According to the San Francisco Male Genital Mutilation (MGM) bill, 90% of baby borns born in the city leave the hospital intact. Lloyd Schofield would like to raise that figure to 100% by putting a bill on the November 2011 ballot. The initiative language, which would make circumcision a misdemeanor offense, includes:
ARTICLE 50: GENITAL CUTTING OF MALE MINORS
SEC. 5001. PROHIBITION OF GENITAL CUTTING OF MALE MINORS.
Except as provided in SEC. 5002, it is unlawful to circumcise, excise, cut, or mutilate the whole or any part of the foreskin, testicles, or penis of another person who has not attained the age of 18 years.
SEC. 5002. EXCEPTIONS.
(a) A surgical operation is not a violation of this section if the operation is necessary to the physical health of the person on whom it is performed because of a clear, compelling, and immediate medical need with no less-destructive alternative treatment available, and is performed by a person licensed in the place of its performance as a medical practitioner.(b) In applying subsection (a), no account shall be taken of the effect on the person on whom the operation is to be performed of any belief on the part of that or any other person that the operation is required as a matter of custom or ritual.
SEC. 5003. PENALTY.
Any person who violates any provisions of this Article shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction such person shall be punished by a fine not to exceed $1,000 or by imprisonment in the County Jail for a period not to exceed one year, or by both such fine and imprisonment.
This bill is in the signature gathering phase requiring 7000 signatures to be placed on the ballot.
The Deranged Housewife writes on the bill:
In this case, it seems that Lloyd Schofield – the guy who is bringing the debate to the forefront – thinks it does indeed take a “village to raise a child.” Should that village have a voice in your parenting decisions if this issue is on the ballot?
I think that if this measure passes, it could be a mixed victory for circumcision proponents.
Whether you think it’s right or wrong, it’s really not your decision to make. Whether it’s for cleanliness issues, a matter of religion or just because, when it comes down to whether it should be done or not is not a decision the public at large should have a say in.
If you view circumcision as genital mutilation, as I do, then the above statement makes little sense. Laws should protect citizens, no matter their age. When religion enters the picture, things do get a little fuzzy.
In fact, even if this bill does make it on to the ballot and is passed, it will most likely not stand up in court. SF Gate explains:
The city attorney’s office wouldn’t comment on the legality of such a ban, but we hear it’s unlikely to stand up in court even if it does pass because it would violate the freedom of religion clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Schofield argues that since female genital mutilation was banned under federal law in 1996, practicing male circumcision violates the equal protection clause.
Are there any religions that practice female genital mutilation (FGM)? According to Jacqueline Castledine of Mount Holyoke College, FGM is an Islamic “law by custom”:
Neither of the two main sources of Muslim law, the Koran and the Sunnah, mention the practice, and most Islamic scholars agree that it is not an Islamic religious rite. The practice has become important to Islam because it is associated with female sexual purity. FGM is intended by its practitioners to both control women’s sexual drives and also to cleanse women’s genitalia by removing the clitoris which is seen as masculine, a female penis. Because of its association with purity, young women who have not been excised have little chance of marriage in the countries where FGM is practiced
It is important to point out, however, that FGM has also been practiced in the West, and that “the practice of clitoridectomy was actually promoted in the United States and Britain during the 19th and early 20th centuries as a cure for lesbian practices or suspected inclinations, masturbation, hysteria, epilepsy, and nervousness.” This fact brings up interesting issues about the cultural relativity of this practice.
Does this mean the 1996 law protecting against female genital mutilation could be overturned in court? According to Wikipedia, “The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services states that the custom of FGC ‘cuts across religions and is practiced by Muslims, Christians, Jews and followers of indigenous religions.'”
Our little boys deserve the same protection as our little girls!
Mutilating a babies genitals is wrong no matter the gender or religion. Once you are an adult, you may do as you wish with your own penis, be that circumcise it or mutilate it in any way you choose.
If its a matter of religion, then perhaps the baby should be given its freedom of religion, which includes protection from religion (aka the cutting of his/her genitals). What if the baby doesnt want to be jewish/muslim or whatever when he is older? A covenant to God would hold a lot more water if the person involved in making the sacrifice did so willingly and knowingly in Gods name. The baby has not a fucking clue whats going on.
Please show me the list where a grown man is soo pissed at his parents for doing such a thing, its probably a real small one. Mutilation, really? I’ve had it done and have never had any complaints from any of my girlfriends. Its dirty bottom line and the people in San Fran trying to pass this has losts thier minds to think this will pass. If the baby doesn’t want to be Jewish/Muslim or whatever is a desicion they get to make when he is of understanding age. When a person has a child it is their right to teach whatever religion they want to THIER kids and its the kids right to decide weather they want to keep it or not when they are of age. I think that point lies in trying to raise the kids with some morals which is the bases for most religions.
No, it’s not a child’s choice. Moyles circumcise withing 2 weeks of birth and most parents who allow it to be done to their kids have it done the same day. As for dirty, that’s ridiculous and ignorant.
People raise their kids with whatever morals they want, but none of them should include cutting of what people think are “extra”. We don’t let people beat or kill their kids, so society already steps in where it sees fit. This is just another area.
The child has no voice to defend himself, so we are defending the defenseless.
If circumcision is so great like you say it is, then tons of people will voluntarily get them when they’re of age.
Hopefully so, I not going to waist my time as why not getting it is bad. Google that one your self. But allowing this law is allowing more government into my home. I WILL not allow that. And I hope no other parent that believes in circimcision does either. If anything maybe let the doctors tell the parents the pros and cons but not allowing a parent to be a parent is wrong. S#!t good and bad happens all of the time in every scenario in our lives. I.E. A kid goes to get his tonsells taken out and dies on the operating table or whatever. Be as prepared as you can and be a parent to your children the best you can. If you dont want to give your kid circumcision then dont but dont think for one second Im going to allow anyone to come in and tell me how to raise my kid.
You’re right. You are going to waste your time posting here, and believing that circumcision is medically beneficial.
You WILL not allow intrusion into your home from the government?
Good luck with your taxes. Where were you to defend against government intrusion into your home, when the Feds outlawed female circumcision in 1996?
Your belief in circumcision is just that…a belief. It has no grounds in medical fact. The AMA and AAP say it is not justifiable on medical grounds. In other words, the risks associated with any surgery, outweigh the proven benefits.
Taking half the skin off of your child’s penis, is not the same as taking tonsils he’s not aware of. How much sexual pleasure have you received from your tonsils? If a kid dies in circumcision, it’s a tragedy. because no one needs one.
They certainly don’t deserve to die for it.
Someone is already telling you how to raise your kid. Try removing the clitoral hood from your daughter, and see what happens. Same tissue, same operation, very different legal consequences.
Just in case you don’t think people die from circumciison:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42975978/ns/health-kids_and_parenting/t/family-blames-anesthesia-circumcision-death/
Did this kid deserve the death penalty, for having a foreskin?
Would the circumcision ban help save kids like him?
What’s more important, the rights of a parent to make choices like this?
Or the kid keeping his life, and all the healthy body parts he was born with?
All the parental rights in the world are not making this couple feel any better.
Let’s see.
Google search on “foreskin restoration” gives About 621,000 results today.
That’s 79 pages. That’s not a short list.
“It’s dirty”. Really. What is your basis, for saying ugly things about 3 billion or so men? Do you know their penises personally?
A kid can make up their mind, today, not to be Jewish or Muslim. That doesn’t get them back all the original factory equipment which came with their penis.
The kid has a right to decide whether he wants a third of his penis skin, half of his penis skin, two thirds, or the whole thing. No parent has the right to decide. The right given to them now is artificial. You can’t lop off a significant hunk of your daughter’s vulva anymore. Why should it be any different for a son?
Raising a kid with morals, can be done whether he has a foreskin or not.
Are you for real?
To the Mohel Who Cut Me by Shea Levy
http://www.beyondthebris.com/2011/06/to-mohel-who-cut-me.html
On Circumcision, Authority and the Perpetuation of Abuse by Jonathan Friedman
http://www.beyondthebris.com/2011/06/on-circumcision-authority-and.html
The baby I witnessed had every clue what was going on. He knew he was being skinned alive, and was screaming as such. I never heard a human make such an agonizing sound, before, or since.
What did Jews do before there was Mohels. It was the father’s DUTY to circumcise his son, smear the blood from his boy’s penis skin on the four sides of the alter.
Many, many Jews are questioning circumcision from many perspectives including religious, ethical, and spiritual as well as men, women, and parents.
Circumcision: A Jewish Feminist Perspective by Miriam Pollack
http://www.noharmm.org/pollack.htm
One Rabbis’ Thoughts on Circumcision by Rabbi Nathan Segal
http://www.rabbinathan.com/writings/circum.shtml
Cut: Slicing Through the Myths of Circumcision – A Movie by Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon
http://www.cutthefilm.com
How “Cut” Saved My Son’s Foreskin: A Movie Review By Diane Targovnik
http://www.beyondthebris.com/2011/05/how-cut-saved-my-sons-foreskin-movie.html
It takes a village to protect basic human rights. Circumcision is not medically necessary. It does not have to be forced on someone at birth, but once it is, there is no reversing it. It permanently removes about 2/3 of the man’s sexually sensitive nerve endings, and removes the protective cover to keep the glans sensitive. Circ only provides disease prevention benefits if the man chooses to have frequent unprotected sex (something that not I, nor most people I know do).
The right to have this procedure performed should ONLY be given to the man himself.
@Joshua says: “Circ only provides disease prevention benefits if the man chooses to have frequent unprotected sex (something that not I, nor most people I know do).”
Well, there ya have it folks. Even though circumcision actually decreases the chances of transmission of certain STDs, and HIV, unprotected sex apparently isn’t common because Joshua doesn’t practice it, nor do “most people” he knows. Therefore (My guess is they simply aren’t getting laid in the first place.)
Uhm. No…. circumcision doesn’t protect you against any STI/D’s, including HIV. That is based on some sketchy trials that were run in sub-saharan africa that were cut short when the trend started to disappear.
If you have unprotected sex, the two most important factors are your partner and the time of contact with any fluids. Circumcision doesn’t enter the picture.
So you are implying that babies should be circumcised, so that they have less chance of contracting HIV, and other sexually transmitted diseases through unsafe sex?
If that is not what you are saying, and you think they need to use a condom to be safe, why should they have the fun parts amputated at all?
Uncircumcised men get laid just fine, thank you. Man has had a foreskin on his penis, since Adam and before, 4.7 million years that they know about. If it wasn’t for an uncircumcised man getting some, there is absolutely no chance that you would be here today.
Snarky much, J Sarles?
There is precedent to ban male infant circumcision without running afoul of the 1st Amendment. Check out Prince v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 64 S.Ct. 438, 88 L.Ed. 645 (1944), a US Supreme Court case.
“The right to practice religion freely does not include liberty to expose the community or the child to communicable disease or the latter to ill health or death.”
An underreported fact is that the death toll from male infant circumcision in the US is over 100 babies per year. It is a matter time before male circumcision is determined to be a violation of the child’s bodily autonomy. Remember, until 1997, female circumcision was legal (and practiced) in the US.
Got a citation for that statistic?
http://documents.jdsupra.com/988ee97b-f28b-4b4b-9e48-7e070c22e6f9.pdf
http://www.mensstudies.com/content/b64n267w47m333x0/?p=a0575733c93f4b9e9a773aa78ed915cc&pi=5
http://injury.lawyercentral.com/Parents-sue-over-circumcision-death-Legal-News–14-102143.html
http://www.examiner.com/family-health-in-washington-dc/new-study-estimates-neonatal-circumcision-death-rate-higher-than-suffocation-and-auto-accidents
Want more? They are too easy to find, when you are looking for them.
It’s really quite simple. Mutilation should not be protected as a religious freedom, because it physically harms or impairs an individual. Religious freedom has a limit when it harms or impinges on the freedoms of the individual–other people have the freedom to liberty, the pursuit of happiness, etc., too. This includes full capacity for sexual gratification. You wouldn’t be able to poke somebody’s eye out just because it’s part of your religion, so it is absurd to say that you should be able to hack off 50% of a baby’s penile nerve tissue just because it’s part of your religion.
Many, many Jews are questioning circumcision from many perspectives including religious, ethical, and spiritual as well as men, women, feminists, and parents. A variety of Jewish and Israeli groups are working to abolish circumcision also.
Cut: Slicing Through the Myths of Circumcision – A Movie by Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon
http://www.cutthefilm.com
How “Cut” Saved My Son’s Foreskin: A Movie Review By Diane Targovnik
http://www.beyondthebris.com/2011/05/how-cut-saved-my-sons-foreskin-movie.html
Jewish Circumcision Critics Integral in National Circumcision Debate
http://intactnews.org/node/84/1309957856/jewish-circumcision-critics-integral-national-circumcision-debate
Jewish Circumcision: An Alternative Perspective by Jenny Goodman, MD.
http://www.cirp.org/library/cultural/goodman1999/
On Alternative Rituals by Ronald Goldman, Ph.D.
http://www.jewishcircumcision.org/ritual.htm
I would amend the Deranged Housewife’s statement by just a word or two:
“Whether you think it’s right or wrong, it’s really not your decision to make. Whether it’s for cleanliness issues, a matter of religion or just because, when it comes down to whether it should be done or not is not a decision anyone but the penis’s owner should have a say in.”
It should be noted that for a few weeks last year, the AAP flirted with allowing a token ritual pricking of female genitalia “much less extensive than male genital cutting” but had to back down, so great was the uproar. So we’re not talking about the horrors of FGC in Africa, gender equity is at issue here, and in fact the fearsome wording of the proposed bill is cut-and-pasted from existing law banning female cutting.
My freedom to pracise my religion ends where your body begins. The Constitution (14th Amendment) also protects the “right of the people to be secure in their persons … against unreasonable … seizures” and what seizure can be more unreasonable than that of an intimate, integral, healthy, non-renewable, functional part of one’s own body?
Why is the foreskin the only part of a child that parents can decide whether or not to cut off? You couldn’t do it with a kidney, and a child has two. You couldn’t tattoo them, although that wouldn’t hurt nearly as much, and wouldn’t be killing 20,000 very sexually responsive nerves.
I truly don’t get it. So many parents think that branding a child in this manner is their God given right, or their medical duty, but it is neither. Circumcision violates that most basic human right, the right to decide which parts of your body you want to keep.
What percentage of your genitalia would you like to be allowed to keep?
Is any of it extra?
Foreskins have evolved over the 120 million years mammals have been in existence.
They are not a birth defect. They are a playground.
Circumcision is not a crime against humanity; it is a practice of significant religious and cultural significance. Even if you do not like circumcision, you have no right to prohibit other people from circumcising their sons, or getting circumcised. It is un-constitutional to apply such prohibitions and way out of line for San Francisco to attempt to do this. This measure will fail.
So would you also stand for parental cultural rights to perform female circumcision?
The AAP American Academy of Pediatrics has stated the outlawed female circumcision type 4 is much less intrusive than the typical male circumcision. The AAP suggested to allow female type 4 in the US. The public outcry killed that idea. One can not even draw 1 drop! of female blood of a minor, yet it is ok fine to chop off half of the penile skin and 75% of the erogenous receptors. So Eric, do you see something wrong with this? If you don’t I suggest wikipedia “cognitive dissonance”.
Yes, we do. We don’t let people stone people because they think it’s a religiously given right. We are also going to stop people from cutting off parts of their children for any reason. If you raise your child as a Jew, then he will want to follow Abraham’s steps and will choose to do it to himself. Don’t worry about it.
Maybe losing 35% to 50% of the skin of your penis is not a crime against humanity.
I would consider it a major crime against humanity, if I woke up, and it was done to me. I think that most people, when they stop to think about it, think this is not a good thing. This may be why the circumcision rate worldwide is dropping like a rock. Except for Africa, where they would do almost anything to try and hold HIV at bay, except perhaps use a condom.
If it is unconstitutional, than we need to make female circumcision legal again.
It makes no sense to protect a girl from unneeded genital cutting, and still do it to a boy. No national medical organization, not even Israel’s, recommends routine circumcision for medical reasons. Time to wake up, and smell the coffee.
Do you ever think what you would do with more than twice as much sexual sensation? Every boy deserves what nature had in mind. It’s his body, it should be his choice. Why is that so difficult to understand?
“AS AN INCREASING NUMBER OF AMERICANS – including a sizable number of American Jews – question the act of male circumcision, a group of San Francisco activists are advocating to ban circumcision, or what they call male genital mutilation… Many of the leading activists against circumcision around the country are Jewish.”
– JERUSALEM POST, Challenging the Circumcision Myth, (Israel) 04/10/2011
“BUT CHOOSING TO LEAVE A SON INTACT IS NOT JUST a choice being made by American Jews. Increasingly, Israeli Jews are making this choice. Kahal ( http://www.kahal.org ) was established in June 2000 by parents in the Tel Aviv area who decided not to circumcise their sons. The community is not a formal organization and includes only parents with intact sons.
Raquel Lazar-Paley is a parent who chose not to circumcise her son and she says she has several friends in the Haifa area who made the same decision.”
– THE JERUSALEM REPORT APRIL 25, 2011
“…as recently as the mid-nineteenth century, in Eastern Europe and Russia there was a widespread move to stop the practice… Led by women–what a surprise!–who thought the practice barbaric and patriarchal, the movement eventually even convinced Theodore Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, who refused to allow his own son to be circumcised.”
– Michael S. Kimmel, Professor, SUNY Stony Brook
TIKKUN, Volume 16, May/June, 2001.
“Another American Jew who works against circumcision is Laurie Evans, the director of the New York Hudson Valley chapter of NOCIRC ( http://www.nocirc.org ). “I went to a brit and couldn’t believe I was standing in a room of people who usually question so much, but didn’t think of the baby. It was one of the worst days of my life. I feel our religion is in our heart and soul, not in our genitals.”
When Evans’s children were born, she wanted to be more involved Jewishly, despite not being brought up to be practicing. She still maintains some of the Jewish customs, but her difficulty with circumcision has created a fissure between her and Judaism. “It’s hard for me to accept that we don’t accept tattooing and we like questioning, but this can’t be talked about. I see it like foot-binding in China.”
– THE JERUSALEM REPORT APRIL 25, 2011
“Laurie Evans is the director of the New York Hudson Valley Chapter of the National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers ( http://www.nocirc.org ). She said that as a Jewish woman, it was difficult to stand up to her family.
“Once I witnessed a bris (ritual Jewish circumcision), understood the function of the foreskin and the long, lasting harm of circumcision, I had to follow my conscience and leave my son intact,” Evans testified.
“My son is now 20, is grateful, as he understands just what he was spared,” Evans said. “When I realized how many parents were uninformed about this surgery, I founded and became director of the New York Hudson Valley Chapter of NOCIRC.”
– WND, March 05, 2010
“Coming from a European background… where many Jews reject a brit milla as an archaic and barbaric ritual… This author grew up in France in a traditional Jewish family. Not a single male of her generation or her children’s generation within her large family (or in her circle of Jewish friends) was ever circumcised.”
– Nelly Karsenty, Humanistic Judaism, 1988.
Circumcision actually *is* a crime against humanity, even if they fail to prosecute, or even believe it’s a crime, in the US. It’s thievery. How would you, as an adult, feel about someone stealing half the skin, and two thirds of the nerves, of your penis? What if you woke up one day, and it was gone? How would you feel?
Before you counter that he is too young to realize the loss, please answer this question.
Is it date rape, if she was slipped a rufee, and didn’t remember the assault?
Circumcision is an act of violence against a defenseless newborn. That’s why he gets a scar. I witnessed one, accidentally. I honestly thought the baby was being murdered, and ran in. His screaming was like nothing I have heard, before, or since.
What, exactly, is the significant cultural significance of “making him look like Dadddy”? Does this, or any religious significance, trump his right to keep all of his healthy body parts? Of course not.
If parents were trying to remove any other body part, the state would step in, and stop them. Why should we make an exception for circumcision….and then, only for the male, not the female? Why is it so easy to prevent a tradition when it is Muslim, and so hard when it belongs to another religion? Same act, different gender…90% of female circumcisions remove only the clitoral foreskin.
This measure may indeed fail. But, sooner or later, like slavery and foot binding, circumcision is going be looked at in the rear view mirror as a truly bizarre practice that they used to believe in in less knowledgeable times.
Let me ask you. How much of your genitalia would you like to keep? 50%? 100%?
What makes you think he would be any different? What makes you think that your opinion about “what’s best for him” because it was done to you, supersedes his right to make that decision for himself? If you leave the foreskin on him, there is no harm done…as Europe, Asia, South America, and Australia have proven. Why is it so hard to wait until he’s 18, so he can have the choice?
Circumcision is an act of fear, not an act of love. God put the foreskin there, for many reasons. He is not telling you to take it away…that is an invention of man. Circumcision is a deep seated need to prove dominance over another person, no matter how you present it. It’s an ego trip…we do it because we can.
If it is so medically helpful, why does no medical society endorse it for medical reasons? Why is the HPV and HIV infection rate of mostly circumcised America roughly 10 times the infection rates of predominantly foreskin keeping European countries?
Ya and I bet you have to do some extra cleaning as well. My sex life is more than fine, lube or no lube, the girl is usually excited enough when having an intimate encounter. Please show me the list of people who got so pissed at their parents for doing such a thing, it’s probably a really small one. If he blames the fact that he is using lotion because mommy and daddy took his skin, than I bet he’s using that as an excuse because he doesn’t know any better. My opinion and many others is that it’s a dirt and bacteria collector. If someones sexlife is so screrwed to blame something like circumsizing on it than they probably have many more deep seeded issues. Foreskin is dirty and every person I know thats had it done doesn’t give 2 $#!&@. The reason the infection rate is higher is because most women won’t touch an uncircumsized man.
Wait what? Dude you have got no idea of what you’re talking about. In fact you have serious foreskin envy. Me thinks you miss that extra inch of penis that was taken from you.
Well Josh. Let me introduce myself. I chose circumcision as a kid and was happy until reading the Joy of Sex. It was real clear there was a lot of sex I was not going to be doing missing a foreskin. The loss of sensitivity during puberty was very noticeable and constant for a very long time. Worst mistake of my life!
So much so I educated myself to educate others to not make the same mistake.
Jews have known the harms of circumcision for over 800 years, Rabbi Moses Maimonides. Circumcision was not even part of the ORIGINAL covenant, Genesis 15 but was added by priests in Genesis 17. The Sorrells study shows the most sensitive areas are cut off. The world’s most knowledgeable penis researcher Dr. John Taylor, who died last November, didn’t get to finish his quest of circumcision harm to the prostate by way of glans harm by incomplete circulation, keratinization, circ. tear scarring, and missing receptors for complete receptor activation. But he did outline how circ. affects the heart. Best read “The Frenular Delta”, understand the sexual mechanics of the dartos.
You must think the same thing about eyelids collecting dirt and bacteria. Even worse, eyelids trap liquid against the eye indefinitely.
And nice try throwing in that rib that if an intact guy has trouble with lubrication, it’s because the woman isn’t interested.
Just because you don’t know what you’re missing doesn’t mean you have lost something.
By the way, I know a girl who is *obsessed* with my foreskin. The first step to recovery is acknowledging there is a problem. You just don’t want to admit that something bad was done to you. Yes, the world really is that messed up. Accept it and start changing it.
I can tell you’ve never been up close and personal with a foreskin.
All I have to do is look down, to know that what you are spouting is a pile of misinformation and trash. Two seconds with water in the shower and a thumb rub is not too much to ask, especially to avoid having half the skin taken off your most responsive part.
I already showed you the list of people pissed. It was 79 pages long. That was one attempt. Do you want me to go and find the good stuff, where people are really screaming about it, and post it in here? Do you always talk trash about people you don’t know, and make up bad things about them? Why? Insecure much about your manhood?
Your opinion that it is a dirt and bacteria collector isn’t worth much.
Circumcised boys are more likely to have dangerous bacteria, like staph and strep, on their heads, than boys with foreskins.
http://www.catholicsagainstcircumcision.org/12-02-05.pdf
http://www.cirp.org/news/staph1/
http://www.cirp.org/library/complications/enzenauer1/
So, it is really the circumcised penis, which collects dangerous germs, not the one with the foreskin.
Foreskin is dirty. Right. Did you get a bad one last time? Or are you making up more stuff?
If most women wouldn’t touch an uncircumcised man, you wouldn’t be here.
Circumcision is 5,000 years old. Foreskins are 4.7 million years old on humans, and 120 million years old on mammals before that. The chances that the majority of your ancestors, even the recent ones, didn’t have foreskins, is zero.
You have some very ugly stuff going on in your brain. It’s time to take a good hard look at what’s causing it. Your words come close to a hate crime. It is baggage you don’t need.
I recently stumbled accross this morning show podcast from San Francisco Alice 97.3 FM from http://WWW.radioalice.com Sarah and Vinnie secret show. Sarah openly talked about her catching her son stealing her hand lotion and making up a story on why he wanted it. She knew it was for masturbation purposes. I would only speculate that her son is circumcised because I have never had to use lube being uncircumcised myself. A listener “Returnofseth” writes in and coments on the right of her son stealing her lotion since she took away his foreskin at birth and circumcision being a way to allow the lube industry to capitalize and make money from it. It was interesting to read a response from listener “M”. Evidently 1 listener from SF out of all cities seem to be pro-circ.
You can listen and comment to the podcast at this link. Give’em hell!
http://radioalice.radio.com/2011/02/02/podcast-secret-show-feb-2nd/
The US lube industry is a $2 million /year industry. It’s been shown in studies circumcision makes for contrivances, lube, toys, video, imagination. An intact male just simply rides the waves of pleasure. It is common for intact males to be able to orgasm hands free by doing Kegel reflexes when erect. Each flex of the prostate enlarges the glans enough to pull back the foreskin. Thus activating the foreskin and glans enough to cum with repeated flexing. It’s been said the difference in feel is like the palm and back of the hand. There’s a whole whop of pleasure stolen.
You people that believe this are idiots. Ya, go ahead and let ur kid grow up with God knows what is growing in that extra skin. Thats all it is, extra skin people, if you think the extra nerves are going to give you that extra boost in life than go ahead. But don’t bitch when that kid gets sick or made fun of because of some stupid righteous BS. Im sure when he grows up he’ll say “Whew, I sure am glad good o’l mom and pop didn’t nip my tip, i guess ill make the trip to the doc and giter done. Since no woman will touch me with that funky smell coming from down there and that odd green thing oozing out” You people trying to pass this bill are idots and deserve all the embarasment that I hope will go along with this. God help you
You seem to be able to provide very graphic, detailed descriptions of what an uncircumcised is like. Is your up-close experience with them that extensive?
@Josh…
Was it really just skin that was amputated from me without my consent? You know, before I could even feel or know what my foreskin felt like.
Was it really just skin? Do some research, end this crime of sexual assault on baby males.
http://www.norm.org/lost.html
Josh, dude… I’m not circumcised and I assure you, no “funky” stuff, green or otherwise has ever oozed out of my foreskin.
Also, an eyelid is “just extra skin.” As a matter of fact, we don’t need pinkyfingers or pinky toes or ear lobes. They’re all just “extra” so we should just cut them off.
Furthermore, nobody has ever made fun of my foreskin, because when I was a kid, my parents bought me this really cool thing, invented hundreds of years ago…. called pants.
Even when naked showering after sporting events, nobody made fun of it.
Less than 10% cut in the bay area. 225 California. 32.5% across the US. So according to you circumcised kids being the minority will be ridiculed.
Extra skin? Right, more skin for pleasure!
Smell? I had a man tell me his father taught him to use a drop of baby oil after showering. While I wouldn’t put petroleum in me, there it is. From Dr Momma:
http://www.drmomma.org/2009/09/functions-of-foreskin-purposes-of.html
The perception of any scent associated with pheromones varies from individual to individual and depends largely on bacteria. The bacteria itself may be needed to chemically interact with the pheromones to make them active. (17) Diet, bathing habits, and general health also impact the quality of these scents. The predominant odor associated with male pheromones is musk. Nearly all human cultures esteem the rich, earthy, musky, pheromone-rich scent produced by the glands in the foreskin.
Perfume makers obtain musk from the foreskin glands of the musk deer.
The nonhuman pheromones contained in this muck are unable to elicit sexual arousal in humans, but the fragrance of the musk itself may, bay association, elicit a pleasant response in humans that evokes a sympathetic erotic arousal. (18) This is, at least, the effect that the perfume industry hopes to create.
Who told you all these lies about foreskins? They’re not true. And I DO know a number of people who are unhappy that they were circumcised.
Josh, got a problem?
I’m uncircumcised. There is no extra skin. Everything I have is factory original.
Are your eyelids extra? What do you know about the ‘extra skin’? Certainly, nothing about maintenance. A two second rinse every day, or every other day, does the trick. It is certainly easier to clean, and has less scent and bacteria, than female genitalia. The nerves aren’t extra.
Every one of them is meant to be there, and designed for pleasure. Who do you know that ever got sick from someone having a foreskin? No one, that’s who. Almost nobody who has a foreskin chooses to have it removed.
Why are you so far from reality, and so filled with hate? Do you really imagine the Europeans and South Americans with a funky smell and green stuff oozing out of their intact penises? Don’t you think you would have heard about it by now? Women talk, especially when they are unhappy with something. How many times have you heard, “I had to tell him to wash”?
Get real.
Still, even if your hygiene fantasy hell was real, it’s no justification for cutting a healthy body part off of an unconsenting baby.
Maybe you need to get out more.
Deranged Housewife is deranged, alright. The “Public” should not vote on this, but SHE should decide?
Obviously, the state must take over in enacting the bill as reason and science do NOT trump emotion, superstition, and armchair science.
I’ve heard so many parents say only if I’d known I wouldn’t have circ’d him. As a mother recently said “This is why we need this law. To Protect Parents!”
Coming in to home stretch- I bet SFMGMbill.org can use manpower to collect signatures and likewise donations. This is history in the making, I would like to see it qualify for the ballot. I would like to see the multitudes of cut men have a voice for once especially against the threatening ADL Anti-Demamation League -who wants to stop anyone to vote! The ADL wants complete silence.
A variety of Jewish and Israeli groups are working to abolish circumcision also.
Jews Against Circumcision
http://www.jewsagainstcircumcision.org
Beyond the Bris: A Jewish Intactivist Blog
http://www.beyondthebris.com
Questioning Circumcision: A Jewish Perspective
http://www.jewishcircumcision.org
Gonnen: Protect the Child (in Hebrew)
http://www.gonnen.org
Kahal: Giving Up Brit Milah (in Hebrew and English)
http://www.kahal.org
Circumcision is great for men and has been around for centuries because of its many logical benefits – its clean, looks great, feels great and reduces the risk of women becoming infected with bacterial viruses. A circumcised manhood is also easier to clean. It is beneficial for males to get this procedure done as a baby since you do not remember later on what happened. No trauma is done. Quite the opposite. Reading a lot of comments on here makes me think that the childish rebellion against circumcision is a reflection of hatred towards God/faith/religion rather than the actual procedure. It is time to accept that circumcision has – and will always have – a place in America.
Will, while I appreciate your cheerleading, exactly how is having between 35% and 50% of the skin of your penis amputated “great for men”. What you might be unaware of, is that the three most sexually responsive parts of a male are either damaged beyond repair, or removed by circumcision. The head is a distant fourth, more like the shaft, than the first three. They are the frenulum, which tells a man when to climax, the inner foreskin, which compels him to go deeper, and the ridged bands, which are fine touch receptors. Most circumcised guys report that the best feeling they get, is where the little bits of these parts are left.
Circumcision has been around for 5,000 years. Foreskins have been around for 120 million years. With that much time, and being located on a reproductive organ, you can be pretty sure that they have evolved to be quite close to perfect, in that amount of time. Though it might appear to you that there are logical benefits, the medical communities are trying like wild to find benefits, and the best they can do is the weak statement by the AMA that there are ‘potential benefits’, but that these potential benefits don’t outweigh the very real risk of surgery.
My genitals are clean. I wash them every day. Pretty much every other guy does, too.
Nobody wants to be told they are unclean, and specially when that is true. A foreskin feels great, to both partners. Circumcision does not decrease the risk of being infected with bacterial viruses. Don’t know where you came up with that old myth. Fact is, scientific studies from New Zealand, where they used to circumcise but don’t any longer, show that men who are circumcised and men that have foreskins get the same diseases, at the same rates. I will give you that a circumcised manhood is easier to clean. I have to take two or three seconds, and rinse with water, and make sure I got in the folds with my thumb, in the shower. I think it is well worth the price of having about 20,000 more nerves in my organ, to report pleasure.
Just because you don’t remember something horrible, doesn’t mean that is a good thing. If a woman was given rohipnal, and then was raped, wasn’t she still raped? If I put a kid under with anesthesia, is it OK to punch him in the face, because he won’t remember it?
No trauma is done during circumcision? This is an outrageous misstatement! The foreskin and head have not yet separated. They are one part. The surgeon or mohel makes a cut, and then inserts a blunt instrument, and pokes it around to tear the connection. The medical term for this is “blunt trauma”, which tells you how delicate it is. The head is often wounded in this process. Men grow skin bridges, because the foreskin remnant heals to the open wound on the head…a common unintended consequence of circumcision. If there is no trauma, why does it leave a scar?
Do these kids look like they are having a good time? Turn the sound up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAGNnqyNidY
Here’s a PhD dissecting circumcision. The part I described about the blunt instrument is at 10:42. The baby is in serious distress.
http://www.youtube.com/user/freedom0speech?blend=9&ob=5
Exactly how is opposing circumcision “childish rebellion”? Where have I, or anyone else shown hatred towards “God/faith/religion rather than the actual procedure”?
I assure you that I detest the procedure with my whole heart. I saw a baby have one once. I can still hear his screams in my head, though it is 37 years since. I hate no one’s God, faith, or religion. I find it amazingly presumptuous to say. I also have to think that you want not to be questioned, like the great and powerful Oz, and just have people accept your groundless suppositions as if they were proven facts. No dice.
A sexual amputation benefits a male, as much as it benefits a female. It makes an internal part into an external one. This makes the moist mucous membrane that the penis is intended to be, like the mouth or vagina, into something more like the skin on your arm. Nobody believes the purported medical benefits. After 140 years of the medical community touting it, there is no country whose medical organization embraces circumcision as necessary, or even medically beneficial. Why do Europeans have their foreskins, and get diseases such as HIV, HPV, and penile cancer at significantly lower rates than mostly circumcised Americans?
This is why Canadians, the British, Australians, New Zealanders, and now Americans are turning away from it. In my lifetime, the US circumcision rate has gone from 90% to 32.5%.
Check out this honest assessment of complications. This is is from a Turkish doctor who performs them. I’m sure nobody wants gangrene.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/13/us-turkey-circumcision-idUSTRE76C1I420110713
We are sentencing people to sexual second-class citizenship, for nothing. Its era is coming to a close. Whether the end is legal, or whether people simply stop doing it, either way is fine with me. The kid is the one who benefits. It’s his body. It needs to be his decision.
Tom – It is great for men, because it is cleaner and looks better. Circumcision gives men greater confidence in themselves and often makes them more attractive in the eyes of women.
Uncircumcised men have to wash themselves more often than circumcised. For example, every time after you take a piss, you need to thoroughly wash yourself as an uncircumcised man to prevent the smell of urine being trapped in there. The reality is that not all men wash regularly, hence the build up of smegma and urine under the foreskin.
BACTERIA:
Statistics have shown that uncircumcised men are more likely to pass on bacterial viruses to women. Uncircumcised men are also connected to STDs in higher percentages than for circumcised men. To demonstrate a point, take a look at the comparison below. It shows statistics of adults infected with STDs per 1000 people.
Infections per 1000 people:
North America: 19/1000
Western Europe: 20/1000
Eastern + Central Europe: 29/1000
We can even compare these regions…
Latin America + Carribean: 71/1000
North Africa + Middle East: 21/1000
PATTERNS:
North America has higher rates of circumcision and lower rates of STDs.
Europe has lower rates of circumcision and higher rates of STDs.
19 (North American average) vs. 23 (European average)
Latin America has lower rates of circumcision and higher rates of STDs.
The Middle East and North Africa have higher rates of circumcision and lower rates of STDs.
Source: http://www.avert.org/std-statistics.htm
BABIES:
Yes, babies will cry during the procedure, but remember babies also cry when they have soiled their diapers. They cry for many different reasons. The pain associated with circumcision are temporary, but the benefits are long lasting.
Circumcision has been around for a long time and for good reason.
Will, do you have any actual statistics to prove your lower disease claim? Because it’s just not true. It’s factually incorrect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HIV_Epidem.png
Russia is getting a higher level of HIV cases because of drug use, not because their men are intact.
Circumcision hasn’t been around for a long time in the U.S. It became popular in the 1800s as a way to curb masturbation. Hmm, how did that work out?
Your facts are blatantly false. You have a bias in which you have to defend what was done to you, when we’re not actually making fun of *your* penis. We’re discussing the practice of taking away someone’s right over bodily autonomy. And you’re defending it with false “statistics.”
Y0u’re clearly a circumfetishist.
Will, I understand that you believe circumcision is great. That is why I specifically asked you why you think it is great, when it removes up to 50% of the skin of a penis. You respond with “circumcision is great”. That’s not an answer.
Please explain how removing a large percentage of the skin of a penis makes it better…how man makes a better penis than nature?
How is a man with a scar, and less penis skin, more attractive to women?
Are you really advocating surgery, to make boys more attractive to women, in your eyes?
How would that differ from say, breast augmentation on baby girls, to make them more attractive to women?
I have never had a woman react negatively to my foreskin. Hence, I don’t need surgery to artificially boost my confidence as a man.
“Uncircumcised men have to wash themselves more often than circumcised. For example, every time after you take a piss, you need to thoroughly wash yourself as an uncircumcised man to prevent the smell of urine being trapped in there. The reality is that not all men wash regularly, hence the build up of smegma and urine under the foreskin.”
OK. I wash myself every day, when I take a shower. How often do you wash yourself? I’m betting it’s likely every day. I am not burdened. As I explained, I wash it gratefully. So what. Is there a difference between you and me washing?
Are there any other parts you want to cut off, so you don’t have to wash them?
Are there any parts of your body you think less of, because you have to wash them? When I urinate, I leave the foreskin very slightly retracted after the shake. The last drop goes in my underwear, same as you, and not under my foreskin. The foreskin then slides up. But, as a circumcised guy, thanks for telling me how I urinate. So, there is no need to wash after urination. Do females wash their vulvas after urinating? Do you worry whether there is a drop of urine left in a vulva? Do you advocate female circumcision, so nothing nasty will get trapped in the labia?
The real reality, and not the one you portray, is that if a man wants to get laid, he washes regularly, whether he is cut or uncut. Not many females are attracted to men with bad hygiene. If a man pisses without retracting the foreskin, gravity takes care of it, the same as on a female. Urine can’t build up under a foreskin, because it is liquid, and rolls downhill. Smegma, well you still haven’t responded to my comment that women produce 10 times the smegma a man can produce, and nobody is advocating for surgery to ‘correct’ that ‘problem’.
Your statistics are 12 years old. Here are some newer ones:
No correlation between HPV infection, and presence or absence of a foreskin:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1464-410x.1999.00104.x/abstract;jsessionid=650F8FFD35C08A81DD499487EB2E49F7.d02t03
Circumcised men are more likely to contract genital warts:
http://journals.lww.com/stdjournal/pages/articleviewer.aspx?year=2008&issue=04000&article=00008&type=abstract
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7721284
Circumcised penis is less sensitive to fine touch pressure:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17378847
Here are the latest recommendations on circumcision:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_analysis_of_circumcision
The Royal Dutch Medical Association stated in 2010: “There is currently not a single doctors’ organisation that recommends routine circumcision for medical reasons.”
Canada:
the 2004 advice to parents says it “does not recommend circumcision for newborn boys. Many paediatricians no longer perform circumcisions.”
Netherlands:
“The official viewpoint of KNMG and other related medical/scientific organisations is that non-therapeutic circumcision of male minors is a violation of children’s rights to autonomy and physical integrity. Contrary to popular belief, circumcision can cause complications – bleeding, infection, urethral stricture and panic attacks are particularly common. KNMG is therefore urging a strong policy of deterrence. KNMG is calling upon doctors to actively and insistently inform parents who are considering the procedure of the absence of medical benefits and the danger of complications.”
Babies cry when they soil their diapers. They cry a lot harder, when you cut off a piece of their penis. Yes, they cry for many different reasons. You didn’t bother to watch either of the videos, did you? Because you knew what you would see, and it doesn’t support your belief system. Babies cry like they are being murdered, when they are being circumcised. Don’t be gratuitous, it’s condescending, and people are not that stupid.
What benefits? As explained above, there are no benefits. Cutting off 35% to 50% of the skin system of the penis benefits only the doctor. It benefits the doctor extra, if the doctor can sell the foreskin to a cosmetics company, and the parents don’t even have to know he is double dipping. The pain is long lasting.
That’s why men like yourself go to such absurd lengths to justify genital cutting, when there is no benefit to it. Think. Last time I checked, circumcision was a subtraction, not an addition.
Circumcision has been around a long time. 5,000 years. It is time to strip away the false beliefs that it is cleaner, or leads to health benefits, or is needed by any religion to please God. Which is stronger, the tradition of circumcision, or the commandment “Thou shalt not steal”? Whose foreskin is it, anyway?
Taking what does not belong to you, is the very definition of stealing.
Why does a girl have a right to all her healthy body parts in the US, but not a boy?
Will, your arguments reflect only your deeply held belief, and no more. They do not reflect real world behavior, or medical fact, or logic. They only mean you badly want it to be true, not that circumcision is actually beneficial.
There is a certain disturbing quality in desperately clinging to an outdated belief, especially when it mandates that children are harmed, for no justifiable reason.
How much of your penis would you like to keep, Will?
Would you want someone to take part of it, with or without anesthesia, without your consent?
Sure. It’s always OK when it is someone else.
Tom:
I have said to you before that circumcision is beneficial because it promotes good hygene, boosts confidence in men and makes them more attractive to women.
You can read almost any poll out there asking women what they prefer, and the answer is always the same – they prefer men who are circumcised. From their perspective, the appearance is better and it is cleaner. And, by the way, males who are circumcised as babies do not have the same kind of scar as those circumcised when they are in their teens or as adults.
Circumcision is also beneficial from a spiritual perspective. It is a symbolic act of one’s allegiance to God. Sure, you may not understand this perspective and it may seem to be illogical to you, but that’s the way it is. For a vast number of people this is important and their freedom to circumcise their children should not be denied from them.
Showing me one, two or three babies screaming loudly is not going to change my viewpoint. For every 1 child that screams, I can show you 1 child that is quiet throughout the procedure. So what? It does not prove anything.
Circumcision is not abuse, nor is it stealing. The foreskin belongs to God and if He says to circumcise, then we should circumcise. The belongs to Him. He created it, so it is His property. He can add or subtract as He wishes.
Bottom line is this – Just because the practice is ancient, does not mean it is worthless and irrelevant.
I have explained some of the benefits, and it should be up to parents to decide what they want to do. No one in the pro-circ camp is forcing anyone to do anything. It is the anti-circ camp which seeks to prohibit people from expressing their faith and convictions.
“It is the anti-circ camp which seeks to prohibit people from expressing their faith and convictions.” On somebody else’s body.
“No one in the pro-circ camp is forcing anyone to do anything.” Of course they are – strapping someone down and forcing him to have part of his body cut off.
“it should be up to parents to decide what they want to do.” No, it should be up to the penis’s OWNER to decide what he wants to keep. He will almost always decide to keep it all.
“Just because the practice is ancient, does not mean it is worthless and irrelevant. ” Strawman. Nobody says that, or we should stop making bread. We say, just because it is ancient gives it no special value. Many evils went on for thousands of years, until we learnt better.
“The foreskin belongs to God” If you believe in God, what doesn’t? Nothing belongs to anybody by this argument.
“and if He says to circumcise, then we should circumcise.” It’s a big if. The same verses that prescribe circumcising sons also prescribe circumcising every male in the household, including slaves. The Mexican gardner might have something to say about that.
“their freedom to circumcise their children” does not trump men’s freedom not to have been circumcised as children.
“You can read almost any poll out there asking women what they prefer,” Provide links to some of these polls. I know that’s the mythology, but it all springs from a survey of 145 Iowa women that we now know was rigged – at least one of those women was not invited to take part until she said she was pro-circumcision – she isn’t now. Anyway, if men preferred circumcised women (as they may do in some cultures) should baby girls be circumcised (however mildly, nothing like sub-Saharan Africa)?
“boosts confidence in men”? Not these men: http://www.circumstitions.com/Resent.html
And Will, I explained to you why uncircumcised men wash regularly, so they will be attractive to the opposite sex. Why is surgery needed, when it is already clean? There is no benefit to cutting off half the skin of the penis, if it doesn’t make it cleaner than washing.
As far as being attractive to women, the other 3 billion guys on the planet with their foreskins don’t have any problem being attractive. Their women have no problem with it. Are you saying that boys should have cosmetic surgery in the US, to make them more attractive to American women? Isn’t that a little like breast implants for baby girls?
How does making someone’s penis less, make them more confident?
How it is spiritual, to amputate a body part? Am I more spiritual, because I have lost a testicle? Are you dreaming? Muslims call female circumcision a spiritual act, because it purifies. How spiritual is a ritual genital partial amputation, really? Does God love me less, because I have a foreskin, which He Himself created?
Exactly what is the “freedom to circumcise”? It is the freedom to cut a healthy body part off of someone else, and take what does not belong to you. Did we become less “free” as a people, in 1996, when female circumcision took away our freedom to cut female genitals? The answer is yes. You can no longer do as you please. I think we can all agree that was a good thing. Will we be sobbing tears after male circumcision is outlawed, missing the good ole days when we could cut what we wanted to off of a boy? I don’t think so. Will we bee less free? Yes. Will this be a good thing? For the boy who gets to keep all of his body, yes, absolutely, same as it was for girls. Whose freedom is more important? Yours, to cut who you want, or his, to have all the healthy parts he was born with?
The kids who are quiet during “the procedure” (there’s a euphemism if I ever heard one)? They are the ones who go into shock, and shut down. You can test this yourself at home. Pierce the skin of your penis with a pin, or a knife. Report back to us on your results, Will. We appreciate it.
The foreskin does belong to God. He put it on my penis, right where it belongs.
I thank Him for it, every time I use it. I often call out to Him.
Is it really God’s will, to cut off something he took 120 million years to perfect on mammals? Or is it some guy who wants to control you, dressed up as God, talking about sacrifice?
Simply because this practice is ancient, doesn’t mean it is irrelevant. Tooth extraction is ancient. It is still relevant. Circumcision is irrelevant, because it harms more people than it helps. These are the silent ones, who don’t want you to know that they have skin bridges, or painful erections or buried penis because too much skin was removed, or meatal stenosis because the pee hole was scarred from being burned by uric acid, or no sensation in their penis because the wrong nerves were cut. I could go on, but there’s no point in being gruesome.
If you were curious about all the bad things that can, and do, happen during circumcision, here is an honest inventory, from a Turkish doctor who has performed 5,000 circumcisions, and still does, because he believes it’s a great thing.
This should scare any man or woman.
http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=229334
The only positive I can see in circumcision, is it is uniting the Jews and the Muslims lately. The article was taken from the Jerusalem Post, and written by a Turkish reporter.
Please, explain again to me, how taking something which belongs to someone else, is not stealing.
I wonder how much this kid appreciates his circumcision.
Will it improve his self confidence, and his attractiveness to women?
Is this a sign that God wanted some sacrifice from him, to make him more spiritual?
http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/judge_to_confirm_4.6m_settlement_for_botched_circumcision/
I wish it was a rare occurrence, but unfortunately, it is not.
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202429531287&slreturn=1&hbxlogin=1
http://indiancountrynews.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7526&Itemid=109
http://www.nbrlawfirm.com/Medical-Malpractice/Blogs/toddler-dies-after-circumcision-at-manhattan-hospital
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/26/nyregion/26circumcise.html
Hi Tom.
You are really all over the place, so I am going to try and sum up your points and comment on them.
You can not speak for all uncircumcised men and assume that all clean as thoroughly as you. How many men, both circumcised and uncircumcised wash their hands after they urinate? Many do not. So, why should we assume that the majority of uncircumcised men are good at thoroughly cleaning under their foreskin?
Circumcision and breast implants are not the same thing. Breast implants do not have any spiritual or heritage-based significance. Circumcision is spiritually signifiance because it goes back to the time of Abraham when God told him to circumcise his foreskin. The circumcision represents a connection between God and His people. You may not like that, but that’s not my problem. Take it up with God.
It does not matter whether you personally believe parents should or should not have the freedom to circumcise their children. Thankfully, we still have a constitution which protects religious rights and circumcision is thus protected.
Also… a baby cannot legally make decisions on his own behalf, so a family has every right to circumcise their son. This initiative in San Francisco will be thrown out by the courts.
OK, Will, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.
Should we forcibly circumcise men who don’t wash every day?
Or should we simply let their girlfriends or boyfriends say, “You’re not coming near me, until you wash that thing”, just like we do with circumcised guys who have hygiene problems? Do we suggest surgery for girls who don’t wash often enough?
Who really cares if they don’t wash often. It doesn’t lead to infection, typically, just grossness. A few hundred years ago, we lived in caves. They survived, and passed their foreskins on to the next generation, as has happened since the beginning of humanity, whether you like it or not.
No, Will, you take the apparent contradiction up with God. He made the foreskin.
He gave Moses the commandment, “Thou shalt not steal”, which means you have no right to take something which doesn’t belong to you.
If that is a paradox for Jewish people, then it is something they need to sort out.
If God didn’t love foreskins, why did he make so many people with them?
Aren’t we made in His image? Besides, unless you are Jewish, the covenant of circumcision with God doesn’t mean a thing. Read Paul’s letters to the Galatians, if you are Christian. Paul tells you that circumcision gains you nothing.
Thankfully, we live in a democracy. The constitution says nothing about circumcision. Our congressional leaders took a vote, and outlawed female circumcision. Hopefully, they will come to realize that it is sexist to protect the female, and leave the male vulnerable to surgery on his healthy genitalia which does not benefit him…it detracts from his ability to feel the 20,000 nerves which were removed. When it comes to a showdown in the Supreme Court, because the laws are sexist, and vulnerable to a court challenge, either all girls and boys will be protected, or none will.
Here is what a doctor posted on the ‘benefits’
“Ricky,
If I thought there were health benefits to circumcision (which I don’t) I would choose to remain intact and I would not circumcise my children (male or female). It seems to me, that any potential health benefits would still be overshadowed by lifestyle choices, and I am completely convinced it would diminish sexual pleasure.
Comment by Christopher Guest MD, FRCPC on 6/25/11 at 1:33 pm”
A baby cannot make decisions on his own behalf.
Here is what a doctor has to say about the ethics, of removing a healthy part from a non-consenting child:
From a physicians point of view, the boy is our patient, not the parents. We have no ethical right to modify their bodies without medical urgency or unless the benefit SUBSTANTIALLY outweighs the potential for harm. I believe there is no substantial benefit to circumcision, as do virtually all medical associations, and hence religious/cultural traditions should not trump scientific judgment and medical ethics.
Comment by Christopher Guest MD, FRCPC on 6/26/11 at 4:56 am
I believe it is unethical for physicians to participate as “cultural brokers” in this practice. Non-therapeutic circumcision violates our most sacred principles of medical ethics: primum non nocere, beneficence, autonomy, justice, and proportionality. Our ethical obligation is to the boy, not to conspire with the boy’s parents.
Comment by Christopher Guest MD, FRCPC on 6/26/11 at 5:06 am
Ben (cont)
…we are talking about a surgical amputation here and I take issue that the claim that circumcision is minimal. If you are like most circumcised men, I bet the most pleasurable part of your penis is located between the circumcision scar and the coronal sulcus. The histological reason why this area is the most pleasurable is because this is where the prepuce used to be and the prepuce is the most densely innervated part of the penis. Intact men have much more of this highly erogenous tissue…
Comment by Christopher Guest MD, FRCPC on 6/26/11 at 3:35 pm
Ben (cont)
…Is this going to shorten your lifespan? No. Is this going to lead to depression and mental illness and sexual dysfunction? No. But, I do believe that the decision to amputate this erogenous tissue from your penis should have been your decision because it’s your body. If you don’t own your own body, what do you own? …
Comment by Christopher Guest MD, FRCPC on 6/26/11 at 3:43 pm
And here is a study of Danes, which associated sexual dysfunction with circumcision:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=21672947
Look at this, Tom:
“Circumcision is the surgical removal of a skin that covers the tip of the penis. Studies have shown the pocket between the foreskin and the tip of the penis gives viruses and bacteria a spot to grow, and circumcision eliminates it. The foreskin has been shown to be rich in cells that carry HIV into the body. ”
And…
“The researchers surveyed almost 1,200 men in Orange Farm in 2007 and the same number in 2010. There were 0.42 infections in every 100 circumcised men per year, compared with 2.86 among uncircumcised men, according to the study. After statistical adjustment, the decline worked out to 76 percent, Auvert said. ”
For more information…
Circumcision Reduces HIV Infections 76% in South Africa, Researchers Say
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-20/circumcision-reduces-hiv-infections-76-in-south-african-study.html
Will,
“Studies have shown the pocket between the foreskin and the tip of the penis gives viruses and bacteria a spot to grow, and circumcision eliminates it. The foreskin has been shown to be rich in cells that carry HIV into the body. ”
Wow. That’s front page news. Guess what else is a pocket, which gives viruses and bacteria a spot to grow? That’s right, the vagina, and the vulva. Would circumcision give less of a place for viruses and bacteria to grow, on a woman? Yes, absolutely.
If we removed the tongue from the mouth, there would be less places for viruses and bacteria to grow. We don’t do that, either. How much of a problem is the foreskin, really? How many women say, “my clitoral foreskin is killing me”? How many men say, “I like her, but she has a clitoral hood” and “that’s bad, because bacteria and viruses could grow between her foreskin and her clitoris”. It is exactly that much of a problem for a man. I’m 57, pushing 58. When do the problems begin? My dad died at 65, without ever having had a problem. My father-in-law was 72, and he never had a problem.
It’s no surprise that there is conflicting data. Halperin, Auvert, and Gray have an ax to grind. Halperin (local guy) is Jewish, and has stated publicly that he wants to be like his grandfather, a mohel (ritual circumciser). Exactly what kind of data is he going to come up with? Auvert is a French man, who is circumcised. That would make him a tiny minority in France. Again, what do you expect him to say?
More telling, is that the medical organization of no country has adopted their data, and changed their policy to a more pro-circumcision stance. The reason for this, is that the tests were so poorly designed, and controlled, in South Africa. They didn’t even finish the study, they simply declared victory. Six other studies showed the opposite effect, and stated that men with foreskins were less likely to contract HIV.
http://www.drmomma.org/2008/01/international-aids-conference.html
So, Will, when are you going to answer my questions?
Exactly how is having between 35% and 50% of the skin of your penis amputated “great for men”?
How is circumcision cleaner than daily washing?
Just because you don’t remember something horrible, does that mean it is a good thing?
How did you come to the conclusion that inserting a blunt instrument, and poking it around to tear the connection causes no trauma?
Exactly how is opposing circumcision “childish rebellion”? Where have I, or anyone else shown hatred towards “God/faith/religion rather than the actual procedure”?
Why do Europeans have their foreskins, and get diseases such as HIV, HPV, and penile cancer at significantly lower rates than mostly circumcised Americans?
Do you advocate female circumcision, so nothing nasty will get trapped in the labia?
How is doing something violent to someone else’s body, and removing a healthy part from them not abuse, nor is it stealing? Is it yours, or is it his?
How it is spiritual, to amputate a body part? Am I more spiritual, because I have lost a testicle?
Pretty obviously, you haven’t read a single thing I have posted, nor have you read anything at the sites I pointed out. I read what you post, and the links you add.
Do you think this is fair, or reasonable?
Tom,
Once again you are over-reacting and making exaggerations.
The main thing to remember here is that circumcision is something which promotes both good hygene and is spiritually and culturally significant for many more people than the minority of San Francisco’s population who support banning circumcision.
I have already explained, several times, why circumcision is great for men. It is up to you to take the time and do some reading. There has been considerable research which shows that circumcision is effective in preventing HIV and a wide array of sexually transmitted diseases.
No, I do not advocate female circumcision, since female circumcision is not necessary for either spiritual, cultural or hygene-related reasons.
For many, male circumcision represents the covenant made between God and Abraham thousands of years ago and parents should be free to make this decision without unnecessary interference from the state.
The city of San Francisco should not be empowered to dictate to parents what they can and cannot do. Now it is circumcision… what will it be tomorrow?
People need to stand up for their freedoms. That’s what this is about.
Let me get this straight, Will. You want to cut off a healthy part of somebody else’s body, and when I call you on it, you tell me I’m overreacting.
Yeah, Will. We’ve all heard “circumcision is something which promotes both good hygene and is spiritually and culturally significant” and blah, blah, blah.
You don’t seem to have any comeback, except repeating the same old tired stuff, when I tell you that washing with a washcloth promotes good hygiene. No surgery required.
You have no retort when I ask you, “Why would a God take 120 million years to perfect the foreskin on mammals, and then demand that it be sacrificed”. You had nothing to say when I pointed out that for Christians, St. Paul told them nothing was to be gained from being circumcised.
Pretty much, all you have is “most people do it”. No, most people don’t do it. Many Americans used to do it. The overwhelming majority of babies who are circumcised in the United States each year are cut in hospital settings, with no religious ceremony or faith practitioner involved. Less than one percent of circumcisions are conducted as part of religious or cultural rituals. So much for your ploy that “For many, male circumcision represents the covenant made between God and Abraham”.
I take my time. I do my reading. You read what you want, to confirm your concrete beliefs, rather than considering evidence. I can’t help you there.
Here’s a little more research to chew on.
No medical benefits of circumcision in a US Navy population:
http://gateway.nlm.nih.gov/MeetingAbstracts/ma?f=102282676.html
What the Dutch medical society has to say about circumcision and HIV prevention:
http://www.circumcisionandhiv.com/2010/05/royal-dutch-medical-association-issues-statement-on-male-circumcision-of-infants-and-children-aap-no.html
http://www.davidwilton.com/files/knmg-viewpoint—circumcision—netherlands.pdf
Myth that it is circumcision which prevents penile cancer:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2543732/pdf/bmj00621-0029.pdf
Are these people making exaggerations? Or are they doing scientific research, that you don’t want to hear?
The Federal government should not be empowered to dictate to parents what they can and cannot do. Now it is female circumcision… what will it be tomorrow? Date, 1996.
How tightly you cling to your little ritual of amputating a child’s healthy sexual parts.
I await your explanations of why the links have it wrong, and are unscientific.
I also await your explanation of why having half the skin of your penis makes it so much better, than having the whole thing. 20,000 nerves were not put there for nothing.
Again, who does it belong to? The parents? Or the child? Why should the parents make a decision for the kid, which may suit their tastes, or their level of misinformation, when he is the one who has to live with the repercussions of the amputation for the rest of his life? Is it his, or is it not his? Are you defending the right to cut something healthy off of someone else? That is nothing but a cheap power trip, and you know it. Will, you are better than that.
Tom,
It does not matter to me whether or not the tissue being cut off is healthy or not.
I have explained previously that the benefits are not only to do with hygiene, but other factors as well. And it is a decision that should be made my parents. Parents making the decision to circumcise their boys will do so for different reasons. Some will do it for a religious reason, others for cultural or hygiene reasons. It’s up to them. San Francisco never should have attempted to infringe on that freedom.
I challenge the validity of your blanket statement that 1% of circumcisions are done for religious reasons. The majority of people do not fill out a questionnaire every time they circumcise their son which would enable you to be able to reach that conclusion.
With regards to what Paul says, I read what he said. I also read what God said, and God takes precedence over Paul. So much for that.
In any case, it does not matter what the anti-circumcision forces say now because the attempted ban has been thrown away by the courts. And for good reason. The overwhelming reasons for circumcision, along with the importance of safeguarding the freedom of parents to choose, justify the continuing practice of circumcision.
I have enjoyed discussing this subject with you Tom. My hope is that you will reflect on the things that I and others have said realize how important circumcision is.
Best wishes,
Will.
I have not enjoyed discussing the subject with you, Will. There has been no discussion. You post, I refute and back it up with something, and you repeat the same old stuff. How is this a discussion?
You still don’t get it. The foreskin doesn’t belong to the parent. It belongs to the boy.
Whether he wants to feel 100% of what God gave him, or 50%, it should be his decision. Otherwise, you are just carving your opinion in his genitals.
Who made my foreskin, Will? Answer: God. Why would He make it, to take it back.
Here is why:
The Torah, when first written made no mention of circumcision. Those verses were added over 800 years later. This brings into question the authenticity of those verses.
You lost a significant portion of your penis, because someone was playing God, not because God actually decreed it.
It’s more than a little sad. The other half is what feels the finest. That is why we need a Federal law to protect boys from this kind of false belief. Either that, or stop protecting girls. It is legally hypocritical, and sexist the way the law is now.
Will, if you think the battle is over, it has not yet begun.
This is a civil rights issue. Either all people are entitled to keep what they were born with, or none of us has that right. It’s going to be a long haul. That struggle is already over in Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. It is just beginning here.
My best wishes to you, too, Will.
Jews in America are increasingly bypassing circumcision.
Jewish Intactivist Miriam Pollack has some great commentary on ‘this in this recent interview.
http://www.beyondthebris.com/2011/07/defying-convention-interview-with_27.html
Jews Speak Out in Favor of Banning Circumcision on Minors
http://intactnews.org/node/103/1311885181/jews-speak-out-favor-banning-circumcision-minors
Jewish Voices: The Current Judaic Movement to End Circumcision: Part 1
http://intactnews.org/node/105/1311886372/jewish-voices-current-judaic-movement-end-circumcision-part-1
Jewish Voices: The Current Judaic Movement to End Circumcision: Part 2
http://intactnews.org/node/105/1311886372/jewish-voices-current-judaic-movement-end-circumcision-part-2
Thank you, Jewish Male Opposing Circumcision, for voicing your viewpoint.
You and I know it is crazy to cut a child.
I need all the help I can get, in breaking the spell for others. It is like a hypnotic state…people have been told so much that it is a good thing, they can’t see it for what it is, taking something which is not theirs.
Will would you circumcise your teenage son? Do you think it is okay to cut off parts of someone’s body without their permission? Yes or No. Do you not believe in the rights of the individual, rights we are born with, rights to self determination, rights to self, separation of church and state. Will you say parental rights are more important than the Right of the Child: The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Article 2, part 1.
Will you contradict the Nation of South Africa:
“South African Medical Association’s Human Rights, Law & Ethics Committee stated that it was unethical and illegal to perform circumcision on infant boys. The Committee expressed serious concern not enough scientifically-based evidence was available to confirm circumcisions prevented HIV contraction and the public at large was influenced by incorrect and misrepresented information.” http://tinyurl.com/3rhhpx8
http://tinyurl.com/mk39bk 2 out of 3 Swedish doctors won’t do circumcision saying it is assault, barbaric and akin to unnecessary FGM.
http://translate.google.com/translate?ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aurora-israel.co.il%2Farticulos%2Fisrael%2FTitular%2F32895%2F&sl=es&tl=en “Thousands of parents sail against the tide of circumcision”
http://tinyurl.com/yfl54cu Brain Visualization Research during Male Infant Circumcision by Dr. Paul D. Tinari Ph.D.
http://cpj.sagepub.com/content/25/8/412.abstract Neonatal Cortisol Response to Circumcision with Anesthesia
(circumcision with local dorsal penile nerve block doesn’t work.)
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2810%2961303-7/fulltext Oral sucrose as an analgesic drug for procedural pain in newborn infants: a randomised controlled trialAnd how painful is circumcision:
http://bit.ly/mMoZR “Terror Attacks in the Name of Religion by Lindsey Murdoch PAIN: 3,928 island villagers males&females all ages forced circ’d into Islam by Muslim clerics