If you check out those foreskin stretching links he’s provided, they all have the same snivelly “Poor me, sex just isn’t fun. It must be my circumsision! Damn my evil father!” tone that we’ve come to expect from Jack. Besides, he made the comment “as far as I can tell, women who’ve been with ‘intact’ men…” which implies that he’s circumsised.
I suspect that he’s cirumsised and had some complaints about his performance in the past. Given that:
A) He disapproves of oral and other types of sex, (note the use of the phrase “the right things”)
B) He believes that the penis shouldn’t enter the woman for sex to be at it’s best,
and C) a desirable female partner just lies there and doesn’t make any vulgar, unpleasant noises or even respond
These quotes do not sound as though they come from someone who has a happy and/or healthy sex life, regardless of the status of his foreskin.
As a medical student, I’d like to see just one study of circumcised men who could not reach orgasm, and after “foreskin repair” they could.
And I’d like to know what alternative treatments there are for phimoses, paraphimoses, and recurrent balanitis.
It is also true that the glans penis undergoes keratinization after circumcision. But this, in itself, does make things less sensitive. We have very sensitive keratinized areas on our body (like the fingertips).
Another thing :
Huh? I’ve see a lot of penises in my day (spent time in clinics as a medical student). During a bris, perhaps 1 square inch of tissue is removed. I can’t even conceive of 15 square inches of tissue being removed. If your idea of circumcision is the removal of 15 sq. in. of tissue, then your idea of circumcision is totally different from that of the medical community. Or the Jewish community.
[continued really minor legal quibble devolving into semantics]
I guess it depends on what is meant by “positive law constraining individual citizens.” I agree that the Thirteenth Amendment does not itself criminalize slavery. However, it does disolve the formerly legal relationship by which an individual citizens owned as property other individuals. I suppose that it could be argued that the sole impact of this Amendment is negative, i.e. that courts or other governmental agencies will be constrained from enforcing the ownership “rights” of slave-owners. On the other hand, I think a better reading of it is that it was a positive, active law prohibiting individuals from engaging in slavery.
Okay, I’m going to continue to play along (and to play nice), because I’m still finding this VERY entertaining.
Hmmm. I wonder what I said that would lead you to “know” this? Actually, I am most interested in (a) the Constitution; (b) international treaty (involving, of course, the U.S., since by citing the Constitution I assume we’re talking about the U.S.A.); and (c) the Nuremburg Code, which is the least interesting in that it is the most obviously inapplicable. (Of course, I don’t know the applicability of the “international treaty,” because I don’t know what treaty you’re referencing. But anyhoo.) And, by the way, listing the Nuremburg Code verbatim does not advance your point, anymore than cutting and pasting the Constitution would make that argument more convincing. But, in a nutshell, and as I stated in my first post regarding this subject, the Nuremburg Code deals with medical experiments. You have yet to offer any rationale for why a widely-practiced medical procedure, now more than 2000 years old, should be considered experimental. Since (1) the Nuremburg Code deals with medical experiments but (2) routine male circumcision is not a medical experiment then (3) the Nuremburg Code does not apply to routine male circumcision. QED.
Answer: No. Why would it? It is a routine, non-life-threatening procedure that has been practiced for millenia. Under what definition would it be considered “experimental”?
Moving right along.
Well, let’s return to reality for a minute here. We’re not talking about people walking up to grown men on the street, wrestling them to the ground, and forcibly circumcising them. We are talking about parents making the decision on behalf of their minor sons to have this procedure done.
. . . which are clearly not violated by routine circumcision of a baby with his parent or guardian’s consent, or by voluntary circumcision by an adult . . .
Well, I think others have already handled this one, so I’ll just point out that the key phrase in that Amendment is without due process of law. It doesn’t mean you can’t be deprived of your life (execution or murder); liberty (prison or kidnapping); or property (forfeiture or theft); it means that you can’t be so deprived without due process of law. Who has the ability to extend or withold “due process of law”? The government. That’s why the Fifth Amendment deals with government action, not private action.
As has been pointed out, virtually the entire Constitution serves to protect us from the government. That’s what it’s there for. It manifestly does not serve to protect a child, far from the age of consent, from his own parents and the decisions those parents choose to make on his behalf.
That would be the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, through which the First Amendment is deemed to be applicable to the states. This has nothing to do with private action, however, since we’re still talking about “due process” and therefore (almost definitionally) still talking about government action.
No, it doesn’t. First, a baby may be “forcibly circumcised” (and how is one circumcised other than forcibly?) if his parents consent to the procedure on his behalf. Second, mere circumcision is not enough to constitute “joining” any religion. Third, parents can certainly “force” their children to “join” their religion, if by that you mean bring them up in a particular faith.
Well, yes, it does. That’s what that “due process” thing is all about. Again, the only entity capable of extending or witholding “due process of law” is the government. Therefore the due process clauses of the Constitution deal with government action, on private action.
Back to being thoroughly amused myself . . .
I love this reasoning! The next time some guy pisses me off I’m going to inform him that his “behavioral abnormalities” can almost certainly be traced to his circumcised penis. I knew you guys thought with your dicks – here’s proof!
If even I should need surgery on my genitals (God forbid), lets hope the doctor has had some practice. I’d hate to be Patient No. 1.
Yes! Go to the doctor for treatment, but be sure to tell the doctor how to treat you! Doctors love it when their patients do this!
Hey, price is no object when your foreskin’s on the line, right?
Put it into “effect,” Jack. Not “affect.” And, sorry to point it out, you don’t appear to know anything about it. You can certainly “blad” about it “all you want,” but you appear to be intelligent enough to realize that “blabbing” about something you are ignorant of – right to do so not withstanding – only makes you sound, well, ignorant.
(Oh, and as total aside: KellyM, my sketchy understanding of the Thirteenth Amendment has always been the same as Billdo’s; that the unequivocal nature of the language (“No slavery . . . shall exist”) means the amendment is proactive, not just reactive. But it’s not like the 13A comes up much, so I may well be wrong.)
Are you saying that women who have sex with cut men behave this way? That we might be “aggressive” or “make noise” (heavens forfend!)? Or “leer and drool” at men? Bunch of hos, aren’t we? Give me strengh. And, as an aside, many people do not consider making noise or being “aggressive” to be comparable to “leering and drooling” at men, in that many people who would disapprove of the latter might welcome the former.
By the way – do you realize how patronizing you sound when you state that men who are perfectly happy being cut are “in denial” or “don’t know any better”? This is the classic “I’m right and you’re stupid” argument, and you cannot be surprised to find some people are offended by it. Actually, your arguments are so off-the-wall, astonishing, and entertaining that people in this particular thread do not appear to be taking offense, but allow me to advise you that you cannot generally expect such tolerance for that particular argument, especially around here.
Thanks for all the "welcome back"s. Satan, forget it; I know when Drain Bead kicked my butt, that would be “in the name of science,” too.
Geez, I’m obviously hanging around the wrong water cooler. The women in my office tend to stand around the water cooler and talk about the football game last night, or their kids’ high school play. But then, they’re mostly of a generation such that their husbands are probably circumcised.
But from my own observations, men generally like women to talk about sex, make sounds to express their enthusiasm, and be a bit on the agressive side.
Sorry, hon. As though this hasn’t been dealt with enough yet, that’s just plain wrong. Some women simply enjoy sex, and enjoy sexual vocalization during sex. True, as **Felice[/]b pointed out, in part it’s because we men like to hear it, but it’s also a turn-on for many women as well, regardless of with whom they are intimate.
Gaudere,
> My, what…interesting reasoning. You say women who are with uncut men don’t talk about sex, <
Yes, and the men don’t talk about it much either. I heard a so-called sex therapist once say that “when the sex is good, it’s 10% of the relationship; but, when it’s bad, it’s 90% of the relationship.” This sex therapist was correct (for once), IMEO.
> [women] don’t make enthusiastic sounds during sex,<
They do make enthusiastic sounds, but it's more like a purr than ravings.
> [women] aren’t aggresive, <
Assuming that the intact man knows how to use his penis, you don't get any of this bucking bronco nonsense because that destroys all of the good sensations.
> [women] don’t rave about their partners or seem interested in men sexually much at all. <
No, they rave about them. But, not how sexually good they are.
> Therefore, clearly, since the women seem so indifferent, the sex with uncut men must be phenomenal. <
>As a medical student, I’d like to see just one study of circumcised men who could not reach orgasm, and after “foreskin repair” they could. <
You know what? You can go to a local NORM meeting and meet several men who will tell you that this is the case. I know that that is only anecdotal. Such a study might actually happen in the not too distant future, though. A survey might even already exist, but I'm not aware that it does. The reseach establishment isn't going to touch anything having to do with the foreskin at the present time.
> And I’d like to know what alternative treatments there are for phimoses, paraphimoses, and recurrent balanitis. <
Any overly tight foreskin can be treated with manual stretching using the same principle that restorers use to stretch their foreskin remnants. If it happens to be a really stubborn case, then a cream of 5% testosterone can be applied and that will definitely solve the problem (take it easy with this because there is a flywheel affect and you don't want to make the foreskin too loose).
You should contact NOCIRC for the latest on balanitis or any other problem.
> It is also true that the glans penis undergoes keratinization after circumcision. But this, in itself, does make things less sensitive. We have very sensitive keratinized areas on our body (like the fingertips). <
It's natural for the fingertips to have keritinization. It is not natural for an internal organ such as the glans to have keritinization.
> Huh? I’ve see a lot of penises in my day (spent time in clinics as a medical student). During a bris, perhaps 1 square inch of tissue is removed. I can’t even conceive of 15 square inches of tissue being removed. <
In an adult, that little piece of tissue would have amounted to 15 square inches. I talked to a man who was circumcised as an adult, and he was astounded when he saw how much was cut off. A circumcision always involves major tissue loss.
I guess the logic that the Defender of Foreskins is using is that all people who rave about how great the sex they’re having is are engaging in self-deception, while all people who don’t talk about sex are actually having extremely good sex and therefore don’t have any need to talk about it.
Frankly, I find this more than a bit implausible; it seems far more likely to me that people’s tendency to talk about sex is relatively independent of the quality of the sex they are getting (or not getting), but is instead an aspect of individual personality.
>And, by the way, listing the Nuremburg Code verbatim does not advance your point, <
Oh, I disagree. I think that the Nuremberg is very clear and needs no further comment.
>You have yet to offer any rationale for why a widely-practiced medical procedure,<
The SS was widely practicing all sorts of medical procedures back during WW II.
>should be considered experimental. <
Do you know the results of circumcision? Obviously, you do not since no one has ever studied the physiology of the foreskin. So, it is a massive experiment where we study the commutative effect on the individual and society over time to gauge whether or not it is a worthwhile procedure.
>Since (1) the Nuremberg Code deals with medical experiments but (2) routine male circumcision is not a medical experiment then (3) the Nuremberg Code does not apply to routine male circumcision. QED. <
Your argument is invalid since RIC is an experiment since you don't know what the results are going to be. All that you know is that there are a bunch of men who say that they don't mind that half of their penises were amputated without their consent. You have to do everything that you can to insure that the subject is protected. At the very least, this would entail making sure that you know what the physiology of the foreskin is. Are you insinuating that one should be safer when one is being experimented upon than when one is having a medical procedure performed?
> Well, let’s return to reality for a minute here. <
Unfortunately, reality is stranger than fiction when it comes to circumcision.
>We’re not talking about people walking up to grown men on the street, wrestling them to the ground, and forcibly circumcising them. We are talking about parents making the decision on behalf of their minor sons to have this procedure done. <
Should parents be able to make the decision to amputate the arms of their 17 year old sons for cosmetic reasons?
> . . . [justifying a defence against mayhem] which are clearly not violated by routine circumcision of a baby with his parent or guardian’s consent, or by voluntary circumcision by an adult . . . <
That's for a jury to decide.
> I love this reasoning! The next time some guy pisses me off I’m going to inform him that his “behavioral abnormalities” can almost certainly be traced to his circumcised penis. <
Yes, the next time that you get raped or beaten.
> If even I should need surgery on my genitals (God forbid), lets hope the doctor has had some practice. I’d hate to be Patient No. 1. <
Don't worry, these doctors get plenty of practice on your husband, your brother, your father, and your sons.
> Yes! Go to the doctor for treatment, but be sure to tell the doctor how to treat you! <
Damn right.
> Doctors love it when their patients do this! <
Usually, they're pretty open-minded about it.
> Hey, price is no object when your foreskin’s on the line, right? <
Double damn right.
> By the way – do you realize how patronizing you sound when you state that men who are perfectly happy being cut are “in denial” or “don’t know any better”? <
I said that maybe this is the case that they are in denial. It's not as if THEY could possible know since they can't know what was taken.
>This is the classic “I’m right and you’re stupid” argument, and you cannot be surprised to find some people are offended by it. <
Well, that's basically what the medical establishment is saying to the babies who they are attacking. More than just a few people are offended by that.
::chuckle:: Are you aware you just apparently refuted your own point here, bub? Try to elucidate a wee bit better in the future.
I’d like a cite from a a established medical source before I buy this. Having actually seen several uncut penises, I do not believe the skin of the foreskin approaches anywhere near 15 square inches in an adult, regardless as to whether the penis is erect or flaccid. Four inches at most, I’d say.
I don’t have any “uncut penises” handy to do measurements on, either. It seems to me that typical figures are a circumference of four inches and a length of two inches past the point where it attaches to the shaft. This gives 8 square inches of foreskin. If you count both sides you could reasonably claim 15 square inches.
People tend to have poor intuition for square and cubic measures of volume. Fifteen square inches isn’t all that much. Keep in mind that the surface area of a typical tumescent penis is probably somewhere in the area of 50 square inches.
However, I was not considering counting both sides, and neither was anyone else who objected to his estimation, I suspect. We did estimate well enough to know his figures were off if you don’t count both sides. I admit I was off by .5" in length and 1" in girth, but well, I concede I may have a poor sense of length due to having been told that this:
KellyM,
>The man who raped me was not circumcised. How does this fit into your Grand Theory of Foreskin Psychology, Jack? <
Well, this is very interesting. I wonder how you can be so sure that he wasn't circumcised. I don't know the details of your rape. There is good evidence that you are less likely to suffer such violence at the hands of an intact man, though.
This is an area where it is very hard to get any information. I did read an FBI study once, that said that most rapes are done by men under something like 30 years old. And, that in at least half of these rapes, the men are incapable of ejaculating. This would be consistent with a man who is sexually frustrated because his penis doesn't work in the same way that many circumcised penises don't work.
Unfortunately, records are not kept of the circumcision status of the various sexual criminals in America (neither are records of religious affiliations kept) so it's hard to tell directly if there's a problem. This is the sort of information that cannot be collected for fear of what we might find out.
As far as I can tell, a forcible rape carried out on a struggling woman is very problematic for an intact man even if his psychology is such that he desires to carry out such a thing. An intact penis is so sensitive that it's not all that easy getting it inside of a woman who isn't very sexually receptive. And, further, and this is just my studied opinion, the sensations that an intact man feels combined with a violent, hateful situation, would be an enormous barrier to carrying out a rape.
Let's make two comparisons of sexually dysfunctional politicians that I'm sure that everyone knows. Bob Packwood and Bill Clinton. Both of these men are sex criminals but of entirely different types. Packwood is a serial kisser and Clinton is serial rapist. Packwood is intact and Clinton is circumcised. Unfortunately for women, even particularly violent rapists like Clinton are a dime a dozen in America. Whether or woman has been raped or not, she can just imagine the terror involved. Packwood is much different and less common, though. Packwood wasn't afraid to physically force himself onto a woman. Packwood wasn't afraid of what this might do to his reputation or his career, either. It's as if he needed the women to respond to his affectionate advances in a positive way before he would proceed with anything else. I believe that there were physical as well as psychological barriers preventing him from becoming a rapist like Clinton.
Satan, forget it; I know when Drain Bead kicked my butt, that would be “in the name of science,” too.