You have a cite for these people? One that shows, conclusively and scientifically, that they’re sexually dysfunctional because they’re circumcised?
Damn you and your vile reason, Miller. This is a time for strident whinging, not fact.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CanvasShoes
But at any rate, I can’t speak for miller, but I don’t think he was talking to opinions like yours but of those like JDT’s and the other crazies in the threads linked to on the first page of this thread. And to those who’ve somewhat referred to how their parents “ruined” their lives by having this performed.
Sorry I wasn’t clear, by “those who’ve somewhat referred to how their parents “ruined” their lives…” I was talking those who’d posted here. Not just some random unknown man out in the world.
Quote:
I have to agree wholeheartedly with him there, whatEVER happened to a person in childhood (whether it be circumcision, child abuse, molestation), however horrible you’re (collective you) a grown up now, deal with it yes, but don’t use it as an excuse for all of your problems in life. I’m pretty sure he was talking to them, and not to opinions such as yours.
Again, no one was talking about men working on restoration. I was explaining that those comments were made about those people who WERE bitching about it to be bitching as if it WERE the cause of their problems, as weirddave, and miller have explained much better than I.
[
Chotii, I grow less and less sympathetic. You keep bringing up these people, without any proof that they exist. Yes, there are complications to circumcision, but then, paraphimosis (which obviously doesn’t happen in clipped dudes) can also lead to loss of the penis. You’re making a case that the right of parents to make a decision about their kids should be taken away. You might not agree that they have that right, but if you want to argue that, you need to bring evidence.
Evidence doesn’t come from anecdotes. It doesn’t come from stories about how men reclaimed some sense of themselves by restoring their foreskins. It comes from actual research conducted by reasonably neutral parties. Some men wish they hadn’t been clipped. Others choose to do it as an adult. So what?
For me it comes down to the fact that all penises are pretty cool. I enjoy having a nice cut or uncut dick in my mouth, and I haven’t seen much evidence that there are many men out there whose cut dicks are causing them grief. You can say so until the sun goes black, but I for one want to see some evidence.
As an uncut guy who definitely leans towards opposition to circumcision, I find myself growing more and more sympathetic towards the other side. You need to come up with some valid reasoning, supported by evidence, to convince me that the government needs to start getting into people’s pants.
I don’t believe that circumcision should be outlawed [just yet], either, but this statement is perplexing. Wouldn’t this be more like getting people out of other, non-consenting people’s pants?
Chotii, I agree that your claims would benefit from some solid, non-anecdotal evidence.
They’d better NOT try that!! I’m not that kinda girl 
Sorry,that was just too funny a line.
Ya know, I’ve been reading this thread intently since I have to make the cut/no cut decision for my son who is to be born in just a couple more months here.
And frankly, I’m astonished by the number of people who assume that:
A - Excising part of someone’s genitals is not mutilation,
B - Their asethetic preferences are universal,
C - There’s no difference between removing a foreskin and, say, piercing an ear,
D - There is some mental problem with anyone who has a regret that they were circumsized,
and
E - The burden is on the “no cut” side to disprove the above.
In any other similar context, for instance if I proposed that all girls have their hymens excised at birth, the burden of proof would be upon me to support all of those claims, A thru D, beyond a doubt. But just because circumsision is both traditional and religious, somehow the burden of proof is on those who choose not to alter the natural state of affairs.
My wife was at first astonished that I would even consider not cutting him. Her arguments:
He won’t look like you.
Reply: I’ll just explain the difference. Avoiding the explanation is not sufficent to warrant cutting off a piece of his penis.
No girl will want to have sex with him. He’ll never find a wife. (I was actually shocked this came out of her mouth.)
Reply: Some girls may have a preference. If it’s really that big a problem, then he’ll marry a Mexican or Asian or European woman, one from a place where they’re a bit more open minded about this sort of thing. Tailoring his penis to suit the preferences of some hypothetical prude woman (or man) is not sufficient to warrant cutting off a piece of his penis.
It’s harder to keep clean.
Reply: We’ll teach him to keep it clean. Teeth are even more difficult to keep clean but we’re expected to teach him proper oral hygiene. Making the burden of parenting easier on us is not sufficient to warrant cutting off a piece of his penis.
He’ll be embarrased in the locker room.
Reply: First of all, as a matter of policy boys don’t inspect each others’ junk in the locker room for fear of being called gay. Second, circumcision rates in the US are in the neighborhood of 50% anyway, so what’s going to make him stand out? (Well, aside from his obvious proportional advantage.) Protecting him from a remote chance of minor embarrasment is not sufficient to warrant cutting off a piece of his penis.
He’ll be more prone to disease/infection/cancer/warts/cockrot/whatever.
Reply: There is hard medical evidence disproving that claim. Even our OB says that the AMA now officially states that circumcision is entirely optional and not medically necessary by any means. She also said that in her experience, circumcision carries a slightly higher risk of infection or mistakes than there is a risk from having a foreskin, and in either case, the risks are so small as to be not worth worring about. Tinkering with risks this minute does not warrant cutting off a piece of his penis.
Those are all of my rational reasons for choosing not to circumsize my son. But the real kicker was an admittedly irrational one: The tradition of circumsizing gentiles in the US was started by a bunch of 19th century sexually repressed puritanical prudes attempting to discourage adolescent masturbation. And I loathe sexually-repressed puritanical prudes.
Adolescents are gonna masturbate anyway. Especially my son, if he turns out to be anything like I was. And being circumsized didn’t prevent me from masturbating, so why interfere?
I think we’re pretty much in agreement, I posted earlier that I am circ’d, my son is not, and if the podling is male I don’t see any reason to have him circ’d either. In fact I care very little one way or the other on this issue, if Ginger and I choose to have the baby circ’d, it would be no big deal either.
What I do care about is people making all kind of shrill pronouncements about the evils of circumcision without offering any proof. If you read back, that’s what I’ve been calling for, nothing else. If the anti-circ ( and by this I mean the people who would eliminate it as a choice, thereby imposing their obsession onto other people, presumably by outlawing the procedure. Do as you will one way or the other with your kids, it’s none of my business) position has merit, they should be able to prove their claims. I haven’t even seen them make an effort at doing so, they just pile the anecdotal stories deeper and deeper( and believe me, I already need hip waders to get through their claims).
For the record, I have never said it should be illegal. I do think it should be left up to the individual when he is capable of informed consent except when it cannot be avoided for medical reasons. I believe this of all body modifications and all surgeries. I’m just as adamant about ear piercings: not my body. Not my choice.
I wish I knew of anyone who was actually DOING such studies, I’d be happy to cite them. But if the studies aren’t done (perhaps in part because the culture considers it unnecessary), then the ‘factual, scientific’ evidence won’t exist. And that’s hardly my fault.
All I can do at this point is bow out and say, I believe these men (who are restoring) when they describe their experiences. And I’m glad for their sakes that they have found something they believe make their sex lives and body images better. I do think it’s a shame that this must consist of attempting to re-grow a body part that was removed from them, but at least it’s possible, and it makes them happy. So there you go.
Oh what the fuck. Just my 2¢.
I was circumcised at birth. Most males born when I was were, it wasn’t even asked of the parents – it was just done. I have no idea of what it’s like to be “natural.”
When my son was born, 10 years ago, it suddenly became a question. My wife made the decision not to circumcise, and I went along because it made sense – if the kid didn’t like it, it was changable.
Now, we constantly have to nag to get him to clean his penis under the foreskin, and I wonder if I made the right decision.
Mutilation is not a useful word in this discussion - it’s a judgment. Mutilation is in the eye of the beholder - it’s akin to saying “meat is murder”. Sure, some people think chopping off foreskins is mutilation, and some people think killing animals to eat them is murder. But subjective opinions like that aren’t going to help anyone in a discussion, because those people who don’t think it’s mutilation aren’t going to be convinced by being told it is.
Aesthetic preferences run both ways. It’s irrelevant to the discussion, again, and I haven’t heard many people here seriously claiming that “boys should be cut, because I like cut penises better.” Anyone who says that ought to be ignored.
Funny. I don’t think it’s right to pierce infants’ ears. Opinions are like that.
Ok, this has been stated, but I don’t think it was meant seriously. But people who may have some sort of mental disorder might express that as anger about their wangs, and frankly, most cut guys are fine with it. It does seem strange that a guy who’s cut would be so upset about it. Maybe not a mental disorder, but a little nutty. As for guys whose sexuality has been hampered by cutting, they have every right to be pissed, but I still haven’t heard anything to suggest that this is anything but an extremely unusual circumstance.
See, though, here’s where we disagree. If this were a debate, you guys would be on the affirmative side, because you’re hoping for a change in the status quo. The point being argued is whether or not people should be stopped from circumsizing their infant sons. If you maintain that we should step in to stop it, the burden is on you to explain why. The negative team in a debate is the team suggesting that things stay the way they are, and they don’t carry the burden of proof.
In a vacuum, if circumcision was an innovation, then yes, anyone recommending it would have to prove why it was useful. But it’s not. So you guys are asking that we step in to stop parents from exercising a privilege that they currently possess. You have to explain why they need to be stopped. Saying that there’s no good reason for them to do it doesn’t justify using the government (or whatever other agency you suggest) to stop them.
Exactly. If you were demanding that we change the status quo by altering young girls at birth, you’d damn well have to justify it. But your opponents aren’t demanding that anyone be clipped. We’re stating that, just as now, it should be up to the individual families. It is a tradition, and those trying to step in and chage society do have the burden of proof.
Incidentally, I agree with all of your arguments. If a new parent asked me for advice on whether they should get their son cut, I would probably tell them all of those things. Personally, I don’t see why it should be done either. But I just don’t see a strong enough reason to stop parents from doing it. In the purest abstract sense, it seems like a weird thing to do to a kid, but there is cultural precedent for it. And if parents choose to exercise that right, I can’t see a strong enough reason to stop them.
And the anti-circ crowd seems to, to a certain extent, believe that the rest of us favor circumcision. Weirddave, though, didn’t circumcize his kid. If I had a kid, God forbid, I wouldn’t do it either. But there are parents who see some reason to do it, and while their reasons might not seem valid to me, and they may be practicing something I don’t like very much, I just haven’t seen enough reason yet to go in and stop them. As it is, they have a legal right to do it, and if someone thinks it’s immoral, well, that’s not enough reason to stop them.
After all, I’m queer. Some people who think that my sexual practices are immoral would love to stop me - and they feel just as strongly about it as you guys do about circumcision. And yet I don’t think they have any right to use their morals to legislate the issue. I feel the same way here - morals are not sufficient justification for law, because they are entirely subjective. So whatever my moral objections may be to circumcision, I recognize that it’s not enough for me to dislike something - there has to be proof of a real harm caused by it. And while in rare cases circumcision causes real harm, there hasn’t been any evidence posted that it happens with any frequency. Nor have I ever seen any.
To these parents, whatever benefit they feel is accrued by circumcision outweighs the small risk of harm. And no one here has established that they’re wrong. Last night, I drove to the store to purchase Diet Coke. I don’t need Diet Coke. In a month, the purchase of it will be totally irrelevant, since it will be gone, and it won’t matter to me whether or not I’ve drunk any. I took a risk doing it - I could have been killed in a car accident, or the store could have been held up with me caught in the crossfire, or any number of things. For no real, meaningful benefit, I took a risk. These parents are doing the same thing. Saying there’s a risk isn’t enough - as a society we don’t try to eliminate all risks, or even all unjustified risks. It’s necessary to prove that the risk is substantial before you legislate it away. And no one has done that.
Oh, eww, eww, eww! How do you know, and what’s up with the kid that he’s not maintaining proper hygiene? How old is he? But then, as someone mentioned above, our teeth require a lot more work to keep clean than our foreskins, so I guess this is just a stage kids go through. I don’t think hygiene is a strong enough reason to recommend it - you just have to make sure the kid does take care of it adequately. Still, one more for the record: ewww!
Catsix Does the boy wish to convert? Under Jewish law, the children of a Jewish woman are Jewish. So, the infant son of a Jewish couple is already Jewish, and is circumcised. A 12 year old nonJewish boy must choose to become Jewish of his own free will (Conversion to Judaism is neither fast nor easy), conversion would include a circumcision. Andros I was sure thaat conversion required the sanctified slicing of the shmeckie, and a quick look at Rabbi Joseph Telushkin’s Jewish Cultural Literacy confirmed it.
Chotii
Cite?
cIte?
ciTe?
citE?
Suh yite?
A very nice try at distorting things in a desperate attempt to shift the onus. 9 out of ten for the attempt. But nonetheless bullshit. The suggestion of banning anything is wholly or very largely a complete strawman for a start.
Let’s start with the real position: chopping parts off people without their permission is, to put it mildy, rather frowned on in any free society. Now explain to me why the onus is on me as to why I have to justify frowning on circumcision.
If the suggestion was that people should be stopped from voluntarily circumcising themselves, I’d agree with you. But that’s not the suggestion. Feel free to consider this analogy to be crap.
You seem to be totally overlooking the involuntary nature of child circumcision, as do many on your side of the debate.
A suggestion for those who want to chop off their child’s foreskin: don’t do it, just wait till he turns 18 at which point he will have it done to himself because that’s what he will surely want. You don’t doubt that he’d want to have it done just as soon as he can do you? Do you? After all, its such a good and righteous thing to do.
Do I sense doubt?
Nope, sorry, he’s completely right. The question is why should an accepted, harmless practice be changed. If you’re arguing that it should be, the onus of proof is on you
[quoe= Princhester]Let’s start with the real position: chopping parts off people without their permission is, to put it mildy, rather frowned on in any free society. Now explain to me why the onus is on me as to why I have to justify frowning on circumcision.
[/QUOTE]
Changing the subject to a different question does not help your position. Your question is crap anyway. Parents have an inherent right to judge the relative potential harm of a course of action for their kids, and then chose a course that might have some ammount of risk. They have guardianship and responsibility. Circumcision, vaccination, ear pierceing, which medicine to give, which doctor to see, these are all desisions that parents have to make every day which could have a detrimental or even deadly effect on their kid. They get to make these decisions, because they are the adults.
To continue:( Sorry, was on the laptop in bed and was keeping my pregnant wife up, I had to move. )
Parents get to measure the potential cost vs benefit ration of many decisions reguarding their kids every day, indeed, that’s one of the biggest job of parenting. Example: Is the risk of my kid having a bad reaction to the vaccine greater than the value of vaccinating him against a specific illness? I’d say hell no, but based upon her post above, maybe earthmother would say yes. It’s a decision we each get to make for our kids. Circumcision is no different, and you can’t hide that behind “chopping parts off people without their permission”. The people in question are not old enough to make the choice for themselves, so it is the parents pervue to do so. I make decisions for Matthew every day without his permission. If you want that to change, than you have to prove that the risk of circumcision is high enough to warrent eliminating the procedure. So far, you haven’t.
Nice question begging, but thanks for illustrating why my position is right. You say that the question is why an accepted harmless practice should be changed. If that were the question, then I’d agree with you.
But lets get to first base before we agree its time to head for second.
First you prove its harmless.
Total non sequitur. No one is arguing that if circumcision is the better choice, parents should be entitled to make that choice. The debate however is whether it is a better choice. Prove it is and I’ll defend to the death the parents right to have it done to their children. But get to first base first.
Sorry, I meant “shouldn’t” not “should” in the 2nd last line.
The status quo is that parents have the choice to circumsize their kids. It’s not as though circumcision is being introduced, whole-cloth, into a society that’s unfamiliar with it. Familiar with debate? When you want to change things, you have to justify it.
Then what are we arguing? Before you stepped in and, apparently, changed the topic of the debate, Chotii was trying to persuade me that Jews and Muslims shouldn’t even be allowed to clip their kids.
Well, not these parts, if they’re attached to your newborn son, apparently. Because apparently 50% or so of parents still do it. Or else this isn’t a free society.
Had you read even the entirety of the post you quote from, much less the ones I posted earlier, you’d note that (1) I’m not circumcised (2) If I had a son, I wouldn’t circumcise him (3) I think every argument in favor of circumcision except religious command is complete bunk (4) I prefer uncircumcised men as sex partners. We both frown on circumcision. Why are you arguing this?
Please be fair. Perhaps some ignore this; I didn’t. I pointed out that parents do all sorts of things to their kids that I don’t agree with, including ones that subject them to small, avoidable, and even unnecessary risks. Given that a baby must have things done to him against his will, and that as a society, many things are up for debate, then I think a clear argument is necessary for everything we restrict parents from doing. It’s a lot easier for me to justify making parents use car-seats - but if you can demonstrate why I’m wrong, I’d be glad to listen.
As I have said far more than once in this thread, neither I nor (as far as I can tell) anyone else here is arguing that kids should be circumcised. We’ve been arguing over whether society or the family gets to make the decision.
Who has stated that kids should be circumcised? Where? DocCathode, above, pointed out that he’s Jewish and believes in circumcision of Jewish kids - and yet still tells Gentile friends not to. I don’t see where the big pro-circumcision push you guys keep railing against is coming from.
Do I sense a strawman?
Why should we? I’m not saying it is. I’m not saying it’s good, or desirable, or right. Like I said, I wouldn’t do it to my kid, I’m glad I’m intact, and I much prefer sucking on uncut dick. I don’t think Weirddave or Miller has claimed it’s harmless either. Why should we? We’re not trying to make people do it!
Parents already get to make the choice. You wanna take their right to do so away, you gotta explain why. It’s how debate works. The status quo is that parents get to make that decision for their kids, along with many, many other decisions. If they shouldn’t be allowed to, you need to explain why.
Look, it’s already a long thread, and if you haven’t read the whole thing, I don’t fault you. But if you want to inform us what we’ve been debating, you need to read it first. Because we haven’t argued this point at all.
Weirddave is cut, and has no problem with that, and yet nevertheless left his kid intact. I’m intact and happy with that and I wouldn’t do it to my kid; DocCathode believes in it insofar as it’s a halachic requirement, but recommends against it to his Gentile friends. Where has there been a post claiming that circumcision is better? Some people have claimed it’s no worse, and I personally would disagree, but I see it as their own decision when it’s their child, so I wouldn’t argue it with 'em.
So far, all we’ve established is that (1) People have different personal preferences (2) People have different ideas of whether it’s morally right or not and (3) People have different opinions on whether or not to enforce those morals on others. Since I haven’t seen any reason why it’s not entirely a personal issue yet, I’m still gonna put this in the same category as any other issue we don’t all agree upon. You know, like religion, or politics, or cola preference? Most of us live in democratic countries where all those things are free choices. You wanna take “circumcising your kid” out of that group of things? Well, prove why. Because you can try as much as you like to reframe this debate on easier terms, but you ain’t gonna stop any parents from clippin’ Junior’s wang until you address why they shouldn’t.
As I said before, parents make many decisions for their kids.
You find me Talmudic argument on why I should do that, and I’ll think about it. In the meantime, us Jews will go on circumcising our sons when they are 8 days old.
Nope. No doubt at all.
Again, no.
I wear a yarmulke ;j . I seperate meat and milk. I haven’t eaten shellfish in about 15 years. I haven’t eaten pork in 12 years. These were all things I decided to do on my own. Though my parents were supportive, they didn’t pressure me to do any of these. If I had been uncut, I would certainly have gone to a mohel on my 18th birthday.
But the Talmud doesn’t say to circumcise on the 18th birthday. It says the bris shall be performed when the boychik is 8 days old.
…just for the record, this wasn’t me. I forget who it was, but it wasn’t me. Personally, if I had a son, and I were going to choose to have him circumcised, I would go to a Jewish mohel long before I’d ever let an MD get his hands on him. The method used is very different and I have heard, more humane.