BS: Circumcision: pros and cons

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: GUEST,Skinned Alive
Date: 16 Oct 05 - 03:20 PM

Thanks for the bold comments daylia.

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: Peace
Date: 16 Oct 05 - 04:08 PM

"I posted those links to illustrate the HUGE individual and cultural differences in what is considered to be physically beautiful and desirable - or horrific and abusive."

Gottcha. Thanks, Daylia.

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: dianavan
Date: 16 Oct 05 - 06:10 PM

I finally found the information I was looking for in regards to how this practice spread to the U.S.

"Circumcision gained in importance in the USA only after allopathic medical doctors, playing upon prevailing sexual anxieties, urged it as a "cure" for a long list of childhood diseases and "disorders, "to include polio, tuberculosis, bedwetting, and a new syndrome which appeared widely in the medical literature known as "masturbatory insanity." Circumcision was then advocated along with a host of exceedingly harsh, pain-inducing devices and practices designed to thwart any vestige of genital pleasure in children (Paige 1978)."

So although it probably started long before 2300 B.C., as a shamanistic ritual, the reasons for doing it have changed throughout time. It seems that it originated as a sacrifice.

It was also interesting to read that it was not always practiced by Jews. Apparently Moses outlawed the practice at one point in time.

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: bobad
Date: 16 Oct 05 - 06:17 PM

Excellent!

That's about as rational as today's justifications.

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Oct 05 - 06:36 PM

The clerical tonsure can be seen as a kind of symbolic circumcision. It'd be good if it could be adopted as a substitute in cultures where circumcision is seen as a significant ritual of inclusion.

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: Terry K
Date: 17 Oct 05 - 02:09 AM

It'd be even better if all the people who need this kind of symbolic nonsense could be educated into a state of enlightenment.

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Oct 05 - 05:32 AM

"A state of enlightenment" - now that's the kind of talk that fundamentalists of all types tend to use, religious or secular. Brave New World...

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: frogprince
Date: 17 Oct 05 - 07:24 PM

I grieve to think of all the nights when I've lain there soaked with sweat, trying to catch my breath, and thinking, "If only my parents hadn't had me mutilated as a child, that might have been enjoyable "

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: Peace
Date: 17 Oct 05 - 07:26 PM

LOL

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: bobad
Date: 17 Oct 05 - 07:26 PM

You can't know what you are missing if you've never had it.

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 17 Oct 05 - 09:41 PM

And that is how I can see that there is possibly beauty and validity to the traditions around La Corrida--bullfights.

Art

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 17 Oct 05 - 11:01 PM

Ummm...not sure what you're getting at with that comment, Art. Are you referring to the bull's ears? Or an unlucky matador's cojones?

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: saulgoldie
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 01:35 PM

The evolutionary--may I use that term?--reason for the foreskin is to protect the sensitve head from the whipping of the tall grass as one ran through it naked. I suggest that all circumcision survivors who might have been planning to run through tall grass naked could be upset with their parents. All others should be grateful that their parents cared enough about their health to have it done.

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 01:58 PM

"All others should be grateful that their parents cared enough..."

To have them mutilated???
Hardly...   What an ignorant, barbaric concept...

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: *daylia*
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 02:31 PM

How about judging/condemning your neighbour's appearance, choices and cultural traditions according to your own personal preferences, standards and biases - instead of according to theirs? Doesn't that just reek of ignorance and bigotry?

Want a more accurate measure of other people, when they differ from yourself?

Better use the right yardstick then.

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: Peace
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 02:51 PM

"The evolutionary--may I use that term?--reason for the foreskin is to protect the sensitve "

Then what the hell am I doin' in a paved city?

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

"How about judging/condemning your neighbour's appearance... Doesn't that just reek of ignorance and bigotry?"

If you want to call me a bigot because I think people who use religion as a rational to justify mutilating their children, you go right a head... it says more about you than it does about me...

This isn't about wearing a turban, or having to face a certain direction when you pray... this isn't about what you think some invisible man in the sky said about what you can and cannot eat on certain days of the week.... This is child abuse... plain and simple...

If your religion said it was o.k. for a man to beat his wife, I'd be JUST as condemning and condescending of that practice as well....

Oh... wait... That's already been done...

I don't know why I'm surprised to find such prevalent attitudes here, I really don't....

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: *daylia*
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 03:07 PM

oh, brother ...

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

circumcision is mutilation period
as a circumcised male whom Daylia has not met, let me say yes, I regret having been circumcised

as to how it started in the US on non religious grounds let me suggest what was merely alluded to in a post above

a doctor could charge a couple of hundred dollars or whatever (I know it has fluctuated and increased over the years, so whatever it is today 2000 or so) for a normal delivery of a boy child.

Add a circumcision, quick snip and a little more work for the nurses but who cares now the doctor can bill for an additional surgical procedure. a money machine, pure and simple, though no doubt there may well have been dodctors who actually believed there might be some therapeutic reason for the procedure, most did it for the bucks. not for any good reason. mutilation not as severe as female circumcision, but no less wrong. can;t believe it still goes on, and can't accept the feeble argument from some men I know that they allowed thier sons to be circumcised so they wouldn't 'look different' then the fathers. how many of you had fathers that compared thier penises with you? or you ever accidentally got a look at? long ago time to put an end to this barbaric practice in secular society leave it to the tribal religions if they so choose, but I would even argue that there is no placve for genital mutilation of others in a humane society. If you are lucky enough to reach the age of reason or manhood or adulthood and decide that you want to be circumcised as a mark of your covenant with some god or other, or as a lark, or as a test, or for whatever other lamne reason you might think of that is your right, pay for it or do it yourself, but no one has the right to do that to a child. IMHO

Subject: RE: BS: Circumcision: pros and cons
From: GUEST,Chongo Chimp
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 03:09 PM

Right freakin' ON, Clinton! I got one simple message for the pro-circumcision crowd...(buncha stinkin' child-abusin' perverts)

TOUCH MY BANANA WITHOUT MY PERMISSION AND YOU DIE!!!!!

- Chongo

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.

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: 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: 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: 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: *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: 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: 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: *daylia*
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 04:00 PM

;~)

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: *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: 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 - 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: Peace
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 09:36 PM

Keeeeriste!

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: 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 - 09:50 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: Peace
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 09:52 PM

Anecdotal re Japan.

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: 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: *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: 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: bobad
Date: 18 Oct 05 - 10:37 PM

Enough already - CUT!

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

LOL

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 - 11:07 PM

200