I'm glad I read the article posted by Tracy Clark-Flory [2006-12-13]

about male circumcision. First let me be clear I'm a straight African descent male, and what pains me the most is when I hear the crazy numbers of HIV/AIDS cases found in Africa and in our African descent communities around the world. In America, male circumcision normally takes place at child birth, and after it heals it still functions the same. Some like a friend of mine will get theirs later in life. I have fathered two kids I know about others I don't about. However, if a circumcised male lowers the chances of HIV/AIDS from being spread or contracted then everything to make this happen is worth the effort for saving lives. Last year the latest count tallied was 14 million Africans died or contracted the AIDS virsus. We need to stop killing ourselves for 15 minutes of fun, and do whatever to lower the chances and sacrifice that little piece of skin.

All you penis envy women out there, you need mental help for this effort is to save your butt too!

CG Peace!

Keep cutting and end almost all STDs as well as rape. :)

Contrary to your previous post, I am a man...I just know that the removal of a minor flap of skin that occurred when I was a few days old has not irrevocably ruined my sex life, nor my sense of physical well being, and pride in my trouser snake.

I do understand why other men might have issues with this surgery, especially when one is an adult. Goodness knows just the thought of genital piercing drives me batty, but I don't think men who do it are irrevocably destroyed as men, or women who ask their partners to do it are out to destroy their partner’s sexuality.

It is a sensitive area, but making too broad of an analogy just makes you look like an idiot.

Size matters (As I am sure you are painfully aware) with regard to issues of purpose and functionality in genitals. This bit of skin is a minor aspect of the penis and one that causes no long term physical side effects to its removal.

The only argument that can be made is that it does slightly alter the physical appearance of the penis, but that alteration is not detrimental to its functioning or its purpose.

There are men, and I am not saying you are one, who are so afraid of the power women have over them sexually, that any issue with regard to gender becomes about this same sexual dynamic.

These men have feelings stirred in them by women, and have no method to relieve these feelings without the permission of a female. These men come to resent this dynamic, and come to feel very negatively towards all women as a result. It is very sad, because this of course only exacerbates the situation.

Women are not the enemy any more than men are their enemy. When we all respect each other and work together, the world is a better place and we all get to have lots of sex.

apparently it sometimes really improves things. I don't know if excess foreskin removal is also done but I suspect it probably is.

My understanding is that male circumcision is directly comparable to cutting off the clitoral hood. If that seems like a pretty icky idea to some women here, then you might begin to understand the male reaction. A lot of people tend to look at male circumcision as a pretty normal thing. And they shouldn't.

As far as the whole African HIV issue goes-- I think the circumcision decision should be strictly up to the parents of the boys. While I have a hard time seeing the upside to genital mutilation, I could certainly understand a parent choosing it if they thought it might save their kid's life. So let's just give them the information, and the best possible clinics, and but out. But it's kind of sad to think that the underlying behaviors and dangerous sexual practices are that entrenched.

and that only SHE matters.

My jibe about lopping off breasts was meant to make a point, not to be medically equivalent. If I had said every woman's clitoral hood should be chopped instead because it solves the problem of finding the clitoris in the first place, thus getting a man to get the girl off, so all marriages become more satisfying, I am sure she would suddenly agree it is a good thing.

or NOT.

The following ignorant comment speaks for itself.

Also, just be clear, to equate the removal of a small relativly unused bit of skin to the radical removal of a physical feature shows a man unduly obsessed with his own genetalia.

This is someone too narcissistic to ever love the opposite sex, preferring to think of men as disposable toys.

It is amazing that so many women are eager to deface, mutilate, and deform men for their own amusement.

I pity her and any woman so despicable to want to mutilate men. But nobody demands these women do not breed.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. In these studies, did the circumcised males have fewer partners? How about fewer sexual encounters? Did the studies consider only males having unprotected sex? Are circumcised males less likely to use condoms due to lost sensitivity?

Use a cutful of circumcision wrapped in a skinful of condom. Sweat it out in low heat until you get a nice "Man, why do I bother, I don't feel a thing" cake. Watch the deflation. Serve cold.

Extinction won't be announced with the bang of the next asteroid, but by the bored sighs from countless bedrooms.

I don't know or care-- and I doubt anyone else does, either-- the extent to which male orgasms may be affected by circumcision (and there's really no way to compare those who are circed as infants with those who are adults, because those who grew up without a foreskin are likely more desensitized anyway after years of exposure). Hell, some women who have had clitoridectomies still can reach orgasm, and I doubt that the climaxes themselves are that different from what fully intact women experience. The difference is most likely in the journey, not the destination, because foreskins not only have additional nerve endings from the rest of the penis, they also are apparently functionally different, meaning that sensations experienced would also be different. Now, men can go on and on about how fabulous their orgasms are, how they couldn't possibly be any better, but there actually is more to sex than the end result, and assuming that there isn't pretty much validates some of the old cliches about men and sexual selfishness. Y'know, women do notice when you guys time yourselves to reach some sort of imagined longevity standard and/or get impatient with the time we may require, neither of which are really all that much fun.