If it’s psychological scarring as the result of a perceived torture (circumcision), why not just stop doing the circumcision so that future generations of men don’t continue to get this whole PTSD feeling of having been so horribly violated?
Maybe I don’t understand because I don’t have one, but I just can’t see why this should be done to someone who has no say in the process unless there is some real, concrete, medical benefit to doing so.
Uh…
Sex is 95% mental. I do not deny this. But men who claimed their penises felt about as much as a dead stick, with the head dull and dry (from being exposed and rubbing against their underwear all day), claim they feel more when the head is moist, shiny and mucosal (from being covered). And you don’t need a peer-reviewed journal to tell you this, all you have to do is remove your watch, or a wide-band ring that you’ve worn for a long time, and feel how much more sensitive the skin feels under the watch-band/face, or where the ring has lain. See how much thinner, shinier, more moist, and more sensitive it feels than the skin around it. Now imagine if your glans penis felt like that all the time? This isn’t mental. I’d say it sounds like a pretty damned good 5% advantage to me. And I don’t even have one.
I fail to understand why we need actual peer-reviewed scientific proof to convince people that doing what amounts to cosmetic, elective surgery on baby boys is unnecessary and not very justifiable medicine? We don’t remove any other skin. And that, by the way, is why people get upset, and even obsessed. Because “it looks better” is a choice that belongs to the individual, “it might get infected someday” is stupid, and we don’t know what psychological trauma it may cause the individual. Assuming it causes none is damned arrogant, particularly when we will never have to live with the results of the decision.
I’ll offer my thoughts on why anti-circ people can get pretty worked up about this.
We tend to view this as a pretty big deal. As others have said, this is a procedure that was instituted to curtail masturbation, and has been re-rationalized ad hoc over the years as it came to light that whatever current “reason” given for doing it was not valid. When you weigh that against the very real, demonstrable risks of performing this surgery, not to mention the pain involved, it is perplexing to see people going ahead with it anyway.
On top of that, many people such as me view this as a human rights issue - even if a man’s sexual experience is exactly as satisfying with or without a foreskin, I don’t believe it is justifiable to cut off the body parts of your child for trivial reasons. (And yes, I do think infant ear piercing is wrong as well, though obviously the harm is less than that done in a circumcision, just as the harm in a male circumcision is less than that done in many female circumcisions. Just because they are not exactly equivalent doesn’t mean only the most atrocious act should be disallowed.)
I believe most people who hold these views have done lots of research and probably a lot of deep thinking about the issue before coming to their final decision.
So hold all of that in your head, and imagine how it feels when someone says, “Oh, I just want him to look like his father,” or “It’s just a useless piece of skin!” When something is a big moral issue to you, it is incredibly frustrating to see people treat it in the most blase manner.
I know lots of people who are generally good parents who have had their sons circumcised. It makes me angry and sad, but I attribute it mostly to ignorance and cultural pressure. I still don’t excuse them or think they made the right choice, but I don’t break up with friends over it, and I don’t discuss it among friends unless someone tells me they really want to know what I think.
Nevertheless, the issue in the abstract can really make me angry, and I’m sure you could find posts on message boards by me calling this child abuse and advocating criminalizing it. I certainly wouldn’t go so far as harrassing a moderator and so forth, but I guess I can sympathize with the motivation, if not the execution. So I hope this gives you some insight into the loonier participants on your forum.
I tend to agree that unless it is a religious thing, circumcision can be left for the guy to decide upon himself. To me it does not matter one way or the other [mainly because I don’t happen to have a foreskin…being female=)] and in default I would prefer to let people choose their own body modification. Who knows, he may want to change his sex and have the whole thing lopped off, and if I had a child who wanted that, or any other sexual lifestyle I would be more than supportive=) <boggled at people who can’t/won’t love their own child because they are different> Only thing I would enforce is that they wait until 18 for anything permanent, or facial [other than ear] piercing. Oh, and that they use a reputable body mod shop, and do enough prior research to make sure it is exactly what they want and not something faddish=)
I wouldn’t even give it a religious exception.
If someone wants their own body permanently altered in the name of god or whatever, that is their choice.
If someone wants to permanently alter the body of another person in the name of a god or whatever that the other person may never even believe in, that’s just wrong.
It’s not just a drop or two of water on a forehead here, it’s a surgical procedure that carries with it great pain and risk.
I believe you, but I don’t remember ever seeing this anywhere, where is it written that this was the impetus for circumcision? And how on earth would it curtail masturbation?
Speaking as a man lacking a foreskin, I don’t much appreciate being told that I’m mutilated (I’m not), I’m sexually dysfunctional (I’m not), or that my parents are child abusers (they aren’t). These are all claims made by the more vociferous anti-circumcision advocates, and are a big part of the reason why I hold the entire position in contempt.
I also don’t believe for a minute that anyone has any actual memories of being circumsized as an infant. The accounts of dreams Chotii talks about sound a hell of a lot like the dreams so-called alien abductees like to bandy about as proof that they’ve been anally probed by Rigelians.
See, this is precisely why we do need a peer-reviewed journal to tell us these things. I’ve worn a wristwatch for the last ten years, and the skin under my watch band is no more or less sensitive, moist, or thinner than the skin anywhere else on my forearm. It is paler, which I suppose counts as “shinier,” although why I’d want a shiny dick escapes me for the moment. Maybe it’s a bling-bling thing.
This also contradicts one of the central arguments of the anti-circ bunch. How is it, exactly, that rubbing your wrist against your watchband all day makes the skin more sensitive, but rubbing the tip of your dick against your tighty-whiteys all day makes it less sensitive?
That is damn funny the way you put that. And trust me, from at least THIS girl’s perspective, circumcised are definitely superior tools, in action AND looks, and no, they don’t need to be shiny 
Well based on what my boyfriend’s penis looked like, it shrunk all up into soft little item anyway when not in use :D. Where the loose skin, when not in hardon mode, pretty much covers up part of the head anyway. I mean, I kmow men sometimes suffer unplanned hardons, but it’s not as if the skin of the glans has to be pressed and rubbing against underwear and such as if it WERE hard all day is it?
From everything I’ve read, there is no medical benefit to circumcision.
However, I had my foreskin removed by a rabbi on the 10th day of my life (It’s usually the 8th, but my parents got permission for a delay because all the relatives had to come in from out of state). If I ever marriage to marry and have children, any sons will be snipped on the 8th day of their life. As will their sons.
My lack of foreskin is a sign of the covenant between myself and the G-d of Abraham. Every time I empty my bladder, shower, change clothes, or undress for any other reason, I am reminded of that covenant. If circumcision hadn’t been such a fad in the seventies, it would also serve as a sign for others that I am a Jew.
I have no nightmares in which the rabbi or relatives pursue me with a scalpel. My memories of rabbi Klirs are happy ones. He also performed my sister’s Bat Mitzvah and my Bar Mitzvah. Due to one of these threads, I looked at my putz and thought ‘Rabbi Klirs did that.’ My immediate response was ‘The man does quality work.’
Why is it that the anti-circumcision people, the ones who just want to leave what nature made alone, are the ones who are always expected to come up with proof that their way is preferable?
Shouldn’t those wanting to do a painful, risky, permanent surgical procedure to amputate some part of a person’s body without that person’s consent be the ones to provide concrete justification for the action?
That depends on whether the man is a ‘shower’ or a ‘grower’. A man who is a ‘grower’ does just what you describe - his penis shrinks away to almost nothing, and yes, the skin does pretty much cover it (but depending on how much skin was removed by his cut, he may have so little skin that when he becomes erect, has has no skin-mobility on the shaft. Also, skin from the scrotum may be pulled up onto the shaft, with hair on it. ) Now a ‘shower’ looks pretty much the same length erect or flaccid, the big difference being the hardness. A grower may have some protection from abrasion/friction, but a shower won’t, or less.
I sincerely hope not.
Why should a parent be making the decision that their kid have a permanent physical reminder of a covenant that at the time the kid is completely unaware of and may never believe in?
Because you’re happy with yours, you think it’s perfectly acceptable that people never stop forcing the procedure on others?
A very good real life friend of mine is angry to this day that his parents decided to choose his religion and then permanently scar him to identify it. He hates them to this day because of what they forced upon him for no reason beyond their beliefs without regard to what beliefs or choices he’d make later in life.
Um, uncircumsized male here, and I have had those dreams from time to time. Maybe not particularly “dark forms bending over”, but I think dreams where you can’t run or fight are as common as naked dreams, or falling dreams. Besides, couldn’t those dreams be either conveniently interpreted to support the circumsizee’s anger, or perhaps the result of his thought about it? Just seems like a weak argument to me.
And this whole thing would be so damn much better if they didn’t go around making those stupid claims. “Mutilation” is in the eye of the beholder - my dick ain’t mutilated, but I bet some old ladies on the street think my piercings are mutilations. “Mutilated” is a value judgment, and it doesn’t hold much place in honest discussion.
Sexual dysfunction, according to everything I’ve read, doesn’t vary much depending on circumcision status. If intact guys were more sensitive, one would assume they would be more likely to need treatment for premature ejaculation - but they’re not. Conversely, clipped guys aren’t more likely to suffer from delayed ejaculation. At least from statistics I’ve read, and I don’t remember the source, so make of it what you will.
Agreed. There’s no way to know - guys who aren’t circumcized don’t universally, or even mostly, feel some deficit. And while I’m glad I have mine, it’s not as though my identity hangs on it like so many skin-stretching weights. Better research, if a methodology could be developed, would help. And the real noisemakers (and on occasion I have heard pretty strident, asinine comments from the other side too. Though of course less often.) need to shut their damn mouths.
I said earlier that my identity doesn’t hang on my foreskin, but a lot of guys really do project personal issues onto their penises. Why? Maybe it’s a cultural thing, but frankly, it seems to me like guys’ love of their wangs is almost primal. So whatever psychological problems they have are gonna manifest on their penises. Hence the sales of all sorts of penis-enlarging quackery, and the constant obsession with size. Really, size is at least fairly low on the list of things women look for - some women probably genuinely don’t care at all, others might agree that they’d prefer a bigger wang given the choice, but they don’t much care either. I haven’t met many who consider it a particularly important issue. Yet guys act as though a bigger penis will magically make their problems disappear, they’ll find love, nations will crumble before their mighty power, et cetera. It really boils down to a self-conception problem.
So it is with circumcision, I think. People who have some bone to pick with their parents or with society are gonna look for things to resent. And guys spend a lot of time looking at their penises, so it’s not gonna take long for them to notice. The penis represents the self in some way, so the guy who’s got some complex about how he’s persecuted by society or the guy who hates his parents are gonna decide that some essential part of them was ripped away.
My own opinion? Well, like everyone else, I’m swayed by my own experience. I like my foreskin; it does indeed make masturbation easier (hence the Victorian interest in its removal) and, well, it’s a part of Little Excalibre. (Oh, holy God! I never even thought about how phallic a username I have!) And I prefer my partners uncut, so again, I’m prejudiced. But yeah, I don’t like the idea of taking off part of a kid’s body if they have no say. I think it’s a ridiculous, extremist position to say even Jews and Muslims shouldn’t be able to do it, but for the rest of us, it’s worth some thought as to whether it’s really necessary for Junior to look like Paw.
So I would recommend against it to potential mothers. But if you have some particular reason to want to do it, meh . . . no skin off my anatomy. It’s not that big a deal either way, no matter what the anti-circ crowd claims.
I didn’t say ‘watchband’, I said ‘watch face’, and I don’t know about you, but when I wore a watch, it was snug enough on my wrist that the back of the watch itself (not the band) always rode in the same place on my wrist, next to the prominent wristbone. The back of the watch was stainless steel, and that circular spot was very different in texture from surrounding skin. (then I became allergic to my watch and couldn’t wear it anymore.)
Why?
Permanent alteration of a person’s body without that person’s consent is not suddenly a bowl of peaches because of the decision maker’s religion.
Jews have been circumcising male infants for thousands of years now. Risky? Ya got a cite for that? One that doesn’t involve electrocauterization, anasthesia, or anything else mohels don’t use?
You say we should stop? I stand on a history of millenia.
On the upside, the US outlawing circumcision (I can’t see this happening anytime in the next few centuries) would bring Jews and Muslims together.
Why does a religion reason for an act change things? Ammendment #1.
I say it should be stopped because the person it directly affects has no part in the decision.
Amendment 1 does not give you the unlimited right to violate another person’s body without consent in the name of religion.
If no one had ever invented circumcision, and you came up to me today and suggested it, I’d probably say everything you’ve said in this thread. But, people have been doing it for thousands of years, now, to no discernable detriment to the recipients. Ultimately, the only difference between snipped and unsnipped is purely cosmetic. So, while I understand your ethical objections, the lack of any long-term harm from being circumcised makes them little more than nitpicks.
Like hell you didn’t:
My watch is (actually, was - lost it about three years back, replaced it with a pocketwatch) just the same. Stainless steel backing, worn snugly and regularly for about ten years, give or take. And it did not make my skin more sensitive, or alter it otherwise in any noticable way besides color. This is why anecdotal evidence in meaningless, and why peer-reviewed scientific journals are so important in settling this sort of debate. There could be any number of reasons why your skin reacted as it did to your watch that have nothing to do with friction. The fact that you eventually developed an allergy to your watch probably offers a better explanation to the phenomena you observed than the one you are proposing. Similarly, there can be any number of reasons why some men who have been circumsized have bad sex/poor self esteem/problems with their parents/nightmares/whatever that are, in fact, wholly unrelated to how much skin they’ve got on their dicks.
Hell, we’re conceived and born without our personal consent. We’re named our parent’s idea of a “good” name, wtihout our consent. I’m sure Fifi Pixie Dust is just thrilled with her name, and even if she changes it, jeeez.
We live and/or move 20 times (like my parents did) without our personal consent. We wear the clothing, and adhere to the practices of our parents wthout our personal consent.
We are fed a steady diet of our parent’s values, judgments, religious practices and so on. Without our personal consent.
Our standards for life and our lifestyles are chosen by our parents. Without our consent. In most cases, these standards and lifestyles, while not permanent like circumcision, can take years to change and move away from. All, without our consent.
All of the experiences our parents place upon us because of THEIR lifestyle choices, NOT ours, make a permanent impression upon our own psyches, and lifestyle choices.
And while not a physical change as is circumcision is, most of the above become deeply ingrained beliefs and/or issues for most of our lives. Whether those beliefs, issues, standards etc are good or bad. If not permanent, for many people they are as much something to be dealt with on a daily basis as is a circumcision.
I agree with [b}Miller** to call this “mutilation” and deformed etc. IS highly insulting to circumcised males to call it that.
And I agree with him that the buried dreams smack strongly of the abduction by alien theories.
Not the clothing OF our parents, the clothing our parents PICK… :smack: