Okay, Gaudere and David, he asked for that – you know he did.
iampunha,
> Where does FGM say this? Cite, book, anything? <
Go to a search engine. Type in the term "female genital mutilation." This site is OK, I guess. http://www.fgmnetwork.org/ This page is good http://www.fgmnetwork.org/intro/mgmfgm.html
I’ll let the FGM people advance their case against FGM.
> When I was around four years old I was circumcised. My foreskin apparently wasn’t growing in tune with the rest of me, which make urinating difficult (painful, in fact). <
Manual stretching of your foreskin would have solved the problem.
> I think my parents can attest to the fact that I wasn’t a zombie beforehand and I’m certainly not one now. <
You were not really old enough to have experienced your foreskin. So, you don't know what was taken.
> I chose to be circumcised. <
Sorry, at 4 years old, you are not qualified to make an informed choice. So, you didn't choose anything.
> I am very much not a freak (you’ve called people who were or would be circumcised freaks in this thread, so I just want to establish that). <
I didn't call them freaks to insult them. I called them freaks to make the point about how rare circumcision is in this world.
> My brother, however, is not circumcised. I don’t think any comparison of zombieness can be made between he and I because he’s 12. <
Experiments could be done if there was sufficient money.
> Haven’t you said several times in this thread that the physiology of foreskin is virtually unknown? <
I've only made the point that no where near enough is known about the foreskin to know what the costs are of amputating it. Also, the medical establishment refuses to study the foreskin. And, what is being learned by study outside of the establishment is ominous for the damage that circumcision is doing.
> Has your research been published in a well-known, peer-reviewed journal? <
No.
> I could tote myself as an expert on pubic hair function, but if it hasn’t been published or reviewed by respected medical personnel, what’s the point? <
The medical establishment won't study the foreskin so how can it be considered "respected"? It would be wonderful if we had a respectable medical personnel but, unfortunately, we don't.
> Could you give us a link/name for the Canadian researcher? <
http://www.cirp.org/library/anatomy/taylor/
> When you say something is wrong, it is up to you to prove it is wrong, not the field to prove it is right. <
No, it's up to you to prove something is right. I can't prove a negative. I can bring up problems with your proposition that circumcision is a good thing. And, that's all anyone can do.
> If no studies have been done on the physiology of the foreskin, how can you prove it’s a bad thing that it’s been cut off? <
I can't prove that circumcision is a bad thing. That would be proving a negative and the most intelligent person to have ever lived can't prove a negative because that is impossible.
> Also, how would studying the physiology determine the cost? <
The surgeons are amputating something. What are they amputating? What does it do? This has to be determined in order to outline the costs to the "patient." They cannot know this until it is thoroughly studied.
> It’s skin . . . not that complex of an operation, else it would not be done so frequently. <
It's not just skin. It is mucosa even though it might look like skin. And, the true skin that is amputated along with the mucosa is not normal skin either.
The only reason why the operation isn't that complicated on a baby is because the baby can't complain so the surgeon doesn't have to sweat how good a job he does. And, the surgeon doesn't have to use anesthesia.
> So why are we still debating? You’ve just admitted you can’t do what you must to win this debate. <
The only point that I'm making is that the pro-circumcision people have not given us a cost-benefit analysis. And, I'm bringing up all sorts of experimental results that must me dealt with in their cost-benefit analysis in order to justify circumcision.
Like any debate between dogmatic believers and skeptics, the two sides are debating about two different things. In this case, the pro-circumcision side is debating the pros and cons of the experimental results of having circumcised a huge population of men. The pro-circumcision side is just fooling itself. They must make a case for circumcision and they never have. All of the fallacies and all of the insults are just to distract you from this obvious fact: The pro-circumcision side has never made its case.
> Well, I for one would like to see compelling evidence such that circumcised men are X times more likely to be sexual offenders, etc.<
I'd like to see studies of this also. Unfortunately, circumcision status among convicted criminals is not recorded anywhere. They probably learned their lesson when they use to record religious persuasion of convicted criminals and found out that they were virtually all Christians.I dunno, shoudn’t it be Membe ? 
Boy, it must be great to know everything, Jack. As it happens, my father is a nurse. I have several relatives in the medical profession. The problem was that I couldn’t get my foreskin off my head, so to speak. It would not . . . how to say this . . . I couldn’t get it off enough to pee comfortably.
I find it particularly amusing that you seem to know so much about the foreskin of so many members of the SDMB, despite the fact that (I dearly hope) you’ve never seen any of our penises.
I was old enough to know that the fact that my foreskin wasn’t growing properly was the reason it hurt to pee. I was old enough to think “boy, this is a funky thing, this foreskin/penis I have”. I even remember I was in the bathroom at a grocery store when the pain I experienced while peeing got so bad that I told my father. I was crying, it hurt so much.
Jack, yet again . . . it must be great to know everything.
Right, except for the fact that you have any number of uncontrollable variables in there, which makes any study suspect at best.
If nowhere near enough is known, how can you say that circumcision is harmful? Your assertations here are about as valid, from what I can see, as assertations made about the movements of quarks; you can say lots of things, but you can’t prove it because not enough study has been done.
With all due respect, what use is it?
You keep on saying the medical establishment won’t do X and Y . . . is this “common knowledge” or something you figured out when you were an astrophysics major at UCLA, or part of some underground conspiracy?
from http://www.cirp.org/library/anatomy/taylor/:
Since when does research done on 21 men out of God-only-knows how many men mean anything in the medical profesion?
Right, but you cannot prove conclusively that circumcision does more harm than good.
Didn’t Jodi already cover the fallacy present in this assertation?
The baby sure as hell can complain. My father, who has assisted in circumcisions, tells me that doctors used to do the operation without anaesthesia. Now they do, for the most part. I can’t make claims for every doctor, but it is common practice.
And if the doctor botches the job, s/he can be sued. I would imagine a whole lot of punitive damages. People have lost the majority of their penis in botched circumcisions.
Why should they? Where have you given any evidence of the harms of circumcision (not mistakes made . . . places where it is impossible to ignore the fact that a circumcision alone is the reason for a medical problem)?
Which is noble, but experimental results aren’t totally reliable. For instance, there was a pill of some sort developed during the 70s which had no apparent side effects on rodents on which the drug was tested. It was given to pregnant women and their babies were born with limbs missing. Here, experimental data was, if anything, useless in terms of the practical applications of the drug.
But they don’t have to, Jack. No matter what you try to say about proving a negative, what it comes down to, in my opinion, is this: you cannot prove your assertation(s) regarding circumcision.
So then you are stating something with absolutely no factual basis. This doesn’t fly in GD, JDT.
OK, I think I have figured out what is going on here. JDT is not anti-circ. He’s pro-fgm and he is dedicating massive amounts of time to us to illustrate how odd we westerners sound when we try to get African groups to give up the practice.
Actualy, I don’t think that, I think he is a true fanatic, but he has made me think. However, I can’t help but wonder that victems of FGM (and I am talking about removal of the clitoris) have the same reaction to westerners telling them they “can’t possibly enjoy sex like women with their clitorises do”. Their response is probably along the same lines as that of the circumsised men on this thread: “How the fuck would you know?” or even women who don’t enjoy sex may well be thinking “Why is this even important or relevant in my life?”
Note: This does not mean that JDT is an any way right, and ** in would in fact be a gross logical fallacy to use this arguement to support JDT** because there has been signifigant, peer reviewed research showing that the clitoris plays a vital role in achieving orgasm; further more, there has been sigifigant evidence that the procedure carries a high risk of injury, illness and death (although that in itself is not sufficient–pro-fgm people could just suggest fixing the procedure, not stoping it). One could, by JDT’s standards, suggest that this proves a negitive, if only after making the rather dubious semantic leap that bad means negative. There has been pretty signifigant work done on the male orgasm as well, and apparently no researcher ever noticed “Gee, these intact men get off harder.”
Jack . . . I’m home now and was talking with my father about this. My mother, who worked in medical transcription and majored in Greek, agrees with my father that I had phimosis, if I understand her correctly. So your assertation that I could have stretched out my foreskin is, in the very least, wrong. At most, it could have made me far worse.
I wish I could stay away from this thread. However, I would like to make 2 points:
1)FGM is different from male circumcision in the response of the victim. Most victims of FGM do not assert that their sex life is unchanged as a result of the surgery-those that support it argue that women should not have enjoyable sexual experiences.
2)I am concerned that of the uncircumcized men (and women who have had sex with uncircumcized men) who have posted here, not one has had sex correctly as posited by Jack. If his description of how sex should be performed is indeed the only correct way, then why is this method counterintuitive to even the uncircumcized men here. Does this mean that extensive training is necessary for appropriate sexual function? Or could it be that this is not the genetically determined instinctive method of intercourse?
I’m not really an insane rabbit, I just play one on the net.
iampunha,
Don’t you know that JDK knows has more intimate knowledge of the workings of your penis than you could ever have? If Swiddles were reading this thread, I’m sure she would dub him the Patron Saint of Penii.
How many pounds is 200 kilos?
Rather more than 400 pounds. One pound = 0.454. I bet you’re glad you asked!
Thank you everyone for the hours and hours of incredible entertainment you’ve provided me in this thread. It was worth every minute it took to read through all 8 pages so far. I’d participate, but I’d only be wasting my breath with this dude. Just thought I’d provide a link to a picture of the ‘qi gong’ practitioners pulling the truck with their penises. All I can say is OUCH!
Oh and iampunha, talk to Chronos. There’s something wrong with his penis, too. Perhaps you two freaks can commiserate. 
Thanks for that conversion, Celyn. Seems ironic that so many males would use the “Tug-Ahoy” or tape method which takes two, l-o-n-g years when all they have to do is attach to a 200-kilo wt. or tug a 10-ton truck (“Tug-Atruck”?) for an instant non-surgical method of creating a foreskin. (providing he passes the test and the penis remains intact!) …no need for dipping into the national budget!
Sounds like Jack developed the Tug-Ahoy and this whole fiasco has been a shameless sales pitch for his product.
I’d just like everyone to re-read that bit. Gaudere is obviously part of the insidious circ conspiracy.
I love your debating style, Jack. “You’re wrong! I say so! End of discussion!”
I think I’ve provided enough cites for you at this point. Let’s see what effect they have on your thinking.
Holy jumping catfish, Jack, you created this thread in Great Debates to put forth and defend a position on a topic (I assume). Now you’re blithely dismissing any possible physical or psychological basis for the position against which you’re arguing? You should’ve started this thread in IMHO; that’s the place for witnessing.
(I’m aware that I’m repeating that, but I wanted to have it fresh on your mind when I posted the following, also posted by Mr. Tyler:)
Pleased to meet you, Mr. Orwell.
Aargh. I was mistaken. This IS the place for witnessing. I don’t guess a friendly neighborhood moderator would be willing to change the “witnessing” forum to IMHO real quick, would they?
Feel free to spew your nonsensical babble here, Jack. My apologies. You’re in the right place.
“I can’t prove that murder is a bad thing. That would be proving a negative and…”
“I can’t prove that rape is a bad thing. That would be proving a negative and…”
“I can’t prove that stealing is a bad thing. That would be proving a negative and…”
Have I made my point?
Holy crap! You’re right! Babies can’t complain! That means all the times I ever heard a baby cry from pain, I was actually hallucinating!
(Why do I keep debating this guy? Practice.)
You told JDT that “Logic is not a science.”
It is according to Merriam-Webster:
But if JDT’s being logical, then I’m Santa Claus.
Incidentally, Jack, the studies cited by the American Cancer Society indicate what most rational people would consider positive behavioral differences for circumcised men vs. uncircumcised: less tendency to have multiple sexual partners, less tendency to smoke, better overall personal hygiene.
Tell you what; I’ll form a new position statement, and we can debate it. My position is that circumcision makes men more secure in themselves and better members (HA!) of society. My proof is the information cited above, which is listed on the American Cancer Society site.
To satisfy your request for a cost-benefit analysis, I suppose we’d have to tot up all the costs involved in circumcision. My guess would be that it’s around $500 per operation, but I freely admit that it’s a guess. Now, we’ll leave the potential costs of penile cancer treatment for 1,400 cases a year out of this; we’re just debating the position I forwarded. To generate the costs associated with not circumcising male babies, we’ll need to add up the costs associated with sexually transmitted diseases (diagnosis, treatment, research, etc.), since uncircumcised men apparently have a tendency to sleep with more partners (see proof above); the costs associated with smoking (which would also include the costs of diagnosing and treating lung cancer); and the cost of public-information programs to let uncircumcised men know how to clean themselves properly. Admittedly, I don’t have any figures for any of these costs, but my educated guess is that those costs would exceed the circumcision costs. Can you disprove this?
iampunha,
> Didn’t Jodi already cover the fallacy present in this assertation? <
No, he /she didn’t. I don’t mean to offend you, but you and Jodi need to go to your respective, local community colleges and take the introductory course in the science of logic. Obviously, neither of you understand anything about the science of logic because both of you are making glaring theoretical mistakes. I’m sure that David B., our skeptical moderator, will back me up on this if you ask him. Ignorance is nothing to be ashamed of. But, stupidity, which is ignorance by choice, is very shameful. So, take a little action to educate yourself.
Oh, the irony!