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Circumcision

  
  

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We're The Great Old Ones Now
07:30 / 26.02.02
What, you've never had those crunchy snacks they make?
 
 
Ganesh
10:18 / 26.02.02
No wonder that nice Mr Kellogg's such an advocate...
 
 
The Monkey
09:54 / 27.02.02
count adam,

While I've actually seen an interview with an American male who had a foreskin grafted onto his circumsized penis at the age of 30-someodd, I'm not sure where you're getting you numbers from in terms of "many" surgical failures and "many" cosmetic-foreskin operations. It would seem to me that America, being an immensely litigious society, would catch wind of surgical failures very quickly and start suing the pants off anyone who screwed circumcision up.
And the cosmetic graft of a foreskin can't be cheap.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
09:54 / 27.02.02
quote:Originally posted by The Planet of Sound:
there's a programme on BBC2 this week about a boy whose circumcision went so wrong they amputated his penis, and he was raised as a girl. Should be interesting viewing.

I know about this man. He suffered his genital mutilation at around 18 months. His story is often repeated as an example of nurture versus nature in matters of gender identity.

What the psychology textbooks omit to mention is that this man was not converted into a woman. He might have performed "acceptably" in the little girl role, as he attained maturity he was unable to function in a female role- this despite years of "feminising". He now lives as a man.

Quelle fuckin' surprise- not.
 
 
Ganesh
09:54 / 27.02.02
Yeah, and oddly enough, he's rather bitter about it all.

Given that the aim of a 'successful' circumcision is, basically, a pointless genital mutilation, I can't help shuddering at the mere concept of 'botched' ones. What do they do? Lop the bloody glans off?
 
 
Someone Else
14:16 / 19.09.02
Two interesting and amusing links:

http://www.cirp.org/library/history/moscucci/

http://www.ibiblio.org/stayfree/10/graham.htm
 
 
Bill Posters
15:41 / 19.09.02
From the second link above, worth quoting:

"A remedy [i.e. for masturbation - BP] which is almost always successful in small boys is circumcision...The operation should be performed by a surgeon without administering an
anesthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind...In females, the author has found the application of pure
carbolic acid to the clitoris an excellent means of allaying the abnormal excitement. " -- Dr. John Harvey Kellogg

My breakfast was designed by a fucking psycho, and I'm very glad someone's told me. In future I'll to stick with black coffee and cigarettes.
 
 
Ganesh
16:57 / 19.09.02
Snap. Crackle. Chop.

Had this same debate on FadeToBlack a little while back, when I mischievously linked Americans' apparent fascination with guns to a proposed nation-wide castration complex...
 
 
Lullaboozler
09:00 / 20.09.02
"Had this same debate on FadeToBlack a little while back"

Ganesh,

And you kept encountering a wall of resistance to the 'it is unecessary surgery' argument. Baffling. Cognitive dissonance at its best.
 
 
Bill Posters
13:09 / 20.09.02
Hmm... I'd be interested in exploring the link between male circumcision and militarism except any positive conclusion would lead one to pathologise Israeli / Jewish men, and all Muslim men. And as we all know, such men are simply not allowed to be picked on here, unlike the Americans. Who, as we all also know, are such a bunch of fat overfed Nazi rednecks they deserve no mercy.

My other point of confusion is if they decide that a snip makes a chap less susceptible to and infectious with HIV and STDs generally, then I may have to alter my anti-circumcision stance big time. Here's a useful summary type study. If there's anything in it, then I would quite possibly get cut myself.
 
 
XXII:X:II = XXX
17:26 / 21.09.02
I'll weigh in here.

My nephew is almost 28 months old, and as our family is of Jewish extraction, despite the fact that none of us are really practitioners (my sister is actually a practicing Won Buddhist), we had a bris. I remember being there, hearing my then 3 day old nephew screaming in white-hot agony, standing next to one of my mother's oldest friends, she turned to me and said, "Can you believe we're part of this ceremony?"

I looked at her and said, "I can't believe we're part of this religion."

That was the day I decided that if and when I ever had my own son I would rather someone took a knife to my own cock than to any helpless child of mine. It was truly, truly horrible.

The fact that the moyle (I know I'm misspelling that, but fuck it) was wall-eyed gave me no particular sense of safety, either.
 
 
Chris Packett
15:42 / 28.09.02
Another medical argument against circumcision...

I recently attended a lecture by a paediatric surgeon about the pros & cons of circumcision of male infants. It basically covered most of what has already been discussed here, and his personal opinion was that since there are few proven risks or benefits either way, he would explain the arguments and go along with the parents' wishes (with appropriate anaesthesia of course). He did however comment that the foreskin is the only body tissue which can be used as a skin graft for the eyelids, and that Falklands icon Simon Weston might have had a better outcome of his reconstructive surgery if his parents hadn't given him the chop.


(At this point another surgeon started musing that if it works one way, then maybe the restoration movement should try transplanting their eyelids onto the end of their penis, but that's a whole other issue)
 
 
Chris Packett
15:47 / 28.09.02
...and speaking of the restoration movement, I'm surprised the conspiracy theorists hadn't pointed out what this guy obviously knows:Link

Yep, the whole "medical reasons" circumcision culture is a vast conspiracy by the medical establishement to acquire vast supplies of foreskin tissue for secret research...
 
 
Torquemada
12:52 / 24.10.02
Quite amazing, the number of peeps that

a) Claim that the boys suffer no ill-effects in the years after (so that's alright then)

and

b) Claim that the bible states it so it must be so.

Err..who's bible exactly? The New English? Hebrew? Dead Sea Scrolls? I'm not gonna get into any sort of 'legitimacy' row, but I'm sure you can find at least one version that'll allow you to do what you want.

The two main reasons here so far have been 'tradition/ religion, and 'hygene'. What these posters are missing is that these are EXCUSES. It may be legal to execute someone in your country, but at the end of the day you are murdering someone, and no amount of procrastination can change that. 'Everyone does it' is not good enough in this day and age.

I'm now considering chopping off my childrens ears, so that they never have to worry about washing them. Oh no, hang on, that would be a visible mark of assault, and we wouldn't want to have to justify abuse that people can *see*, would we?

And it's a Jewish thing on the grounds of religion (and if you're religous, each to their own)- so what? Come on chaps - this is the same religion that spent millions developing a phone system that doesn't actually use electricity (or something), so that they can phone peeps on a Sunday without 'using machinery', as their God apparently dictates. I watched a whole Discovery about it - with my mouth open.

Anyway, enough of this, I'm off to castrate my dog, for health and religious reasons...
 
 
The Monkey
14:16 / 24.10.02
Hmmm. Never haved cottoned to functionalist explanations of circumcision's continuation. Now maybe, just maybe, in the original context of desert nomadism...where water bathing would be something occuring on a once-a-week or less basis...circumcision had a function. But in the Muslim community circumcision is seen explicitly as a marker of a man's relationship to Allah...a marker on the body. In the same way the adolescent circumsion ritual prevalent in Sub-Saharan Africa is seen as a transition to manhood. I honestly can't justify the medical practice of circumcision in terms individual rights. As an anthropological relativist, I'd have to say that tradition sucks, but sometimes you have to let it swing until people change their own mind. However, given the importance of neonatal foreskin tissue to skin grafts (not just for the eyelids...go Google to get some articles on grafting) for burn victims...I dunno.

Then again, I'm just enough of a Jew to have had a bris, and while I understand the theory behind the body dymorphia and other contra-circumcision arguments made here, it's never bothered me about my own penis. I wonder to a certain degree whether the sense of "absence of a foreskin" that some men cut at birth demonstrate is not intellectual shorthand for a larger complement of social insecurities and self-actualization ego-perception. Admittedly anecdotal, but I have not met nor in media found a case of a Muslim, Jew, or African displaying this degree of retro-analysis of the act of cirumcision; it seems to be the pervue of males cut by medical convention. I would be interested to conduct batteries of interviews with men who display post-event dysmorphia and see in what fashion they code their sense of loss....

Speaking of which, found this article about the cosmetic restoration procedure:

http://www.gayhealth.com/iowa-robot/network?record=362

Sorry, don't know HTML.

PS: Torquemada-- everyone else has managed to argue their positions pretty persuasively and without recourse to much good old-fashioned trashing...this Jew thinks you should maybe learn how to, as well, hmm? And I really like your name - it goes with the imperialist attitude and emotive non-logic. Go set some Sephards on fire and the image is complete....
 
 
Torquemada
21:13 / 24.10.02
Indeed, I must learn - some things strike me as so amazingly illogical that they do incite me to rant. Also I am from a Jewish background (my dad gave it up), so perhaps it's just repressed terror of nearly having the unkindest cut of all (as they say)...
 
 
The Monkey
23:25 / 24.10.02
My apologies are due back. I really shouldn't get so irritable.
 
 
woodswalker
10:17 / 25.10.02
While my mate and I awaited the birth of our child we debated circumcision if the child were male and really came to no answer at all. No real reason for it versus "fitting in". Thankfully the child was female so the decision was negated. Today I would have to go with the born with it, keep it crowd. Unnecessary and brutal mutilation. (We are in the U.S., so it would have been done as a matter of course).
Female circumcision and clitorectomy are done to control women; women as property. Unnecessary and brutal mutilation.
A foreskin provides a handy spot to insert a piercing, though a PA works as well.
IMO
 
 
Ganesh
20:22 / 28.03.04
Cusm's thread in the Conversation reminded me of this old discussion. Just thought I'd mention that, when my sister and her (Muslim) husband that their first child, just over a year ago, they decided to resist family pressure and keep his willy intact. I guess I could conduct a single-subject prospective follow-upm and see whether or not he joins the army, hmm?
 
 
Joetheneophyte
10:41 / 12.04.04
Ganesh

I loved reading your points in this thread

the act of cutting a childs' penis before he is old enough to understand what is going on, to me is abhorrent and MUST in my opinion, affect the individual at some level

I am not a qualified psychologist but it seems perfectly logical that such a trauma must IMPRINT some lasting psychological damage to the individual

Now this is not an attack on the Jewish, Muslim or (if figures are correct) American nations/races but it just makes (to me) intuitive sense that the childs' sense of safety and deep psychological make up must be affected somehow by this practice. I can only imagine there is a lurking deep buried (as it happened before conscious awareness or communication could take place) trauma that invades the growing child's thoughts and dreams


How specifically I cannot say and I doubt anybody actually could. THe only way that this could be investigated would be through hypnosis or some other form of regression and that is prone to too many variables and outside factors. It is also not scientifically valid as the expectations of the client and the hypnotist could colour the answers given.

No despite all the assurances from the people on here that they have not noticed any undue affects, unless we were to visit a parallel world and compare the same person , cut and uncut, it impossible to prove.

I still assert that to take a relatively newborn baby and submit him to (I imagine in some circumstances) un- anaesthitised cutting....particularly in such a sensitive area.....is not only physically but psychologically harmful.

The arguments about this potentially fuelling aggression are interesting. Totally unprovable and probably wrong but interesting nonetheless. I don't actually subscribe to that theory ....I do have suspicions about how this might impact on the psyche of the men who have endured this as a baby. I am not qualified to answer this but here goes

My theory is that the infantile and none conscious terror, that this op/mutilation must bring.......has a bearing on the child's psychological development (I AM A HUGE CONSPIRACY NUT IF YOU HADN'T GUESSED)

If the child is traumatised and experiences existential horror at an early age, then they are more prone to be malleable to the defining and cultural impact of it's 'clan' whether that clan be, Religious or Nation State.

Whether that be they are told they are God's/Allah's chosen people......or when pledging allegiance to the flag....I suspect that the religion or state then becomes more important and an explanation as to why they sense they have suffered. They then have a justification and the
perceived terror becomes a badge of honour, setting them apart from the rest of humanity

(and I admit this is all just theorising on my part and I am in no way qualified)

If the child is made to feel special and apart from the rest of humanity, it can justify the feelings of 'seperateness' and more easily identifies with others who have shared the same experience....most notably it's peers and parents....usually of the same religion/nationality


I know this sounds crazy and the people who have been through this are the least likely to accept it as a valid theory. That is all it is....just a theory from a conspiracy nut with no formal qualifications

I always remember the Jesuits saying "give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man2

I suspect that the religious and now National medical structures (who I believe are only following misplaced advice and not involved in any conspiracy) are just perpetuating a form of social control that has been perfected over thousands of years

Totally whacko theory I admit


But I am a HUGE conspiracy theorist
 
 
runawayworld
14:31 / 12.04.04
i've met several men in the united states that were born here and have not been circumcised.

i, overall, feel that the procedure is so common in the united states because the general population does not question the reason behind circumcision.
 
 
smallstream
21:11 / 17.04.04
just wanted to mention that the link that's been found between circumcision and having an STD is now thought to be because often it's done for religious reasons and persons who follow the tenets of their particular faith (Judaism etc) are less likely to be having pre-marital/one-night stand type sex and thus are less likely to be exposed to STD's to catch them.
 
 
Aertho
00:20 / 18.04.04
There are three kinds of lies:

1) Lies
2) Damned Lies
3)Statistics

Where were these studies done? How many test subjects were there? How recent are these findings? What were the ages of these subjects? Etc Etc Etc
 
 
Tom Coates
14:06 / 18.04.04
I always have problems taking these arguments that seriously. Foreskins are extremely common among male mammals, and if they didn't create reproductive advantages I can't imagine that they'd be around this long so citing it as an obvious source of health problems doesn't seem to me to be particularly plausible. It would seem to me to have more in common with other forms of physical alteration for cultural or social issues - I know that many cultures view circumcision as something that happens when you become a man - the suggestion being that it stops men from masturbating. There are similar suggestions in the Wikipedia article on masturbation too: Wikipedia and Circumcision.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
19:34 / 18.04.04
Foreskins are extremely common among male mammals, and if they didn't create reproductive advantages I can't imagine that they'd be around this long so citing it as an obvious source of health problems doesn't seem to me to be particularly plausible.

Way-ull - I think animals who wear trousers or other artifical protective coverings for the sensitive glans penis occupy a slightly different role in the scheme of things than animals who do not wear trousers or etc. I think we can probably also agree that the impact of circumcision, if by that we mean the "minor" circumcision practiced by US doctors (for example) on sexual performance and pleasure is both uncertain and comparatively minor, *when the operation is performed correctly*. In both cases, however, these seem to me not to be arguments for circumcision, merely mitigations of its effects...
 
 
Joetheneophyte
10:53 / 23.04.04
but the argument should be:

Is it right to perform such an operation on a defenceless child, that has no means of communicating other than crying?

Whilst nowhere near as physically debilitating as the female equivalent, to me it still should be classed as child abuse.
 
 
pony
04:31 / 12.05.04
i'm really surprised that noone has yet actually busted out any statistics. i'm an american, and reading this thread i found most of the comments about americans and their 'matter of course' circumsisions were pretty fucking ignorant. this link features federal statistics that seem to back this up, including the fact that only 1/3 of boys on the west coast are being circumsized:
link
 
 
Perfect Tommy
05:53 / 12.05.04
The statistics you've linked to seem to only include back to 1993 or so. I believe that circumcisions were much more a matter of course in the more distant past. I am 28, and IIRC no one bothered to ask my parents if they wanted me circumcised.
 
 
pony
06:54 / 12.05.04
i just thought these were pertinent as they reflected what's going on now-ish, instead of adults making the assumption that what they grew up with was something static (as some seemed to imply).
 
 
Ganesh
12:48 / 12.05.04
If you go wayyy back in the thread and check out some of the links I supplied, I seem to remember they do indicate that the practice is gradually fading out in the US - just not as quickly as in other parts of the world.
 
 
Michelle Gale
12:13 / 17.05.04
Not to get all vulger etc but (actually i do)... when i first became sexually active I used to find sex quite painful as had a slightly too tight foreskin. Then as things got a bit heated with my gorlfriend at the time(eg did not warm her up) and insertion resulted in mucho blood and masses of fear, as that little bit of skin that connects foreskin T'bell snapped. FIne now, all healed up (took a month or so) but Gp said this is quite a common phenomena kind of like hymen's with womens an things, so id dont know maybe its best to get these things out the way
 
 
Aertho
14:19 / 17.05.04
Same thing happened to me.

Frenum just snapped. Hurt like a bitch, too. I was scared to get busy for weeks after, much less wake up to find morning wood in a puddle of blood. Didn't happen luckily, and my girlfriend was very attentive throughout. Sex was MUCH better after... we affectionately called it "fat-man in a little coat condition" and later I found out that it had happened to my Dad too.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
21:57 / 17.05.04
Gosh. Your dad enjoyed better sex with your girlfriend after a snapped frenum as well?

Sorry. Couldn't resist. However, to the point - could we keep to a discussion of the ethics of circumcision, no matter how tempting our penises are? Discussion of the greatness of penises is more comfortably located here.
 
 
Tom Morris
07:15 / 18.05.04
Haus wrote... "Or, possibly, just that compared to female circumcision male circumcision is pretty fucking minor..."
Mordant C wrote... "I really feel that comparing male circumcision to female "circumcision" is totally inappropriate. The operations are just not analogous."
Sauron wrote... "Maybe I'm not sensitive (sorry) enough to this issue, but I still think one is like pissing in the ocean compared to the other."

On that logic, we shouldn't punish thieves or vandals because, well, compared to murderers, they are pretty fucking minor offenders. The crimes are just not analagous. Just because a is worse than b does not mean that b isn't unethical.

From the literature I have read, it seems that the operation is unnecessary apart from on hygenic grounds. And even then it is unnecessary if you just pull the foreskin back and wash it every so often. I, personally, classify them as cultural/religious exercises and not medical practices. And, for that reason alone, they should not be performed on children unless those children give their consent. Under law, it should be made a type of child abuse or assault if you circumcise a child because, as this thread has demonstrated, it's medically pointless.

Sauron also wrote... "but imagine if you were Jewish, and were due to be circumcised when very very young. Imagine if your parents did not allow this."

Ah, but a child, in the vast majority of cases (once you make exceptions for born-again-ism and other religious conversions) inherits their religious beliefs from their parents. When lying, hours old, in the maternity ward, religion is not a part of the childs life until they are (forgive me for this loaded word) indoctrinated in to the religion's dogma.

My view is simple: any act that is performed on a child that is based on a religious belief and not on medical grounds which will have a permanent (or lethal) effect or an effect which lasts into adulthood on that child's physical or mental health is tantamount to child abuse. Male circumcision counts. Female genital mutiliation definitely counts. Jehovah's Witnesses denying their children consent to blood transfusions count. People taking their kids to wonky New Age therapies which have no medical effect other than to traumatise or kill the child (Google for "Cadance Newmaker", Colorado and "rebirthing therapy" and you'll see precisely what I mean) count. Taking kids who are in a risky, but likely-to-be-effective medical practices (think cancer and chemotherapy) and whisking them off to a faith healer who promptly neglects that child's medical treatment - that counts too.

Okay, rant over. Back to your regular scheduled programming.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
09:33 / 24.05.04
On that logic, we shouldn't punish thieves or vandals because, well, compared to murderers, they are pretty fucking minor offenders.

Huh?

When I said that "the operations are just not analogous", this was not being offered as a justification for male circumcision. My thinking is that male circumcision is a body modification and should therefore not be performed on the very young or those otherwise unable to consent.

However, I stand by my previous statement. So-called female circumcision is not the same as male circumcision.

Since gender appears to be a bit of a stumbling block in this debate, I'll simplify things. Say you have two operations, both carried out on baby boys. Op. A) invovles the removal of the foreskin. B) invovles the complete removal of the baby's penis with an unsterilized blade and sewing up the mutilated flesh with horsehair, leaving a small hole for the passage of urine.

Are you really going to tell me that A is the same as B?
 
  

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