Letters to the Editor
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One feminist nails it
"It would be inconsistent to support circ in infant boys (and girls), and also a woman's right to choose."
Precisely. I've had feminists tell me that involuntary circumcision is something that men do to men, and women do to women--leave women out of it. It's better to adopt a case by case approach: hold those responsible who are, and determine who is and who isn't delighted that they were restrained in a circumstraint when they were most vulnerable.
According to my statistical studies of data from the National Health and Social Life Survey of Laumann, et al, there is a .4 standard deviation difference in the distribution of circumcised versus uncircumcised males, and this is pretty much stable across various measures.
Circumcision shifts the entire distribution of length and breadth to the left compared with intact men.
Circumcised males are more likely to avoid sex than uncircumcised males; this effect increases with age. Circumcised men are more likely to masturbate than uncircumcised men: the statistics make rubbish of an old Victorian claim.
Anyone who looks at the epidemiological data can see how slim the latest claims about the efficacy of the procedure are. The numbers are affected with what statisticians call "the law of small numbers": the fraction of people who do get infected is too small to be meaningful, and for "ethical" considerations, the studies are stopped--though they neglect to mention that the decision to terminate the study happens when the numbers gratify the confirmation bias of the experimenter.
Usually advocates of universal circumcision in Africa (I'm surprised hardly anyone raises the question of racism) pepper their claims with the standard United Nations anti-male sentiment: that predatory male sexual behavior is responsible. However, in a recent study, published in the Public Libary of Science by John Talbot, the number of commercial sex workers per capita was the statistically relevant factor: when this is included, the effect of circumcision is nullified.