The best argument for banning circumcision, as the German city of Cologne did last week, is that it's an incomprehensibly stupid religious exercise for which there is no reasonable explanation. Why, if god really wanted penises to look a certain way, didn't he just make them like that from the beginning? And, more fundamentally, what's with the weird fixation on peckers? To humans, that sloppy appendage is a living punch line, the bumbling member that gets men into trouble, more often than not. I can see why god would feel the need to dictate rules and regulations when it comes to the upper head. But the lower one? That's just weird.
Anyways, the absurdity of the religious isn't a good enough reason to stop people from slicing up penises -- if it were, we'd have to ban a lot of other stuff, too. And neither are the rest of the arguments anti-circumcision crusaders regularly trot out. Those are filled with more holes than Genesis.
Take health concerns, for one example: people against circumcision cite worry over surgical complications, mostly related to blood loss. That concern is negligible, based on numerous studies. And they don't tell you about the flipside -- the part where tests have shown a circumcised penis means lowered vulnerability to AIDS and HIV, STIs and urinary tract infections.
As for the pain caused by lopping off a bit of foreskin, it subsides rather quickly -- anyone who claims they can remember the agony when that knife cut their little pee-pee is either lying or, well no, they're just lying. When it comes to health, circumcision vs. non-circumcision is a wash.
A particularly galling argument against penile circumcision is related to the repulsive act of female genital mutilation practiced in some African and Muslim countries. The logic goes as follows: Since all moral people agree that removing a woman's external genitalia is truly awful, the same should hold true for males. Except the effects of the two actions don't correlate. A circumcised male will still enjoy sex (albeit, studies have shown, slightly less than if he weren't missing that particular bit); a "circumcised" female suffers a loss of libido, plus a far higher degree of pain. Also -- and this should be obvious -- penises and vaginas are very, very different creatures: our philosophical and moral approach to one should have no bearing on the other.
But by far the most asinine argument against circumcision is that it's unfair to force male children -- usually babies -- into such a major decision. It should be his choice, to be made when he's old enough to understand the implications. This is incomprehensible, as if parents don't make all kinds of life-altering choices for their kids without waiting to see whether they'll approve. The fact is we are born stupid -- it takes years, decades, before we can hope to gain any insight into how we work, let alone how we fit into the greater world. In the meantime, a lot of very important arrangements have to be made. And if having a circumcised penis makes you feel inadequate when you're all grown up, you can get a foreskin restoration, or, the more popular choice, just hold it against your parents for as long as you three live.
In The Counterlife, Philip Roth -- definitely in the top five most penis-obsessed humans ever -- writes:
"Quite convincingly, circumcision gives the lie to the womb-dream of life in the beautiful state of innocent prehistory, the appealing idyll of living 'naturally,' unencumbered by man-made ritual. To be born is to lose all that. The heavy hand of human values falls upon you right at the start, marking your genitals as its own."
This is nonsense. Roth and the anti-circumcision gang are putting way too much thought into this. Penises, circumcised or not, aren't metaphors for nature or innocence. They're just penises. And though Roth's circumcised meat -- and mine and many others' -- might not be "whole," they still work perfectly fine. Ultimately, circumcised penises are just as able as uncircumcised ones to fulfill the noble schlong's simple mission: speak only when spoken to and otherwise minimize exposure so as to avoid embarrassment (and, potentially, lawsuits). That's really all there is to it.
The state has no place in our bedrooms, and it has no place in our pantaloons, either. People who think differently are just a bunch of pricks.
Follow Yoni Goldstein on Twitter: www.twitter.com/yonigoldstein
2) If healthwise the whole thing is a wash, what's the need to do the procedure (other than religion or fathers wanting heir sons to look like them)?
3) Life altering decisions are not all of the same caliber. In my opinion surgery is one of the more serious decisions that we make for other people. It should be made for a good reason so the question really is if religious superstition is a good enough reason.
It should be the person's choice and no one else's. Parents do make life-altering choices, but that is no excuse to do this. Why are you against someone electing to do it themselves? Surely the choice to get circumcised or not is different from setting up a college fund.
I think that is the entire point: wait until they're older until they can make an informed decision.
True story: My Brooklyn mohel was an old dude that wrapped the bandages way too tight. I wailed for hours and my mom was scared to do anything bc the model said that they shouldn't touch the bandages for however long a period of time. The Jamaican nurse convinced my mom that she needed to do something about the wailing bc it was unnaturally loud. When they finally removed the bandages, I apparently let out a huge sigh and stopped crying.
And you dont hear me bitching about the effect that's had on my life. Because I was eight days old. Far more important things have happened to me that I remember.
The reality is that on a global scale, circumcision is actually the minority, not the norm. I believe i read that only 30% of all males today are circumcised. The majority are jewish or North Americans worried about what everyone else is doing. Not health or medical reasons.
And since medical associations now state there is no medical reason to do the procedure, I think you will see it becoming less and less common in north america anyway.
You mean like brainwashing them into believing religious myths are actually true, and starting this procedure before the child is old enough to intellectually stand up for himself/herself?
"...penises and vaginas are very, very different creatures..."
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Sure.
However, both penis and vagina are born with prepuces which cover their glans.
The glans is the most sexually sensitive member of both the penis and the vagina.
The most common form of female circumcision involves an incision or prick of the prepuce which protects the glans.
The most common form of male circumcision involves amputation of the entire prepuce of the glans.
C'mon, Yoni. They are different but this is a 'cut and dry' analogy.
"our philosophical and moral approach to one should have no bearing on the other."
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Why not? Please elaborate in relation to the role and function of the prepuce.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prepuce
The reason the africa study is questionable is because they only look at the probability of getting HIV if a male has unprotected sex with an infected female. Not vice versa. It also never takes into account the fact that PROTECTED sex has a much greater benefit than circumcision. According to the african study, you'd have to circumcise hundreds of males in order to prevent one possible case of HIV infection...which condoms could have prevented anyway.
I was circumcised and admit to having zero memory of it. I still decided not to circumcise my own sons because there is zero medical reason to inflict that pain and discomfort on a newborn child.
Now having said all that, I think bans are NOT the way to go. Education, as always is key. And until we can take politics and religion out of medical arguments, there is always going to be people fighting science for irrational reasons.
The best argument for banning circumcision is that is psychological damaging due to the trauma of having ones own genitals mutilated by ones own parents! The Horror! Then to have spend years with these abusive people too. The practice is degrading to men, literally cutting their balls off. Even worse is if they figure their mother was the one with the scissors. I believe this practice may cause life long issues with women and their own male sexuality.
Are you circumcised?
Since your mother and father are supposed to love you and they wouldn't knowingly do you any harm, then circumcision must be good. That's why circumcised men try to perpetuate the practice by circumcising their sons and by trying to come up with a myriad of medical reasons that make circumcision look some sort of vodoo magic; because if they don't, they must face the reality that their mothers and fathers did something evil to them.
That's why circumcised men will claim they have lost nothing, and are not missing any sexual pleasure, even though any rational man would accept the fact that losing 20,000 nerve endings on your penis probably has a detrimental effect on their sexuality. That is why they claim that "loping off" this part of the body is not mutilation, but cutting any other part unnecessarily is. That is why they claim that a screaming baby, that sometimes goes into shock, isn't really feeling any pain.
Mammy and daddy couldn't do this evil thing to him... after all, rabbis and doctors are supposed to be good people... aren't they?
"... a new study, published in the January 6 issue of PLoS ONE, which found that there are gross changes in the penis's microbiome following circumcision, suggesting that shifts in the bacterial environment could account, in part, for the differences in HIV infection. Families of anaerobic bacteria, which are unable to grow in the presence of oxygen, are abundant before circumcision but nearly disappear after the procedure."
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=circumcision-penis-microbiome-hiv-infection
At least two questions immediately arise:
1) Does this seem to be a positive change in the boy's body or a negative one? How would a doctor answer that question?
2) Considering your answer to #1, does this seem to be an acceptable risk to impose on an infant boy, incapable of consent, and not yet close to being sexually active?
On the whole, this seems to be a very superficial investigation of the issue by Mr. Goldstein. A condom would undoubtedly provide infinitely more reliable protection without threatening the bodily integrity and sovereignty of the baby boy.
Why are these points not dealt with?