BS: Circumcision: pros and cons

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: GUEST,Pussy
Date: 21 Oct 05 - 07:56 AM

Yeah Visitor, you're right. She's such a bitch. Now she wants to get rid of me too! Said something about shedding. Or was it fleas? Or how I love jumping on her bed and licking her face after drinking from the toilet? And after all those half-digested bunnies I've left, just for her, right there in her boudoir too!

Oh well. I won't miss that bitch either.

Meow.

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: GUEST,allie kiwi sans cookie
Date: 21 Oct 05 - 06:54 AM

I think if you live in a country/society where circumcision is considered the norm, then it may be quite difficult to see that others don't see why it should be the norm.

New Zealand, where I live, had a 'bell curve' for circumcisions: prior to WW1 there were virtually none, and then post WW1 the number of cicumcisions rose dramatically (the tale is that the men in the desert furing the war had problems with sand where no man should have sand. Whether this is true or not I have no idea), so that by the 1960s approx 98% of men and boys were circumcised. Just as suddenly the rate of circumcision dropped.

Now less than 5% of new born boys are circumcised. Doctors over here virtually won't do it unless there is a religious reason, or medical reason.

I don't believe that 'I want him circumcised so he's like his father' is enough of a reason to cut it off.

As the mother of a son who has a foreskin this poses a little bit of a problem. I never had one, my hubby is of the age where virtually everyone was circumcised so he doesn't have a foreskin (we have the reciept for when it was done - it cost £3 pounds). So... every so often I ponder when are you supposed to be able to pull it back to clean? Should it even pull back if you are only 6 years old? will it hurt if you attempt it at that age? And all that stuff that my husband can't answer.

Anyway, I understand that there are still quite a number of cicumcisions done in Australia - in fact friends of mine have all had their sons circumcised and were puzzled when I was amazed that such a thing could be done in this day and age. So I suppose if you're having trouble tell a New Zealand from an Australia, you really only need to get him to drop his trousers and check.

Allie

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: GUEST,Visitor
Date: 20 Oct 05 - 03:31 PM

That dog of daylia was lucky not to get docked as a puppy, even aside from still having a tail to wag. After all, what dog would want to be living with someone who couldn't put up with a dog wagging its tail?

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: GUEST,Visitor
Date: 20 Oct 05 - 03:22 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: Peace
Date: 20 Oct 05 - 02:47 PM

William Shakespeare:
Drink...provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance. Therefore much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery: it makes him and it mars him; it sets him on and it takes him off.

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: GUEST,*daylia*
Date: 20 Oct 05 - 08:05 AM

Half cut guys have to give it a bit more time and effort too.

Aw.

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: bobad
Date: 19 Oct 05 - 10:42 PM

What about those who are half cut?

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 19 Oct 05 - 03:13 PM

Most pros are circumcised. Most cons aren't. That's it in a nutshell.

Art

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: Ebbie
Date: 19 Oct 05 - 02:57 PM

Good point, Judge. (no pun intended *G*)

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: Judge Mental
Date: 19 Oct 05 - 12:56 PM

Is Michelangelo's David circumsized? Enough said.

Whether or not the representation of the penis on the statue is circumcized says more about Michelangelo than it does about David.

The biblical King David would most certainly have been.

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: frogprince
Date: 19 Oct 05 - 12:43 PM

I don't think so; and he would have a helluva time peeling that back to wash it.

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: *daylia*
Date: 19 Oct 05 - 12:34 PM

Looks kinda hard to tell

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: Ebbie
Date: 19 Oct 05 - 11:57 AM

Is Michelangelo's David circumsized? Enough said.

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: *daylia*
Date: 19 Oct 05 - 08:02 AM

ANd re infant crying after circumcision: infants scream for a minute or two at the hospital during the surgery.   The area is still tender for a day or so afterwards, but not enough to cause excessive crying. And after that, the only "pain" is suffered by the person changing the baby's diaper, who must learn how to wrap a tiny bit of medicated gauze around a slippery area about half the size of your smallest fingernail, tight enough so it won't rub off and loose enough so it doesn't cause pain. THe incision heals completely in about two weeks.

And after that, the only related "pains" can avoided completely by ignoring the rants of misinformed third parties.

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: *daylia*
Date: 19 Oct 05 - 07:45 AM

PS - from the link about male circumsion in Japan, where the surgery (oh yeah ... there is a difference between surgery and mutilation) is becoming more and more sought after- not only to curb the spread of diseases but because women are disgusted and repulsed by stinky-dinky. Plain and simple.

There are astonishingly often essays (but no pictures!) on "tight foreskin" or "covered penis" (hokei) with the message that this is a problem for hygiene and the women detest the dirtyness

Hear hear!

And thank you for sharing your experiences, Mrzzy. All the best to you and your sons.

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: *daylia*
Date: 19 Oct 05 - 07:36 AM

LOL

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: GUEST,Reactionary
Date: 19 Oct 05 - 06:49 AM

I've heard about some angry uprisings, where disaffected gangs of circumcised youths in Brooklyn are wreaking violent revenge on their circumcisers.There is a film about this - 'Boyz With No Hood'.

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 11:33 PM

"In the future, I am sure we will outlaw circumcision as a barbaric tradition."

Holy crap on a cracker I HOPE so!

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: dianavan
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 11:30 PM

I don't want to speak for Littlehawk, but I took his comment to mean that when a baby cries during circumcision it would be easy to attribute the crying to something other than the pain, since the baby cannot speak.

I too, wonder how parents can listen to their child cry as a result of a mutilation that they sanction. Anyone who says that it doesn't hurt the baby is in denial.

As far as AIDS being related to the uncircumcised, why aren't the older generation effected? They aren't circumcised. You'll have to come up with better evidence than a map to prove a link to AIDS.

The facts are on the table and people can choose according to their own conscience at this point. In the future, I am sure we will outlaw circumcision as a barbaric tradition. Until then, you can soothe your conscience any way you want.

Personally, I think it is personal choice that should be made by the individual and nobody else.

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: frogprince
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 11:09 PM

One reaction to the Japan-based "anecdote"; how many males do any of you know who remember all the penises they've seen in that kind of detail?

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: Peace
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 11:07 PM

200

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 11:07 PM

Heh! Heh! Well, that's enough for me for one day. It's a moot point, anyway, in my case. Part of the great subliminal past at this point.

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: Peace
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 10:39 PM

LOL

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: bobad
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 10:37 PM

Enough already - CUT!

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: Peace
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 10:33 PM

Links to everyfrigginthing y'ever wanted to know about peckers and circumcision.

I figure by the time the folks here have read all those links my pecker and its circumcised or noncircumcised condition will have stopped working for anything buts pissing.

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: *daylia*
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 10:25 PM

LOL and thanks for the link, Peace

Easy to ignore, really...

LOL   For the record, how long have you ever lived, 24/7, right up close and personal with a screaming infant?

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 10:02 PM

It is an easily observable fact that most people will defend what they are already accustomed to with the tenacity of a mother bear defending her cubs. Why? Because it is part of their conscious identity. Egos fight for their maintenance and survival just like animals do.

This is why you can find people vociferously defending any damn thing whatsoever, as long as it's already customary to them. Depend on it. Evidence be damned, because they will find evidence that appears to support their established view.

I say, give circumcision to them that wants it...when they reach an age to make the decision themselves. We have aneasthetics, don't we? It's done to infants without any aneasthetics. That must be quite an experience! Would anyone consent to it, I wonder, if given the choice? But hey, babies scream a lot anyway, right? So who cares? You can't really interpret what they're screaming about, cos they don't have the words. Easy to ignore, really...

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: Peace
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 09:55 PM

Circumcision around the world (no pun intended).

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: Peace
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 09:52 PM

Anecdotal re Japan.

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 09:50 PM

It probably has a great deal to do with poverty, prostitution, and a promiscuous lifestyle among transient, underemployed workers.

As I said, what about the Chinese, the Japanese, and various other populations? Who practices circumcision and who doesn't?

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 09:41 PM

"a bit of "mutilation" is in a creature's best interests"
We're not talking about dogs here... Nor are we talking about phallus worship... we're talking about not mutilating someone without their consent...

"The shape of the AIDS belt in Africa follows the territories with uncircumsized males to a T."
I suspect that has a LOT more to do with factors OTHER than circumcision...

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 09:37 PM

Okay, well, that's worth thinking about.

The thing that strikes me is, we have had any number of highly successful and lasting civilizations on this planet that did not practice circumcision, and they appear to have somehow managed fine without it.

Did they know something we don't?

What do the Chinese and Japanese do about it? How high are their Aids rates?

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: Peace
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 09:36 PM

Keeeeriste!

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: *daylia*
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 09:31 PM

And it's just incredible, to me, how the surgical removal of a miniscule flap of skin from the tip of a newborn's penis could be considered the equivalent of beating a woman, or removing her cervix or vagina. Hey, according to some of the views presented here, there's no difference between foreskin removal and infanticide! So a couple square mm of skin from a neonatal penis = the whole female infant.

Wow ... looks llike phallus worship is still alive and well and 'politically correct' in Western culture.

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: Mrrzy
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 09:17 PM

Man, I had a long and thoughtful post to this thread, that isn't here any more. Wonder what happened to it. Anybody read it?

Anyway - I have sons whom I did not have circumsized at birth because 10 years ago, the data really showed no medical benefit. Not to mention that they have holocaust-survivor maternal relatives and I didn't want any new Nazis to be able to claim that they (the twins, that is, not the Nazis) were Jewish.

However, the medical data have now changed. The shape of the AIDS belt in Africa follows the territories with uncircumsized males to a T. Also, uncirc'd males are much more likely to catch AIDS from vaginal (normal heterosexual) sex than are circum'd males - usually it's hard to catch from a woman, or even many women. Furthermore, there is growing evidence that without *very* good hygiene, which is difficult unless you happen to be rich by world standards (par for this forum, at a guess), the area under the foreskin becomes inflamed and even slight inflammation leaves that area susceptible to transmission of all kinds of fun stuff, of which AIDS is the worst as least curable. And it does take VERY good hygiene - a daily bath in hot water and soap isn't enough. This gets into why the puritanical US was/is so into circumsision - otherwise you really have to "play with it" to clean "down there" and all that. My dad wasn't circumsized but he did say once that if I had sons I should have it done for hygiene reasons (we lived for 15 years in Africa while I was growing up, but we had hot running water most of the time). And now that my twins are 10, one of them is fine and cleans well and stays fine, but the other has a lot of fine motor deficits, very soft and un-bony fingers, and has a lot of trouble retracting to pee, and is now too old for me to wash his willie but he doesn't/can't do it well himself, so he is always inflamed under his foreskin. As a result of my not having him circ'd at birth, he is running the risk of having to have it done at puberty, because I'm not going to let him develop into a sexually active person with inflammation under his foreskin, for his sake. He has to learn to keep it clean or get its hood lopped off, I will absolutely tell him. Why aren't people all up in arms about parents who pierce their babies' ears? Because it's no big deal, is why. Had this been done at birth, it would have been no big deal. Having it done later is going to be a huge hairy deal, and I feel bad for him. I'm hoping that the threat/promise will enable him to be able to keep it clean, but what about when he leaves home? How many male college freshman have excellent hygiene or don't sleep with anybody? I'd want him to be able to not take a bath AND get laid, and not worry about what bugs are crawling around under his hood. Nor should the woman worry, or man if that's where he goes. Not a risk I'm up for (I know, easy for me to say, it isn't MY willie...)!

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: *daylia*
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 08:39 PM

RE docking dog's tails - I had a pup once, a doberman-hound cross.   Very cute, when she was tiny. And her tail and ears had been left as is.

Well, the ears were no problem, but the tail? By the time she was about 6 months old, that dog - or rather, it's tail - had become a real hazard. When the poor thing was happy to see you, it would clear off the table(s) in one swipe. It could knock a 6 year old off their feet. And if you got thwacked, WOW - you wore the welts for the rest of the day.

Ended up having to take the dog to the SPCA before it was a year old, to protect myself, my toddlers, my furnishings and my students from that incredible tail. IT was quite the sorry day. :-(   BUt at least by then I understood, very well, the logic behind docking a doberman's tail, if it's meant to be kept as a housepet anyway. Had her tail been docked before she was weaned, I might still have her company today.   :-(

So sometimes, a bit of "mutilation" is in a creature's best interests - and in the best interests of everything in it's immediate vicinty too.

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 05:26 PM

Well, vets can get money for docking dogs tails, and that doesn't stop vets as an organised body being wholly opposed to it. (And the Council of Europe Convention for the Protection of Pet Animals outlaws the practice, even though it lingers on.)

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 05:17 PM

Circumcision is a weird, arbitrary, archaic, totally unnecessary mutilation of a male infant's body. (Some) people support the notion for the same reason they support most things: they're accustomed to it. If questioned about it, they make up strange reasons to justify it....reasons which they have heard from someone else who heard it from someone else who heard it from someone else who...

"If there's an orginal thought out there, I could use it right now" - Bob Dylan

If they were accustomed to killing all their female firstborn at birth, they'd support that too. (and they do, in some places)

Oh, and the North American medical establishment supports it because it's lucrative, of course... Why would they discontinue an existing source of income?

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: GUEST,Big Richard
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 05:11 PM

Circumcision. I think they should cut it out! There may be loads'a women who agree with that too. Cut it out completely. Not just the end bit.

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 04:58 PM

Cutting hair and fingernails doesn't actually hurt; and they grow back.
Not really analogous. Pulling out fingernails, (like declawing cats, which I believe is still legal in some countries), now that would be analogous, but I think most people would draw the line as that.

So far as religious requirements go, well, most religions accumulate stuff that they need to get rid off from time to time, and that kind of reform has to come from inside the communities involved. Can't be pushed on them from outside, and attempts to do that just reinforce resistance to the change.

As I understand it both Jewish and Islamic tradition accepts that where there are serious reasons to avoid circumcision, such as haemophilia, a man can be a full member of these religions without beng ciurcumcised. That means that there is no absolute requirement even within the existing traditions, and that implies that there is room for movement.

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: frogprince
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 04:07 PM

as a parable, for Bill:

Holmes: "Watson, what did the doctor say about the snakebite?"

Watson: "I'm sorry, Holmes; he said you're going to die".

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: *daylia*
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 04:00 PM

;~)

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: bill kennedy
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 03:54 PM

Daylia - one can have regrets without needing therapy, I'm not obsessed by it, though I think it is something that should be discussed openly. a kiss every now and then does make it all better, though the scars remain!

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: Wolfgang
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 03:35 PM

I'm glad to live in a country in which this is not even a point of debate.

As for circumcision and the Muslim faith it doesn't matter if it is mentioned in the Koran or not as long as it is part of the Sunnah.

MALE CIRCUMCISION: a Muslim perspective

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: *daylia*
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 03:34 PM

bill, thanks for expanding my world-view. I'm so sorry to hear about your grief and pain, and I hope any help you may require to deal with it is readily available in your locale.

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: michaelr
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 03:26 PM

The evolutionary reason for the foreskin is to protect the sensitve head from the whipping of the tall grass as one ran through it naked.

Saul, do you have any documentation for that claim?

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: Charley Noble
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 03:23 PM

All these posts and no verses? True, this thread is below the line so to speak. But here's a verse we used to sing when we were three sheets to the wind, so to speak. It has utterly no redeeming social value:

Columbus had a cabin boy,
The dirty little nipper,
He lined his arse with broken glass
And circumcized the skipper.

Cheerily,
Charley Ignoble

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: frogprince
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 03:20 PM

Peace and I have both mentioned ear-piercing along the way, and I think he asked, at least in effect, if those who are strongly opposed to circumcision are strongly opposed to the piercing of children's ears. I don't think anyone has answered.

Don't say "ear piercing isn't mutilation, nothing is removed". It's obviously possible to mutilate someone severely, by cutting or piercing, without removing anything.

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 03:19 PM

"cutting children's fingernails, toenails or hair"

D'uh..... That's basic hygiene.... Circumcision isn't... Circumcision is like cutting off the last knuckle of a childs FINGERS so you don't HAVE to trim their nails...

"oh, brother ..."
Ya... that's the sort of cogent, insightful, expressive kind of response I'd expected to get from the likes of you.....

*singing*
"On the Big Rock Candy Mountain"

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: greg stephens
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 03:09 PM

So, what are the moral implications of cutting children's fingernails, toenails or hair? Wicked infringement of rights? Sensible medical/hygeinic procedure? Cultural practise which we should respect, even though we may disagree? Your comments, please.