they would, if they could, relive their lives and decide now, as adults, whether to be circumcised as infants, in full knowledge of all of the inherent "risks" and "benefits" that infant circumcision brings, the same vast,vast majority would decline. But that might be argued to be a little too hypothetical to be worthy of more than a cursory consideration.
 
rocketdodger said:
Feel free to cite your sources to the contrary. Can you find me any examples of men who have circumcisions on a whim?
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Hey buddy, I'm not the one making the wild, sweeping statements here. If you claim to know the thinking and predispositions of all the uncircumcised men on the planet you've got to be able to back it up with something. So, as I previously wrote, feel free to cite your sources.
 
Naughtyhippo said:
I got put off contibuting more to this thread as it grew faster than my inclination to keep up with it; but the following study
http://www.cirp.org/library/anatomy/taves1/
seems to have some bearing here. Doesn't it claim that having the foreskin over the glans when penetrating the vagina leads to a reduction of the force required? Doesn't this suggest that sex is improved with a foreskin?
Click to expand...

Jeez, I'm genuinely starting to have some serious concerns now. I've never considered, not to mention manipulated, my foreskin to aid insertion, as inferred therein. I've always assumed that retraction is the way to go, possibly because that's what tends to happen naturally upon getting a full erection. Moreover, do any men seriously apply condoms to their penis with the foreskin un-retracted? To my mind that's a sure-fire way to prolong the act of intercourse. I reckon I could last a fortnight doing that, and no, that's not me boasting! Am I in the minority here, because I've never really understood the purpose of the foreskin when it comes to insertion?!
 
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Upchurch - can I expect an answer to this, or was it the case that you just thought it entertaining to re-light the perennial circumcision fuse wire again, so fabricated a pretext?
Southwind17 said:
Incidentally, I'm still intrigued to learn your response to my earlier question (Post #92):
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Southwind17 said:
I'm assuming you already knew your wife was pregnant, and that you've just identified the gender(?). But then I'm a little puzzled. What revelation(s) might have led you to share bad news?!
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Southwind17 said:
Jeez, I'm genuinely starting to have some serious concerns now. I've never considered, not to mention manipulated, my foreskin to aid insertion, as inferred therein. I've always assumed that retraction is the way to go, possibly because that's what tends to happen naturally upon getting a full erection. Moreover, do any men seriously apply condoms to their penis with the foreskin un-retracted? To my mind that's a sure-fire way to prolong the act of intercourse. I reckon I could last a fortnight doing that, and no, that's not me boasting! Am I in the minority here, because I've never really understood the purpose of the foreskin when it comes to insertion?!
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Ah, sorry, coming from serious monogamy here. Not sure what the force reduction would be on a pre-lubricated condom either.

Anecdotely speaking, it is perfectly possible for to have a good enough erection to go with, and still not have a retracted foreskin: I'd not noticed that it made anything easier though.
 
Southwind17 said:
Hey buddy, I'm not the one making the wild, sweeping statements here. If you claim to know the thinking and predispositions of all the uncircumcised men on the planet you've got to be able to back it up with something. So, as I previously wrote, feel free to cite your sources.
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But I have. It seems perfectly clear to me, so please tell me where my logic errs:

1) Only a very small proportion of adult males undergo adult male circumcisions.
2) Of those, every single one I have ever heard of had a strong overriding reason for doing so.

I guess you are right -- I can't cite any sources saying that nobody does it on a whim. You also cannot prove that god does not exist. So what?
 
Reading in "Panatti's Extraordinary Endings of Practicality Everything and Everybody", he says the Judiac practice of circumcision was part of the new Chrisitianity, until Paul realized it was a major problem with potential converts, so in the "Epistle to the Romans", he made it a virtual rite, one of the mind and heart.
That essentially put paid to the practice.
It occasionally popped up, for "purity" reasons until the 19th century physician Johnathan Hutchinson pulished "On Circumcisioin as Preventative of Masturbation". In the US, parents were offering their sons to the knife, to save their souls from the sin. The "health" benefits would come later. The foreskin was the source of "nocturnal incontinence, hysteria, epilepsy and feeble-mindedness".
The practice became common as childbirth moved from the home to the hospital.
 
volatile said:
I wrote an encyclopaedia entry on the practice of subincision... If you have any questions, ask away. :)
Click to expand...

The thread that will not die.
Well, uhmm, do they sterilize the stone knife?

ETATAIFAW. I asked quite a few pertinent questions a while back. Has Skeptigirl left the premises?
(Edited thread after thinking about it for a while)
 
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