Note, please, that this article is reproduced from The Lancet, one of the most respected medical journals in the world.
The article notes in passing that South Korea is among the only countries in the world where circumcision is regularly practiced for non-religious reasons. I’ve discovered other sources (none terribly reliable, which is why I’m not posting them) which state that the practice of circumcision came to South Korea in the late 1940s, when U.S. troops began to be shipped there. If I find a cite for that, I’ll post it.
Jack, I wonder what you have to say in response to the Lancet article. I rather suspect you’ll just ignore me.
Thing is, though, that you’ve got any number of other factors in there. That more or less men who were circumcised have committed sexual offenses doesn’t mean they did so specifically because they’ve been circumcised. I (and I’ll bet a lot of people who have studied the difference between correlations and causations) don’t think you can truthfully and accurately say that the reason for this differene is circumcision, given the lack of data we have on the subject.
Bravo, astraeus! I read the Lancet article – not only is circumcision highly correlated with HIV infection, but also with other STDs including herpes.
So, Jack, some evidence of a benefit to circumcision. And your response will be, well, better to die young but with an intact foreskin than to live to an old age without one? Try to come up with some non-CIRP cites to bolster whatever arguments you may try to make, but I doubt you will.
Ack! Yes! Thanks, David B - that I made such a mistake is embarrassing enough, but to have made it in this thread…
::shamefully unrolls turtleneck to hide face::
Jack - note how[ul][li]I made a misstatement,[]it was pointed out to me, and[]I acknowledged my mistake.[/ul]You should try that some time.[/li]
And still no response to the Lancet article, I notice.
> I think there would be a lot more validity in the argument if we could clearly look at populations of circ’ed and uncirc’ed men and clearly see that circ’ed men are violent and uncirc’ed men are not. <
Who would ever finance such a study? Not the government, that's for sure. Politicians are only interested in reelection and not at all in the health and safety of their constituencies. Few amongst the masses will question anything that they say, so why should they bother to be honest?
> Jack, I wonder what you have to say in response to the Lancet article. I rather suspect you’ll just ignore me. <
Well, I don't know. The South Koreans aren't as likely to get AIDS? Actually, what it is, is that South Korean MEN are less likely to get AIDS. The study doesn't look at the plight of women, though. As I have always said, the circumcised penis is probably less likely to contract the AIDS virus. The foreskin has CD4 receptors through which the virus can get into a man's body. Cut off the foreskin and you don't get foreskin cancer or AIDS through that entry point. Way too high a price to pay.
These Korean's are funny persons. When you see a fair-skinned Asian person, you might wonder where he's from. Is he Chinese? Is he Japanese? Korean? When you see him behave roughly by spitting on the ground or walking and acting really abruptly, you know he is Korean. When you walk into a small business run by Asians and you see a several pictures of Christ and such, you know they're Korean. Very nice people, in general, but I can't help but notice these patterns. Why are South Koreans so different from other Asians????? I wonder . . . not.
> Bravo, astraeus! I read the Lancet article – not only is circumcision highly correlated with HIV infection, but also with other STDs including herpes. <
None of this is true, of course. All one must do is compare Europe and America. The ultimate experiment has already been done and the results are frightening for circumcision.
Of course, there are all sorts of benefits associated with circumcision just like there are all sorts of benefits associated with the amputation of any part of the body. Did you know for example, that if one has one's brain amputated, that one is immune from all disease (no one has yet to provide a cost-benefit analysis of such a strategy, though)?
sarcasm/ Oh, I forgot, a highly respected British (that’s part of Europe for the most part, Jack) medical journal isn’t a good enough cite. They’re all part of the Establishment so, of course, anything they publish is just chock full of lies. Those bastards! Unlike the “cirps” site which is true, unbiased research and reporting at its finest. Why, it should probably get a Pulitzer for its stunning expose of the whole circumscision cover-up! Call Woodward at the Post! There’s scandal to be revealed! /sarcasm
So you don’t think that significantly decreased risk of getting AIDS is reason enough to get circumcised.
Why, exactly? Because circumcision reduces the quality of a man’s sex life?
Even if that’s true, and I’ve yet to see convincing evidence that it is, don’t you think that a debilitating, fatal illness might just reduce the quality of a man’s sex life a bit more than circumcision? I currently have an impacted wisdom tooth, which I’m going to have extracted. Why? Because, if I don’t, it’s likely to get infected, and I’d much rather lose a tooth than have a severe infection in my gums.
How many people have died from circumcision? A few–I don’t know the exact number, so I won’t claim to.
How many people have died from AIDS? Take a look at these numbers, from the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (otherwise known as UNAIDS):
A total of 18.8 million people were estimated to have died from AIDS as of the end of 1999, which was almost a year ago. Of those, 7.3 million were men, and 7.7 women, most of whom probably acquired the virus from a man.
Now, if widespread circumcision could make even a small dent in that–say, saving 200,000 people a year (in 1999, 2.8 million people died of AIDS; 200,000 is just 7% of that), don’t you think it just might be worth it?
astraeus, you’re wasting your time - his answer will be unequivocably “yes.” We all can see that a mile away. And his reasons? Explained ad nauseum in these endless threads.
OK, I know I said I wouldn’t deal with this guy any more, but then he said this:
As the self-appointed defender against biological misinformation, I have to ask for a cite. CD4 receptors? Those are found exclusively on T helper cells. In fact, they’re commonly used to separate T[sub]h[/sub] cells from all other cells. So are you referring to some T[sub]h[/sub] cell population in the foreskin or what? I’d ask for a cite, but we all know that would be pointless.
> A total of 18.8 million people were estimated to have died from AIDS as of the end of 1999, which was almost a year ago. Of those, 7.3 million were men, and 7.7 women, most of whom probably acquired the virus from a man. <
The women probably acquire AIDS from a circumcised man.
> Now, if widespread circumcision could make even a small dent in that–say, saving 200,000 people a year (in 1999, 2.8 million people died of AIDS; 200,000 is just 7% of that), don’t you think it just might be worth it? <
Even if it did protect the population from AIDS, it would not be worth it. Beyond that, circumcision is very probably the cause of the AIDS epidemic. Europe and America a comparable populations and AIDS did not take off in intact Europe like it did in circumcised America. To some extent, AIDS might be contractible through an intact foreskin (although many would debate this since an intact foreskin secretes lysosomes which kills the AIDS virus on contact). But, circumcision MIGHT protect only the man. If an intact man does become infected, the nature of his sexual methods is bound to spread that virus fast. That what happened in America.
Did your local congressperson teach you the ridiculous saw of "if we can save just one life . . . " ? That argument is never any good unless the person making it is omniscient since one cannot know the repercussions of forcing one's will on everyone. It reminds me of the stupid 55 MPH speed limit of years ago. When it was proposed by Carter, every one of the sheeple was chanting "if it will save just one life . . . " Well, highway deaths did fall as a result of the 55 MHP speed limit and politicians kept harping that this was so. But, people couldn't get anywhere on the highways so they started taking side streets and that's where most fatal accidents occur. As a result, total deaths in a motor vehicles skyrocketed. And, the sheeple kept chanting "if it will save just one life . . . " Is it any wonder that disaster dogs this society so?
Jack, I expect it’s really useless, but can you back that up at all? Even the Taylor article didn’t seem to suggest that the foreskin had magical healing properties as well as lots of nerve endings. And no, if you make an assertion (particularly if “many” would debate the issue), I expect you to back it up. I know that’s not your modus operandi, but just once I’d like to see it. Call me an optimist…
Do you say that because uncut men supposedly don’t penetrate the vagina but for a few seconds at the end? But Jack, haven’t we pretty much established that you are the only person on this planet who thinks uncut men should be frotting (frottaging? some help here, people), and even you have said that uncut men don’t have sex the way you think they should? If uncut men and cut men have sex the same way, what’s the basis for this statement?
Cantrip,
> Even the Taylor article didn’t seem to suggest that the foreskin had magical healing properties as well as lots of nerve endings. And no, if you make an assertion (particularly if “many” would debate the issue), I expect you to back it up. I know that’s not your modus operandi, but just once I’d like to see it. Call me an optimist… <
