Circumcision: a Pillar of American ignorance

[Jonluw]

Why are you going to get circumcised? Religious reasons or just because you feel like taking half a second to pull back your foreskin when cleaning it is a bother?

Neither, but thanks for asking in an incredibly insensitive and insulting manner.

Yeah, sorry for the snarkiness. It's just that I see the argument "it makes it easier to clean" all the time, and it's just such a non-issue.

As for religion, I'm an atheist and couldn't care less about religious reasons.
I actually experience severe discomfort when pulling back my foreskin that prevents me from doing so.

Ah, medical reasons. I assumed that wasn't the case as you said you were going to wait it out for a while.

If I ever have a son, and I don't have them circumcised, how am I supposed to teach them how to clean and maintain their own foreskin when I was never able to do so myself?

Unless you have a medical condition, there is no trick to cleaning your foreskin. Basically just: Grab penis. Pull invards. Direct water at penis. Done.
Anyone who doesn't have a condition that inhibits this is likely to find out on their own.
Youth magazines also direct a surprising amount of attention to the subject in those kinds of "ask the doctor" coloums. Probably to spare the parents the embarassment.

There are two in this very thread, and foreskin restoration is nearly an industry of its own. It has a wikipedia page. Of course, no foreskin restoration procedure can restore complete functionality, but it's as close as you get to undoing what your parents did to you without your consent.

Seems like a pretty rare circumstance. But then again, so is my circumstance. So if you're going to argue that my circumstance isn't a good reason to have a child circumcised, why should I consider that circumstance a reason to not have them circumcised?

Because you should never go through with a medical procedure without good justification. Regardless of how far we've come, complications still happen. Wikipedia lists the complication rate as being reported as anywhere between 0.06% and 55%.
In addition to that comes the ethical questionability of removing a part of their body without consent, and the fact that it does cause pain.

In your case, however, I'd ask the doctor if the condition is hereditary; in which case circumcision could be justified.

Perhaps I should read more posts by these two, but I can't really understand how someone who was circumcised as an infant can know that they'd be happier with foreskin. They've never had it, so how do they know it will feel better with it than how they feel without it? Seems to me they're just HOPING it will, based on hearing that it's more pleasurable with foreskin, which as several people in this thread have pointed out is not something that has been proven at all.

I'm thinking it's a deeper psychological effect, more akin to that of what transsexuals experience.
I'd guess they feel they've been robbed of a part of their body, and by extension identity and autonomy, without having any say in the matter.

As for "psychological damage" caused by infant circumcision, every link I've seen in here so far to back up that claim has been pseudo-psychological garbage not backed up by any outstanding major studies that have been conducted. Of course circumcision on an infant is going to cause some sort of psychological effect, just as I'm sure exiting the womb through the tiny passage that is the vagina probably has some sort of psychological effect. But I see no outstanding proof that it causes major trauma that can effect those people throughout their entire lives in an overly negative manner. That's the sort of garbage that L. Ron Hubbard tried to teach people.

All the proof I need is that there are enough people who wish they'd never been circumcised to warrant research and industry into ways to restore the foreskin.

 

[Phasmal]

I would likely discuss such a thing with them before getting married or anything. That said, especially in the U.S., I doubt there are hardly ANY women who have a strong opinion about it, seeing as, you know, they don't have penises. And I think my girlfriend/wife would likely take my experiences and perspective on the subject, being someone who was not circumcised, as carrying more weight than anything she may have heard.

Well, I'm a woman, I have a strong opinion, and I dont have a penis.
I wouldn't do it to my kid, luckily my boyfriend is unsnipped and he wouldnt be up for it either.

Your quote of me was a bit messed up, so I snipped it.

Also, I know what it is, that was just a bit of comedic exaggeration.

 

[Jonluw]

Do you really think local anaesthesia removes all sensation?
How about showing a needle into your glans?
Like I said: Google circumcision pain, and maybe realize that your mother's layman observations aren't really the best source of objectively determining whether cutting into one of the most sensitive places on a child's body is painful or not.

Jewish Mohel's don't use local anasthesia. The baby is given a small amount of wine (a few cc), which make it just drunk enough to not feel a thing or even know what's going on.

Says who? The casual observers?
The fact that the baby is not able to fight does not mean it can not feel anything.
When you're being put under full narcosis before a major operation, you are fed two gases. One that keeps you from struggling or expressing pain, and one that knocks you out so that you don't feel pain.
Horrible things happen when some people are immune to one of the gases. They will lie there paralyzed, but feel every last cut.
My point being that the child not struggling is not proof that you are not putting it through pain.
Have you googled 'circumcision pain' yet?

And why wouldn't anasthesia remove the pain? That's its job. And giving a baby enough to make an area feel numb shouldn't be too hard. It's not like massive doses are needed for such a small creature.

Have you ever had local anaesthesia as an adult?
You should be able to see the fallacy of believing it removes all the pain. Particularly when infants going into a shock state during circumcision is a well-documented occurance.

Even if you put the child under perfect narcosis, you are still ignoring the issue that you are cutting off a part of someone's body without their consent, and loads of people wish this had never been done to them.

And frankly, my problem with a lot of the anti-circumcision sites is that they give information that, while credible, is given only by certain studies. Circumcision is one of those cases where you can find informtation that supports both ends of the argument.

As is the case with everything.

I still say you should try to watch that Penn & Teller episode.

Yes, it's disgusting that they cut their newborn children, and the HIV preventing effect is debatable.
You wouldn't let me cut the earlobes off my children or remove their toenails, so please stop cutting your own kids.
There's really not a lot else to say on the matter. It's bad, mkay?

If the majority of the country I lived in had cut earlobes (or pierced earlobes, to be more relevant), I don't see a problem in doing such a procedure on a kid that won't remember the surgery when they're older. Better than making him wait until an age when the surgery would cost thousands and be uncovered by insurance.

(That, I think, is the key here, is that insurance won't cover circumcision on adult or teenage males, only on infant ones. Fix this discrepancy, and anti-infant-circumcision arguments will carry a lot more weight).

Hooray for group mentality, I guess.

 

[JoshTheater]

I feel like there's a perspective difference that comes from being a culture where most people are circumcised and one where most are not.

Being someone who's uncircumcised in a society where pretty much 99% of all the other males I know ARE circumcised, all of whom seem to have less sexual insecurity and more fulfilling sex lives than I do (and even if I didn't have a medical issue, that would most likely be the case simply because I'm a nerd)...well, that's a pretty big factor in how I view the whole thing.

It makes it seem to me that some of those from other cultures where most people are not circumcised have an overblown perception of the negative effects of circumcision, simply because they haven't been around that many people who have actually had it done. And the few people they know who have had it done are living in a society where they are a minority...where almost everyone they know around them has not been circumcised.

It seems to me that that would be the reason most psychological issues in circumcised people would come up, whereas in a society where most people are circumcised, it's almost never an issue.

 

[Ultress]

Both sides have their pros and cons, I personally I don't give two shits either way,

Spoiler: However most people in this thread are kind being dicks

Koromaru protect me from the flames!

 

[BRex21]

[qu

Ok, to recap my previous posts on this thread: I've been to circumcisions. I'm a Jew, and in Israel we do things very differently than in the US. That's the procedure I'm talking about. Hell, I AM circumcised. In all circumcisions I've been to, the baby's always acted perfectly fine during and after the procedure. Oh, and in Israel, the baby is practically out cold during the procedure.

Do you have the medical knowledge to tell the difference between an anaesthetized infant and one who is in shock? Do you have experience working with both circumcised and uncircumcised children to back up that the circumcised ones seemed "perfectly fine"? Because what i see from this thread is one side using peer reviewed science and the other using conjecture.

Here we use anasthesia.

What anaesthetic, because where i stand you can you can use a largely ineffective ELMA cream or jab a needle into the head of the penis. Besides neither would cause the reaction you claim they would, that the baby would practically be out cold. I still feel the need to restate my previous point; the most common amount of anaesthetic used is none.

 

[Uzi-Bazooka]

For me, it's simple: I'm Jewish, so I am circumcised, and my sons will be as well, and (one hopes) their sons. The practical value does not matter to me, only the fact that we are commanded to do it.

 

[Jamash]

I think the most unethical thing about non-religious circumcision is the fate of the foreskins after removal.

They're not disposed of like normal medical waste, they're sold on for profit and each neonatal foreskin can generate hundreds of thousands of dollars for the biotech and cosmetics industries.

When you realise how lucrative it is, convincing parents to part with a extremely valuable part of their baby's body, it's no wonder that generations of parents have been led to genuinely believe that what they're doing is of benefit to their child, when in fact circumcision is of greatest benefit to the multi-billion dollar industries that rely on a cheap source of neonatal stem cells.

 

[Kopikatsu]

Do you really think local anaesthesia removes all sensation?
How about showing a needle into your glans?
Like I said: Google circumcision pain, and maybe realize that your mother's layman observations aren't really the best source of objectively determining whether cutting into one of the most sensitive places on a child's body is painful or not.

Jewish Mohel's don't use local anasthesia. The baby is given a small amount of wine (a few cc), which make it just drunk enough to not feel a thing or even know what's going on.

Says who? The casual observers?
The fact that the baby is not able to fight does not mean it can not feel anything.
When you're being put under full narcosis before a major operation, you are fed two gases. One that keeps you from struggling or expressing pain, and one that knocks you out so that you don't feel pain.
Horrible things happen when some people are immune to one of the gases. They will lie there paralyzed, but feel every last cut.
My point being that the child not struggling is not proof that you are not putting it through pain.
Have you googled 'circumcision pain' yet?

You have a number of circumcised men (Myself included) in this thread telling you that they haven't experienced pain (Or at least cannot recall it), and haven't been traumatized by said event.

I have no idea why you're pushing that point so hard. It really doesn't hold any weight.

I think the most unethical thing about non-religious circumcision is the fate of the foreskins after removal.

They're not disposed of like normal medical waste, they're sold on for profit and each neonatal foreskin can generate hundreds of thousands of dollars for the biotech and cosmetics industries.

When you realise how lucrative it is, convincing parents to part with a extremely valuable part of their baby's body, it's no wonder that generations of parents have been led to genuinely believe that what they're doing is of benefit to their child, when in fact circumcision is of greatest benefit to the multi-billion dollar industries that rely on a cheap source of neonatal stem cells.

That's kind of 'Eww' inducing.

 

[Jonluw]

Do you really think local anaesthesia removes all sensation?
How about showing a needle into your glans?
Like I said: Google circumcision pain, and maybe realize that your mother's layman observations aren't really the best source of objectively determining whether cutting into one of the most sensitive places on a child's body is painful or not.

Jewish Mohel's don't use local anasthesia. The baby is given a small amount of wine (a few cc), which make it just drunk enough to not feel a thing or even know what's going on.

Says who? The casual observers?
The fact that the baby is not able to fight does not mean it can not feel anything.
When you're being put under full narcosis before a major operation, you are fed two gases. One that keeps you from struggling or expressing pain, and one that knocks you out so that you don't feel pain.
Horrible things happen when some people are immune to one of the gases. They will lie there paralyzed, but feel every last cut.
My point being that the child not struggling is not proof that you are not putting it through pain.
Have you googled 'circumcision pain' yet?

You have a number of circumcised men (Myself included) in this thread telling you that they haven't experienced pain (Or at least cannot recall it), and haven't been traumatized by said event.

So people actually can't recall the pain you experienced when they were newborn?
Well, jolly good then! Cutting children is now morally okay, so long as you do it before they start forming memories and you don't ruin anything that's essential.

I have no idea why you're pushing that point so hard. It really doesn't hold any weight.

Because I find the idea of taking a scalpel to a non-consenting child for non-therapeutic reasons disgusting.

 

[Kopikatsu]

So people actually can't recall the pain you experienced when they were newborn?
Well, jolly good then! Cutting children is now morally okay, so long as you do it before they start forming memories and you don't ruin anything that's essential.

Uh...yeah. That's why it's done when they're a newborn. Specifically so that it isn't a terrible traumatizing experience.

Because I find the idea of taking a scalpel to a non-consenting child for non-therapeutic reasons disgusting.

Cool story, bro!

If we, as a whole, stopped doing what someone else found disgusting, we wouldn't have a lot of things. Or do a lot of things. Like crapping! Crapping is now forbidden. So is eating meat. So is getting your ear pierced. So is alcohol. So is practicing religion. So is not practicing religion. Etc etc.

 

[Danny91]

As for those 2 people- they have my sympathies, really. I'm not saying this isn't worthy of debate, but Goddamn if some people are overreacting. My folks aren't complete monsters for removing a small bit of skin from my body.

I'm not saying they're monsters. I'm saying they were ignorant of the potential effects and the fact that the baby is actually in pain.

As for the pain- well, I trust my own mother to judge her baby's behavior enough to know when it's in pain.

Well, with all due respect, that's horribly naïve.

Sorry, I really disagree with you there. Babies, when in pain, cry. I acted exactly like I did before, as did my brother. There's no basis to claim that we were in pain. Plus, it's pretty safe to say that I was too anithetised to know what was going on at the time.

Sorry, but no. Just no. At least, not most people. 14 million Jews do it because it's part of our culture, not because we're fighting to preserve a right or for the sake of it. We did it way before it was a debated issue, and will do it long after it is.

Someone oughta FORCE some sense into your heads again.

Fuck yeah, Publius Aelius Trajanus Hadrianus Augustus.

Uh... what? I don't even know how to respond to that.

This is Emperor Hadrian, who at one point during his reign began a program of suppressing native Jewish culture and promoting Roman culture and religion in Roman-ruled Judea; mostly building Roman temples and shrines over specific local religious places. As well as this, one of the things he also did was ban circumcision. As a result of all of these actions, a Jewish revolt spread, which became known as the Second Roman-Jewish War. The Roman's suffered surprisingly large losses, and once they finally defeated the rebellion, Hadrian cracked down heavily on the native populations, in an attempt to root out Judaism completely and prevent another uprising. The Torah was banned, priests were executed, sacred scrolls were burned, the capital was renamed Syrae-Palaestinia and the Jews were prevented from re-entering the capital of the province. Hadrian is particularly hated amongst Jewish scholars in the years that followed for this reason.

I believe this is what the original poster of this point is referring to; and who appears to be of the belief that a similar figure should come forward to do a similar thing to Jewish people again.

 

[Iron Lightning]

Alright, well thanks to Jonluw for responding to JoshTheater with a very nice post before I got the chance.

I'd also like to say that I consider any surgery that amputates a part of the body as a major surgery but that was hardly the crux of my argument.

The crux of my argument is that you shouldn't perform an unnecessary amputation on a baby who is unable to consent.

Why are you going to get circumcised? Religious reasons or just because you feel like taking half a second to pull back your foreskin when cleaning it is a bother?

Neither, but thanks for asking in an incredibly insensitive and insulting manner.

Well, you're the one who is in favor of cutting little boys' dicks without their consent. That seems pretty insensitive to me.

As for religion, I'm an atheist and couldn't care less about religious reasons. In fact, my father is actually Jewish (and circumcised) and yet my parents still agreed not to have it done to me. Not for any outstanding reason, just because they felt it wasn't necessary.

I would guess that there are actually not as many Jewish people who have it done for religious purposes, but more likely that they continue to do it simply because it's become the standard procedure.

As for my issues: I actually experience severe discomfort when pulling back my foreskin that prevents me from doing so. I've gone to a urologist who said there's nothing physically wrong with my penis or foreskin, yet the discomfort is there. Therefore I don't pull back my foreskin when a masturbate. For some reason, because of this, from even a very young age I masturbated while semi-flaccid, with the foreskin always over the head of my penis. I suspect this may have also caused me to develop ED. Because of this I have severe sexual insecurity and experience great anxiety when considering what I might do when entered into a situation where i become intimate with the opposite sex.

See why I didn't want to go into detail?

That's certainly a legitimate medical reason to have a circumcision done. Tell me one thing first because a doctor has told you that your penis is okay: is your foreskin still attached to your glans? I know that when I was going through puberty I went through a period where my foreskin was attached to my glans and then fell off eventually.

Still, just because it's possible to have medical problems related to the foreskin that does not mean you should automatically cut it off. We don't do tonsillectomies on nor do we remove the appendix of infants (not useless parts of the body) because it's a violation of human rights to perform an unnecessary surgery without consent.

If I ever have a son, and I don't have them circumcised, how am I supposed to teach them how to clean and maintain their own foreskin when I was never able to do so myself?

I'm uncircumcised and healthy so I'll tell you how to clean and maintain a foreskin:

1. Pull back the foreskin along the shaft until the glans is fully exposed.
2. Wash the area with soap and water in the normal fashion.

It's really easy and it only takes half a second.

There are two in this very thread, and foreskin restoration is nearly an industry of its own. It has a wikipedia page. Of course, no foreskin restoration procedure can restore complete functionality, but it's as close as you get to undoing what your parents did to you without your consent.

Seems like a pretty rare circumstance. But then again, so is my circumstance. So if you're going to argue that my circumstance isn't a good reason to have a child circumcised, why should I consider that circumstance a reason to not have them circumcised?

Here's another guy who regrets it:
Plus any cursory internet search will find hundreds of people who regret being circumcised.

But consider the opposite: how many uncircumcised healthy men have you seen regretting not being circumcised? Only men with medical problems ever regret not being circumcised.

Perhaps I should read more posts by these two, but I can't really understand how someone who was circumcised as an infant can know that they'd be happier with foreskin. They've never had it, so how do they know it will feel better with it than how they feel without it? Seems to me they're just HOPING it will, based on hearing that it's more pleasurable with foreskin, which as several people in this thread have pointed out is not something that has been proven at all.

[a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_effects_of_circumcision"]Several scientific studies have shown decreased sexual pleasure in circumcised men.[/a]

But let's ignore them for now and grant for the sake of argument that circumcision has no effect on sexual pleasure. There's still no reason to force this on our sons. Would you cut off your infant child's earlobes? Would you split the tongue so that it's forked? Would you pierce the nose? Would you remove their hair follicles on their head or eyebrows? How about ritually cutting an X in scar tissue on the infant's chest? All of these procedures don't do any damage to the child and yet you wouldn't automatically perform them on your child, would you?

If you wouldn't do those procedures then why would you cut off the foreskin? Hell, most of the above surgeries are illegal to perform on an infant without consent. They're illegal because it's a violation of human rights to perform unnecessary surgeries without the consent of the patient. It is certainly a cruel act to permanently wound someone without their consent.

As for "psychological damage" caused by infant circumcision, every link I've seen in here so far to back up that claim has been pseudo-psychological garbage not backed up by any outstanding major studies that have been conducted. Of course circumcision on an infant is going to cause some sort of psychological effect, just as I'm sure exiting the womb through the tiny passage that is the vagina probably has some sort of psychological effect. But I see no outstanding proof that it causes major trauma that can effect those people throughout their entire lives in an overly negative manner. That's the sort of garbage that L. Ron Hubbard tried to teach people.

Fair enough, I agree with this point. However, there are still plenty of good reasons that unnecessary circumcisions shouldn't be performed that have been mentioned by me, several other poster in this thread, and are summarized with sources to back them up in this lovely video:

 

[Jonluw]

So people actually can't recall the pain you experienced when they were newborn?
Well, jolly good then! Cutting children is now morally okay, so long as you do it before they start forming memories and you don't ruin anything that's essential.

Uh...yeah. That's why it's done when they're a newborn. Specifically so that it isn't a terrible traumatizing experience.

Wow. The sarcasm is just wasted on you, isn't it?
Fine then.
Let's make it legal to do anything you like to children so long as they're below memory-forming age and you don't break them.

I think removing toenails will be pretty cool. A kid with tattoos and piercings would look totally badass. I guess if it's a girl we can give her one of those chill circumcision.

Sex is fine too, right? Great loophole this. I'll inform any pedophile I can find.

Because I find the idea of taking a scalpel to a non-consenting child for non-therapeutic reasons disgusting.

Cool story, bro!

If we, as a whole, stopped doing what someone else found disgusting, we wouldn't have a lot of things. Or do a lot of things. Like crapping! Crapping is now forbidden. So is eating meat. So is getting your ear pierced. So is alcohol. So is practicing religion. So is not practicing religion. Etc etc.

And hitting kids. Hitting kids is illegal now as well.

So in essence you're okay with me using my kids as needle dispensers for my sowing kit (those tiny pillows are expensive and don't writhe as nicely).
That is absolutely repulsive.

 

[Kopikatsu]

Wow. The sarcasm is just wasted on you, isn't it?
Fine then.
Let's make it legal to do anything you like to children so long as they're below memory-forming age and you don't break them.

I think removing toenails will be pretty cool. A kid with tattoos and piercings would look totally badass. I guess if it's a girl we can give her one of those chill circumcision.

Sex is fine too, right? Great loophole this. I'll inform any pedophile I can find.

Removing toenails/getting tattoos/piercings/female circumcision/molestation have no benefits. Male circumcision's possible pros and cons are still debated.

Hyperbole is fun, isn't it?

And hitting kids. Hitting kids is illegal now as well.

So in essence you're okay with me using my kids as needle dispensers for my sowing kit (those tiny pillows are expensive and don't writhe as nicely).
That is absolutely repulsive.

Hyperbole is really fun! But it's not a great way of making a point without seeming childish. Circumcision =/= serial killer-levels of creepazoid.

 

[Jonluw]

Wow. The sarcasm is just wasted on you, isn't it?
Fine then.
Let's make it legal to do anything you like to children so long as they're below memory-forming age and you don't break them.

I think removing toenails will be pretty cool. A kid with tattoos and piercings would look totally badass. I guess if it's a girl we can give her one of those chill circumcision.

Sex is fine too, right? Great loophole this. I'll inform any pedophile I can find.

Removing toenails/getting tattoos/piercings/female circumcision/molestation have no benefits. Male circumcision's possible pros and cons are still debated.

Hyperbole is fun, isn't it?

And hitting kids. Hitting kids is illegal now as well.

So in essence you're okay with me using my kids as needle dispensers for my sowing kit (those tiny pillows are expensive and don't writhe as nicely).
That is absolutely repulsive.

Hyperbole is really fun! But it's not a great way of making a point without seeming childish. Circumcision =/= serial killer-levels of creepazoid.

Don't diverge from the point. You said the reason it was okay to cause a person pain and step on their human rights was that they don't remember anything. [sub]Besides, there are lots of advantages to having your toenails removed on birth.[/sub]
The medical benefits of circumcision are debatable and negligable at best.
Cutting off a person's foreskin - whether they remember it or not - should not be treated as a superior action to cutting off their earlobes or forcing an appendectomy on them.
Circumcision is the only procedure which is not medically necessary that a parent is allowed to force on their child. Why the hell is this the case?

In any case, It's getting late.
I will no longer be around to contend your frankly repulsive notions, but you can watch this video that another poster supplied us with.
And then you can spend some time philosophizing over why female circumcision is illegal.

 

[GeneWard]

Wait... what does this have to do with America?
Never mind, I think circumcision can be beneficial for a number of reasons, but I'm not. Like everything else in life, it's just about preference, but kids should have the choice once they're older, not while newborns.

 

[tacotrainwreck]

Any surgery carries the risk of infection and death... perhaps we should ban all cosmetic surgery? On that note, thanks for informing me that circumcision was a practice only done in America and only a demonstration of American ignorance... I never knew that.

Huh. Guess you learn something new every day. Thank you, internet forums!