What's your opinion on circumcision?

Great Debates
101

[QUOTE=catsix]
I don’t really care how old it is, since arguing from tradition is a logical fallacy that has no bearing on whether or not it’s acceptable to cause irreprable harm to another human being’s body without their consent and for no compelling medical reason (e.g. to save their life).

[/QUOTE]

I wasn’t defending circumsision, I was criticizing spazurek’s temerity in questioning his co-worker’s Jewishness.

As for the custom itself: I’m circumcised, I had my son circumcised not two yeras ago, and God willing, I’ll live long enough to see my grandsons circumcised as well. As I feel no need to defend my actions, and as there is nothing anyone can say that would make me change my opinion, I’m afraid there is little I can offer in the form of honest debate.

I’ll respect your opinion so long as you respect my right to ignore it. I’ll do what I want, and when it comes to your own children you do the same. Frankly, I wouldn’t object if you European-types stopped snipping your sons. The Christinan world has appropriated so much of Jewish culture already, I wouldn’t mind if you left one custom just for us.

102

[QUOTE=Laggard]
I thank god my parents did it to me.
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I sincerely hope you meant, “I thank God my parents authorized having it done to me,” unless your parents are surgeons.

I don’t entirely understand circumcision for religious reasons, but I believe that the parents ought to wait until Bar Mitzvah, when the boy says, “Today, I am a man,” to let the young man decide for himself. At that time, the young man is qualified to make a man’s decision about his manly parts. Why foist it on the infant, who has no say in the matter? Are you a Jew? Then you must make this sacrifice. The sincere Jew will say yes.

I was raised a Presbyterian (protestant Christian,) and no such physical sacrifice was required of us. In my case, I had to say some things that I may or may not have believed, in order to become a member of the church. If I had been required to agree to having part of my penis cut off, there’s a good chance I would have bailed out. Geronimo! I’ll bet Geronimo had an intact penis

103

[QUOTE=Alessan]
Frankly, I wouldn’t object if you European-types stopped snipping your sons. The Christinan world has appropriated so much of Jewish culture already, I wouldn’t mind if you left one custom just for us.
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Just a couple of points as I think has already been demonstrated in this thread, Europeans do not have their children routinely circumcised. As far as I am aware it is incredibly uncommon for it to happen over here.

And I think Catsix is US based (correction if I’m wrong please). But maybe you were talking about “European attitude”? The phrase still struck me as sounding a little insulting though, but maybe this “European-type” is just a little oversensitive :wink:

104

[QUOTE=Sevastopol]
Can’t be true because then they wouldn’t.

No, should the boy get any grand ideas about his own inherent dignity or value, there is the perpetual reminder that he was brought into the world as livestock to be reared for the purpose of propagating a culture or religion.
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Circumcision. The VERY last thing on my mind growing up into adulthood. It may have even showed up as a negative on my list of things to care about. How anyone could get hung up on this for a lifetime is beyond me. And what is this perpetual reminder you speak of? The only thing I’m reminded of is that I’d rather have had it done when I couldn’t remember, then have the choice to do it now. Thank goodness my parents had it done at the right time. Anything over the age of 4, and I would have definately had a perpetual reminder, likely a lifetime one, that I’d rather not have. :eek:

105

[QUOTE=AskNott]
I don’t entirely understand circumcision for religious reasons, but I believe that the parents ought to wait until Bar Mitzvah, when the boy says, “Today, I am a man,” to let the young man decide for himself. At that time, the young man is qualified to make a man’s decision about his manly parts. Why foist it on the infant, who has no say in the matter? Are you a Jew? Then you must make this sacrifice. The sincere Jew will say yes.

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Parents make decisions for their children all the time. What they eat, where they live, what sort of education they receive, what sort of religious beliefs they are taught. For Jews, male circumcision is a commandment from G-d. End of discussion. Whether or not it has heath benefits is interesting, but ultimately irrelevant. It is not viewed as a sacrifice, but as a sign of the covenant and of Jewish identity.

Your hypothetical young man is a Jew whether he likes it or not. Whether or not he chooses to identify himself as a Jew or has had a bar mitzvah ceremony is irrelevant. This ain’t the all-volunteer Army.

106

I see them all as equally wrong because to me it’s not about the extent of what gets cut up, it becomes vile and horrifying that it is cut at all.

I can’t do that, because what you’re doing affects a person who has no say. You’re violating someone else’s bodily integrity, maiming them, and that is not something I can just ‘ignore.’ You want to cut up your own penis, fine, I’ll ignore that. Nothing gives you the right to cut up someone else’s penis. The only reason you’re getting away with it right now is that the victims are too young to speak.

Because I believe very few would actually want their penises cut. Y’know, most men at least joke nervously about sharp objects and their penis, and how they should never meet. Would they if it hadn’t been done to them?

For human beings, it is wrong to cut off a healthy body part without the consent of the person to whom it belongs. Religion is no excuse to violate bodily integrity, and the practice should be outlawed in any civilized country. Your belief in an unprovable being does not trump anyone’s right to bodily integrity and freedom from having their genitals mutilated without their consent.

Freedom of religion is not now and has never been absolute.

Because you marked him with a knife? You have a real gift for making it sound like he’s a branded cow who has no choice in who owns him.

107

[QUOTE=ParentalAdvisory]

[QUOTE=Sevastopol]
…

No, should the boy get any grand ideas about his own inherent dignity or value, there is the perpetual reminder that he was brought into the world as livestock to be reared for the purpose of propagating a culture or religion.
[/QUOTE]
How anyone could get hung up on this for a lifetime is beyond me. And what is this perpetual reminder you speak of?
[/QUOTE]
Healthy tissue missing from an external organ. Perhaps you feel the cut is meaningless, but then, why the dogmatic insistence on having it done?

Who’s hung up? As Alessan and mks57 have helpfully explained, in some cultures, cutting them is more important than loving them. Can’t see it myself.

108

[QUOTE=Sevastopol]
Healthy tissue missing from an external organ. Perhaps you feel the cut is meaningless, but then, why the dogmatic insistence on having it done?
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I was just saying that I would not have wanted to face the problem when I was, say, 18 or so. Because even if I wanted the procedure done at such an age, images of sharp things near my junk would have freaked me out. Basically, I’m glad it was done when I didn’t remember, and like others have said, it looks better. But I would never force my opinion on parents who don’t want to do it. It’s their choice, so no dogmatic insistence there.

[QUOTE=Sevastopol]

Who’s hung up? As Alessan and mks57 have helpfully explained, in some cultures, cutting them is more important than loving them. Can’t see it myself.
[/QUOTE]

Who’s hung up? Anybody who actually hates their parents for it, and someone that goes through a procedure to restore the tissue. Unless there was a serious problem as a result of the original procedure, I don’t get the fixation on getting it restored. In fact, I would be fearful of restoration “project” down there for something that works perfectly fine.

109

As a logical proposition, it seems to me that if a forgotten time is better, the best time is never.

110

[QUOTE=Sevastopol]

Who’s hung up? As Alessan and mks57 have helpfully explained, in some cultures, cutting them is more important than loving them. Can’t see it myself.
[/QUOTE]

What does a creature such as you know of love?

111

[QUOTE=catsix]
It is no more right to cut up the genitals of little boys than it is to cut up the genitals of little girls.

I can’t believe that there’s even a debate about that statement.
[/QUOTE]
Because one has nothing to do with the other and the female aspect is only brought in to obfuscate the issue emotionally.

If every female on the planet suddenly disappeared, you’d still think male neonatal circumcision was wrong, right? Even without having to compare it to females to make your point? That’s what I was saying: Debate it on its own merits.

112

[QUOTE=Jophiel]
Because one has nothing to do with the other and the female aspect is only brought in to obfuscate the issue emotionally.
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The reason female circumcision was brought into the argument was because it is almost universally reviled in the West, yet male circumcision is given a free pass, or even encouraged in the US in particular. It seems to me that catsix uses female circumcision to highlight the hypocrisy by arguing that the two aren’t practically any different: genital mutilation for cultural or religious reasons.

Female circumcision has a VALID use in this debate, although it would not particularly be necessary to, as you say, argue against male circumcision on its own. However, where it comes into play is when people are pro-male, yet anti-female (or even vice versa); I can’t see how you take such a viewpoint and have any leg to stand on, debate wise.

Yep, it’s religious, therefore it’s untouchable. If a kiddy’s little foreskin offends God so much, why doesn’t he fly the hell down here and remove it himself? If a flap of skin, which is (ironically) present by default on the ‘body that God gave us’, will cause God to shun or punish a man, what does that say about God?

I don’t know whether to applaud your appeal for a reduction in circumcision or shake my head at your childish isolationism.

113

[QUOTE=Hogwash]
The reason female circumcision was brought into the argument was because it is almost universally reviled in the West, yet male circumcision is given a free pass, or even encouraged in the US in particular. It seems to me that catsix uses female circumcision to highlight the hypocrisy by arguing that the two aren’t practically any different: genital mutilation for cultural or religious reasons.
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Except that, for medical reasons alone, they are different. You can argue that YOU don’t believe that the studied medical benefits of male neonatal circumcision are worth it, but until you can find studies suggesting the same benefits arise from female circumcision, I refuse to accept the equivalency.

If you were to tell me that you could “circumcise” a female and lower her chances of this, that and the other medical condition and that it would have little to no meaningful effect on her life or sexuality, I very well might not be opposed to it. Which is the standard you’d need to reach for me to accept the two as “the same thing”.

114

[QUOTE=Jophiel]
Except that, for medical reasons alone, they are different. You can argue that YOU don’t believe that the studied medical benefits of male neonatal circumcision are worth it, but until you can find studies suggesting the same benefits arise from female circumcision, I refuse to accept the equivalency.
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From all that I have seen from both sides here, the medical benefits are practically net neutral. I believe one study indicates a slight advantage in regards to STIs may be obtained from circumcision. However, the kicker here is that safe sex would logically trump any decision one way or the other. If you’re snipping your kid for the sole reason that he’s a few percent less likely to catch an STI, you’re acting on the assumption that your kid will have a lot of unprotected sex to make this decision worthwhile. You could argue that you are ‘doubling up’ with both circumcision and safe sex - that is, if a condom broke, then the slight advantage would come into play. However, given the failure rate of condoms and other statistical factors, it would seem that in this scenario, the slight advantage of a cut dick would be negligible. True, you can’t always make your kids listen to you, so they might go off and have promiscuous unprotected sex despite your best intentions to educate them. In which case, there’s still a massive risk of infection, foreskin or no foreskin.

Regardless, how many people actually circumcise their kids solely for medical reasons? Come on let’s, be honest, most of the decisions for circumcisions in the US are:

Cultural - “Everyone else is doing it! My dad did it to me so I’m gonna do it to my kid!”

Religious - “God wants me to do it”

I don’t particularly have a major issue with those who made an informed, medical decision to circumcise their kids, although I’d say that they are acting a bit prematurely given that there doesn’t seem to be a weighted medical consensus. It might be an act worthy of some respect if there was a clear and noticeable benefit that would only be obtained within a limited timespan, hence the procedure at infancy. Even if this were the case, it’s still morally sketchy. Could you cut off someone’s body part without their permission, just because you think it’s helping them?

But if there really were compelling health reasons for medical circumcision, it would seem likely that places where most people are uncut (e.g. Europe) would take up the practice and it would be endorsed and encouraged by the Government and/or medical institutions.

115

[QUOTE=Hogwash]
Regardless, how many people actually circumcise their kids solely for medical reasons?
[/QUOTE]
I can’t speak for anyone else, but it played a major role in my own decision. Had I not read the studies I had read and done the research I had done, I doubt I would have swayed that way. I admit that the benefits are not earth-shattering but they were enough to tip me into the circumcision camp in regards to my own son. And, again, several of the studies I read indicated that the highest level of benefits occured when circumcision was done at the neonatal level and declined significantly from there.

On the other side of the fence, I have… what? “How dare you remove that piece of skin”? Well, I “dare” do it because I’m his father and I made that decision regarding his health during a window of time when he wasn’t capable of having any input. I also “dared” make it after substantial research into it. And I “dared” make it having had first hand experience with it and feeling that it was, in no way, a detriment to my own life in any way.

All of which is second hand to my initial point that I don’t accept it being the same thing as female circumcision. Whether or not you personally find it justifable, I can make an argument for male circumcision on medical grounds. I don’t imagine you can do the same for female circumcision and, until you can, I don’t see comparisons as much more than an emotional ploy.

116

[QUOTE=Jophiel]
I can’t speak for anyone else, but it played a major role in my own decision. Had I not read the studies I had read and done the research I had done, I doubt I would have swayed that way. I admit that the benefits are not earth-shattering but they were enough to tip me into the circumcision camp in regards to my own son. And, again, several of the studies I read indicated that the highest level of benefits occured when circumcision was done at the neonatal level and declined significantly from there.

On the other side of the fence, I have… what? “How dare you remove that piece of skin”? Well, I “dare” do it because I’m his father and I made that decision regarding his health during a window of time when he wasn’t capable of having any input. I also “dared” make it after substantial research into it. And I “dared” make it having had first hand experience with it and feeling that it was, in no way, a detriment to my own life in any way.

All of which is second hand to my initial point that I don’t accept it being the same thing as female circumcision. Whether or not you personally find it justifable, I can make an argument for male circumcision on medical grounds. I don’t imagine you can do the same for female circumcision and, until you can, I don’t see comparisons as much more than an emotional ploy.
[/QUOTE]
The thing that is so appalling to me is that if we somehow convinced you apples and oranges are equivalent, you’d be pro both male and female genital mutilation. How messed up is that?

Penis cancer is rare in both the USA and Europe. Approximately 400 men are diagnosed with this type of cancer in the UK each year. Cite. It’s treatable and often doesn’t show up until a man is in his 60’s. What’s the risk benefit to mutilating your son’s genitals? Teach him to wash, eat right, brush his teeth, don’t smoke and exercise regularly. That is preventative health care which shows you care about his health.

Cancer of the vulva is rare: each year just over 1000 women in the UK are diagnosed with it. Cite.

Hey, the more tissue you lop off the less your chances of that tissue turning cancerous, right?

Wrong. It’s female genital mutilation and it’s male genital mutilation.

I don’t care if you feel good about it. It’s mutilation and there’s just no rational reason for it. There is a rational reason for washing your hands. Don’t lop off your hands to prevent dirty-hands transmitted diseases.*

Yes, I know that’s a ridiculous analogy but so is requiring male and female circumcision to be exactly equivalent in order for both of them to be considered genital mutilation and illegal unless medically necessary, which neither of them reasonably or rationally is.

117

[QUOTE=levdrakon]
Penis cancer is rare in both the USA and Europe. Approximately 400 men are diagnosed with this type of cancer in the UK each year.
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I wasn’t talking only about cancer but the entire host of potential medical benefits.

Correct, although that’s negated by my second point about meaningful effect on the person’s life. Cutting off my hand would prevent hangnails and dirty nails but it’d also prevent me from using my hand. My penis continues to work just peachy despite my circumcision. Without trying to pass myself off as a doctor, I’m going to guess that removal of the vulva would cause real problems with the workings of the female genitals.

I don’t care if you don’t if this is your best argument.

Well, obviously it wouldn’t help if female circumcision prevented cancer of the penis but, yeah, so long as one has medical benefits and the other doesn’t, I’m having a hard time calling them apples and apples. I’m sorry if that bothers you or ruins your argument but, if I’m supposed to accept “You can’t be against one and not the other” as a talking point, I get to decide for myself how equivalent they need to be.

118

[QUOTE=ParentalAdvisory]
…Who’s hung up? Anybody who actually hates their parents for it, and someone that goes through a procedure to restore the tissue. Unless there was a serious problem as a result of the original procedure, I don’t get the fixation on getting it restored. In fact, I would be fearful of restoration “project” down there for something that works perfectly fine.
[/QUOTE]

I don’t hate my parents, but I’ll never forgive them either. They had NO right. It’s my penis, not theirs. It was never theirs. What they did was wrong. I’m constantly reminded of the fact that someone else once had total control over my body and they showed total disregard for my feelings about it. Restoration is the only way I can take control back. I’m sick and tired of being made to feel like it’s somehow wrong of me to feel this way or that I’m being silly.

119

There’s no reason it should be the choice of anyone other than the owner of the penis.

I bring it up because it underscores my opinion that it’s absurd to take a different tack with regard to the bodily integrity of baby boys than civilized society takes with baby girls.

I bring it up because boys deserve just as much defense of their bodies from unnecessary amputation as girls do.

Exactly. Why do we not give the consideration to our boys that we give to our girls?

Do you remove the breast buds of a newborn girl because her mother had breast cancer?

I can’t imagine anyone would consider that a good idea.

Which studies? Because the American Pediatrics Association doesn’t recommend routine circumcision at all.

If you went by the numbers alone, more than twice as many women will get cancer of the vulva than men will get penile cancer, so it stands to reason that if anyone’s external genitals should be mucked with, it should be girls.

Which are?

Preventing HIV? Yeah I’d really go with circumcision over not being indiscriminate and promiscuous and using condoms.

Or are you referring to the belief that circumcision will prevent them from masturbating?

It’s easier to condemn you as mentally ill than to confront the fact that they too were treated as property once.

120

[QUOTE=catsix]
It’s easier to condemn you as mentally ill than to confront the fact that they too were treated as property once.
[/QUOTE]

I’m really getting tired of this line. You and the one earlier saying it’s a reminder that our parents don’t love us. Saying that someone has a hangup is not calling them mentally ill. It seems an apt description to me. Get a grip already.

Who has said it is wrong for you to feel that way? You have decided that a horrible wrong was done to you and are correcting it. I and others have stated that we do not feel that way and don’t understand why it’s a big deal. No one is saying that you shouldn’t do what you feel is best for you. Quite honestly though, you’re the one that brought it up knowing that many of us don’t feel that way. Spending three years of your life to restore your foreskin for what sounds like aesthetic reasons strikes a number of us as odd. I feel the same way about plastic surgery for cosmetic reasons. But, it’s your life, so more power to you.

my inherent diginity and value are not wrapped up in my foreskin or lack thereof. Thanks anyway.
All the over the top rhetoric from the anti-circ side is really getting annoying.