Woulda, shoulda, coulda. That’s not the way the world works. A person is smart. People are dumb, scared animals and you know it. Look, frood. What I’m saying is that either solution (condoms/circumcision) is a hard sell. You are going for one that only has a minor advantage and gives a false sense of security. For preventing STDs condom use and education are far more effective, efficient and easier to promote. We’ve been over this.
Goddamn CITE. So far all you’re giving us is that all the legitimate studies that find reasons against circumcison are biased and influenced by loons, while the ones that promote it should be unquestionably believed. Convenient, that.
Yes, citing morons on a messageboard instead of official research is going to make you look smart. There are dweebs on both sides of the fence, and anecdotal evidence is NOT any basis for any psychological . Just 'cuz this guy has issues, everyone is a loon?
You don’t seem to be emotionally involved at all. No sir. The fact that you lost a loved one to AIDS does not come into play, either.
Also, I just cant’t find the words to tell you how utterly flabbergasted I am that you seriously seem to believe this. I feel like I’m being whooshed and trolled all over. how would “post-modern political theory” advocate non-circumcision? How does that even work? And are you seriously believing that all these people are in it for their own sexual gratification? One would think there would be more direct ways to satisfy this. I’m amazed that you don’t immediatly classify all these people as raging pedofiles, since they *clearly * all lust for underage, uncut boycock.
Of course, it must be tremendously soothing to you to classify anybody who doesn’t share your opinion as mentally unstable. After all, you in your infinite wisdom cannot possibly be wrong, right?
Thank you for your lovely homophobia. I don’t even understand what you mean (and excalibre seems to wholeheartedly disagree with it from personal experience), but thank you.
Anyway, Tuckerfan, I’m glad you’ve agreed that if cutting out pieces of the vulva were to protect people from AIDS, you would encourage it.
As I said several times (although not as I’ve implied in my tone, I suppose), I can easily see how genital mutilation could be an acceptable countermeasure to mass death.
I must be pissing many of you off by using such language, and my main goal was to attract attention to how differently our culture considers the cutting of men and women. We have to look at this carefully, and figure out what we truly believe.
And even if circumcision is recommendable, we must also think very carefully if we can force it onto non-willing newborns and the adults who they will become. Of course a big difference between forcibly circumcising adults and circumcising them as newborns is that they’ll never know what they’re missing (and if they’ll actually miss anything is another debate to continue, but it might be best to deal with the argumentative contingencies first). Again, it must piss you off to hear me say that, but honestly, think hard about what else could make forcibly snipping newborns more acceptable than forcibly snipping men. (And no, just because a relative condones it does not mean it is not forcible).
Now, I’m not about to search out for any argument that I can to counter circumcision. WhyNot brought up that circumcision imparts trauma on the child. I do not agree with that. I have been to a Jewish ritual circumcision, and to my surprise the baby did not even wince when his skin was cut. In fact, he only cried when they rubbed him clean afterward (proving that he wasn’t drugged). Now I’ll bet doctors in hospitals might be much less skilled than experienced rabbis, but the procedure does not appear inherently painful.
However, a great deal of sensitive tissue is cut off, and the rest undergoes a process where it becomes calloused (ie, irritation leads to keratinization). This cannot simply be dismissed. True, the philosophical question of missing something you’ve never had is still relevant. The point that sex is in large part psychological (and pleasure swings widely with mood) is an even bigger factor, by far! As you can see, I’m trying to bring up arguments from all sides (and I do not play that game of hoping that my opponents will be clumsy). If I had let emotion rise too high, I apologize.
Now we had those two posters who underwent adult circumcision. They maintained that their sex life did not face a downturn. However, if you are still reading, I beseech you to answer my question regarding condom use. If you have always been using condoms and not rolling down your foreskins, it would not be possible to make an accurate comparison with the present. (Please answer, the truth serves everyone). In fact, condoms do a great deal to interfere with the normal mode of operation of the foreskin. The majority of its pleasure is derived from it being slid up and down (this affects the nerves in the foreskin but JUST AS IMPORTANTLY gives extra stimulation to the glans). It is an interesting hypothesis that a foreskin might also reduce condom use. Could this be a contributing factor in the results of the study?
I made the point in another thread that it might be a good strategy to scare and guilt-trip people from multiple angles (circumcision, abstinence, etc.) with the hope that they will end up at least going with the least painful (condoms). I do not say this in jest, but I admit I am uncomfortable with the by-any-means attitude.
However, the reason it is important to have a long discussion on the effects of circumcision, and then on the ethics of circumcision given its effects… Why it is important to discuss the ethics despite the millions of lives lost to aids… Is because circumcision is not the only solution (nor is it even a solution). There are many others, such as antimicrobial gels (which actually attract users because they are good lube), gels which hold AIDS drugs (which prevent the virus from taking hold), cervical rings which release such agents long-term, old-fashioned diaphragms, and low-dose oral prophylactic courses of those same drugs (which, again, prevent contracting HIV). Let us also not forget that using those drugs on people HIV+ (which must be done anyway) greatly reduces the chances of transmission in itself.
Each one of those things probably will do as much to combat the spreads of AIDS or more than circumcision. They all have drawbacks, but let us not go on and pretend that circumcision is above drawbacks.
That is why circumcision, like all those treatments, must be considered carefully. On its merits. And we must refrain from getting too excited or overly-optimistic about any particular treatment.
hmm, regarding ambushed’s apparent homophobia. I looked closer and found:
Hmm. Maybe he’s the one who loves the look (or feel?) of foreskin, and projects it on everyone else.
But anyway, ambushed, you make a great deal of concrete, debatable, falsifiable points (at least towards the beginning). That’s more than can be said for many other posters. However, you cloud it all with rabbid emotion, even more than I do. Perhaps you could restate some of those things calmly, and be prepared for a civilized discussion.
Dude, I’ll give you this, you’re trying. You’re no JDT. However, here’s the thing. I’m not rabidly pro Circ, but it seems to me to be the wise course. I’m cut, my one son is and my other one isn’t. Frankly, I wish they both were, the uncut one is 12 years old. Have you ever tried to get a 12 year old to wash behind his ears? Multiply that by 10 and add in the embarrassment about talking about his penis and you’ll have an idea as to how hard it is to make him understand that he has to wash beneath his foreskin. I’ve tried. I’ve told him again and again, but he still doesn’t do it. Yes, he’s 12, but he’s not that far from being an adult, and saying “we’ll just teach people to wash under their foreskins” is naive to an extent that borders on foolishness and unrealistic in the real world. Men, in general, aren’t going to take the time and effort to wash under their foreskins unless there is pain from the area, and by that time it’s too late. I think all in all, evidence favors circumcision versus non circumcision. We already know that circumcision prevents penile cancer. This study shows that it might have a significant effect toward preventing AIDS. Those are two unquestionably positive results. On the negative side, we have a bunch of hippies arguing that it’s not “natural” and a bunch of people who can’t admit that the fault lies, to murder the bard, “not within the stars but within themselves”. There is not one shred of scientific evidence that circumcision negatively impacts a man’s sexual experience, just a lot of folks blaming circumcision for their own shortcomings. Forgive me if I don’t buy it. Anti-Circ folks throw around terms like “calloused” and “keratinization”, all without any proof that they are anything other than the product of your own fevered imagination. That’s not going to cut it(heh. Pun intended) in the real world.
What you did is load a seemingly innocent & innocuous thread with “Promising news, and I’m sure that a certain ex-Doper is out there screaming, “Conspiracy! Conspiracy! Conspiracy!” :D” It’s like you deliberately baited someone with a contrary POV to come in so you could leap on over to the pit and fire up the thread you really wanted. Judging by the traffic in this thread vs. the traffic in your original thread - you got what you wanted.
Of course you are.
And one instance should make Africa a universal circumcision zone? Because little ol’ Tuckerfan knows better than millions of African men what’s good fer 'em? What conceit.
But to a much lesser degree than you & most of your buddies here.
I stand corrected. You are the epitome of rational calm.
I think, that when you say “think” you really mean "I make emotionally influenced wild-ass assumptions & guesses.
Should I even bother asking you for a cite?
If it’s so highly prophylactic than why do we have such a high incidence of HIV infection among circumcised males in the US?
Cite? For the factual part. You’re opinions scare me, so please don’t elucidate. I still need to sleep tonight.
Cite?
Oh, gee. How far can we be from going Godwin? Ancient Jews cut their sons and accepted the casualties. They also put their mouths on the boy’s cock and sucked the blood from it. Not a contemporarily, medically advised practice. But hey, the Jews did it for centuries, it must be good. Here’s the Wiki blurb on circumcision:
I don’t see much in there that makes “the Jews did it for centuries” argument at all convincing.
At the age of 12, I couldn’t even pull my foreskin back to be able to wash it. (For those who aren’t aware, it detaches and loosens during puberty.) These days I worry about smells and wash it religiously. Granted, the hygiene issues are annoying, but I figure it just squares men with women in the sushi department. However, offhand I would expect foreskin washing to be on the level of douching (ie, don’t mess with what evolution intended). Besides cancer (which is very rare), what is the real benefit to washing? Perhaps I am ignorant, but I’m pretty sure the foreskin exists specifically so things wouldn’t grow under it. You might be overconcerned regarding your son.
Mostly for lack of trying, which means don’t start pretending there are any conclusions one way or the other. I tried to bring in a study which links circumcision to quicker ejaculation (studies can only observe things such as that), and attempted to extrapolate. However, you guys don’t like that sort of thing. Which is unfortunate, because extrapolation from data is all we can do (in any field and any study except the most trivial).
Whoa, whoa, there are studies which show keratinization occurs (again, one of those observables). This is the same thing that happens when a callus develops (one of those inferences). There is common sense (well, biological common sense) that says a skin’s natural reaction to irritation is to thicken and desensitize. Under the foreskin, the glans receives virtually zero direct stimulus and its skin is thus very thin and sensitive. When I was first able to pull back my foreskin, any touch would produce extreme pain. Over time with expose it desensitized a bit, as one would expect. Anecdotes from adult-circumcision patients (such as those who posted in the parent thread) unanimously say that desensitization further occurs once the shield of the foreskin is fully removed.
Now by all means pain doesn’t just translate to pleasure. The role of the mind is paramount, and this cannot be stressed enough. Yet to say that sensitivity does not change or that the skin does not adapt is to be in denial.
I don’t understand why people, like you and Tuckerfan keep assuming that those arguing against circumcision are themselves circumcised. I guess having the point be argued by uncircumcised assholes who think they are better than you isn’t exactly an improvement… but if anything, I’d be blaming the uncircumcised assholes not the self-hating jews.*
*totally inaccurate since it’s not just the jews who are circumcised, but i couldn’t resist
Mom taught me from the earliest days I can remember to make sure I always carefully wash my foreskin. Never mind I don’t have a foreskin, and she really should have been more clear on that as she’s the one ordered it cut off. Mom was under the impression a boy’s dick was a festering pool of horrifying disease. So I made sure to diligently wash it anyway, even though I wasn’t sure what this “foreskin” was I was supposed to be keeping clean lest my dick come down with leprosy or something. No, I didn’t wash behind my ears. Fuck that. But I sure as hell washed my dick, and I don’t recall any embarrassment about talking about it. Mom kept harping on “make sure you wash your weewee-er” and I did. Still do, in fact.
As ** Alex Dubinsky ** wrote, if removing the hood (I believe it’s the english word,correct me if I’ wrong) of the clitoris was proven to be effective to prevent AIDS, would you support widespread female circumcision at birth?
I too think there’s a mostly cultural issue here. If circumcision was traditionnally used only by some african tribes, there’s no way we would allow it in our countries.
Bullshit. This was all bullshit when JDT posted it 5 years ago, and it’s all bullshit now. You can’t link me to one scientific study saying any of this, only to the tripe on lunatic fringe websites like CIRP.
Can you state in a non-fallacious way that CIRP is “lunatic fringe?” Or must we all assume it’s lunatic fringe, because you with all your assumed popular authority, say it is?
Or maybe I was taking the opportunity to point and laugh at someone who was so irrational in their views that they exploded all over the board, lost their posting priviledges, and became the butt of innumerable jokes on this board.
Cite?
Again, show me where I said everyone should get snipped. Oh, wait, you can’t, because I didn’t. Show me where I suggested that this was the only solution to HIV anywhere. Yet again, you can’t.
Right, because obviously millions of African men are doing such a good job of stopping the spread of AIDS in Africa. In fact, they’ve done such a good job that AIDS is no longer an issue in Africa. :rolleyes:
Well, let’s see here, so far you’ve attempted to put words in my mouth, accused me of wanting to make my thread an egofest, and either deliberately, or because you lack the cognitive ability, have misinterpreted everyone’s post on the opposite side of the issue as you (as well as refusing to respond to direct questions and ignoring Helen’s Eidolon’s cites to medical journals on the issue), so what does that make you?
The only flaw in this is that circumcision, while it may protect men from HIV (and even this is in question), certainly does not protect women. And circumcision may put women at greater risk:
Some people have noted a distinct difference in “technique” during intercourse, comparing circumcised versus uncircumcised men, to wit:
That intact men tend toward gentle, slow motions, and can reach orgasm using those same gentle, slow motions.
That cut men, particularly men who were cut as infants, tend toward hard-and-fast pounding to receive enough stimulation to be able to orgasm. (You’ve seen it in pornos…you know what I mean.)
It is not unheard of for a woman to bleed a little (from abrasion) after a particularly vigorous session of lovemaking (not during her menses). Such women would be even more at risk than usual, from a partner with HIV. And in Africa, many women practice ‘dry sex’, meaning they deliberately dry up vaginal secretions using herbs, rendering themselves more susceptible to internal abrasion from vigorous intercourse.
The men on the restoration list who have fully restored, say that they get plenty of sensation using a condom with their restored skin, because of the gliding motion of the skin under the condom - but wearing a condom before was a sure way of killing almost all sensation. It seems to me, the really smart thing to do is to try to change the culture, as has been done successfully in some places, toward a known, verifiably successful method - one that would protect men AND women.
I have heard anecdote after anecdote, time and again, from men who have engaged in ‘restoration’ and, sometimes as early as 2-3 weeks in, go from ‘great’ sex to ‘wow, what have I been missing?’ to angry as hell for having missed it, to ‘mind blowing, full body, multiple orgasms without ejaculation…and THEN comes ejaculation’ sex.
I see no reason to doubt these anecdotes. Of course, they are not data. They will never be data. Especially they will never be data, because the scientific community seems to believe it’s all bullshit, and WILL NOT STUDY IT. And anyway, how does one quantify pleasure…or the lack thereof? But if I were a cut man, I would take the risk, including the possibility of feeling foolish, and do cross-taping (keeping my glans covered 24/7) for 6 weeks just to see if my sensation changed. I might call it my own little personal scientific experiment. If nothing felt different in 6 weeks, I would be justified in calling it poppycock. But I still couldn’t tell another man “I don’t feel a difference, therefore you’re a liar when you say you do feel one.”
I mean, hell. People go on diets for longer than that, and do all manner of voluntary body alteration, all in the hopes of improving their lives.
But this is still completely beside the point of HIV transmission to (and from) circumcised men compared to intact ones. And it ignores local sexual practices, including ‘dry sex’, other factors including general hygiene and nutritional status, all of which may factor into HIV rates in Africa. I doubt that changing one factor will make a significant impact over the long term, because of the other factors.
I’m really extremely surprised at the vitriol of ambushed on this issue (I’ve been away for a while). I’m not a technophobe or an emotionalist, and I’m not decrying modern medicine as “unnatural”. But it seems clear to me that circumcision is unnecessary, that good hygiene will minimize any problems, and that advocating circumcision for all because you can’t count on them cleaning up after themselves seems awfully patronizing.
The history of medicine is littered with well-intentioned acts that seem barbaric in retrospect. Would you advocate the removal of tonsils and appendices from the newborn because studies have shown that peoople without them never suffer from inflammations of those organs? Why not?
I have no idea whether “removing the hood” has the same effect as male circumcision. The main reason why female circumcision is more opposed is not “because Africans do it”, but because very often that form of circumcision involves removal of or damage to the clitoris, which eliminates female sexual pleasure:
Note the distinction between “Clitoridotomy” and “Clitoridectomy” and “Infibulation”.
It seems to me that if what you are talking about is that form of “Clitoridotomy” which is supposed to be similar to male circumcison, and it actually isproved to be similar in its effects (i.e., not harmful), and if it is proved to have the same medical benefits for females, why not support it?
The notion that “female circumcision” is only opposed because “Africans do it” seems to me fundamentally wrong. It is opposed because people associate it with the removal of/damage to the clitoris, which is part of the practice in many of its traditional forms. It is opposed because it is quite different from male circumcision, and, in general, considerably more harmful in its effects. It has, as far as I know, no legitimate heath benefits and many health drawbacks.
Each procedure should be judged on its own merits, to avoid this sort of “apples to oranges” comparison. When considering a medical procedure to be performed in infancy, the only question of importance is “could a guardian, acting in the best interests of a child, legitimately make this choice?”. The standard is not IMHO one of perfection; nor is it one that requires us to penalize those who make choices different from our preference.
It appears to me that there are legitimate grounds for choosing male circumcision. To date, there are none for female circumcision. However, if one were to prove that the particular proceduce was not harmful and had health benefits, such as acting as a prophylactic against AIDS, it seems to me silly to oppose it for purely cultural reasons.
I would not make a decision for a child of mine based on a fear that, in some unspecified point in the future, people will find modern medicine “barbaric”. I would make such a decision based on the current state of medical knowlege. I also recognize that different people could legitimately reach different conclusions based on such evidence. In the case of circumcision, some may choose it for a child, and others may not; I think that the current medical knowlege appears to state that it is good for a child, but that is just my read.
As for tonsils and appendices - the questions in my mind would be “what are the comparative risks and benefits of taking 'em out/leaving 'em in?” “Are the benefits worth the pain to the child of an operation?”.
One question I would not have is “will future ages condemn my barbarism for allowing surgeons to cut into my childs God-given anatomy?”
After reading the comment about cleaning a 12 year old, I must ask, how unclean are circumcised penises that they must be circumcised in the first place?
I’ve been uncut (which is “normal” where I come from) all my life and I can’t say that I’ve had much to clean out whether a pubescent teen or an adult. I wouldn’t say that the mild bit of thrush I had would have made circumcision as a baby welcome :dubious:
And for penises, too. To my mind, the case for circumcision isn’t sufficiently compelling. My point with the other issues is simply that medical tastes seem to change, as wwell. Circumcision was so clearly supported in the 1950s that everyone I knew had been. In more recent years the trend has been away from it. The attitude in this thread in favor of it seems to be new, and prompted wholly by the transmission of AIDS, and most of the atrguments seem to be that “we have to protect these people for their own good”. That argument has never appealed to me.
Should I even bother asking you for a cite?
