dalekboy | Circumcision rant

Current Mood: ranty

Entry tags:

Circumcision rant

In one of my recent posts, I mentioned that circumcising a child for reasons that are not solidly medical or religious is something that should be thought about in terms of what the child may prefer, not what you want.

Someone pulled me up on this, saying that they consider mutilation because of religion a bad reason for doing it.

I actually agree, and I'm surprised it took someone so long to pull me up on this one. My reasons for including it in the 'acceptable' category are a mixture of tolerance and what I think of as the significantly lesser evil.

I actually don't agree with it, but when addressing the issues around circumcision, breaking a couple of thousand year's worth of religious tradition is something that takes education and baby steps. Just saying "You're wrong and your culture and traditions of the last few thousand years are wrong..." Well, most people are going to dig in their heels and think (rightly) one doesn't understand, or is a bigot.

So why would they even start to consider the other options in that circumstance? Why would they even start to listen to your objections with an open mind, since you clearly don't have an open mind when it comes to their way of life?

I also look at it this way, there are many cultures that would look at things Western culture does, like attitudes to nudity, the lack of skin contact, and the baby sleeping in a separate room to its parents, that they would find horrific and abusive ideas. They couldn't understand how you could want to psychologically scar your child this way.

If some of my religious friends had their child circumcised because that was an aspect of their religion, I would accept it without issue. I don't have to agree with it to support them and their cultural/tradional reasons for doing it. Plus, the child will be growing up in a culture where it's the norm, so they are way less likely to have issues with it.

My preference would still be for it not to be done, but that's personal, and I'm not in a place to understand the significance of thousands of years worth of teaching and tradition.

Having been to ante-natal and breast-feeding classes, religion has still been by far the best of the non-medical reasons I've heard for circumcision. I find it quite acceptable when compared to reasons like "I want him to look like his father," and the vastly more common, "I think it looks nicer."

Some people could say the same thing about female genital mutilation or foot-binding. "I think it looks nicer, and I want her to look like her mother." People would think these reasons disgusting, and they'd be right.

The back-up excuse is often one of cleanliness and preventing disease. They want to be a good parent and reduce the risks to their child. I figure if you can't teach your child to wash their gentials effectively, then what makes you think they wash their backside properly, an area way more likely to harbour unhealthy bacteria? As for the supposedly increased risks of STDs, if you've raised the kid right and educated them about sex properly, when they're older they should be using condoms anyway, so that's no excuse.

Basically I find these reasons fall into the "I can't be bothered trying to teach my child things they should know, so I'll just mutilate them and save myself some trouble" category.

Interestingly, I've yet to hear any of these reasons coming from the fathers, only the mothers. The fathers are usually silent on the matter. Maybe they agree, but they never seem to be the one jumping forward with the reasons.

It's gender differences again. There are things and areas where one gender will have incredible difficulty understanding the needs and mindsets of the other, where they will find things acceptable for one sex and not the other. Despite the way it's often presented, it's not all guys not understanding women's needs, it does in fact work the other way, too. But that's a different rant.

I'm not saying all men don't want their kids circumcised and are forced to by their partners. There will be plenty of men out there wanting it done for all the same reasons. I'm saying that to date, I have have not heard a single non-religious guy say he wanted his son circumcised, but I've heard a number of women pushing their reasons for the decision. Some guys will probably speak up in the comments now saying they were for it, and that's fine. But they will be the first I've heard it from. Whereas I've heard women backing up their reasons for circumcision for years.

The crazy (and disgusting) thing is, that if you asked these same people to consider genital mutilation of their daughters for the exact same reasons, they would likely be utterly horrified and think you a sick bastard.

I don't think there's any good non-medical reason for mutilating the genitals of the child you profess to love and care about, but religion and cultural tradition is certainly a far superior reason compared to cosmetic preferences.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Interesting read. I personally see no reason to do so unless medically necessary, but also I'm not going to condemn people who do it just because I disagree - as you said, there is the ability to be supportive without agreeing.

To compare male and female circumcision isn't really fair: in the vast majority of cases, the male equivalent of what's called "female circumcision" would amount to severing the entire foreskin and glans off down to the corpora cavernosa, and then pushing what's left of the shaft into the pubis and stitching it up.

It's also worth mentioning that male circumcision is usually a scriptually-mandated religious procedure; whereas female circumcision is, to the best of my knowledge, a culturally-mandated one.

I find the whole idea of ring-barking babies to be barbaric. Superstitions as an excuse to justify it? Nah, you're cutting a baby unnecessarily, without anaesthetic in a part of his body that has a lot of nerve endings. Look at a calendar, work out what century you live in and do the right fucking thing. If you're Jewish, do you still shit 200 metres outside town or have you adapted to the changes in technologies? From my point of view, circumcision is simply child abuse. It's about as necessary as an ear-piercing.

It's one of those things.

If someone said "I'll circumcise my son because it's the done thing in my social group." they would be condemned, questions would be asked about their parenting skills and child welfare would get involved, but "because of my faith" and we accept it under "tolerance" or "you must not question someone's deeply held beliefs" criteria.

Richard Dawkins cites an example of someone refusing to go to war in Vietnam, they are against the war on moral grounds, it was an unjust war and one that the US and others should not have started. This person would be sent to die for something they didn't believe in, but if they had just said "My Dad's a quaker" - bingo, they get to stay at home.

Of all things, questioning someone faith (which by it's very nature cannot be damaged by that questioning) is something we should do.

Also the "it's part of my religion" argument would stand up a little more if the people claiming it followed all of the teachings of their religion. So few do.

Recommended reading : "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins

I assume that the reason guys don't talk about decisions regarding their son's circumcision is that it means they are, in effect, talking about their own dicks. And most guys are not going to do that in a room full of strangers (ante-natal class for example). I've witnessed it too, and it's often accompanied by floor-gazing on the part of the men.

This was my thought - although I'm still not in favour of male circumcision.

And you won't see any opinion either way in my initial comment.

That's not the floor they're gazing at.

Is that because you don't have one, or you didn't feel like sharing it? Just curious.

Having opinions on matters that don't concern me is a waste of my time.

On the other hand, sharing opinions on controversial subjects in an open forum is a surefire way of having my time wasted as well.

In fact, I'm going to go back to work now. Ciao.

Speaking as a circumcised male, I find myself in an interesting position. Personal preference would be to not circumcise my child. However, being circumcised myself, I am utterly - utterly - ignorant of the necessary hygienic practices.

Which raises a conundrum: in the absence of good quality, reliable information on what my hypothetical son needs to do to maintain his own health and well being, it could be argued that he would be better off being circumcised. (Of course, the other approach - and the one I would pursue in this situation - would be to do whatever it took to find out. Some men would be too embarrassed to do this - I'm not saying it's right or wrong, just that it is.)

See... for us, I figured it was pretty much Paddington's call. I wasn't keen on it, but if he'd had a strong preference, I'd probably have gone along with it.

Of all the issues facing mankind male circumcision would have to be the least important.

The upsides are trivial, the downsides are trivial. No, really, the benefits are statistically miniscule and the risks are even smaller.

To compare it in any way to female genital mutilation or foot binding is just so wrong as they cause serious damage to women whereas male circumcision changes nothing.

If you ask yourself "How would my life have been different if I was/wasn't circumcised" the answer for 99.9% of western males should be "it wouldn't be different at all". What football team you support is more likely to shape your life than whether or not you have a foreskin.

If you want to fight against barbaric practices why don't you join Amnesty International or an anti capital punishment group or even help the RSPCA fight against tail-docking of dogs. Any of those would contribute far more to making our world a better place.

I don't disagree with you, but one of the major points of my argument against it in general is that for many people it's purely an asthetic choice, rather than a cultural/traditional one. I'm not saying that any of those choices are good ones, but I know that one that makes my skin crawl more.

If someone said "I'll circumcise my son because it's the done thing in my social group." they would be condemned...

Actually, no they wouldn't. As I mentioned, it happens all the time, and the reasons are usually down to a preferred look on the part of the parents, and no-one argues against that. Soemone saying 'it's what is done in my social circle' isn't really that different to 'they look nicer.'

As to arguments over religion, I tend to respect people's beliefs. I would rather they they be a good person because that's who they want to be, rather than their invisible friend telling them to, or doing it out of fear, or for a big reward in the next world, but at the end of the day, educating people is better than damning them.

You educate them, hopefully they'll reach the conclusions on their own, you criticise them, they stop listening.

It's the same argument you get when you discuss body hair with some women. I don't want to wax my bloody back!

You could google "foreskin cleaning"... but probably don't do it at work.

Of all the issues facing mankind male circumcision would have to be the least important.

Actually, I would have said that fandom and worldcons were the least important, but that's just me ;)

But seriously, while it's not of world shattering importance, neither is it so trivial. There are lots of guys that have various physical issues due to circumcision. These include inability to get en erection without pain or even skin tears and bleeding because too much was removed, not to mention guys where the glans is severly damaged.

To say that male circumcision changes nothing is incorrect. Can you imagine what it would be like for you if you were one of the unlucky ones? Where an erection meant pain, and intercourse was agonising? And all because of a procedure that you had no say in?

There are many men for whom it has changed everything. Apart from the above mentioned physical issues, there are issues of self-esteem, thoughts of parental betrayal, feelings of inadequacy compared to 'complete' males, depression issues, etc. As mentioned in my previous post, there are men trying to regrow or recreate their foreskins - these aren't the actions of men unaffected by what has been done. I don't just talk out my bum, I actively research these things.

So in that light, I think the comparisons to some of the more horrific practices visited upon women is fair. Just because the numbers of seriously affected people may be significantly lower, it doesn't make it any less barbaric.

Not all female genital mutilation is the extreme kind. In some cultures the girl loses a small enough section of labia that the difference to her genitals and her ability to enjoy sex is minimal. But the fact that those women are relatively unaffected doesn't make it okay. I still find it a terrible practice, and I'd rather it didn't happen at all, to either gender.

Suppose for a moment you're on the mark in saying that if asked 99.9% of Western males would say their lives would be no different one way or the other. In Australia that leaves you with, very approximately, 10,000 males for whom it would be an issue. Even if only a quarter of them are circumcised, that's 2,500 guys who are affected by something that they had no control over.

Let's remember another factor, too. On the whole, western males tend not to talk about their emotional, medical, or physical issues. A hell of a lot of guys die from various curable ailments because they don't tell anyone, don't want to see a doctor, and leave it far too late to be helped. So, it may well be a far bigger issue than either you or I are aware of. Many guys are unhappy with their penis size, or have erection issues, but how many men do you know who told you that they have these problems? During my short time working in the sex shop, I sold a lot of penis enlargers.

As to making the world a better place, I agree, all those things you mentioned are worthy. As are better education for all socio-economic groups, better solutions to the problems of child labour, stopping whaling, etc. I, like everyone else, looks to the issues that speak to them. In my case the issues that speak to me are environmental, educating farmers so they don't fuck up the land, educating city folks into the real needs of the country areas, the eradication of introduced pests, that sort of thing. I may not be hugely active, but those are the things I work towards, when I can.

This rant was me venting and expressing an opinion, I wasn't saying it was of world importance. That you disagree with it is fine, I expected some folks to disagree with it, to have counter-arguments, to say I was wrong about this or that. That's good, because it forces myself and others to rethink what we know, to question our arguments and stances. In fact, I made such a lengthy reply to your comment because you brought up a bunch of really good issues and arguments.

The problem here is the numbers, and that is why I threw in the 99.9%. Because so many boys are circumcised, worldwide, the numbers start to sound meaningful even when they are not. When I talked about the miniscule benefit and the even smaller risk the numbers affected sound large but are a very small percentage of the total.

So for most of the world circumcision holds no benefit, but for thousands of people in Africa it could prevent transmission of AIDS to them (while for millions it doesn't). Meanwhile maybe hundreds of people are physically affected by botched circumcisions.

Yes, there are people who have mental health problems that centre on being circumcised, but is that cause or effect? Should we give up hygiene because excessive cleanliness is a common manifestation of obsessive compulsive disorder?

Circumcise or not it really won't make any difference so be happy in your choice. Just don't tell me that you won't get your kids vaccinated because of the risk of side effects....

This is weird, and I'm trying to figure out if it's because I'm tired or you're just stirring, because your first reply made a lot of sense and had some good arguments, whereas this one seems more a disjointed hodgepodge of stuff that is mostly not relevant to what was being talked about in either my post or our replies.

So I apologies if I'm missing the point or something. Feel free to correct me.

My rant was pretty much about Western society and circumcision. The situation in Africa is a completely different kettle of fish. As I made clear, I'm quite okay with circumcision for solid medical reasons. If circumcising boys makes a an impact on the AIDS problem, then I'm for it.

Better education and condoms would probably help as much if not more, but given the situation, I'd actually be in favour of all three being used until things were under control. I know this isn't likely to happen for all sorts of reasons, so circumcision is definitely the easiest, cheapest, and best option for now.

But to go briefly back to your first point about numbers, and how on a worldwide stage even small numbers look significant, you can make that same argument for the people dying of AIDS in Africa. On a world scale, it's actually not that many, so why is it important?

I know that's not what you're saying. The point I'm making is, even if the numbers are small, they are significant to those affected. I don't really see a difference between the suffering of 1 person in 1000, and the suffering of 10,000 people in 10,000,000. Some suffering can't be avoided, but some can.

Ignoring the people with demonstratable physical problems caused by circumcision that go on to have psychological problems - are the mental issues cause or effect? I don't claim to know, but if they weren't circumcised to begin with, it's at least something you can cross off the list of potential causes.

The giving up hygiene argument is one of those where I wasn't sure if this whole reply wasn't just you taking the piss. Again, there is fairly solid medical evidence to back up the importance of hygiene. Beyond that, a child taught to wash their hands after every trip to the loo has the option of not doing so if they wish to make that choice - well, if they don't have someone there telling them to wash, anyway. When a part of one's body is removed by surgery, you can't choose to have the operation undone and have everything back the way it was. There is no choice on the part of the recipient.

The final vaccination comment from left field felt more like a parting slap than a genuine point. But in reply, there is solid medical evidence supporting the argument to vaccinate. I've already lost one child, and I don't want to risk losing another. I am aware that there are a very small percentage of children that suffer complications or even die because of vaccinations, and I deem the risk worth it for the reduction of other potential risks to my kid.

Whereas I much prefer to have smooth body parts. I'll let you guess which ones.

The mind boggles, but in a nice way.

Really? I hadn't ever noticed that you pluck your eyebrows...

To both of you on what has been an interesting trail of thoughts / arguments;

I've known two guys who have had partial or complete circumcision later in life due to medical reasons. (one was for getting it stuck in a zipper and the ensuing infection just would not heal without it being removed.) In both cases they expressed a preference for being circumcised young because as an adult, way way *way* more painful (so I'm told). As to sexual sensitivity or performance, no difference for one, the other actually preferred it because he felt he was more sensitive.

As to vaccination, don't know if either of you read my recent post, and refrained from commenting out of politeness, but I see the issue of vaccination as a bigger one. Just recently had a friend who almost lost their baby *because* of a severe reaction to a vaccination, and they are now doing a lot of research and seriously considering how they proceed forward. Like me, they still plan to have their child vaccinated against most things, but are looking at delaying the schedule so as to avoid immediate risks. Seriously, when you are talking about taking a child under 6 months of age who has little to no immunity of their own, their is a world of difference to injecting a live virus into them as opposed to them contracting it through 'normal' means. In SA where there has only been one active case of Measles in the past 12 months, the risk of catching that (and then suffering the worst) is actually lower than the risk of an adverse reaction to the vaccination. The studies I looked at also did not give a break down of cultural backgrounds, but sadly my gut feel is that I think the aboriginal communities probably fair worse in most of these things. In the majority of cases where someone contracted one virus or another, the vaccination status was listed as 'unknown'.

Didn't you? Oh man, I should show you some before and after shots one day. Serious case of monobrow in my family. Le *sigh*.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 1 of 3

Circumcision rant

no subject

no subject

Rant alert.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Re: Rant alert.

no subject

Re: Rant alert.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Re: Rant alert.

Re: Rant alert.

Re: Rant alert.

no subject

Re: Rant alert.