Letters to the Editor
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Don't these people read the newspapers?
How is it that Salon failed to include a sidebar about the very well-known and published fact that in 2006 after a study revealed that circumcision lowered the risk of HIV/AIDS infection by around 50% (FIFTY PER CENT) the study was stopped by the UNITED NATIONS health organization because THEY NEEDED ALL AVAILABLE DOCTORS TO MEET THE DEMAND FOR CIRCUMCISION and because the health of African men was more important than the completion of additional research? And doesn't Neal read, either?
Up until then, the only KNOWN rational defense of the procedure was the statistic that shows that the incidence of cervical cancer is much higher in the wives of the uncut, the flappers, the Manatoos than it is in the uncircumcized. Or why not mention something equally as well known: that the claim that uncut members are just as clean as cut members is completely undercut by real-time research that shows that is only a theory, because the uncut don't take the time to make sure their members ARE as clean (not just POTENTIALLY as clean) as those of the uncircumcised?
The hygienic wisdom of ritual circumcision has been shown, now, to be just as wonderful a witness to the practicality of Jewish and ISLAMIC religious tradition as the ritual avoidance of trichinosis laden PORK.
You can bet, too, that the Neo-Con Evangelical won't want to hear of this either...After all anyone who lived in DC knew that the Holy Forerunner of the Neo-cons, who got pardoned by that liberal Tab-Hunter look-alike Ford, had the longest foreskin in the District, longer than the basic member itself!
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Unbelievable
I am so bloody glad I am not religious.
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RE: old skool
healthy skeptic,
I myself belong to that category -- a jew from former Soviet Union. So let me inform you that regardless of how proud they are of the heritage, they are not really observant jews, in this case. As adults, it is pretty understandable why they don't want to get circumcised, but you cannot use them as an example of jews who are not circumcised and are proud of it. They're just too afraid to do it. I myself am considering it -- for religious reasons only. Religion is irrational. You can either accept it or try to find your own way. My point is that if you're going to bring them up as an example -- it's not a good example.
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Goy Perspective on Penis Mutilation: Five Words I Never Expected to Combine Together
From the male perspective, the arguments against circumcision are overwhelming and undeniable. It must be very difficult for circumcised men to hear these. One doesn't want to know they are mutiliated or missing out, but it's important to not punish future generations for the fathers' problems in coming to terms with this.
This seems a bit silly to me. I was raised Methodist (Christian) and circumcised as a baby. I have no memory of the event, and it bears no effect on my happiness. I'm told a foreskin makes the tip of the penis more sensitive, but I wouldn't know and really don't care. If you don't know what you're missing, what's to miss? My penis works perfectly, and I have no lack of sensitivity. I'm not a father, but as a child of parents who opted to go with circumcision, I have no angst or regrets about their decision.
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Half the Articles
I wish I had the time to reply to half the responses on here. Some of them are just plain stupid, for example "It's better to be circumcised as a baby than an adult who can remember it!" Using that mindset it should be legal to treat babies under two any way we chose. Why should there be laws to protect innocent children that govern society? The majority of people don't have any conscious memories from before age three, so why should how a person's treated the first few years of life matter? Simple. The reason infants matter is because they are people. Pollack's son is as much a person as you or I. He might not have been able to say, "Woah, hang on there, what are you cutting off my penis?!" Is it okay (in American society) to remove part of a newborn boy's penis simply because he doesn't have the physical and verbal skills to defend himself? Are newborn boys somehow less than human in that they must earn the rights to their own whole, healthy bodies?
Or how about "Circumcision is great because I had a friend whose friend knew someone whose uncle's sister's boyfriend was not circumsized (Ever noticed how people who are for circumcision spell it with a Z)and he got an infection and it like, hurt, so his doctor told him to get circumsized and he did and now he's so glad and thinks everyone should do it." Riiiiiiiight. I love the old friend of a friend bit. And if that's not bad enough the poor uncle's sister's boyfriend always hates his parents for not cutting off part of his dick when he was born. Shame on you mom and dad, you should have known I would have ended up with an infection that the doctor couldn't figure out how to treat. What's that, perhaps I should have tried to figure out if I could do anything to help myself? Perhaps just rinse under my foreskin to protect the natural balance instead of stripping it away with soaps? Or maybe going to another doctor for a second opinion before agreeing to amputative surgery. Hey, poindextor, did the doctor take a culture of the infection, or did he just guess at the problem, toss some drugs at it, and wish it away?
Then there's the HIV argument. This one is almost too complicated to refute in this response so I'll just say:
A. Your newborn son is not having sex.
B. If your newborn grows up to decide it's worth his while to cut off part of his dick to feel safe about sex, then that's his choice. Personally, I'd wear a condom.
C. Has anyone noticed the studies were done in Africa? While that may not seem relevant, keep in mind that how we perceive sex is as much cultural as biological. Point of interest, some African cultural traditions are different from the ones in the United States. Unless there are people reading this who fill their vaginas with a mixture of mud and baboon piss to dry out their vaginas so their man can enjoy painfully rough and dry sex, it's a little hard to compare the sexuality of the various cultures. http://www.salon.com/health/sex/urge/world/1999/12/10/drysex/ (Hey, look, another Salon article.)
Finally, there's the misunderstanding that there's no way infant male circumcision in the good ol'US of A is as damaging as female genital mutilation. Here is why I think MGM is closest to type II FGM. Type II FGM removes the visible part of the clitoris, the clitoral hood, and some or all of the labia minora. The major parts removed in a typical American MGM are the foreskin, frenulum and ridged band.
So let's compare part for part and see if MGM really is such a cutesy little feelgoody option parents should make or is it a violation of a man's rights to his body in the same way FGM is a violation of a woman's rights.
Clitoral Hood:
* Covers and protects the clitoris
vs
Foreskin:
*Covers and protects the head of the penis.
Clitoris:
* Main source of sexual enjoyment to most women who have one. Yet women who are missing theirs still report sexual gratification (not counting the ones with 'undesirable' damage).
Frenulum:
* Main source of sexual enjoyment to most men who have one. Yet men who are missing theirs still report sexual gratification (not counting the ones with 'undesirable' damage.) Yes, you read that right. The functional equivilant to the clitoris is not the head of the penis, it is the frenulum, which is lost to MGM. In fact, even though the clitoris and glans have the same number of nerves, these nerves are spread over a much larger surface area in the glans. This means the glans has less feeling than the clitoris. **WARNING: link shows pic of penis http://www.sexdictionary.info/frenulum.html WARNING**
Labia minora:
*Protects the urethra and opening to the vagina.
Foreskin:
*Protects the urethra.
See, now how can anyone logically argue that there is any difference between the typical American MGM and type II FGM, which makes up 80% of all FGM worldwide. The very worst type of FGM is done to 15% of women worldwide http://www.who.int/reproductive-heal...nes/index.html
People shouldn't assume MGM isn't as bad simply because a small percentage of FGM is noticeably worse. Furthermore, MGM shouldn't be accepted simply because it is an American cultural norm.