I'm cut and I hate it, mainly because I didn't have a choice, and I think I was done a little "tighter" than I would prefer. Seriously, it's fucking odd that this is "normal". Think about it. It's like humans drinking cow's milk. Ever think about that one long and hard? (pun intended). I did some reading on this a few years ago, and there are actually some other things that get lopped off besides the foreskin, including a great deal of additional nerves around your frenulum, and some kind of internal skin ring that allows your penis to slide in and out of the foreskin during sex, while the vagina holds the skin in place. My perspective on this is that sex would be an entirely different experience if I had a foreskin, and more along the lines of the way "nature" intended it. Since I didn't have a choice to say to myself "hmm maybe sex would be better if I didn't have a foreskin" I feel kind of robbed. Of course I read a lot of this on some website written by a middle aged dude who decided to regrow his foreskin by attaching weights to it for a year and walking around with basically a trombone mouthpiece on his dick. God Bless the Internet.
I'm not arguing for an absolute principle that parents shouldn't be able to make physical cosmetic decisions for there children. However a foreskin isn't a deformity, it's a normal and fantastic part of the human body. Surely you can see the difference between that and extra fingers? DCC001, are you sure that guy's even cut?! How can you tell the difference when erect? Anyway, back to your reasoning: I suppose I justify it by noting that parents make a host of 'decisions for you' that have a huge impact on the rest of your life. Where will you live? What schools will you attend? From big to small (pun!) decisions, that's essentially what parents do; they decide what's best for you until you're old enough and experienced enough to decide yourself. Do they make mistakes? Sure. Do they always choose what you yourself would have chosen? Certainly not. But I'd like to think that every parent wants what's best for their child, and that the decisions they make were the best they could do given their timing and knowledge. Using your yardstick to measure decisions, parent's shouldn't have their little girls' ears pierced or give their babies vaccination shots, simply because it's a physical procedure that the child can't consent to. Yes parents make decisions about where you live, I don't see what that has to do with regards to foreskins. "I chose what school my kid went to, therefore I am allowed to make decisions about mutilating his penis or vagina. Or tying up my little girls feet like they used to do in China, so the feet become deformed. You say parents make the decisions until the children can grow up and chose for themselves, I agree, however circumcision cannot be undone. Personally, I am a little revolted by the idea of piercing a little girls ears, however to compare that with vaccination is ludicrous. How many children's lives has ear-piercing and non-essential circumcision saved in the modern western world? Your earlier outrage when I brought up the idea of female circumcision (which could theoretically be done safely in a hospital I'm sure) is strange given your '100% support' for circumcision. You know it does affect sex too right? I'm cut but most people in the UK aren't so my first handjobs were fairly painful experiences due to the physical differences between cut and uncut dicks and the ignorance of the girls with regard to this. I just feel it's not a decision a parent has the right to make for a child, it's life changing and has real permanent consequences.
That probably has more to do with income than with the actual foreskin trapping malignant HPV and transmitting it to female. Who actively transmits the most sexually transmitted diseases in general? African Americans and Latinos... which is of course tied to their socioeconomic situation. Of course if you have a daughter you could always just spring for some to prevent your baby girl from getting her early LEEP procedure.
That my extra digits were a deformity is debatable. They were genetic, not malformed. Are you saying that having an extra set of toes wouldn't make me better balanced on my feet, or that extra fingers make me better at grasping? I understand that you take umbrage to the fact that your parents took away your foreskin. If this is so, then don't do that to your offspring. However, you seem to be saying that this is an unethical and evil practice and I disagree.
I think I'd justify it this way, 99% of people born with extra fingers or whatever, who didn't have them removed, would probably wish they had, ASAP. How many uncircumcised people decide to get circumcised in later life? Very few. What I'm saying is, I wasn't circumcised at birth (although I was cut later for medical reasons) and I'd be very angry with my parents had I been. It's not a decision a parent has the right to make. I'm a firm believer in that a parent has very few rights with regards to their children, only responsibilities.
Actually, odds are people with extra fingers or toes would probably choose to keep them. People are extremely good at adapting to the way they are. Just look at the results of the poll, most people prefer whichever option they happened to get. In general we think of these things as part of our identity, and because we tend to like who we are, we wouldn't want things any other way.
The one thing I find extremely odd about people expounding on the medical benefits of circumcision is that, medically speaking, circumcision shouldn't exist. Imagine a world in which the thought of chopping off bits of genitalia had never occurred to anyone - not even in finding the idea repulsive. Imagine, then, that a group of scientists held a press conference announcing their latest experiment: "We're going to take a group of 1000 baby boys, and slice off the foreskins of 500 of them. In forty years, we're going to follow up with them to see if there's a difference in cancer, HIV/AIDS rates and HPV transmission." There wouldn't be a single ethics board in the world who would approve of the protocol, or for that matter, a parent would would agree to participate. Also, interesting fact: when you give poor and uneducated people the notion that their newly circumcised dick is less likely to get AIDS, they go out and get extra sexual partners and don't continue to do such smart things as using condoms when they have sex. There went all that initiative. And I was also under the impression that there were studies showing the very opposite of what's claimed about AIDS rates and circumcisions. Penn and Teller mentioned it on their Bullshit! episode on the subject. And as for this nonsense about cancer, look at the penile cancer rates among countries with low circumcision rates and tell me what that shows.
So basically you're saying that if I were uncut, having sex would be a lot more like masturbating because I'd ultimately be getting stimulated by my own foreskin instead of by the woman's vagina. Not much of a benefit, it seems to me...
As a layperson I'm generally inclined to believe the conclusions supported by the WHO at least until shown evidence to the contrary. Nevertheless, I live in the first world where condoms and HIV testing are both relatively accessible and inexpensive. I respect someone's desire to decrease risk of exposure to the absolute minimum, but I just feel that the odds of transmission are mitigated well enough by other means that are less physically invasive. If anything, eliminating taboos about sexual activity so people are less afraid/embarrassed to use these things would serve us better than saying "off with their heads!" Beyond that, I can't imagine someone in our culture about to have sex with a guy and contemplating her/his risk of contracting HIV and deciding it's worth the risk because the guy is circumcised. Someone also mentioned it should be the child's choice when they reach sexual maturity. What 14 year old kid is going to agree to let someone take a scalpel to his penis? I get nervous enough just zipping up my pants. Obligatory:
Having trouble editing, but I meant I can't imagine a guy about to have sex and still feel safe with regards to STDs solely because he's circumcised.
What guy? I'm not talking about anyone specifically, nor - I assumed - were you. And if you'll read my first post in this thread, I said right off that bat that from my perspective, sexually, I've not noticed any appreciable difference one way or another with regards to the guy being cut or uncut. I brought up broad, unrelated questions like "where will you live" and "what school will you go to" to show that other decisions that parents make have a far greater impact on their children's lives then whether or not they circumcise their sons. It appears that you and I have an entirely different view of parenting. In addition to responsibilites, I feel that parents must act on behalf of their children when their children are too young to act for themselves. This includes making decisions about their health, physical appearance, etc. Yes, a great deal of these decisions are influenced by culture, the media, our families, society, etc. It's part of being social. So while some may view ear piercing kids as torture, others view it as harmless and the two sides typically get along well. I'm trying my hardest not to take this bait. While one can have a coherent, intellectual argument about the circumcision of males, I really don't think the same can be said of females. Female circumcision is not the topic of this thread; suffice to say, while a circumcised male can still be healthy and normally functioning as an adult, circumcised females often are not. My analogy to cutting off to top half of the penis in males vs. female circumcision was not inaccurate. Yes, theoretically this could be done in a hospital but it never will be, as its purpose is never medical. You seem to be angry with some of the decisions your parents made... Bottom line, if you circumcise an infant boy, he'll never remember it or know any different. He'll never reach the age of 7 or 8 and have to go through it due to medical reasons (as two or three board members and dixiebandit's son is). He will have a reduced likelihood of catching and spreading STIs, including HPV. He'll never have to reach an advanced age where he has to have an invasive surgery done to reduce complications of another disease (as one of the nurses on the board was kind enough to point out). It's a decision each parent has to make. As I said; you make the best choice you can with the information you have at the time, with the best interest of your child at heart.
I need a shower after reading four pages of who's sporting a turtleneck. The only thing I've noticed is girls here in Central Am are not used to a dick without foreskin, and tug the shit out skin that isn't supposed to be tuggd like that. They also think it looks really "clean." How about you ladies? Are you sporting a clean cut mooseknuckle, or do you have enough roast beef to open an Arby's? Is that something you can get clipped? If so, you fucking should, some girls have a whole pouch of Big League Chew hanging down there, and that's not ok.
Well, isn't that exactly the point? And if you molest someone when they've been roofied they'll never remember it or know any different. But surely just because someone doesn't remember something doesn't mean it's okay.
Is your mom your aunt and your father your uncle? Do you play the banjo? Do you think Ned Beatty has "purty lips?" I think your gene pool needs more chlorine. On a serious note, which digits did they remove and how do they determine which ones to cut off? The lesser "pinkies?" And how old were you when they removed them?
Yes, thank you. Performing a painful surgery when the child is still young enough to not remember the recovery period is EXACTLY like raping someone when they're unconscious. That's the point I've been trying to make all along.
George Carlin summed it up well -- it's society's way of reminding you that your penis isn't your own.
I read somewhere that extra digits is actually a dominant trait (my mother was the carrier), so that probably accounts for why half of my 5 siblings have some sort of multiple-finger or toe thing going on, and half do not. My extra digits were on the outside: that is, I had an extra finger next to my pinkie fingers and an extra toe next to each pinkie toe. My fingers were not fully formed (there are 3 degrees of usability and my fingers were mostly cartilage, not bone) and my toes were fully functional and perfect. I am not 100% on this, but I believe they were able to "tie-off" my fingers almost immediately, but had to wait until I was a couple months old to remove my toes because putting a baby under anesthesia can be dangerous. I have mixed feelings about the toes. For one thing, my feet are still very wide to account for that extra digit. It was meant to be there. On the other hand, kids would have ridiculed me mercilessly...but then again, who would have seen my shoe covered toes? My most recently born niece was born with 12 toes and they are perfect. You can't even tell she has 12 of them unless you count, because nothing looks out of the ordinary. I don't think my sister is having them removed. I'm not sure if medical techniques have improved since I was an infant, but as a result I have small bone spurs at the location of the old toes and the sides of my hands are tender if bumped from where all those nerve endings are. In case anyone cares about my sister's kid's feet: Spoiler
Indeed, something like 25% of the penis' nerve endings are supposed to be in that foreskin. Mine's gone, all so the doctor could make a few extra C-Notes (perhaps less, after reverse-adjusting for inflation in 1975; I'm old). Yeah, that's what I'll tell myself. Um, yeah... (sobbing) Um... Wut?