I expect simple behaviours here. Friendship, and love. Any advice should be from the perspective of the person asking, not the person giving! We have had to make new membership moderated to combat the huge number of spammers who register
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
It does strike me as quite strange, though, that the concept of mutilating all male children is raised as a way of saving mankind by idiots.
If all men have their penises removed that will almost remove the sexually transmitted diseases from the world, too.
Not that I have read this research, because it covers old ground and reading this edition is not necessary, but it always seems to concentrate on the incidence of STIs in Africa. Now, as a generalisation, Africa tends to be run by a bunch of powerful, ignorant, self serving bigots who even deny the existence of STIs. In comes "white man's medicine" and solves the problems in a good and christian way for the ignorant savages (do note the sarcastic tone here) by amending their genitals.
Since there will always be idiots, what is the point of saving mankind?
HIV is a serious topic, yes. But saving groups of people who insist on fucking each other without condoms, and not keeping their dicks in their pants even when they have a regular partner is pointless. The cure for them is obvious. Keep the dick in the pants. Use a condom at all times. Abolish the pope and the Roman Catholic Church.
Let evolution take its course. In due time the human race will develop immune segments of the population for those who fuck around.
Let's instead treat those who caught the diseases by accident. And leave this idiotic mutilation programme alone.
Well done Aussie. I don't believe that the supposed 60% reduction in risk would be worth having unless one was only going to have penetrative sex once in a lifetime.
Presumably if one washed under the foreskin after sex the risk would be the same for the uncircumcised as for the cut. And if it wouldn't then the phenomenon needs further explanation. Is what they say purely statistical or are they people with a Muslim or Jewish agenda?
Some good points Anthony
I believe their theory is that the inner foreskin is very thin and it is easier able to allow std’s to pass through.
At least the trial is using participants old enough to decide they wish to be circumcised.
I believe that mutilating a new born baby should be made a criminal offence unless it’s for a strong medical reason as it is in a lot of countries for female circumcision.
Did you know they are using baby foreskins to produce anti wrinkle cream for women to rub on their faces. Not sure what happens if they use the wrong part of the skin and all those women start to pucker.
But all the studies I've seen suggest that while circumcision (depending on exactly how much is removed from where) does have some effect on heterosexual transmission of certain STI's, it doesn't seem to have a detectable effect on same-sex transmission. Is there reliable new information on this?
But whatever the health benefits may be, it would be appropriate for boys to make the decision for themselves, in the light of full information, when they become sexually active.
As most here know, I have a very strong - some would say obsessive - objection to routine infant circumcision. In my own case, I see it as merely the first of the assorted physical violences my father carried out (had carried out, in this case) on me, and the mutilation as an extreme example of him trying to make me into the clone of him that he thought I ought to be, rather than welcoming me as I actually was.
"Foreskin restoration" takes time and does not restore the severed nerves - though it does improve sensation and can produce a cosmetically acceptable result. I'm certainly glad that I did it: it was an essential step in my healing, and a vital re-assertion of my control over my own body - my personal physical integrity.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
The thesis is twofold, and based not upon skin or thickness thereof, but on mucous membrane, which is permeable to many infective agents.
Both the glans and the inner foreskin are mucous membrane.
Removal of the foreskin removes a huge area of mucous membrane. That removes "at a stroke" a path for infective agents to enter the body. It also ensures that the glans keratinises (becomes hard and impermeable), reducing or removing its mucous nature.
Both of these together remove a large surface area which can allow infection into the body. Thus the study is technically competent. That does not make following its recommendations in any way desirable. Circumcision is a tribal marking. Ask the idiot Abraham, the child sacrificer, (abuser???) and the asinine Moses who circumcised (and thus disabled) his entire fighting force on one day.
It then became a profitable medical procedure. And yes, all the sacrificed neonatal foreskins end up in some sort of product or other. Profit is the motive.
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
Interesting and informative Timmy. But if universal circumcision could really cut STD infections by 60%, well, that could save a lot of suffering and a lot of lives, couldn't it? And since an infant's nerve pathways don't work like older folks' and since infants grow so fast and heal so quickly, wouldn't infant circumcision be the way to go in avoiding these diseases? I know if I were a boy of 12 and some joker would come around and say "Hey! I got a good idea....let me chop off a chunk of your penis." Well, I would run away far and fast. No young boy would choose to undergo the pain, and as for an adult...forget it...look at what happened to Moses' army. Where did you learn so much of the Judaeo-Christian religious literary heritage?
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
Some years ago it was accepted medical wisdom that children didn't feel pain in the same way that adults do. They set broken bones without anaesthesia. This was when I was a child. It amazes me how arrogant and stupid the medical profession can be.
So infants do not feel pain either? Turn your speakers up full.
It is very hard for me to find words that are polite to describe what I think of your idea. So let me be as polite as I am able.
You are wholly incorrect and display amazing ignorance. That child didn't feel pain? That baby boy is being tortured. That is what you advocate, is it? The torture of baby boys? And for what mysterious benefit?
This procedure should be outlawed totally. People performing it shoudl be prosecuted for harming children. Can you BEAR to listen the child's screams?
Trust me, I edited this many times before posting it.
Just because the infant can't remember, that's no reason to damage it. Words fail me.
Cutting the penis off completely would eliminate 99% of std transmission but I just disbelieve the quoted 60% (BTW I first heard 66% - which I read as 'approximately two thirds' knowing the sloppy way people use percentages).
How can they tell? Was it 66% of OCCASIONS by any chance? So a circumcised person would catch an STD 66 times out of say 397 fucks where a complete person would catch an std 100 times? I don't know what the sample number was, of course. I used 397 above just as illustration.
And there are lots of other ways to interpret 66% (or 60%). But it doesn't sound to me if it is anything sensible like 66% of people who are circumcised never catch an STD. Surely you don't believe that? How low would the chance of an STD have to be for you to take no precautions?
And how would you expect young people to behave differently if they were circumcised or not? How would it bring any benefit to the circumcised? It doesn't make sense to say they are safer if a risk which was 100% is reduced to 66%. If you got run over on average every time you crossed the road twice and then the odds were reduced to run over on average only twice for each three crossings how would that benefit you? With those odds you shouldn't be crossing the road at all.
Isn't this assuming no use of condoms?
Surely is is immoral to say anything that leads people to think they can get away with taking risks. We should always be using condoms.
Infants' nerve pathways DO so work like grown ups. If you think otherwise please tell me at what age infantile nerve pathways are rerouted? The whole idea is ridiculous.
But if what you were doing was goading me to go OTT I don't think it worked as I don't think I've gone OTT. Have I?
Location: currently So Cal
Registered: May 2002
Messages: 1179
Forget for a moment the "moral" argument for or against circumcision or whether or not it causes pain to the infant. Simply look at the news article and the way the study is being reported. This will tell you that this study is NOT all it is reported to be. This is quite typical of the way science is reported in the media.
First look at what the researchers say in thier own study "circumcision provides only partial protection against... and the researchers caution that it should not be considered a full shield."
Then look at the way the study is being interpreted by others "Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Md. “Circumcision not only prevents HIV outright, but also prevents [genital herpes] that is associated with an increased likelihood of acquisition of HIV,” he says. “You get a double-positive here.”
“I think this trio of trials is certainly a landmark in prevention, not only of HIV but of these other sexually transmitted infections,” says Judith Wasserheit, an infectious disease physician at the University of Washington and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center"
These two "physicians" are saying things that the authors of the study caution against. According to Fauci and Wasserheit circumcision "prevents" the disease. According to the authors of the study it "reduces the risk and is partial protection." There is quite a difference.
Finally, in the last two paragraphs of the article we see what may be the most damning piece of evidence to those promoting this procedure. "In the United States, male circumcision rates are actually falling, says Wasserheit. This reflects a lag time that often occurs between the emergence of scientific evidence and its acceptance by the public, she says. In part, the disconnect stems from doctors not wanting to get involved with family preferences, and also because Medicaid doesn’t pay for the operation in 16 states, Wasserheit says."
It is money. Medicaid quit paying for circumcision because there was no medical reason for it to be done and because of this fewer people are having it done. If it can be justified medically, Medicaid would start paying for it again and more doctors will make more money due to an increase in business.
The article doesn't really go into it, but I would also question the effectiveness. If men are convinced that circumcision will prevent STDs, will they stop using condoms and therefore actually increase transmission? The article also failed to mention anything about the men's sexual habits before and after the circumcisions. Hopefully the researchers considered this in their study.
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
Or, to put it another way, it is a piece of technical research being exploited by commentators for their own potential fiscal gain. And soundbite headlines trick idiots.
Dear e, I think Dr Anthony Fauci has been involved in several medical scandals. I Googled 'fauci scandal' and got 3820 hits.
I thought I remembered his name in a book on the early history of HIV (was it by Larry Kramer - "And the band played on"?). The story there was that he was trying to claim he discovered something before the French and got caught. Unfortunately the French forgave him.
'Wasserheit scandal' only gives 192 hits but one is an article in the BMJ about how scandals erode trust in the USA in the drug industry. Since I'd have to pay to read it I don't know whether she is accused there of doing wrong. But she has gone on US TV and 'called for more circumcisions'.
And, as you say she is certainly not using careful and guarded language; to use the word 'prevent' about a reduction in risk is exaggeration.
Surely, before we cut bits off babies we ought to be very sure indeed that we are doing more good than harm?
Location: England
Registered: November 2003
Messages: 1756
Anthony wrote:
>But she has gone on US TV and 'called for more circumcisions'.<
Only a woman could call for more circumcisions!
I felt physically ill during Timmy's vid of the baby being circumcised. If he felt pain differently, why did he cry throughout. Was any anaesthetic used?
Hugs
N
I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
the video shows no anaesthetic. Babies, of course, do not feel pain the way adults do. It's fine. Apparently. It's some bollocks about neural pathways rerouting a few days after birth.
Oddly it used to happen after the age of about 10 in the UK, because that is the age, roughly, where broken bones were set without anaesthesia, too.
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
“Some years ago it was accepted medical wisdom that children didn't feel pain in the same way that adults do. They set broken bones without anaesthesia. This was when I was a child. It amazes me how arrogant and stupid the medical profession can be.”
Timmy, I made the comment on infant pain based on what a surgeon told me regarding pain medication after my son’s first operation. When I took the time to research current literature on the subject based on your assertion that this was old thinking, I was horrified to see that current research would seem to indicate that the surgeon’s “no pain” assertion is an “old wives tale”. So I have to recant that statement and agree with you about the pain. (The babies were pretty convincing too.)
“It is very hard for me to find words that are polite to describe what I think of your idea. So let me be as polite as I am able.”
I am sure that you misunderstand me. Let me try to clarify my position in the paragraphs that follow.
”You are wholly incorrect and display amazing ignorance. That child didn't feel pain? That baby boy is being tortured.”
Your first sentence here is an insult. It goes against your own rules for using this site as a place of safety. I, however, recognize your strong feelings on this particular subject and forgive you for asserting that I am a walking display of “amazing ignorance”. You are just a product of your environment and genetic makeup after all, and not to be blamed. I have become accustomed to these types of flames from you anyhow, so they do not have the effect on me that they once did. I wish I did not inspire such ire in you, because it can not be fun being angry with anyone.
“That is what you advocate, is it? The torture of baby boys? And for what mysterious benefit?”
What do I advocate? I do not recall advocating the torture of baby boys. In this thread, I questioned whether eradicating 60% of sexually transmitted disease would not be worth universal male circumcision. I gave my opinion, that such a tradeoff would be beneficial. That opinion has not changed. I also asked for your opinion. I neither held the article out as sound proof of its assertion, nor did I call for universal male circumcision. Your zeal in denouncing circumcision reminds me of the various religious groups that try to foist their dogma upon others, who have not invited the zealots in to convert them.
”This procedure should be outlawed totally. People performing it should be prosecuted for harming children. Can you BEAR to listen the child's screams?”
You seem to demand that I stand up and decry the practice of male circumcision. Why should I do that? You have not offered me any convincing proof that there are no medical benefits of the practice. There is research that seems respectable enough to me, that indicates the practice might reduce STDs by 60%. On what basis can I say that this is a pack of lies? For me, the jury is out. I can neither advocate nor can I protest the practice. My feelings on infant circumcision are akin to my feelings on abortion. The decision should be left with the parents on the former and with the pregnant woman on the latter. Foreskin restoration is a matter of choice for the individual, and an individual makes the decision based on what is important to him, and I respect an individual’s right to make that choice.
”Trust me, I edited this many times before posting it.”
I honestly appreciate that Timmy. I know that I tend to take things personally, and I really appreciate you trying to watch out for my delicate feelings.
”Just because the infant can't remember, that's no reason to damage it. Words fail me.”
I hope that my admissions and clarifications here help to mitigate your anger. I take no pride in causing others to feel the hurt of being angry. I know that your reply will assert that you are not angry. The words in this post, however, communicate anger to me.
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
No Anthony. YOU have not gone OTT at all. You make some very good points of contention on the article. You also point out my mistake in my mention of infant pain perception. This is all good discussion and this is what this site is about.
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
Trust me on this.
I am angry.
Period.
I have rarely, if ever, heard such unmitigated crap.
Is this an insult? I have criticised your behaviour. If you see that as insulting, then so be it.
The decision must not ever be with the parent. This is cosmetic surgery performed on a helpless infant. It is in agony. Watch the video.
This practice must be outlawed. It is people like you who perpetuate it because you believe everything you are told by those who make a profit form it.
Only gullible morons recommend routine infant circumcision.
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
"Trust me on this.
I am angry.
Period."
I am sorry to have angered you. What can I do to assuage your anger?
"I have rarely, if ever, heard such unmitigated crap."
Again, you could be speaking about the article, but based on the preceding posts, I take it that you are saying that I am spouting unmitigated crap. Can't you see that this is insulting? How can my insistence that I have a right to an opinion be unmitigated crap? Surely everyone on here does not have to agree 100%.
"Is this an insult? I have criticised your behaviour. If you see that as insulting, then so be it."
What behavior of mine have you criticised? I have expressed opinions. I really haven't done anything to warrant criticism, have I? Or have you imagined a person that I am not, and you are attacking that image in your mind? I can readily accept criticism of my behaviors and turn it towards my self improvement. But I don't understand what you hate about me, personally. The feeling is NOT mutual. Or perhaps its just a language difference or a difference in how we express ourselves. I am really at a loss to try to understand why I anger you so. Maybe it would help to start a thread where everyone can discuss "What's wrong with Macky?"
"The decision must not ever be with the parent. This is cosmetic surgery performed on a helpless infant. It is in agony. Watch the video."
THe jury is out, in my opinion. It could be disease preventative surgery. The decision has to be made. The infant can not make it. It is impractical to wait until adulthood. In my opinion, the parents have the right to make the decision. Let's discuss it. Who do you think should make the decision about infant circumcision....the high court of the land?
"This practice must be outlawed. "
Oh, so you do indeed believe that the high court of the land should make the decision. Well, I disagree vehemently. I believe that in these unresolved moral matters, it should be left up to the individual, or when the individual is not capable of taking the decision, it should be left up to the individual's legal guardian. I don't care if that conflicts with your opinion. Furthermore, I even RESPECT your right to your opinion and I would be loathe to call you ignorant for holding your opinion. Your opinion is not crap, but a product of your moral sensibilities and your upbringing. It is valuable and I give it due consideration. I am not an all knowing GOD. Apparently, some people try to take this role upon themselves.
"It is people like you who perpetuate it because you believe everything you are told by those who make a profit form it."
How do you know what I believe. You imagine you know. What you have said here is comparable to calling me a gullible fool. You pile insult on insult. What have I done to deserve this treatment? I can only think that I have expressed opinions. Why do you feel that I have no right to my own opinion?
I have never personally known anyone who recommends routine infant circumcision. But if I were to meet such a person, I would try to gain knowledge from them to the best of my abilities, as to why they would recommend it. On the other hand, if I were a Jew and the high court of the land outlawed my religious tradition, I would emigrate because this would surely be the beginning of another holocaust.
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
So, you can watch that video with the infant being held down and tortured and screaming in terror and pain and still "want to learn more"?
And you seek to justify this in some bizarre manner?
The jury is out, is it? Disease preventative surgery?
So let's get this clear. I disagree vehemently with anyone who even considers advocating the routine hurting of a child.
Do I disagree with Islamic and Jewish and other ritual circumcisions? Yes, I do. I would make them unlawful. And your argument about the holocaust is not only bizarre and twisted logic it is highly offensive. It isn't even amusing rhetoric. It's just petulance. Did the holocaust ever come near you? Does anyone in your family possess papers with a large red J on them? Did anyone ever vanish, never to be heard of again?
Location: Worcester, England
Registered: January 2005
Messages: 1560
Macky wrote:
> THe jury is out, in my opinion. It could be disease preventative surgery. The decision has to be made. The infant can not make it. It is impractical to wait until adulthood.
I see no reason whatsoever why it's impractical to wait until adulthood (except for religious reasons) - most of the diseases that circumcision may help reduce the risk of catching are sexually transmitted, and unlikely to be an issue for most boys until puberty. At that point, it becomes their own decision.
My own view is very clear on this - if I was let loose on the butcher that stole my foreskin I would amputate his fingers as a preventative measure to stop him mutilating any more little boys. Without anaesthetic. By crushing them first before cutting them off ... yup, just like a medical infant circumcision.
OK the strength of my feeling derives partly from Routine Infant Circumcision having got emotionally mixed up with many of the other episodes of abuse I suffered through my childhood - but I'm very clear that (like any abuse) RIC represents a violation of a persons bodily integrity ... and of course the effects are lifelong.
Believe me, I wouldn't have spent a couple of years of my life undertaking a (non-surgical)"foreskin restoration" regime if this wasn't important to me - and the number of guys who feel like this is clearly not negligible as the web is full of sites detailing peoples experiences of this.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
Dear Macky,
You wrote:
--------------------
You have not offered me any convincing proof that there are no medical benefits of the practice.
--------------------
You may realise that proving a negative is rather a different matter from proving a fact - and it becomes worse when it is not just a particular fact but a general statement.
When J S Mill chose the statement "All swans are white." as an example of a true general statement proved by induction, the universe made fun of him by providing some black swans in OZ to be discovered later. And it's one of the best jokes in philosophy.
But the law, which cuts through philosophical difficulties by making rules that work and provide a sort of touchstone on fairness, lays down rules about the burden of proof.
The general principle is that when action is proposed that changes the way things would be if left to themselves, the burden of proof is on those who propose the action to show that the harm (if any) it will do is outweighed by the consequential good.
It is unreasonable to ask people who want to leave penises in their uncut form to prove that there is no better form (indeed maybe there IS a better form). The burden of proof is on those who want to have babies cut (ie changed from their natural state) to prove it will do good. If you want to have all babies cut the burden of proof is on you.
And it isn't an adequate justification to quote an article in the paper by two self-seeking loudmouth 'scientists' who are probably paid by some organisation that gets income from each operation. [I do think Anthony Fauci is exactly that but I am not sure about Wasserheit.]
I think you need to be able to sustain your case from your own knowledge if you are not to turn yourself into a tool of the publicity machine that those two have harnessed.
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
Unfortunately he does not accept evidence when it is put before him. He is selective in his reading and either does not see or will not see that the report on which he bases his facile statement that the jury is out is not one on which any pro circumcision argument can be based.
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
I am not keen on the clown who, later in life, stole my frenulum and ruined almost all of my sexual sensation. I didn't break his fingers, but I made sure he lost his job. And I gave him a very rough ride in a complaints hearing in front of his manager.
The only reason I am not aggrieved at being circumcised is that, in part through my own inaction, it was medically essential given the medical knowledge at the time of first surgery.
Unfortunately, because of BXO, it was necessary to be recircumcised later.
Both of these operations were performed when I was in full command of my decisions, thus it was my choice to have them performed.
When my son was born, because of my experiences with my own penis I asked advice about circumcision for him. As you can imagine I was keen to save him from the same fate. They said very clearly "There is plenty of time for that if he has problems, and surgery is NOT the first course of action. Do not have your son circumcised."
You would not alter the earlobes of a baby, that would be seen as mutilation. But it is ok for imbeciles to enjoy mutilating his penis. And for profit!
And think further: The mutilated and wounded penis is then placed carefully inside a hot, sweaty, faeces ridden nappy (diaper) and left to fester. Give me a break!
So I am with you in the finger breaking department. And, if anyone objects when I swing a baseball bat at them when they make asinine comments about routine infant circumcision, they had better just duck; the bat is always going to be swung. And my aim gets better each time.
] 
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