That’s crazy!
It is a procedure, and as I noted earlier there are truly legitimate, necessary reasons for doing it. It’s just that they’re uncommon.
Penile blocks were not uncommon by the early to mid 80’s, which is when I was doing them (1983, actually.) Unfortunately, older practitioners tended to not pick up that technique, having done it without for decades.
And I quit doing circumcisions because the evidence cited back in the day for the procedure’s benefits was being shown more and more to be incorrect.
When I began doing circs, I considered them to be very slightly beneficial, with no real downside other than pain at the time of procedure; combining that info with the strong desire by parents to have it done, it seemed appropriate to do it, with proper anesthesia. I gave that info to parents, and if they wanted it done, it was done. But fewer parents were opting for it, after me telling them that it was not all that beneficial.
Then HIV hit, and there was a suggestion that circumcision could reduce the risk of that. More people wanted circs done as a result. People were going crazy over HIV risk back then; if you weren’t practicing medicine or practicing risky sex during that time, you won’t understand the levels of fear that were out there. LOTS of people were dying of AIDS, and everyone wanted to minimize risk as much as possible. Adult males were coming in for circumcisions then!
Even so, I did fewer of them, figuring there’d be at least a decade or so to let the infant boys grow up to decide how they wanted to protect themselves from HIV. And as it became more clear that the procedure was rarely truly medically necessary, I stopped doing it. Parents who wanted it done on their boys got referred to others, after I told them why it wasn’t medically necessary.
It was sure never a money-making procedure. The only reason I ever did it was because parents desired it plus at that time there seemed enough credible evidence that made it worthwhile to consider doing. When that changed, I changed my practice.
My only regret is that the medical community as a whole should have come down against the procedure being done without decent reason or adequate informed consent (from the parents) sooner and stronger.
So I’ve been reading this thread, and having flashbacks to a certain former poster who need not be named, and realizing that I actually feel emotions about this topic. Which is weird. Not that I feel emotions, I generally feel those, but that I should feel any sort of emotion about this topic. Circumcisions are unnecessary, I did not have my son cut, I don’t see any purpose in them.
At the same time, I resent the suggestion that, because of my circumcision, I am somehow broken, inferior, or a victim. I resent the implication or suggestion that my parents were somehow abusers.
And I feel very uncomfortable about men who believe that a grave Injustice was done them in infancy, and were it not for that terrible, terrible assault on their foreskins their life would be wildly different. Better.
It was a thing. In the United States, among Goyim, for many decades it was a thing. It is increasingly not a thing, and I am glad of this. But the anger, the passion about it on a personal level? That I don’t get, and never have.
Of course, I have never had any difficulty achieving arousal or orgasm, so maybe I’m just speaking from great piles of privilege.
applause
Yeah, it reminds me of the move to legalize marijuana.
Like, say for example that bubble gum was made illegal, on the basis that it’s unhealthy and bad for your teeth.
Now you might argue that this is a sort of useless law. It still leaves plenty of ways for one to go and be unhealthy, it’s capricious, etc. I would vote against this law. But, at the same time, I’m not going to organize massive protests against it. It’s not going to be at the top of my list of things to complain about, about the government. It’s not something I’m going to start a political party for. I’m not going to go on the internet arguing that there are some real health benefits to chewing gum and it’s a loss to humanity that we don’t have it.
So whenever someone has said that marijuana isn’t addictive, I’ve been sort of like…no, I’m not sure I buy that. I agree with you that the law is capricious, but this is still all a tempest in a tea pot. Where is the giant effort to get switchblades legalized again? That’s just a stupid, capricious law as well.
So with marijuana I assume that it’s addiction.
With the occasional circumcision rant that drives by every few years, I assume that it’s some form of sexual insecurity or they’re blaming a sexual failing on their circumcision.
I agree that circumcision is probably bad, and certainly the rationale for it is stupid and probably just an ancient scarrification rite started by some crazy masochist way back millenia ago that somehow lasted through to modern day. But the animosity is excessive to the practical effect on life.
Speaking of biblical justification for circumcision, as noted in this thread a few weeks back, it appears that biblical-era Jewish circumcision was different from, and less drastic than, current practice:
I don’t imagine the details of precisely what is or isn’t cut off are of primary importance; the issue is of a non medically necessary surgical procedure being performed on someone unable to consent to it.
The most striking biblical justification I have seen is in Exodus, namely, if you don’t do it, YHWH will personally kill you.
I’m not trying to tell anybody what they personally should consider important in the issue of infant circumcision, but I would maintain that “the details of precisely what is or isn’t cut off” do have a significant impact on social attitudes toward “a non medically necessary surgical procedure being performed on someone unable to consent to it”.
For example, in several cultures girls’ earlobes are routinely pierced at a very young age, sometimes even as newborns. This is unquestionably a “non medically necessary” surgical procedure that involves pain to the subject unable to consent to it, but since its effects are minor and usually reversible, there isn’t a major social controversy about its legitimacy.
Intractable phimosis can require it - granted that is extremely rare in infants.
Disabled boys who face a future of urinary catheters in order to piss will have notably fewer urinary tract infections if they are circumcised. As such infections can cause permanent damage to the various bits of tubing, the bladder, and the kidneys, and in some cases can prove fatal, that is arguably another situation where circumcision is the lesser evil. Again, not a common problem.
But you are correct that for the vast majority of boys it is not a need.
In the US infant male circumcision became almost as widespread as among Jews at one point, although Christianity does not in any way require it. If the OP is from the US that could account for any confusion on his part.
Funny, cultures with female genital mutilation feel the same way about unaltered female genitals…
The notion that an uncircumcised penis is less attractive than a circumcised one is purely a cultural meme. Cultures that do not routinely practice male circumcision think a circumcised one “looks funny”, odd, or even gross.
In other words, your aesthetic preferences are not a valid criteria.
I had ear-piercing in mind as I was posting, and do not see what would make that any more ethical than circumcision or foot-binding or mild electric shocks.
What are the arguments that religious or cultural motivations may override medical ethics to some extent?
At least with initiation rites like bullet ants, teeth-filing, or tattooing the kids are old enough to understand the meaning of what is going on, though there is an undeniable element of peer pressure even so.
Ambivalid, if you believe I have insulted you with that post you need to really be insulted more often to learn what that sounds like. In this thread, my impression of your opinion is of someone uniformed. That is not an insult.
If you want informed rebuttal. Ok. I ASSURE you, based on my extensive personal research, you can in fact hold all the penis skin back and have the same sex as any circumcised male, especially if the woman is on top. I can also assure you it’s not as pleasurable. I could also masterbate with the skin pulled back and use hand lotion with the other hand, I feel confident saying no uncircumcised male does this. Let this post be a sounding for any that actually can and yet do this.
Do you have experience in this area, or is this going to turn into a demand for wiki cites or some shit?
im still waiting for the fascinating religious angle to be explained ……
Wait, Sitnam, you’re claiming extensive sexual experience with both a circumsised and an uncircumcised penis?
ETA: and also that no uncut guy has ever jerked it with both hands??
.
An uncircumcised man can replicate the feeling of sex as a circumcised man. The reverse is not true.
No, that’s not at all the case. The core of the restoration argument is that in cut men, the glans is fundamentally different.
Ok. The ‘core of the restoration argument´. What the hell are you talking about?
This kinda caused me to think a bit, once I realised that I caught myself reflexively thinking of my own condition as normal, and then thought “How the Hell would I know, haven’t showered with other guys since high school, and didn’t pay much attention then”.
Then recalled a good little movie I watched called Europa. About a Jewish boy who survived the war in Nazi Germany by pretending to be an Aryan. At one point, a teacher in his school is pointing out the facial features that clarify his Aryan genotype. A comely young maiden of his acquaintance decides to respond the Fuhrer’s call for more Aryan soldiers with patriotic pregnancy, and sets her cap…so to speak… for our hero. Which, of course, he doesn’t dare, because it would reveal his secret. A prickly dilemma, to be sure…
What? OK, he’s been trimmed, why would that make him Jewish, lots of guys, most guys…No? In Germany of the 30’s and 40’s, and in most of Europe…I was told with indelicate condescension…this was not the case, not by a long shot.
So, what’s the skinny on that? Anybody know?
Outside of Jews and men with actual medical conditions requiring it, men in 1930’s/1940’s Germany were uncut. When the Nazis started their ethnic cleansing having a circumcised penis could get you killed.