A study of Kenyan men circumcised as adults? Please. Do you know what kind of fucked up sexual proclivities they have there?
ETA:
So why, as a parent, mark your boy as a holdover from the past instead of being part of the wave of the future?
The surveys this study was based on (self reported studies are considered being among the weakest type of studies) were specifically intended to promote circumcision for HIV prevention. I don’t think anyone was going to be surprised what this study was going to find.
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8626/334c257796e224184258822270adca5a55e2.pdf
No fear. I understand there are some extremely traditional orthodox Jews who do that, but I’ve never seen it done. We mostly use a sterile scalpel, some sterile gauze, sterile foreceps, and a sterile “shield” to make sure they don’t cut too much. And the guy who does it washes his hands and wears sterile surgical gloves. That describes most of the procedures I’ve seen. But seriously, I think the “lick away a drop of blood” thing is extremely uncommon. I certainly wouldn’t have allowed that.
Because I’m a Jew, and he’s a Jew, and it’s going to be a major social impediment for any Jewish-identified man to be uncut for at least a few more generations, possibly much longer. You may not understand the emotional importance to Jews. As an example, a friend described how tight his bathing suit was by saying “you can see my religion”. And as mentioned, the actual damage to the child seems to be insignificant.
If I weren’t Jewish, I wouldn’t have done it.
I also subjected my children to traumatic vaccinations (dpt, in particular, was really bad when they were infants) and to periodic painful blood draws to test them for lead. Parents do stuff to children, sometimes unpleasant stuff.
Same with women of some cultures.
Complications:
https://med.stanford.edu/newborns/professional-education/circumcision/complications.html
There’s also pain. I know men who have had circumcisions as adults that tell me it was painful. It’s undoubtedly more painful for an infant. A doctor’s advice on care for an uncircumcised baby describes how it’s attached differently than in an adult:
Do we have to have proof of harm anyway to do away with chopping a body part off of a newborn? There are harms and some possible harms from complications…but let’s do it anyway. Especially for Jews.
I bet a lot of moms of various religions/cultures say the same about their circumcised daughters. I know, I know…it’s different.
Well, this thread certainly is heated, but I’ll chime in anyway.
Speaking as an man who was never circumcised, I can personally attest to the fact that I like my foreskin. It’s nice to have. It’s highly sensitive. In fact, as a 10 year old boy I first discovered masturbation by yanking on it (which was enough on its own). Not that anyone wanted or needed to know that.
I cannot fathom why anyone would want to remove it. It certainly doesn’t hurt anything, cleanliness has never been an issue, and I’ve never had complaints from sexual partners. That just doesn’t compute for me. Why wouldn’t you want it?
Morally speaking it does seem a bit anti-ethical to perform a irreversible, cosmetic surgery on an infant. Especially when there is no benefit in doing so, and there absolutely is harm (just because you don’t remember, doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt like a bitch). Even if you were anesthetized, it would still be painful during your convalescence. Do babies not have body autonomy?
Sorry, if I come across as narrow minded, but I really don’t understand how people can defend something (which to me) is so an abjectly amoral. How is it any different than say, cutting off a baby’s earlobes?
The main difference is that I would much more readily part with my earlobes than my foreskin. For me it’s more on a par with losing one eye. If some sadistic criminal forced me to choose between the two, I would have a tough time choosing and whichever I chose, I would probably regret it and think I should have gone the other way. But earlobes, a couple left fingers, even my whole left hand, I would easily trade away before my foreskin.
I’m more apt to trust the Mayo Clinic, AAP, AMA and other such organizations than CuttingBabyWienersIsEvil.org or related anti-circ bad science sites.
Yes, you have to have proof of harm, the same way you need proof of harm to suggest it’s wrong to stick babies with needles.
I’m not saying circumcision is important the way vaccination is important, or even that it should be the norm, but if we’re going to go down the road of calling it evil… you better have proof of harm.
Yet in the healthiest countries in the world, circumcision is rare.
Amusingly, the few studies the anti-circ people cling to such as the oft-cited Belgium study are all based on self-reporting.
This is about the tenth time you’ve tried that line. Are you just trying to convince people that you don’t understand multiple factors or causation?
Bullshit. We’re talking about cutting body parts off without consent. It’s mutilation whether people like that word or not. Not cutting off a body part is the default. Whether one calls it evil or not has no bearing on the requirement for proof of harm. If I call it evil, I have to prove harm and if I don’t, I don’t need to? Then the proof is magically not necessary? That’s irrational.
The healthiest countries don’t ust happen to be at the top of the rankings because of various random factors. They systematically seek out best health practices, and if circumcision really were one of those, you can bet they would adopt it.
The findings of health benefits are mainly in places like Kenya, where–as I previously pointed out–people do some sick and twisted shit to women’s vaginas in preparation for intercourse, which tends to lead to transmission of HIV. In the West we don’t do that nonsense.
Isn’t that alone enough for people without proving harm (which has been done)? It’s part of a sexual organ. It has plenty of nerves. It has sensations people enjoy having.
That’s remarkably naive. But, yes, circumcision is exceptionally poor at preventing obesity, lung cancer, alcoholism, heart disease, drive-by gang shootings and hundreds of other non-penis related maladies that make up world health rankings. You certainly got me there.
If you think findings of health benefits are restricted to sub-Saharan Africa, you haven’t done much reading into them.
I’m sure it is the same for women and fgm. I believe there is an objective difference in the cost/benefit analysis. I think there are zero medical benefits, and, on average, more significant sexual disadvantages to fgm than to male circumcision.
But anyone who goes to a culture and says “how can you mutilate your little girls”, without understanding the social significance, is doomed to failure.
I’m less impressed by the pain. Methods of circumcision vary, but the traditional Jewish method (which is quite similar to what was described in that African study) is quick, and was less painful for my child than his dpt shot-- which left him feeling sick and miserable for a couple of days. Now, the cost benefit analysis for a dpt vaccine is much more compelling than for any cutting. But it points out that the issue is comparing the costs and benefits.
Yeah, I like that misleading 60% reduction in HIV infection rate point.
Here’s the WHOcite.
They achieved this high percentage by education and promotion of safer sex practices - like putting on a condom…meaning 60% did put on a condom and 40% well, got HIV.
Meanwhile in New York a few thousand babies get Herpes due to circumcision.
Have you read any of the studies? Both the circumcised men and the control group had education about and access to condoms.
I don’t think the results are very relevant in the US, where the incidence of HIV is so much lower, but that’s pretty good science.
Also, your cite says two babies were infected with herpes, not thousands. The practice that leads to that isn’t circumcision, but a very unfortunate custom of “aftercare” for the wound, which I believe is quite rare.
The 60% number is basically across the border, including uncircumcised and circumcised men.