[QUOTE=Helen’s Eidolon]
… because most of us are looking for ANYTHING that will help stop the spread of AIDS?
Do you hope that circumcision isn’t proven to help?
[/QUOTE]
Looking for “anything” that will help is one thing. Putting “anything” into practice before you know for sure is irresponsible. Circumcision isn’t harmless and routine in Africa. Before we resort to it, we need to be very sure the lives lost to it are worth the lives saved by it.
[QUOTE=levdrakon]
Putting “anything” into practice before you know for sure is irresponsible.
[/QUOTE]
You’re right. I’ll be sure to put the SDMB Circumcisions for Africans program on hold immediately.
[QUOTE=Excalibre]
You’re right. I’ll be sure to put the SDMB Circumcisions for Africans program on hold immediately.
[/QUOTE]
Whew! Glad **levdrakon **got that Straw Man taken care of!
[QUOTE=WhyNot]
Whew! Glad **levdrakon **got that Straw Man taken care of!
[/QUOTE]
What, he needed to be circumcised, too?
[QUOTE=levdrakon]
Looking for “anything” that will help is one thing. Putting “anything” into practice before you know for sure is irresponsible. Circumcision isn’t harmless and routine in Africa. Before we resort to it, we need to be very sure the lives lost to it are worth the lives saved by it.
[/QUOTE]
Yes, perhaps some studies should be done… I hope they prove it works!
[QUOTE=Smeghead]
Yes, perhaps some studies should be done… I hope they prove it works!
[/QUOTE]
Your screename + this topic = 
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan]
the reason that at the age of 12 I was unable to master the Force and construct my own lightsabre, was because I’m an idiot
[/QUOTE]
ok, so far so good
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan]
female circumcision, even allowing for retaining of the clitoris, has decidely negative effects for women and that the vaginal lips serve a different function than the foreskin
[/QUOTE]
well, the outer ones have that hood… which is more analogous to the foreskin, i guess. ok, we’ll explicitly cut that. in exchange you can have back your labia minora to protect a bit against yeast or whatever. Or hell, how about we only take the hood? Nice and simple, no more dangerous than a circumcision. Probably not exactly analogous in many ways (size, sensitivity), but we can work with it for now.
so… if convincing parents to cut off the clitoral hoods of their children (and let their clits rub against their panties for the rest of their lives) to cut down their chance of aids… what would you be arguing then?
that’s one inconcistency that has to be resolved.
The second one is that it is ok to do something to an involuntary newborn which will affect the rest of his life, but not ok to force it on full-grown adults or even just adolescents.
yeah? then cut the bullshit and say, “we should be telling parents to perform genital mutilation on their children because it’ll save lives.” and maybe, for total consistency, you can add, “and forcibly circumcise adult men too.” I won’t argue. I’ll even see your point, and respect you.
what pisses me off is you won’t do that. you’re a hypocrite, and you won’t admit the paradox in your view. i mean of course, maybe i’m wrong and it isn’t mutilation. maybe you can show me that it turns the penis into a flower, or that girls have a special flow of chi that hood-cutting interrupts. or, like i said, you admit it is but that it should be forcibly done anyway. but the only shit i hear you saying is that either the question shouldn’t be discussed at all, or that the answer to the question “does circumcision have ethical implications” is: “AIDS”
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan]
To say that this comment is indicative of Alex_Dubinsky having some “issues” is like saying that an illuminated sign on the Moon lit by several million googol watt bulbs that reads, “I’m insecure about my penis.” is kind of bright.
[/QUOTE]
you’re projecting worse than a headlight. you’re the one without a foreskin. the only reason you organized this little thing is because you’re dying of insecurity regarding your circumcised penis. there was no other reason for you to get emotional over this debate.
[QUOTE=levdrakon]
First, in the other threads about this the idea was proposed that quarantine might be a perfectly reasonable & acceptable way of dealing with HIV. Other posters felt quite free to enter the thread and call that “barbaric.” I see no reason why AD shouldn’t be able to call circumcision “barbaric” in a thread about circumcision.
[/quote]
Perhaps because no one advocated isolating HIV+ individuals in my thread? Perhaps because no one brandished a razor blade and screamed, “Let’s cut their little peckers off!”? Perhaps because until AD showed up there was a rational discussion going on in that thread? Those reasons good enough for you, or do you need others?
Let’s see here, would you consider it a good trade if we got the witch doctors so busy with cutting foreskins that they didn’t have time to recommend screwing virgins? Even in the limited conditions of Africa, circumcision is not that sophisticated of a medical proceedure to perform. Lord knows that the Jews have been doing it for several thousand years with little problems to show for it. Sterilizing a knife isn’t all that difficult, time consuming, or resource heavy. All it takes is a few moments in a hot fire or immersion in alcohol or bleach for a few moments. Treating AIDS, however, costs $10K per person per year in Africa (that’s with the discounts given by the pharma companies, BTW.), given that many nations in Africa can’t afford such basic things as adequate food, infrastructure, educational facilities, and other things that we in the developed world take for granted, something as inexpensive as circumcision (which requires no where near the level of medical training that diagnosing and handing out anti-HIV drugs does) is a tremendous boon if it does as the studies indicate.
That’s pure speculation on your part, and you’re assuming that the folks in Africa, once they’ve been shown how simple it is to sterilize a knife (assuming they don’t already know) will neglect to do so. Yes, there is a risk of infection, but no doubt millions of Africans get cuts every day and the majority of them survive.
If you’ll note that our highest rates of HIV infection are among gay males and IV drug users, which circumcision is not shown to protect against, while in Africa the highest rates of infection are among heterosexuals, which, at least according to the latest studies, can be reduced by circumcision, I think you’ll find your answer.
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan]
Perhaps because no one advocated isolating HIV+ individuals in my thread? Perhaps because no one brandished a razor blade and screamed, “Let’s cut their little peckers off!”? Perhaps because until AD showed up there was a rational discussion going on in that thread? Those reasons good enough for you, or do you need others?
[/quote]
Let’s have a look at your original thread’s OP. It consisted of a thread title and two sentences.
You’re upset because the thread wasn’t all “rah, rah, rah, yay Tuckerfan, rational discussion, rational discussion, rational discussion!” Or are you just a sourpuss who’s upset the whole world doesn’t share your “everyone should get circumcised and we’ll all be saved” fantasy?
You seem to be as enthusiastically pro-circumcision as AD is anti-circumcision. You make a perfect pair. Why chase him out of your thread? Personally I think you two are good for each other.
[QUOTE=Alex_Dubinsky]
well, the outer ones have that hood… which is more analogous to the foreskin, i guess. ok, we’ll explicitly cut that. in exchange you can have back your labia minora to protect a bit against yeast or whatever. Or hell, how about we only take the hood? Nice and simple, no more dangerous than a circumcision. Probably not exactly analogous in many ways (size, sensitivity), but we can work with it for now.
so… if convincing parents to cut off the clitoral hoods of their children (and let their clits rub against their panties for the rest of their lives) to cut down their chance of aids… what would you be arguing then?
that’s one inconcistency that has to be resolved.
[/quote]
Well, let’s see here, if it did, as you say, reduce the chance of HIV infection, and didn’t put the female at greater risk of infections through out life and didn’t make sex incredibly painful for them, but still allowed them to enjoy sex, then I’d support it as soon as studies came out showing this to be the case. Of course, given the vast anatomical differences between men and women, this is an impossibility.
Infants don’t have any say in the matter about being vaccinated, either (and I don’t doubt most of them would say that they didn’t want them), but we force them to get the vaccinations since they can save lives. Once you get to adulthood, no one forces you (with a few exceptions) to be vaccinated against anything.
The only person spouting bullshit is you. I’ve provided statistics, cites, and kept a calm, rational tone. You, on the other hand, can’t even master simple capitalization. Why should I care if you respect me or not? You obviously don’t care enough about your point of view to present it in a reasoned and well thought out manner. If this issue was something to which you had devoted a great deal of rational thought to, you’d be willing to take the time to compose your posts in a manner most people would find condusive to reading, instead of merely vomiting out streams of barely coherent words.
Show me the paradox in my view.
Except, of course, I’ve shown you a news report on studies which show that there’s a reduction in transmission and you refuse to believe them. You refuse to believe the other cites people have posted which support this.
Show me where I said it should be forcibly be done to anyone. I didn’t.
Well, let’s see here, the topic of discussion was “Studies have shown that circumcision can cut the risk of AIDS by 60%” (I’ll point out that other studies [some with mixed results] have shown that circumcison can reduce the risk of all STDs and some forms of cancer in both men and women), you offer nothing other than the charge that such a proceedure is barbaric and that “there has to be a better way,” so show me how I’m spouting shit and you’re not. Given that some of the finest medical minds this planet has to offer are busy doing everything they can to stop the wildfire that is AIDS and that they are offering circumcision up as one way that HIV can be slowed down, I can promise you a Nobel Prize if you can come up with anything that is not only 100% effective, but 100% of the population is willing to use.
Heh. You don’t know me at all. First of all, and you can do a search on this, this Pit thread has the fewest emotionally loaded words of any Pit thread I’ve ever written. It has the least amount of profanity, on my part, of any Pit thread I’ve written, and hell, it’s probably the only Pit thread I’ve written where I’ve provided a cite in the OP. (Oh, and BTW, my dick has been the subject of at least one Pit thread [there’s probably others, certainly the various snarkboarders have had more than one about my pecker, if nothing else], but the fact that I’m snipped has never been mentioned in one AFAIK until now.) You, on the other hand, have waded in here with your lack of capitalization, offered up nothing but insults and patently false accusations. Now, step back from the computer for a moment and ask yourself this question, “Even if someone does agree with me that circumcision is genital mutilation, who is going to come off looking like the more rational and intelligent poster: Me or Tuckerfan?” I’ll give you three guesses as to what the correct answer is.
[QUOTE=levdrakon]
You’re upset because the thread wasn’t all “rah, rah, rah, yay Tuckerfan, rational discussion, rational discussion, rational discussion!” Or are you just a sourpuss who’s upset the whole world doesn’t share your “everyone should get circumcised and we’ll all be saved” fantasy?
[/quote]
Let’s see, did I Pit saoirse for disagreeing with me? No. Did I Pit Excalibre for saying that he prefers his men to be uncut? No. Did I state that circumcision will save everyone? No. Did I say that this looked to be a good thing? Yes, yes, I did. Did I recommend everyone get their pesky snipped? No. So where you’re drawing the conclusion that I’m somehow Pitting AD simply because he disagrees with me is a mystery.
Except I’m not the one making blanket statements as to the value of circumcision. I’ve pointed out one instance (with cite) that indicates that it might be a positive thing, by contrast, AD has screamed, hurled insults, and generally made an incomprehensible ass out of himself.
Just like matter and anti-matter.
Because in addition to his other qualities that I’ve mentioned, he’s a sanctimonious, semi-literate sheep pimp.
Personally, I have to believe based on your most recent comments you’re incapable of thinking.
[QUOTE=Malthus]
Isn’t there a somewhat of a mini-movement against male circumcision? I seem to recall other threads, on this board and elsewhere, containing much (to me) rather bizzare ranting on the subject.
[/QUOTE]
No, there’s not a “mini”-movement, there’s a HUGE OVERWHELMING movement against circumcision based entirely (though they’ll never admit this) on emotion and politics. It is as pseudo-scientific and contrary to one’s best health interests as laetrile and magnet therapy, and as you suggest, it is replete with the most outrageous crackpottery imaginable. Those people all think like Alex_Dubinsky.
If the American Pediatric Association doesn’t reverse their anti-scientific, mass-murderous “not recommended” posture they should be sued by every family in the U.S. with an uncircumcised loved one who died of AIDS.
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
Well, it’s kinda hard to compare sensations felt by two different individuals (one who’s been clipped from an early age and one who hasn’t). It would be as absurd as my trying to prove that the color I call “blue” is the same one you call “blue”. We could show that our sensitivity in the blue part of the spectrum is the same, and show we can distinguish blue from orange, but for all I know, what you’re calling “blue” is what I call “red”.
[/QUOTE]
Don’t you think that’s a rather hackneyed old pseudo-philosophical idea? I think that “problem”, although it has a certain old-fashioned, pre-scientific validity, is not much more than frosh bull-session rambling. (Note I’m not calling you a frosh bull-session artist, I’m just saying the idea is of that nature). Ramachandran, for example, addresses that issue adroitly in several ways to argue effectively that there are at least hypothetical techniques that could solve that old conundrum, but that the issue probably doesn’t exist in the first place because evolution produced human “wiring” that is just far too consistent for such an issue to arise in the real world if you employ reasonable statistical techniques in the experiments and analysis.
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
And I don’t know any way to quantify human sensitivity.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t see any problem with that at all, at least in the domain of sexual sensations from the penis. Why not just insert a series of delicate electrodes into the appropriate nerves and measure the waveform characteristics (I strongly doubt that the electrodes would have to be placed in the penis proper)? There is a whole raft of long-existant quantification/measurement equipment to do just that. I am virtually certain this has a long and well-established history.
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
And comparing results for a person circumcized as an adult won’t necessarily tell you the answer.
[/QUOTE]
Well “necessarily” is an easy cop-out qualifier, isn’t it? Do you have any arguments or evidence as to why it would not? I can’t think of a single reason why that wouldn’t be 99% probative and conclusive. Can you think of a good, strong reason for doubting it would tell us the answer?
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
Me, I’m against male circumcision in general.
[/QUOTE]
That’s your view, and of course that’s inarguable for that reason. But as someone who has explored this issue carefully for many years and has read several books and medical papers on the issue, there is no good rational, scientific justification for that view whatsoever. The clear preponderance of the scientific medical evidence is that, excluding the protective effect against HIV, routine neonatal circumcision is more than justified. But WITH the protective effect against HIV and other STDs, it is BY FAR the most medically justified decision.
[QUOTE=Helen’s Eidolon]
God, I love the circumcision debates. The JDT incident is one of my favourite series of threads ever.
[/QUOTE]
Do you have a link?
[QUOTE=saoirse]
As I pointed out in the other thread, The American Academy of Pediatrics does not recommend circumcision. Other countries’ pediatric associations actually recommend against it.
[/QUOTE]
But I think that others have reversed this unscientific anti-circ recommendation.
[QUOTE=saoirse]
Anyone who has had a male child in the past 20 years should be well aware that there are real argunebts against doing this.
[/QUOTE]
“Real” in that people make such arguments, but certainly not “real” in the sense that they’re both significant and scientifically sound. If you review the medical literature for the last 10-20 years, you’ll find that there are much stronger arguments and evidence for routine neonatal circumcision than against it.
[QUOTE=saoirse]
Also, Circumcision can only reduce your risk of getting HIV if you’re in a position to be infected in the first place. If men feel safe going bareback because they’re circumcised, we’re not going to reduce AIDS infections very much.
[/QUOTE]
That’s generally quite true, but there are several other aspects to consider. Two of them are: (1) there are sudden, in-the-moment passionate encounters where neither party has a condom to consider, and (2) there are considerable number of men who have sex with a mistress, stranger, or prostitute who then go back to their marriage beds and infect their partner because the wife thinks her husband isn’t cheating on her. Don’t these wives have a right to this added protection?
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
Yup. See saoirse’s post above.Plus, in my day, it was believed that circumcision was proof against cancer .
[/QUOTE]
Neonatal circumcision IS STILL a 100% “proof” against penile cancer. Although it must be admitted that penile cancer is very rare, how low does the risk have to be to be willing to amputate your dick?
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
Nowadays they say that you just have to keep it clean.
[/QUOTE]
Yep, that’s just what they say. And that’s stupid as hell, since I know from much direct and indirect experience that few boys/men routinely clean under their foreskins like they MUST for that “advice” to have any validity. Does your son always clean his room on a regular basis?
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
I’m geberally against cutting anything that doesn’t need to be.
[/QUOTE]
So am I. But this trivial bit of skin does need to trimmed if you care about your or your son’s health. Not to mention other important factors.
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
I’m not familiar with the arguments for snipping in Africa…
[/QUOTE]
or anywhere else, obviously!
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
… but I suspect this is much more than a simple open-and-shut case.
[/QUOTE]
Just as it’s much more than a simple open-and-shut case that relativity is a fact or that themerisol doesn’t cause autism. Yet those are the facts.
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
You could as easily have said in the 1950s “even if it prevents cancer?”, and been just as wrong.
[/QUOTE]
If you meant lung cancer or something like that, sure. But if you meant penile cancer, you would absolutely be absolutely right. And the evidence that routine neonatal circumcision reduces HIV and other STD infections to a MAJOR degree (the best evidence shows uncirc’d men have approximately 800% greater risk of HIV infection compared to circ’d men in the same cohort) is simply overwhelming, and has been for many years. The study conclusions that came out recently essentially just proved these facts for the umpteenth time.
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
Most men don’t make the decision – it’s made for babies who don’t get a vote.
[/QUOTE]
I can hardly believe you said that. Are you suggesting that parents must not act in the baby’s best interests at the best time for those decisions? Because neonatal circumcision is the ONLY time you get the full benefits of circumcision. You simply CANNOT ethically wait for the child/adult to decide for himself! That would be exactly akin to waiting until the child/adult could decide for himself whether to get his childhood vaccinations! YIKES!
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
How major a difference in HIV incidence does circumcision make relative to uncircumcised with clean habits?
[/QUOTE]
All of the medical circumcision studies done in the U.S. have done their best to compare only apples to apples with the exception of their circumcised state. They control for all other variables. And the result is what I posted above from studies done prior to the recently released study results: uncir’d men have approximately an 800% increased risk over circ’d men in the same cohort.
[QUOTE=The Flying Dutchman]
As an uncircumcised male in his 50’s, let me tell you that when it comes to an erection, there is no difference between whether you’ve been cut or not. An independant obsever would be hard pressed to distinguish a circunmcised erection from the natural erection.
[/QUOTE]
I disagree with that. I can tell 99.9% of the time from a few feet away, let alone close up. I’ve seen a considerable amount of male porn, and I can always tell.
But this is an aesthetic issue, is it not?
[QUOTE=levdrakon]
It hasn’t been proven to be a prophylactic against AIDS. Actually, circumcised men may be at greater risk of HIV infection.
[/quote]
Oh, great. Cites from one of the most vehemently anti-scientific, anti-circumcision sites and groups in the world! They always cherry-pick their data and evidence. They have no scientific or medical credibility at all; they are a purely political group with no genuine interest in advancing men’s health.
I’ll let TuckerFan and others deal with the rest of your post.
[QUOTE=levdrakon]
It’s a new STUDY, not new proof.
[/QUOTE]
It’s yet another in an extremely long series of CONFIRMING studies that demonstrate the proof that circumcision is highly prophylactic against HIV and other STDs. So yes, it’s proof. As much proof as proof is possible.
[QUOTE=levdrakon]
I’m a little tired of people treating circumcision as if it’s as safe & routine as getting your ear pierced.
[/QUOTE]
It’s as safe as getting your ear pierced, but it’s unfortunately not routine anymore, which in my opinion is serious medical malpractice.