This has come up from time to time at the SDMB. Turns out, many (most?) circumcised boys/men learn to get the job done just fine without lube. Needing lube is a myth, in my experience.
I should be banned for expressing opinions on a great debates message board? Sorry, but if freedom of speech means anyhting, it means the right to say things that are unpopular.
Valteron, why are you using G*d and G-d?
Is that really an important detail? I have been talking about Judaism and I have noticed that some Jewish posters here and elsewhere (on other Boards and blogs) use G*d, so I started using it. Is that a big problem? Have I insulted someone with meaning to?
I’ll just add this to the “absurd hyperbole” pile, right next to equating male circumcision and female genital mutilation. And I’ll add that I don’t think that absurd hyperbole helps your case; quite the opposite.
Speaking of questionable comparisons, earlier in the thread it was commented that male circumcision is a procedure of possibly comparable moral severity to certain piercings. Which leads me to ask, are you violently opposed to small girls’ ears being pierced? If not, why not?
And for the record, I never said you were sexist. I said the attempt to equate male circumcision and female genital mutilation makes you sound sexist, which it very much does - it sounds like you’re trivializing a severe female issue out of an inability to give consideration to female problems, and mentioning it only as a crutch to pretend a less-severe male issue is more severe than it is and to try to get attention diverted away from the female issue onto the male one. While being sexist apparently isn’t your intent, this is a common sexist tactic.
[quote=“begbert2, post:105, topic:791838”]
I never said ear piercing and circumcision were equivalent. And just for the record I am not “violently” opposed to anything. If something is wrong I work through laws and education to bring about change.
Yes, I disapprove of ear piercing in principle, but it is a small matter, the pierced hole is “reversible” and you have to pick your battles. You can’t sew a foreskin back on when you are an adult, but you can let the ear-hole fill in.
I fully admit that circumcision is not as “bad” as Female GM. But saying that circumcision is less painful and less invasive does not make it all right.
For example, in my opinion, lynching a black man who protests for civil rights is a 10 in terms of racist horrors. Calling that man the N-word is 3 or 4 on my scale, but that doesn’t mean I give a free pass to rascist slurs. Finally, giving a black man a Reggae album for Xmas without bothering to find out if he likes Reggae is a 1 on my racism scale. It is a midly racist gesture but all the victim and others are likely to do is roll their eyes, smile and say “thanks”.
Sorry, but none of the above represents anything but your imaginary interpretation of what you think I am saying. FGM is way, way worse than MGM, and I freely admit it. It will probably be far harder to get rid of in the world. Maybe centuries, in my opinion. Barbaric rituals die hard.
The mere act of sticking male circumcision and female genital manipulation the the same thread with one another is enough to raise alert flags of sexist intentions. Whether or not you intended it that way is largely immaterial to how it will be seen.
If we boil away all the assumptions of equation between extreme things and male circumcision, as best I can tell your entire argument is “male circumcision is bad because I say so, also some unpersuasive arguments about babies screaming and such.” I think a reasonable response to that is “naah, I disagree, I think it’s not all that bad. It’s not all that good, either, but there aren’t enough expected benefits to abolishing the practice to merit trying to snuff it out.” Is that a good enough response?
If one’s goal is to eliminate FGM, it seems rather counterproductive to constantly link it with male circumcision. This is because doing so muddies the waters and the original “mission” is lost in a contentious debate as to whether the two acts are equal.
You are free to hold to your opinions and assumptions, you are free to attribute sexist intentions to me. I wil just stand by and chuckle at your odd world of politically correct lalaism.
How do I know genital mutilation, slavery, dogfighting, cockfighting, sexism, racism, – what have you–, are wrong? Can I prove they are wrong? Guess what? I can’t prove it. I just stick to first principles and make judgment calls based on them.
Either you believe the first principle that all children have a right to bodily integrity from birth, and the right not to have their bodies cut into except for medical necessity, or you don’t.
How do I know slavery is wrong? Because it offends the first principle that all humans are born free and equal. How do I know that principle is true? I can’t prove it, but I function on that principle. A proponent of slavery could wipe the floor with me in debate, showing that stronger and richer have always enslaved weaker and poorer. But I stick to my belief that it is wrong.
How do I know sexism is wrong? Can I prove it is? No. A sexist might make a very good case that women are smaller and weaker than men because men are meant to dominate them. I can’t prove my corollary of sexual equality is right. I just stand by it.
How do I know dogfighting is wrong, especially since some dogs are bred to fight? I can’t prove it is wrong. I just hold to the principle that those degs are sentient beings with rights.
Cutting into the body of a defenseless child to suit the demands of religion or social custom is wrong, no matter how old the ritual it is.
I think it is simply that those who want to keep circumcision but attack FGM are afraid of the two being linked and making them look like hypocrites. Escpecially the US with its millions of non-religious, non-medical circumcisions.
I have never denied that circumcision is less bad than female genital mutilation. What links them is that they are cruel invasions of the body of a child who is too young to consent to that invasion, in order to please religion or social custom.
Just because one thing is less bad than another does not mean you cannot mention the two in the same breath.
Involuntary manslaughter is not as bad as premeditated murder, but both are condemned as violations of a human right to life.
I’m not arguing that both aren’t bad or that you can’t mention them both. It’s the fact that you choose to mention them together that makes me suspect that ending FGM is not your highest priority.
If you aren’t interested in ending FGM as soon as possible (which you aren’t, as shown by your insistence on comparing it to circumcision), then it would seem that you are using FGM as a way to make an argument against circumcision.
For clarity’s sake, are you contending that being opposed to GM is somehow less moral than being opposed only to FGM, and that pushing to end *all *GM is somehow less valid than only FGM?
Honestly, I wasn’t expecting that level of ignorance.
The fact that you couldn’t be bothered to even Google the thing before you appropriated it tells me everything I need to know about your supposed respect for Judaism - and that you have absolutely no idea what you’re doing or how anti-Semitic you sound when you pontificate to Jews about their sacred traditions.
But to your question in the OP:
No. The answer is no. Flatly no, soundly no. Yes, our tradition is a living and evolving one, but not at your whim. If we changed our core beliefs every time society put the tiniest amount of pressure on them, we would have faded away thousands of years ago.
No. No. No. No. No.
I hope that’s clear to you.
Thank you for playing the anti-semitism card. Always easy to score points like that. Your other arguments are that it is tradition (so is female genital mutilation, which is not exclusively a Muslim thing but is practised in many parts of non-Muslim Africa.)
And finally, of course, your ultimate reasoned argument: “No. No. No. No. No.” Hard to disagree with that logic. :rolleyes:
Actually, is it not a sign that a position is weak when the best you can do is yell “No” and invoke “Tradition”?
It worked for Tevye.
How much time must elapse between a mention of FGM can be followed by a mention of circumcision without my being called a sexist?
You realize of course that the fight to abolish ALL cutting of children’s genitals will probably take centuries? It took centuries to abolish the transatlantic slavery of black Africans, and black slavery continues to this very day in Saudi Arabia.
Circumcision predates Islam and probably predates Judaism. It is likely the Jews learned it from the Egyptians. Sigmund Freud, who saw a link betweeen circumcision and castration anxiety, espoused this theory of an Egyptian origin for the rite.
In attempting to end Female GM and circumcision, we will be accused of interfering and imposing western values (just like abolitionist northerners were accused by southerners of “meddling”.)
Even when it is not backed by religion, the urge to cut into childrens’ genitals to make them “all right” is extraordinarily strong. Much of the FGM in Africa takes place in non-Muslim societies, many of which have long ago become Christian. But the FGM tradition is unassailable. Christian missionaries in Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries would sometimes try to get the practice of female mutilation abolished, but Chiefs and entire tribes would threaten to stop being Christians if anything were done to stop the practice.
So frankly, all of us here will die before we see a major change in child genital mutilation. It will be the work of many lifetimes. People will dig in their heels, evoke religion and tradition, or like my friend Johnny Bravo, will just yell “No no no no!”.
So my timing in mentioning circumcision and FGM in the same thread is a pretty minor issue, wouldn’t you say.
If you are saying there are many things about Judaism about which I am ignorant, you are 100% right. I have read histories of the Jews by Jewish authors, I have relatives who are Jewish which is why I attended a bris and have been to a synagogue for a bar mitzvah. The rabbi even made a point of giving I and my gentile relatives tasks to do so we would feel included, such as pulling the curtain in front of the Torah scrolls.
I am an unrestrained supporter of Israel. I suppose it would be patronizing to sing the praises of Jewish culture, the nobel prizes, the incredible contributions in the arts and sciences, etc. etc. But you are right to say that I am woefully ignorant all the same.
But take Payot for example. Surely there was a Jew somewhere who one day said “I can get rid of these and still be a good Jew?” Or did they get yelled at “No, no, no!” and told to obey tradition? When you get right down to it, Payot do not hurt when you grow them or take them off. They do not harm anyone or anything. Foreskin removal, however, is painful.
I see you blasted past the issue of why Jews often use “G-d” or “G*d” - honestly, if you don’t know the why of that I have to really doubt your claims of being knowledgeable about Judaism or having much knowledge of their culture. It’s a pretty basic thing you can learn the answer to in a quick Google search. But you can’t be bothered. So yeah, I don’t think you know much about Judaism, either.
[quote=“Johnny_Bravo, post:114, topic:791838”]
I did indeed look up the info on G-d and Gd before I used it. I even found a Youtube by a rabbi who explained that this abreviation is because you arent supposed to erase the name of God once it is written. To avoid the problem you dont write it down entirely. Many Jewish posters on other blogs and message boards use G-d or Gd.
I decided to use it because I was talking about how Jews have been able to adapt their relation to the Lord God of Israel over the centuries. If they had not, a good Jew would still believe that God commands him to kill his neighbour for working on the Sabbath.
However, Johnny, I notice that you use the term “appropriated”. If you are getting your knickers in a twist about the political correctness “crime” of "cultural appropriating, shove off! This is what I said to the lunatics who told me I could not appropriate Chinese culture by my hobby of Chinese cooking (of course, the PC idiots who told me this were not Chinese. Chinese people would be far too reasonable to subscribe to that kind of horseshit.