# One small cut for man not kind **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 25, 2005, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-small-cut-for-man-not-kind/309781 "2005-06-25T09:53:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![inkleberry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f17d59/32.png) [@inkleberry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/inkleberry)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2005, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-small-cut-for-man-not-kind/309781/61 "2005-06-28T02:34:21Z")
Actually, in our son’s case it was the only thing that finally stopped the repeated kidney and bladder infections. Yeah, it sucked when it was done, but it was no where near as bad as further hospital trips and catheters and IVs and such would have been. ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2005, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-small-cut-for-man-not-kind/309781/62 "2005-06-28T02:42:03Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Crackpot Theory: Along with losing the yarmulkes it furthers the goal of the Great International Jewish Conspiracy (Reformed) to make Jews blend in with the rest of the population. Is that guy of Italian, Greek, Lebanese, or Jewish ancestry? No longer can you pants him and find out! Crackpot, indeed. I’ve seen at least one Jewish uncircumcised penis and one Muslim circumcised one. My understanding is that, interestingly enough, Muslims for the most part also circumcise baby boys. ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2005, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-small-cut-for-man-not-kind/309781/63 "2005-06-28T02:46:01Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > And appearently not if its (marginally) benificial either. > > Doesn’t mean it isn’t moral or ethical either. Or, to put it another way, YOU don’t think its moral or ethical appearently. Do you suppose that your moral and ethical code somehow is the only correct one? 😛 > > Only if you assume that somehow the skin in foreskin is somehow special. I’ve seen no evidence that this is so, or that a reversal is not ‘truly reversed’ as you say. Doesn’t look like its that common of a proceedure either so I don’t think there is exactly a huge outcry to get foreskins put back on. I know the thought never even crossed my mind. > > -XT my foreskin was special becaus it was MINE I arrived that way, after careful evolutionary operations over millions of years. Lots of things fell by the wayside, but dammit, not that little bit of skin. Kind of makes you wonder why god put it there (what, just so you could cut it off you motherfucker??) but I digress. we are talking of mutilatioin–“circumscision” merely describes the direction of the dotted line… The fackt that it is sexual mutilation ought to raise a prima facie inference of PATHOLOGY IN ITS INCEPTION ---
**Author:** ![yBeayf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/e274bd/32.png) [@yBeayf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yBeayf)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2005, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-small-cut-for-man-not-kind/309781/64 "2005-06-28T02:55:55Z")
> [@](#): > > My understanding is that, interestingly enough, Muslims for the most part also circumcise baby boys. This is true. Circumcision is a sunnah, and Muslims consider themselves to stand alongside Jews as being one of the circumsized peoples. ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2005, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-small-cut-for-man-not-kind/309781/65 "2005-06-28T03:04:18Z")
> [@MelCthefirst](#): > > I didn’t say it was wrong to do it, I’m somewhat assuming that if there were non-cultural health benefits for not doing something or doing something, then western countries would be similar in approach (not to say that non-western countries wouldn’t but they don’t often have the money or the health systems). As I originally said - it’s a cultural difference and it is interesting as to why it persists in the US. it persists because this is a profoundly sex negative culture. The elephant in the room surely is the particular anatomy that is mutilated, is it not? particularly when the various rationales are revealed as the vaporware they are. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2005, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-small-cut-for-man-not-kind/309781/66 "2005-06-28T03:18:01Z")
> [@alaricthegoth](#): > > I arrived that way, after careful evolutionary operations over millions of years. That’s an interesting way to describe a path of random mutations and happenstance. It all happened to make a little bit of skin on your dick? I don’t buy it. > [@](#): > > Kind of makes you wonder why god put it there (what, just so you could > cut it off you motherfucker??) It doesn’t make me wonder about that, no. I do wonder if you should take a few deep breaths here. 😛 We end up cutting off and removing a number of bits of our anatomy over the course of our lives. > [@](#): > > we are talking of mutilatioin–“circumscision” merely describes the direction of the dotted line… If you’re going to define all surgery as mutilation, this has already become pointless. It also makes a conversation about it, but oh well… ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2005, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-small-cut-for-man-not-kind/309781/67 "2005-06-28T03:18:50Z")
> [@Anastasaeon](#): > > This is just personal experience, adn naturally everyones MMV. That said… > > My first lover had an uncircumsized penis, and had enormous trouble with it. He couldn’t pull the skin back over the head, and the head itself, when it peeked through, was often a disturbing reddish-purple colour. It was often infected, and quite frankly, smelled terrible, though I’m sure that had something to do with the infection. > > A male friend of mine several years ago had to have his cut at 25 years old. This man was very meticulous about his personal hygiene, but it kept getting infected. (I know he was meticulous… I wasn’t his lover, but he had no problems being naked around me.) > > My ex-fiance was circumsized, and he blamed all of his erectile problems on being circumsized. I am not a man, and so I have no idea what is myth and what is fact when it comes to erection problems, but I feel I should at least mention that this fellow was not a very bright bulb, and he often jumped to a “simple” conclusion and ran with it. (ie: he believed most stereotypes to be absolutely true, most urban legends to be true, and that once he was right, he was right all the time - so I have no idea if it was truly because of the circumsision that he had erection problems, or if it was just something he decided to blame all of his problems on once and stuck with it for good - since he can’t get his foreskin back, he may have found it easier to pin the blame on its absence.) > > My husband is circumsized and has no problems (and has never had problems) whatsoever. > > I think this issue is more than just black and white. There are many factors and circumstances to take into consideration. I just can’t find people who have it done to their children evil, terrible people - their experiences with it may have more depth to it than simply “I want my son to be just like daddy.” Daddy may have had a terrible experience with his foreskin and had to have it removed late in his life and doesn’t want his son to suffer the same way he did. Shoddy circumsisions _may_ have been done by shoddy doctors. I’m not saying this is true in all cases. No matter what parents decide for their child, they should talk to several doctors about it, and talk to people about their experiences with it. > > As for an older child, it should be done with their consent, of course, unless it is truly a health problem and it needs to be done. after pausing for a moment to remark on the contrast between the fiance who became ex and the current squeeze, I have a friend who, when last we spoke, was entering the hospital at age thirty or so for this particular thereapeutic intervention which had been rendered necessary in his case. I am going to seek him out in the interest of science, since I don’t know what I’m missing and there is (I think) a bias towards denial which skews the response when we hear how nobody but us nuts is appalled at having our tiny dicks cut on, even if we cannot articulate a specific lack of sexual response. 'I myself have little in the way of bad reviews, but what of that? No girl gets repeat phone calls if she points and laughs… ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2005, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-small-cut-for-man-not-kind/309781/68 "2005-06-28T03:20:01Z")
:shrug: I’m not mutilated. Cut, but not mutilated. Just sayin’. I guess I kind of understand your angle, but I honestly think there are worse things to be upset about. And as I tell my (uncut) son regularly, screaming doesn’t usually get you what you want. ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2005, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-small-cut-for-man-not-kind/309781/69 "2005-06-28T03:24:31Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > That’s an interesting way to describe a path of random mutations and happenstance. It all happened to make a little bit of skin on your dick? I don’t buy it. > > It doesn’t make me wonder about that, no. I do wonder if you should take a few deep breaths here. 😛 We end up cutting off and removing a number of bits of our anatomy over the course of our lives. > > If you’re going to define all surgery as mutilation, this has already become pointless. It also makes a conversation about it, but oh well… I did mention that I had issues, did I not? may we agree that surgery occurs in hospitals, and has a therapeutic indication? mutilation, I would submit, occurs when otherwise healthy tissue is scarred or removed for purposes of adornment, ritual, or superstition. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2005, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-small-cut-for-man-not-kind/309781/70 "2005-06-28T04:32:41Z")
> [@alaricthegoth](#): > > may we agree that surgery occurs in hospitals No, that doesn’t make sense. “In a hospital” is too narrow, but that’s a quibble. Most circumcision surely does take place in hospitals. It’s only some Jewish people who do it in the home on the table. Most people, you may note, are not Jewish. I think an earlier poster said that roughly half of the men in America are circumcized; do the math. > [@](#): > > and has a therapeutic indication? > > mutilation, I would submit, occurs when otherwise healthy tissue is scarred or removed for purposes of adornment, ritual, or superstition. Except that a number of people have already posted that there IS what you call a therapeutic indication. > [@Venus Probe](#): > > these are only my thoughts, but I think they have some merit. I don’t think they do. You’re intentionally excluding most of the people with objections, which is not what I’d call a valid arguing tactic. I’ve never owned a slave or been a slave, do I have no basis to form an opinion on that practice either? 😛 Doesn’t work, sorry. And I’ve got no problem with circumcision. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2005, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-small-cut-for-man-not-kind/309781/71 "2005-06-28T05:01:19Z")
> [@alaricthegoth](#): > > my foreskin was special becaus it was MINE My guess is you never missed it since you never knew what it was like to have it. Grass is always greener and all that. > [@alaricthegoth](#): > > Kind of makes you wonder why god put it there (what, just so you could Assuming for a moment there is a god (I’m dubious), s/he also gave us an appendix…and I’m not thinking I’m missing out by not having that either. 😃 If you are going to base everything on what god gave us then I suppose all surgery is out, ehe? > [@alaricthegoth](#): > > mutilation, I would submit, occurs when otherwise healthy tissue is scarred or removed for purposes of adornment, ritual, or superstition. Sure…except that it also improves your odds on not getting penile cancer…sure, only 1000 cases per year (in the US), which is, what…1 chance in 75,000 aproximately if you are uncircumsized? Still, its not ALL about ‘adornment, ritual, or superstition’ it seems. There is also the whole maintenence free tool thing. I notice you didn’t address any of these (or other health related issues, slight though they are) things when you decided to wade into this debate. I’ll let you in on a little secret…for all intents and purposes I’m an atheists. I had both of my son’s snipped because when I took a long hard look at the issue it seems marginally better to have it done because of the health/maintenence issues. It had nothing to do with ‘ritual, or superstition’…and only a bit to do with ‘adornment’ or at least looks. As to your rant about mutilation, I’ll just say that I’m not seeing it. Its not like your cock is disfigured. It still works the same for all its intended uses. You get the same sexual pleasure, you can still propagate the species, you can still piss the same, etc. And afaik the majority of women don’t have a strong preference one way or the other…not to the point they won’t allow you access to them sexually. That being the case, I ask again…what difference does it really make? -XT ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2005, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-small-cut-for-man-not-kind/309781/72 "2005-06-28T05:17:10Z")
Oh, I missed the whole evolutionary angle too…gods, that’s pretty funny. > [@alaricthegoth](#): > > Pre culture, pre clothes. > Enter Homo Habilis. Every day, great swinging dicks stroll by all sheathed except when turgid or on the way thereto. > > Habilis, no fool, but perhaps overly optimistic vis-a-vis the susceptibility to artifice of Mrs. H., thinks: > > If I cut off this little bit here, it will look like I’m hard ALL THE TIME!!! Um…you know the difference between acute and chronic disease, right? To put it a different way, what were the odds of H. Habilis (or later H. versions) of dieing of something like penile cancer…as opposed to, say, getting eaten by a tiger (or some other gruesome fate)? Assuming you agree that odds were our hapless Hominid would most like die of something OTHER than penile cancer, there really was no need for them to even consider taking that sharp rock and having that bit of skin off. I’m unsure if having said foreskin on provided some advantage to our distant ancestors (or if it was a slight negative like the appendix, or simply neutral, evolutionarily speaking…like having 5 fingers and toes)…certainly today, having or not having provides no advantage in passing on your genes. Were it REALLY mutilation and were it distasteful to females to look at a circumcised penis then I’d say the practice would long since have been discontinued…slight health benefit or no. That doesn’t seem to be the case though…least I’ve never been shunned by a female because of some missing foreskin. But thanks for the laugh there…made my night. 😃 -XT ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2005, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-small-cut-for-man-not-kind/309781/73 "2005-06-28T05:53:17Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > My guess is you never missed it since you never knew what it was like to have it. Grass is always greener and all that. > > You get the same sexual pleasure, … > > -XT says who? ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2005, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-small-cut-for-man-not-kind/309781/74 "2005-06-28T06:08:12Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > My guess is you never missed it since you never knew what it was like to have it. Grass is always greener and all that. > …what difference does it really make? > > -XT perhaps i rushed too quickly past the phenomology of the circumcisee. you are to be congratulated for (I hope) forbearing from the festive version, and having your son’s “fixed” at some medical facility where they may have received analgesia beyond a fucking pinky’s worth of wine… but I digress. consider if you will, a seven day old consciousness surrounded by the people he has come to recognize and rely upon for protection and sustenance, and then out of the blue, we are going to cut him WHERE??? at the very least, a lesson in how Reality Bites, if you take my meaning. The preposterous argument that this monstrous trauma goes unremarked, and “you don’t remember” is laughable. ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2005, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-small-cut-for-man-not-kind/309781/75 "2005-06-28T06:19:07Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Oh, I missed the whole evolutionary angle too…gods, that’s pretty funny. > > Um…you know the difference between acute and chronic disease, right? To put it a different way, what were the odds of H. Habilis (or later H. versions) of dieing of something like penile cancer…as opposed to, say, getting eaten by a tiger (or some other gruesome fate)? Assuming you agree that odds were our hapless Hominid would most like die of something OTHER than penile cancer, there really was no need for them to even consider taking that sharp rock and having that bit of skin off. > > I’m unsure if having said foreskin on provided some advantage to our distant ancestors (or if it was a slight negative like the appendix, or simply neutral, evolutionarily speaking…like having 5 fingers and toes)…certainly today, having or not having provides no advantage in passing on your genes. Were it REALLY mutilation and were it distasteful to females to look at a circumcised penis then I’d say the practice would long since have been discontinued…slight health benefit or no. That doesn’t seem to be the case though…least I’ve never been shunned by a female because of some missing foreskin. > > But thanks for the laugh there…made my night. 😃 > > -XT not evolutionary; cultural. habilis was just trying to get a little more than his share. I was probing the etiology of the practice, not it’s perpetuation, which becomes conflated with sectarian religiousity. I was wondering who the first circumcisor was, and what he had in mind. I ws pretty sure it was an auto circumcision, because you wouldn’t let someone else do that to you if it had never been done before, ya feel me? ---
**Author:** ![bizzwire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/958977/32.png) [@bizzwire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bizzwire)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2005, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-small-cut-for-man-not-kind/309781/76 "2005-06-28T13:50:30Z")
> [@alaricthegoth](#): > > you are to be congratulated for (I hope) forbearing from the festive version, and having your son’s “fixed” at some medical facility where they may have received analgesia beyond a fucking pinky’s worth of wine… Try a google search of, say, “mohel lidocaine.” You might find something you didn’t know, such as the fact that topical anesthetics are, indeed used. One thing I learned in the 20 seconds I spent researching this is that, 1. there are risks associated with anesthetics That I wasn’t aware of, and 2. sugar water (and presumably, sweet wine), has analgesic effects. from [here](http://www.torahview.com/bris/html/anesthesia_.html) > [@](#): > > The British Medical Journal No 6993 Volume 310, 1995, includes a paper reporting on the analgesic affect of sucrose (sugar) and declares it an effective pain killer for babies. The authors of the paper gave sugar in the form of 2 mls of 50 per cent sucrose by mouth to 30 babies just before they had a routine blood test to detect jaundice. The babies cried less and had a faster return to normal heart rate after the painful prick in the foot than the 30 babies who were given only plain water. … The sweet wine used by a Mohel to comfort the baby after the circumcision appears to be an effective and safe pain-killer for young babies as well [quasi-link to cited paper](http://www.torahview.com/bris/html/tylenol.html) Learn something new every day, non? ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Scrappy\_Hero\_Pup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ea5d25/32.png) [@Happy\_Scrappy\_Hero\_Pup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Scrappy_Hero_Pup)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2005, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-small-cut-for-man-not-kind/309781/77 "2005-06-28T14:22:52Z")
I was unable to have sex for about twelve years after being circumcized, and didn’t until about sixteen years afterward. Where are MY reparations? ---
**Author:** ![Scott\_Plaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2005, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-small-cut-for-man-not-kind/309781/78 "2005-06-28T14:31:16Z")
Jeez, you really have been screwed up. True, it took me till I was ten to show to girls my age how I had been mutilated, (Playing Doctor, that is. 🙂 ) which is six fewer years then you, but still pretty bad. However, no one here is talking about “reparations” Where the hell did you pull that out from? No, wait. I don’t want to know. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2005, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-small-cut-for-man-not-kind/309781/79 "2005-06-28T14:38:08Z")
> [@alaricthegoth](#): > > mutilation, I would submit, occurs when otherwise healthy tissue is scarred or removed for purposes of adornment, ritual, or superstition. But that definition would also include tatooing, ear piercing, and, for that matter, shaving. Are you sure you want to use the term “mutilation” to describe it? ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2005, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-small-cut-for-man-not-kind/309781/80 "2005-06-28T14:46:11Z")
> [@Happy Scrappy Hero Pup](#): > > I was unable to have sex for about twelve years after being circumcized, and didn’t until about sixteen years afterward. > Where are MY reparations? _Sixteen_?!? I demand more reparations than that precocious **HSHP** fucker! At least an additional twe–er, ten years worth. Er, maybe five. I mean, um . . . yeah! I was sixteen too!! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-small-cut-for-man-not-kind/309781.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/one-small-cut-for-man-not-kind/309781.md?page=5)