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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
If circumcision reduces the risk of HIV transmission somewhat, a complete penile amputation would reduce the risk completely!
not all "female circucision" removes everything and male cicumcison isn't benign, especially if something goes wrong, which it often does. If you want to reserve the term genital mutilation for the most extreme forms, fine, but I doubt you do because then you would dilute the message that all of it is not good, oh wait...
When I covered the results of the first studies coming out of Orange Farm in Soweto a year ago for a major medical journal, one quote stood out for me, from Dr Francois Venter, clinical director of Reproductive Health and HIV Research Unit in South Africa, which has one of the highest AIDS rates in the country.
He said, “If we had an AIDS vaccine this good, we would roll it out tomorrow,” he says. “There wouldn’t be a debate. We would vaccinate the whole country.”
Adult men should be given the chance to make a thoroughly informed choice which outlines all the risks and benefits of circumcision as PART of their preventative strategy, which absolutely should still include condoms.
The real issue is ensuring that circumcisions are done in clinically sterile conditions with proper aftercare, especially for those groups like the Xhosa and the Pedi (in South Africa) who include circumcision in their initiation rituals. Over 100 young men a year die in South Africa from secondary infections or botched circumcisions.
Circumcision is not a magic bullet, but it could make a huge impact on the disease that is killing Africa.
Give adults information. Let them make their own choices about how to best take care of their health.
Lauren Beukes wrote:
If we had a vaccine this good we'd roll it out today
That may be, but it presents a false equivalency. A vaccine takes a moment, involves comparatively little pain, and normally has no side-effects. Circumcision lasts a lifetime, and obviously includes complete loss of sensation in the excised tissue, as well as some inevitable loss of function.
The two are simply not comparable.
I can't help but wonder if the women who argue in favor of circumcision would be quite so cavalier if female circumcision were found to convey any medical benefit? Sometimes it seems that women who argue in favor of circumcision (and men who've already undergone the procedure as infants) consider it about as serious as clipping a hangnail.
To be blunt, if you've never had (or don't remember ever having) a foreskin, you don't know what it feels like and therefore cannot understand the negative consequences of what you're advocating.
It strikes me that this position is not unlike men advocating for a complete ban on abortion. It's easy to take an extreme stand when you've got nothing to lose.
The Chinese practiced male circucision to enhance female pleasure, because it delayed male orgasm. So you uncircumsized guys might have a little more fun (I doubt it), but we circumsized guys will get more pussy in the long run. After all, the main sex organ is supposed to be the brain. I suspect that most of the resistance to male circumcision is coming from the gay community, who because of their fetal brain damage, are not able to be attracted to females. Their desperate longing for real sexual pleasure narrows their focus to the tip of their dicks. "If the Good Lord made anything better than pussy, he kept it for himself." Sorry fellas, but it's true.
This study is a lot of bullshit.
There is no placebo study done within the same culture. The only TRUE measure of this would be to have a the number of times each participant had sex, to record the duration of those sexual encounters, and to know the HIV status of the each sexual partner. Even then, mutilated men GET INFECTED.
The study was done in a Muslim area with circumcisions vs non-Muslim areas. There was no factoring out of culture or sexual sensory issues. It's a study who's outcome was predetermined by those whose theory says that there is more chance of Sexual Diseases of those men not mutilated so that this organ mutilation can perpetuate.
There is one simple fact: men uncut have more sexual pleasure than those who are cut. Ask any adult who went from one to the other - even those who have undergone reconstruction notice the difference.
Read the study, it's ripe with bad science and bad logic.
Fact: Mutilated men get infected. Check the infection rates around the world, and countries with cut men still get infected.
If an adult male is given all the facts and decides to mutilate himself, let him do it. But, if he's given all the facts about his loss of sexual desire and sexual function and sexual feelings, a smart man would decide to stay intact and put a condom on himself before sex. But we're talking about real education here and more important comprehension of the education and how that education ties in with sexual mores and cultural feelings toward sex.
I can't believe how frivolously you would advocate male genital mutulation. It doesn't have to be equivalent to a clitorectomy to be reviled; it's still permament maiming of the genitals, may not prevent orgasm but reduces pleasure, and reduces dunction (the foreskin has several very good purposes for being there in the first place), and when it's done to a baby it is nonconsensual. Not only that but cut men still get and give HIV. And to the guy who said cut men offer more pleasure because they can last longer, that's bs. It's more pleasurable to have intercourse with an uncut man because of the sheath-in-a-sheath, extra lubricated action that nature intended.
While I'm getting a kick out the usual wackiness that takes places when subjects like this come up, I still must thank you for the breath of fresh air.
"I can't help but wonder how many people who argue in favor of male circumcision are actually uncircumcised men.
So far, I haven't yet seen a single man with a foreskin arguing in favor of circumcision. In fact, all of the proponents of circumcision seem to be either women, or circumcised men."
Well, duh. People are in favor of what they already have? Shocking! I can't help but wonder why people structure their opinions as facts.
"It is arguable that many of those men may be making the pro-circumcision argument in order to allay their own fears that they may have forever lost something which they would have valued, had they been allowed to keep it."
It's only arguable in the sense that it's your specious argument that you're trying to project onto others.
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Salon headlines in your mailbox
