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[Cthulhu]

I'm of the mind that when you're moving for something to be banned, it should be your prerogative to prove it should be illegal.  Putting the burden of proof on the people saying something shouldn't be illegal doesn't sit well with my inner

If we were saying everyone must get circumcised, then sure, that's on us.  But if I'm saying it's a matter of choice, and you're saying no one can do it, that should be on you.

[Leafsnail]

He's not saying noone should be allowed to do it though.  Just that you shouldn't be allowed to do it to someone else who is clearly incapable of consenting.

[moocowmoo]

I'm of the mind that when you're moving for something to be banned, it should be your prerogative to prove it should be illegal.  Putting the burden of proof on the people saying something shouldn't be illegal doesn't sit well with my inner

If we were saying everyone must get circumcised, then sure, that's on us.  But if I'm saying it's a matter of choice, and you're saying no one can do it, that should be on you.

So freedom of choice for parents and doctors, but let's not allow the individual who's going to be affected by the procedure their whole life to have a choice in the matter. That makes a lot of sense.

*Thanks Leafsnail.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Yes, I agree, the rationale for disallowing infant circumcision is the same for disallowing any kind of permanent aesthetic body modification in infants. They're too young to consent, and the parents have no right to consent to something like that for them because there's no greater physical purpose to it. As we live in a secular state, religious arguments need not apply.

[Cthulhu]

Parents make decisions of debatable cost:benefit for their children all the time.  If I want to initiate my kid in the mysteries of the Golden Dawn, that's my choice.  If he had the choice he probably wouldn't want to, but as a parent it's my right to choose for my kid what I think is best, and if someone thinks something I choose should be prohibited, the burden of proving it should be on him.

[Leafsnail]

A kid can leave whatever weird cult you indoctrinate them into in a way they can't reverse surgical procedures.  I'm pretty sure virtually every other surgical procedure is illegal to perform on your children if they don't need it.

[Vector]

@Leafsnail: That's fine, then.  Case closed, I guess =)


The thing about dating is that it shouldn't be a secure thing: "I do this, I get a woman."  It's really not a good thing to treat women or men like generica, and the minute you start treating your date as an individual human being is the minute that recipes fly out the window.  It's not really easy for women, either... "How liberated do I act?  Will I be seen as aggressive?  What messages are my clothing sending?  What does this guy actually want in a woman?"

The thing is, we used to be able to know something in particular: "This guy only cares about sex, and as long as I play his desire for me right I'll get what I want."  Now guys are allowed to want more than that.  A great deal of uncertainty has entered our lives as well.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Parents make decisions of debatable cost:benefit for their children all the time.  If I want to initiate my kid in the mysteries of the Golden Dawn, that's my choice.  If he had the choice he probably wouldn't want to, but as a parent it's my right to choose for my kid what I think is best, and if someone thinks something I choose should be prohibited, the burden of proving it should be on him.

Belief is not equivalent to action. Cults are intangible social organizations, circumcision is a physical body alteration. That's a key difference.

Parents have a lot of power over their children, it's true, but they don't own them. A child's afforded power and rights ideally grows as they do and eventually ends in adulthood, but at no point does the child have no rights or power. From the moment you are born you are automatically afforded all basic human rights, and one of those is freedom from unnecessary pain or mutilation without the individual's express consent. Note the qualifier "unnecessary", hence why I don't oppose vaccinations like I do circumcision. The former has a very important purpose that protects all of human society from disease, while the latter does nothing of the sort.

I will preemptively address the claim that circumcision does in fact do that by lowering the chance of HIV infection with the following arguments:

-The U.N study that is primarily used as a source for this claim has been repeatedly disputed in accuracy and scientific rigor. Especially concerning are the reports that the U.N. intentionally ended this study early when the results started to not portray circumcision as preventing HIV infection. While said claims alone are not enough to prove the study is actually illegitimate, they are concerning enough in light of the U.N.'s unimpressive track record in not letting politics influence their actions that it would be preferable to rely upon other studies on the same topic.....if any existed, which as I remember, they did not last time we had this discussion.

-Assuming that circumcision does, in fact, lower the rate of HIV infection in men, it is no more a justification than preemptively removing the breasts of infant girls to prevent the possibility of breast cancer later in life.

-Adding to the unnecessary nature of this even if it is true, HIV infection rates have peaked and lowered both in the United States (high circumcision rate) and the European Union (low circumcision rate). This suggests that circumcision as HIV protection does not have any effect on a societal level.

-As most of you probably remember, a HIV vaccine is currently in third-stage human trials in Canada and is showing promising results. Assuming it doesn't fall through we could be immunizing people to HIV entirely by 2015 or so, thus rendering every other HIV protection method moot.

[Wayward Device]

Parents make decisions of debatable cost:benefit for their children all the time.  If I want to initiate my kid in the mysteries of the Golden Dawn, that's my choice.  If he had the choice he probably wouldn't want to, but as a parent it's my right to choose for my kid what I think is best, and if someone thinks something I choose should be prohibited, the burden of proving it should be on him.

I hope you mean for the study of theosophy and not the Greek neo-nazi movement.

[Criptfeind]

It is not a popular area of study, and thus there is little literature to cite to "prove" it. However it should be self evident enough that when you make a highly sensitive internal organ permanently external, the body must adjust to the painful stimulus of constant exposure (thus numbing to protect itself).

The issues is this is not self evident, because, you know... Actual evidence states this is not the case.

This is to say nothing of the the thousands of specialized nerve endings and mucosal (like the inside of the cheek) tissue removed. The foreskin is important for sexual function for both mechanical (protects glans, holds in lubrication, glides over the shaft) and tactile (nerve endings) reasons.

The loss of tissue is true. It's actual effects do not seem to be what you state though is not. There is not any evidence of major loss of sexual pleasure.

This is to say nothing of the the thousands But really, the burden of proof lies on people who insist on removing a healthy part of another's body without permission. They are the ones who need to "prove" it is not only harmless but beneficial. I shouldn't have to "prove" why a healthy part of the body should be protected from forced removal. There are more resources I could share about the effects of circumcision on sex, but people will discredit the whole notion because it doesn't have the backing of scientific research.

First off yes, you are correct, I will reject non scientific notions, as should all people honestly. Secondly, and more importantly, I never made that assertion that it is beneficial or needed. You stated that "At around 25-30 years old the glans of a circumcised male is almost completely numb" and this is what I am challenging. You made the assertion, you defend it. Which, by the way, nothing you linked said anything of the sort. You might want to rethink your position when not even your own sources agree with you.

And, so long as I am here, I might as well bring up your use of the word mutilation. Words have meanings, you should use them. Circumcision is not mutilation. Maybe you could defend your use of the word if circumcision resulted in complete numbness. But since it does not, you really can't. And that brings us back around. Calling circumcision mutilation, yes, does make a sense of false equality between FGM and circumcision.

[moocowmoo]

In your study, the farthest they followed up was 24 months, and the patients were circumcised at the earliest at age 15. The conclusions are not necessarily applicable to someone who is circumcised at birth, and whose glans has been exposed for 20+ years. As far as "my own sources not agreeing with me", they do not contradict what I said, and their results imply its truth. As I said, there is very little research about the long term effects of circumcision for me to cite to your satisfaction. The numbness of the glans is based on listening to the experiences of older men who are circumcised, as well my own unfortunately as I get older. Youthful virility will allow for sexual pleasure even with a circumcised penis, but as time goes on the glans becomes more and more numb because of keratinization.

Thank you for informing me that words have meanings. The meaning of mutilation is "an injury that causes disfigurement or that deprives you of a limb or other important body part", which certainly applies to the unnecessary removal of the foreskin, frenulum and ridged band.

[Criptfeind]

I'm sorry that you find yourself sexually unsatisfied, but your anecdotal evidence hardly stands since for everyone that agrees with you there are plenty that have not experienced what you have.

And no, false equality aside, those are not limbs or important body parts.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I don't know about the rest of you, but I consider pretty much all of my body parts to be important.

[ChairmanPoo]

Searching through pubmed you see there is quite a bit of controversy in the subject. The fact that all studies are necessarily based on self-reports makes the whole sensitivity subject a rather subjective and sensitive matter*rimshot*

[GlyphGryph]

I'll be honest, I've been skimming - but moocowmoo, you do realize there is a method of female circumcision roughly equivalent to mail circumcision, and that no one cares about that either? When people talk about genital mutilation, they are going a good deal further than that sort of thing. Male genital mutilation, of what's generally meant by genital mutilation, has and still does occur - but circumcision aint it. And the female version still occurs frequently in many places, and thus is a bit more important at the moment. (I'm assuming you don't know many eunuchs in real life)

So, technically - yes, circumcision is definitely genital mutilation, by definition.

But if we're arguing right and wrong, when people speak of genital mutilation they are generally referring to a major loss of function, which it isn't. Words have meanings that go beyond their meanings - metameanings and connotations. What people mean by a word isn't always what you'll find in the dictionary. You can certainly disagree about the way the language is used. I certainly do - the various organizations that classify even the smallest bit of nonfunctional genital removal as "genital mutilation" on women, but refuse to do so for men, are full of shit. However, women have a huge fucking variety of ways people fuck up their genitals that are significantly worse than anything traditionally done to males in the west, and equivocating them in the other direction is just as much bullshit.