The SlackerInc (and anyone else) circumcision hijack-prevention thread

Sorry for the lack of clarity. Yes, religion is the fundamental reason for circumcision according to the people that you claim would be the only ones to be significantly burdened by prohibiting it: namely, the people who circumcise for religious reasons.

But no, that’s not the fundamental reason underlying most of the circumcisions performed in the developed world at present.

Mmhmm, but one of the key issues here is whether doing medically unnecessary surgical modifications on the bodies of non-consenting children qualifies as “refraining from inflicting our own religious bullshit on others”.

It is not automatically being a Nazi to believe that even children who are born within a particular religious culture should be allowed to make those decisions for themselves when they’re capable of consenting to them.

Let’s stop beating around the bush, Kimstu. You’ve said that you regard clairobscur’s proposal as “absurd and tyrannical”, although you don’t actually seem nearly as offended by his proposal as you do by my reaction to it.

I chose to have my son circumcised. What do you think is the appropriate punishment the State should inflict on me for making this choice? We’ve established that you think loss of parental rights would be excessive. Fines? Jail time? Maybe some time in a nice re-education camp?

Do you think this punishment should be more or less severe than that meted out to parents who fail to get their kids properly vaccinated, fail to enforce seat belt use, or who allow their kids to become obese? All of those parental failings, unlike circumcision, are clearly associated with severely negative outcomes.

And yet there is no movement of idiots saying that feeding kids doughnuts is the worst human rights violation in the Western world or that not bothering with the seat belt should result in your kids going into the foster care system. Why? My best guess is that opposing those practices doesn’t offer the opportunity to stigmatize the practices of minority groups.

You seem really hung up on whether it’s appropriate to label anti-circ zealots as “Nazis”. How about “arrogant people with contempt for minority cultures who advocate State-sponsored violence against those they deem inferior?” Does that make you feel better? I can tell you that, from the point of view of the victims, such fine distinctions are completely irrelevant.

Thank you. This shit really isn’t that complicated.

nm

OK, I think I’m done with this thread. If there’s some part of “you don’t get to tell other people how to care for their kids or practice their religion” you still don’t get, it’s clearly beyond my ability to impart it to you.

It’s not a matter of “offended”. It’s just that I think it’s possible to be absurd and tyrannical about circumcision practices without necessarily being anti-Semitic, much less full-on Nazi, and refusing to acknowledge that possibility is making your rhetoric overblown and irrational.

What do I personally think is an appropriate punishment? Nothing.

So what? This isn’t about my personal opinions of circumcision. I kind of thought that my several disclaimers about not having any strong ethical preferences on the subject made that very clear, but I’m getting the distinct impression that you are just not willing to hear anything you can’t interpret as ideological bigotry and animosity that you can comfortably dismiss.

Um, are you under the impression that Thing Fish is the only “actual Jewish person” in this conversation? That impression is mistaken.

Not very convincing, tbh. It is already illegal to omit safety restraints on children traveling in cars, and the existing system of regulations (plus common sense) does a pretty good job of enforcing their use. Childhood diet, meanwhile, is a hugely complex multidimensional spectrum that would be logistically impossible to regulate in detail. (Although even so, there are indeed some arguments made for considering childhood obesity in some cases as evidence of parental neglect warranting removal from custody, such as this one.)

Neither of those is in any way a reasonable parallel to the current status of non-therapeutic infant circumcision.

Still an irrational unsupported assumption about “contempt for minority cultures” that are deemed “inferior”. Some people simply believe that children should not be subjected to non-therapeutic surgical procedures without their consent, irrespective of which cultural traditions endorse such practices and what their reasons are.

Apparently what’s beyond your ability is to comprehend the idea that some people can sincerely endorse the concept of “you don’t get to inflict medically unnecessary permanent surgical body modifications on non-consenting children, even if they’re your own children and even if your religion tells you to” without necessarily being motivated by bigotry.

Yes, I get that some people believe that circumcision is ethically wrong. Some people believe otherwise. Why should either group get to have the law on their side? Doesn’t that imply pretty strongly that the beliefs of one group – the folks getting hauled off to jail – are “inferior” to those of the other group? And if the historical context just happens to be that the people labeled “inferior” have been victimized, up to and including attempted genocide, continuously for the last 2000 years…yeah, nothing to see here, move along.:rolleyes:

I’m going to err on the side of overreacting to shit like clairobscur is spreading, and I really don’t care if you “have a problem with” that. I am perfectly comfortable, in the context of Pit invective, with extending the meaning of the word “Nazi” beyond its strict meaning to include “people who stridently advocate policies which Nazis would be overjoyed to see enacted”. Deal with it.

I’ve already addressed the issue in your second paragraph a couple times in this thread:

I don’t know exactly what percentage of anti-circ extremists (which I am defining to include only those who advocate actual criminalization) are self-identified Nazis, and* I don’t care.*I do know that 100% of Nazis are big fans of outlawing circumcision, and people have to expect to be judged by the company they keep. I will concede that the number of anti-circ extremists who don’t *consciously * hold anti-Semitic beliefs is not zero. Is that really all you’ve wanted from me all this time?

I’m sure a much lower percentage of those who “sincerely believe in the right to bodily integrity”, but are reasonable enough to not want to forcibly impose their beliefs on others, are consciously anti-Semitic. That’s why I don’t refer to them as “Nazi shitbags”. I feel, however, quite sure that anti-Semites are vastly overrepresented among their number. Also no doubt vastly overrepresented are extremist atheists, who are a pain in everyone’s ass, but from a specifically Jewish POV are functionally equivalent to anti-Semites.

Anyway…now I really am going to try to be done with this thread, at least for the weekend.

Some people think hitting their children is the right way to discipline them. Spare the rod and spoil the child. Some people think you shouldn’t hit children. Why should either group have the law on their side? Why have laws at all if there is a group that disagrees?

:confused: Not sure I understand how there could be a situation where neither group “gets to have the law on their side”. I mean, either non-therapeutic infant circumcision is legal or it is not, which means that the law is necessarily taking one side or the other.

Well, it implies that the society as a whole has decided that the one particular belief about following that illegal practice is morally wrong, and therefore inferior to not holding that belief.

But of course, that doesn’t necessarily imply bigotry against the group as a whole. A lot of people oppose, say, the practice of child marriage or caste discrimination among many Hindu communities, without necessarily believing that Hindus as a group are essentially “inferior” to other groups. It is possible to be morally wrong about a particular issue without being thereby “inferior” as a human being.

Fine by me; I’m not making you argue with me about this. I’m just posting my criticisms of your overreaction.

:dubious: Wow. You realize that by that reasoning, the meaning of the word “Nazi” would also include supporters of animal protection, right?

Declaring that you’re going to use the word “Nazi” to mean any supporter of any policy that Nazis would have endorsed, even if the supporter in question is advocating the policy for completely different reasons and doesn’t agree with Nazi bigotry in any way, is absurdly misleading and illogical.

No problem. I’m dealing with it by pointing out, and making fun of, its fundamental irrational silliness.

Again, you’ve stretched the concept of ideological “keeping company” until it’s so broad as to be virtually meaningless. For example, Nazis were also big fans of antismoking health campaigns. By your reasoning, that makes it okay to call smoking cessation advocates “Nazis” too.

I don’t want anything in particular from you; if you want to double down on your illogical rhetoric you have the right to do so, and it’s not up to me to stop you or to change your mind. But it also doesn’t in any way obligate me to stop criticizing your arguments.

I realized how done I was with the topic after Slacker posted the old saw about sex and pizza- “sex is like pizza, even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good!”

That just be a nice place to be in- the bad sex that I’ve had had been painful and not “still pretty good.” I had, in fact, posted an article that made that same point earlier in the same thread.
So yeah. I’m done.

Exactly! Bad sex in my metric varies between “actively painful” to just plain “mildly uncomfortable, a little unpleasant, but other person is enjoying it a lot and it’s about done.” “Pretty good” still qualifies as just plain “good sex, actually feels nice.”

There are a surprising number of women who, in their lifetime, report never having orgasmed during sexual relations. Not just ‘vaginal intercourse,’ anything.

For them, good sex is brief, not painful and makes the other person happy.

This is actually not meant to rebut the issue of male circumcision. I have very mixed feelings about it, to be frank, similar to my feelings on abortion, but I feel that it’s important to realize both the impact of the clitoris on a woman’s sexual feeling and the ease women have in enjoying sex in general, compared to even a man who has been circumcised.

A really huge amount of a woman’s pleasure is in the clitoris. Look, the guys talked about what feels good to them, right? Even during vaginal intercourse, the movement causes some clitoral stimulation at the same time. Assuming there’s a clitoris there.

There are people who have orgasms during male-female intercourse, but I would doubt most of them did this without any kind of clitoral stimulation. There are also people who have nipple-stimulation orgasms.

There are people who can do all kinds of amazing things in this world, lots of outliers, but the reality is that many women have trouble orgasming as is, even alone with themselves or using toys. If someone confided in me she could orgasm from her nipples, my first thought would be that she might not quite understand what an orgasm is like and just classified it as “feels really nice.” :dubious: I have been surprised how many people have had seemingly obvious sex questions that I found myself answering. Our sex education programs are a waste.

Anyhow, most women who have confided with me on this subject have said they focused on clitoral stimulation during masturbation, sometimes with some kind of toy or substitute to add bonus stimulation. But it’s always the clitoris, everybody I know who seems like they’re enjoying themselves when they talk about it, talked about the clitoris.

Right? And that’s something that infuriates me about “Intactivists”- you say sex is pretty darn good on the regular but you think it could be better, and that’s on par with actual pain upon sex? Tell me more about how put upon you are!
Hearing that the penis could be re-sensitized upon wearing a condom for a week or two to really show these poor benighted men just what they’re missing makes me completely un-sympathetic to the similarities between circumcision and FGM.

FUCK OFF with your “I mean, yeah, I came, but I was a bit bored, it took a while.”

Hi Kimstu and anyone else who may have replied to me, just letting you know I’m not ignoring you…well, actually I am ignoring you, but not you specifically. I just need some time away from the SDMB for my own mental health. Maybe we can continue this conversation in the future. Cheers.

So you’re wanting to cut the conversation off in other threads, eh?

Having waded into the great circumcision debates in the past I have no great desire engage much again. There are some men with varying degrees of sexual dysfunction and some of them want to blame it on having been circumcised; likely some on not having been. Arguing with them is pointless.

I do submit this essay for consideration.

I will state that the data on benefits vs risks (other than sociocultural ones) of male circumcision are no slam dunk either way, mainly because each in fact are so dang small.

I would however be curious to hear how consistent those who put forth “the principle of bodily integrity—that is, not permanently modifying a child’s naturally occurring body unless it’s medically necessary” are.

Would they advocate or even believe it to reasonable to advocate removal of children from families that have had their ears pierced before the age of true informed consent or even as infants? Oh it can seal? Okay. Then those who had orthodonture done to their children, or birthmark removed without overwhelming evidence of its being medically necessary? How about those parent who impose a head molding helmet (hot sweaty and uncomfortable) on their kids’ heads in a belief that it improve a cosmetic result? Who have a child’s extra fifth finger nubbin removed (a very simple procedure done around birth)? Would they make all of those illegal?

I think I already know how condom therapy would go.

First I put on the condom to protect my calloused glans. (Calloused? Does it play guitar or work in a smithy? And is latex really softer than cotton underwear?) I put my pants back on. Soon, I lose my erection. The base of the condom gets wrapped around strands of pubic hair and tugs at them every time I move. Long before time is up, I realize I won’t be able to judge subtle changes in sensitivity after two weeks of groin noogies, so I get a pair of scissors, pull down my pants, and painstakingly cut pubic hairs in half till I can take off the condom. I then fling the cursed thing into the trash and ask the air why, oh why I decided to try this dumb idea in the first place. I’ve totally ignored whether a condom will stay on long term without an erection, and if you’ll get a fungus infection from sealing your genitals in impermeable rubber.

I’ll pass.

There’s now a documentary on Netflix that I highly recommend, called American Circumcision. It covers the perspective of both sides of the circumcision debate, with the leading voices for and against this practice.

May I skip it? :eek:

If you or anybody you know is expecting a baby boy, I think it’s worth 90 minutes of your time to learn about this issue. We’re talking about a decision that will affect that child for the rest of his life. Even if it is the parents choice to make, shouldn’t they be fully informed before they make it?

I finally worked up the courage to recommend this documentary to my friends and family on Facebook. I didn’t state a position for or against, just that it’s an informative documentary that everyone should watch, especially those expecting a child in the future. Hopefully by stating it that way it will incur a minimal level of blowback.

If anyone complains that they’re uncomfortable talking about it, I’ll just say “this happens 3000 times a day in America. If we aren’t comfortable talking about it, should we feel comfortable doing it?” :eek:

I’m also uncomfortable talking about surgery to remove loose skin after weight loss, where excrement goes after you flush, or the fact that I have to give a training seminar at work in a few weeks. I don’t think this warrant a discussion about ending plastic surgery, human waste management, or the job I very much wanted and was hired to do.

As a circumcised male perfectly happy with his circumcised penis, it seems likely to me that much activism related to male circumcision amounts to little more than body dysmorphia (In circumcised folks) or simple queasiness (In the uncircumcised). It’s unfortunate but I live my day to day life not thinking much about those with anorexia or who believe their foot doesn’t belong to them, so I can’t see why I’d care more about this.