I hear the government is trying to ban foreskins. Just remember... if you outlaw foreskins, only outlaws will have dickcheese.
I don't think anyone is saying you should have some deep philisophical reason. I'm certainly not. My original question, anyways, was why people (mostly Americans, it seems) are so nonchalant about slicing up their newborn, especially for "cosmetic reasons". Would be like if the doctor looked at your baby, noticed his ears were kinda big and said, "Pass him back to me for a second, I'm just gonna slice off a bit of his ear lobes real quick. Don't worry, he won't remember", and you did, without giving it a second thought. At least with ears that's something he might actually get made fun of for later in life. The fact that it's your (anyone's) kid's junk is...kinda creepy, to me. But whatevs. Yes, being creeped out by cutting newborn baby penises is exactly like ruining a wet dream.
I think this is a cultural thing. People from other countries are creeped out by the practice. Which I get now that I have given it some thoight. To me as an American however, it seems normal. I really can't bring myself to see it as a huge issue. If I had a bad one it would probably be a bigger deal to me. Really not to be a dick, just curious, how do people feel about people getting their infant daughters ears pierved? Because to me that seems similar.
I am way against that too. I lived in a town that was 90% mexican and almost every female baby had her ears pierced. It enraged me because I felt like they are treating their baby as an accessory. My cousin did it actually. She thought it was normal, didn't mention it to her husband because it didn't seem like anything out of the ordinary. She was at the mall and decided to pop in the shop and get it done to her 10 month old. Her husband was livid, as were my aunt and uncle. Also, while we are talking about proceedures on chillins, what about skull shaping?
Again, I don't see your point. Is there really a moral difference between someone who circumcises their baby to a) preserve Jewish heritage, b) suppress their sexuality, c) prevent STDs, or d) "them's just the way we does it 'round these parts, take yer booklernin' elsewhere"? I don't see one, as there is no vital force that the good or bad intentions of the parents bestows upon the remainder of the penis via the circumcision alone. The fact that the "cultural justification" has changed seems insignificant to me as well. People do, after all, fly the Confederate flag without meaning to say that their state should secede from the United States so that they can continue to hold other human beings as property. Doesn't mean displaying said flag isn't objectionable.
The logic of you people so ardently against circumcision astounds me. It goes something like this. 1. Surgery on a new born's penis doesn't feel right. 2. The harm is ???? 3. Circumcisions are evil. Isn't it telling that the best explanations you have for why it's wrong resort to archaic motivations? You can't come up with anything reliable as to why it's a medically unsound practice, or has a negative impact on a person's sex life. The reasons why it's actually done, not what you would like to paint it as break down to three things. - STI prevention. A cursory glance at wikipedia gives this: There is a lot more data on the subject if you care to check, and while I would just advise people to not be too stupid and wear condoms this provides a reasonable justification, and is far away from irrational penis slicing. - Appearance. A subjective opinion, but we do have a poll here and so far circumcision is winning. - Cleanliness. It saves the kid the trouble of have to scrub for dick cheese in the shower. This is again related to diseases. From here: Oh, but wait. You have the moral high ground(after all this is an important question of morality) because it's just wrong, and parents who do it are devoid of sanity, or as you so eloquently put it, 'booklernin'. Yeah, I know I said I wasn't going to delve into these arguments, but since people are so desperate to write them off they should at least know what they are.
Ehm, last time I checked, your earlobes heal up nicely when you remove an earring. I don't think anyone has ever regrown a foreskin. And no, it's not the same thing, it's basically puncturing vs. removing. The only thing that's the same is the fact that parents deciding they can do whatever they want with the body of their child.
Isn't it telling that your responses are along the lines of -"We don't think about it very hard, and get that fancy-talkin' British guy out of my face" -A sarcastic, "Oh my god I mutilated my child's genitals without thinking about it, I'm a horrible person!" -A weak-ass statistical analysis, followed by "well some ladies prefer the aesthetics". If you were wondering I did post a much more detailed analysis of some of the data to be found on wikipedia. I'm not going to re-hash it. If we'd rejected the archaic rationales outright, circumcision wouldn't be around to retroactively justify. I maintain: if the idea had never been considered and a doctor went up to you tomorrow and said "hey, how about I slice off part of your newborn's penis?" you'd say no, come back and post about it on the internet and add some bravado about how you punched him in the face for saying so.
For some people the hole never closes. Especially if the ear in question was pierced at a very young age, and the piercing is not removed for any real length of time for years after first being pierced. So considering they are both unnecessary largely cosmetic porcedures unilaterally preformed on infants that can have lifetime effects, does your answer to my previous question change at all?
I think a lot of you are underestimating the cleanliness aspect. Sure, you don't care now, but most of you will grow old, with shaky hands, bad coordination. Or demented. Or just forgetful. And if you think anyone will be eager to wash your genitals properly when you are too old and too sick to do it yourself, just visit your nearest nursing home. And dirty genitals increase your chance for UTI, which is a lot worse than a UTI in a young person. Old people with UTIs get confused, sick, and end up in hospitals, and some even die. And the ear piercing analogy is silly - there are no benefits to having your ears pierced, and no risks from leaving them unpierced.
I'm a little weirded out about the uncleanliness bit. My penis is ALWAYS the cleanest part of my body. It goes straight from being washed into fresh, clean boxers every day. I'm not OCD about it, and perhaps I spend a bit more time with the chap that the average guy, but in all of my unwashed, bender glory days I never so much as let lint rest there. Who are all these uncut, dirty-dick motherfuckers giving us a bad rep?
Well, I wouldn't give my child any cosmetic procedure whatsoever (unless she's ugly of course, then she'll be getting surgery 'till she looks like one of her Barbies) to begin with. Be it circumcision or pierced ears. I just don't feel like you should do that to a child. Do note that this comes mainly from the fact that I'm from a different country. Maybe if I was an American, I wouldn't think twice about chopped off foreskins. But here I am, a citizen of one of the richest and well-developed Western countries and of a European Union where practically nobody undergoes circumcision, seeing the citizens of the richest and largest Western country lop off their foreskins. I don't think circumcision is unhealthy and I've seen quite a few decent reasons. But I do have some second thought about those. Is it cleaner? Probably. But this aspect mostly applies to Sub-Saharan Africa, where everything is out to murder you in horrible ways. Showering is down on the list of priorities, right after 'escaping machetes'. And also, a guy who doesn't clean his junk for a week has a foul junk, foreskin or no skin. Can it prevent STD's? The data says so. I can't see how I can argue with that. Can it prevent other diseases? The data shows that uncircumcised children get less UTI's than the foreskinnies. That doesn't mean circumcision prevents UTI's. Think about this: people who are able to get their son a circumcision might have a bit more money than the people who are unable. And more money might mean they have a slightly healthier lifestyle. It's like the whole 'children with parents who read a lot are smarter than other children'. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with reading, but the fact that the parents are a bit more well-off and have time to read and thus have more time for their children. Correlation does not equate causation. When I'm old and sick, will my dick be cleaner without foreskin? Again, probably. But like I said in the beginning, if you don't clean up, it will become a festering cesspool no matter what. If you're unable to clean yourself up or get cleaned up, chances are you will end up sicker than before. Maybe without a foreskin it might take a while longer, but does it really matter at that point? It's a bit strange to me. The way I see it, you started doing it and tried to rationalize it afterwards. Like pot smokers listing all the health benefits of marihuana. Those facts come in handy during an argument, but they sure as hell aren't smoking to cure some future glaucoma. The same with circumcision. You can list all the reasons you like, and most of them are kind of good reasons, but your parents didn't lop it off because they worried you might become an old man with shaky fingers who can't wash his dick. They did it because everyone else was doing it and thought it was normal. The fact that you are arguing amongst yourselves kind of demonstrate that a lot of you don't even specifically know the fundamental reason for getting a chunk of yourself irreversibly removed. It's not unhealthy and it also has some benefits (though I don't think they really apply to Westerners). So go nuts. Cut it off and also get your son fixed. But it's like Americans seeing Dutch people pouring mayonaise over their french fries; nobody's saying you're wrong, but it's kind of weird.
Since this thread is probably about to be locked, and since I don't think anybody told this one yet . . . It seems there was this doctor who would keep the foreskin after he performed a circumcision. After a number of years, he had a large bag of them. He took the bag to a leather maker, and said, "I've got this big bag of foreskins. Can you make something out of them?" "Sure thing," the man replied. "Come back in two weeks." The doctor returns two weeks later and says, "Let's see what you've got." The leather maker places a wallet on the counter. The doctor asks, "Two weeks with all those foreskins and all you've got is a wallet?" "Yes," he says, "but if you rub it, it turns into a suitcase."