Circumcision woo or 'Intactivism'

[GoneOffShore]

On Change.org (NOT change.GOV) there is some promoting an end to male circumcision.

I don't come down on one side or the other, but some of the comments make me wonder about a lot of these guys 'issues'.

http://www.change.org/ideas/view/intactivism

"Intactivism???"

:wtf: added on edit

Or should this be in the Health Scare forum.

[cosmik debris]

1. That web site locked up my PC --Twice!

I don't know what the problem was, but I'm not gonna give it a third try.

[dawgmom]

2. I had the same problem -- don't click on the link! nt

[Deep13]

3. Wasn't there some discovery that circumcised males are a lot less likely...

...to spread AIDS than uncircumcised ones?

Otherwise, it is a medical procedure with no purpose. "Do no harm."

[Warpy]

4. They're 60% less likely to contract it

which improves the odds but doesn't eliminate them.

Circumcised equipment is also a lot easier to clean late in life when poor vision and coordination are problems.

However, there is always a risk associated with any surgery.

Give the parents the facts and let them decide, also reminding them that little boys want to look like Daddy.

Other than presenting the facts, I didn't have a stake in the decision. It just wasn't my job to push one thing or the other.

[Orrex]

6. The "want to look like Daddy" argument is IMO dismissed out of hand by opponents of circumcision.

That's a profound and legitimate psychological motivation.

As you rightly say, parents should be given the facts and allowed to decide, just as they would decide any elective medical procedure (vaccines, ear-tubes, cleft palate repair, etc.)

[HamdenRice]

8. Does looking "just like Mommy" justify female genitial mutilation in Africa?

After all, contrary to stereotypes, it's usually the women of the community that demand their daughters undergo the procedure -- and in some parts of Africa, it's women's "secret societies" that require and carry out the procedure.

Also, contrary to stereotype, in much of sub-Saharan Africa, female genital mutilation is directly linked to male circumcision, both of which are rights of passage into adulthood around puberty.

Is looking "just like Mommy" a "legitimate psychological motivation" for female genital mutilation that should not be "dismissed out of hand by opponents" of female genital mutilation?

[Orrex]

9. Are you still here?

A strange creature ran on a rippling road,
Its cut was wild, its body bowed,
Four feet under belly, eight on its back,
Two wings, twelve eyes, six heads, one track.
It cruised the waves decked out like a bird,
But was more--the shape of a horse, man,
Dog, bird, and the face of a woman--
Weird riddle-craft riding the drift of words--
Now sing the solution to what you've heard.

[HamdenRice]

10. And that's your best answer?

to actual facts, analogies and questions?

[Orrex]

12. Here are twenty words that rhyme with bait

freight
late
state
weight
crate
rate
date
pate
exacerbate
reprobate
elate
state
slate
plate
Bobcat Goldthwaite
grate
weight
irate
mate
orate

[HamdenRice]

13. The "intellectual depth" of your approach to the issue once again underwhelms nt

[Orrex]

20. Knickers! Cabbages! It's not got a

beak!

[dropkickpa]

11. 60% in non-condom using/available areas of Africa

Should I ever have a son, he'll grow up believing his middle name is condom since we live in condom filled murika.

*edited to add - should I ever have a son, I'll be opting for no unnecesary surgery, let him choose. Just as girls have to learn to wipe front to back and how to use tampons, maxipads, shave bikini lines, etc and so on, so boys can learn to clean their junk adequately. All my brothers somehow managed to learn how and they're sometimes idiots, so it can't possibly be all that hard to do.

[Warpy]

14. You will please note

that I addressed the self care problem of elderly men with poor eyesight and coordination, not young boys.

Some of those poor old men could be smelled down the hall when I was a nurse.

Please read the post carefully next time. Thank you.

[dropkickpa]

23. I wasn't directly

referencing your post regarding that, but the general "Circumcised is cleaner" meme that pops up any time dong docking is brought up. Shoulda made that clearer. Thank you.

[semillama]

5. MC Paul Barman has a great anti-circumcision rap

CIRCUMCISION

Hypocritical oaf
Defy the Hippocratical Oath?
Male? Female circumcision?
I'm a critic of both.
All yall so called followers of God I'll accuse
Think you should see heaven should see jail for child abuse.
So medieval - unquestioned by normally intelligent people
circumcision
Looks in a locker room's reason for decison?
circumcision
Don't want to disgust his future women?
Shame on you
Not all women feel the same as you
circumcision
Where would be without tradition?
Utopia.
I'm hopin ya reconsider.
You'd draw a baby's blood, won't leave without a babysitter.
I can predict the responses of a selected collective unconscious.
Man, woman, old, young,
unhold the tongue that stayed mainly mum
You're more scared of smegma than depleted uranium!
On the daily snip new patients
Why not 'MALE Genital Mutilation'?
Cause the genitals aren't identical?
Why are clitoridectomies more animal?
Who says you're more civilized?
Swivel your eyes to the mirror,
see clearer you live a lie of privileged drivel.
Let's compromise -
punch him in the face
with a truncheon or mace
when he's born.
Just a taste of tough love
Something his phallus-mini and Palestinians can't get enough of.
Your emotions are chemicals
Your heart is just ventricles and atrii.
Some traditions such as circumcision make me die.
And what's this lil JAP's shell gone worth?
Aww, he's got his mom's eys.
his dad's mutilated genitalia.
Late capitalism's hell on earth.
i'm not noncommittal bout the natural laws it mocks.
Keep my little black book in a safety deposit box.
Her middle back shook to count bass d because it rocks.
Circumcision's pointless black, blue or orthodox.
So son can't recall your first act of butchery

mazel tov


FORESKIN

(I'm) a foreskin hated more than abortion
Nobody loves me. They think I'm ugly

(I'm) keeping the glans clean
My very first day of life and you hack me off like I'm gangrene

(I'm) more despondent than a foreign correspondent
Men would live more sensitive if you left me on it

(I'm) god's gift to women.
He gotta go slow with me, leave her totally grinnin

(I'm) constantly changing
Bring pain if you search for the same thing

(I'm) vital like breast milk
Mess with your own ilk and it's no stretch to kill others

(I'm) a baby
And I may grow up to hate you for what you ain't gave me

(I'm) here to stay when you get over your egos
Wherever you chuck me, that's where a tree grows

[HamdenRice]

7. Is female genital mutilation also a woo woo issue?

Why is male genital mutilation not a serious issue?

[PVnRT]

15. FGM is an attempt to make sex undesirable for women

That is not the case with circumcision.

[HamdenRice]

16. Yes and no

Many cultures practice forms of clitorodectomy that are only scarring or cutting, but not excision.

On the other hand, it is well documented that circumcision reduces sensitivity and pleasure.

In many cultures, the underlying religious/spiritual/cultural idea is the same: age grade "bush school" initiation -- circumcision and clitoradectomy -- distinguish humans from animals, in part by making humans less sexual.

[TZ]

17. Circumcision Doesn't Reduce Sexual Satisfaction And Performance, Says Study Of 4,500 Men

Circumcision Doesn't Reduce Sexual Satisfaction And Performance, Says Study Of 4,500 Men
ScienceDaily (Jan. 8, 2008) — More than 98 per cent of men who are circumcised can enjoy the same levels of sexual satisfaction and performance as men who are not, according to a study of nearly 4,500 males published in the January issue of the UK-based urology journal BJU International.

The randomised trial, carried out by researchers from Uganda and the USA, was undertaken because previous studies showed that the procedure -- which is now recommended as an efficient way to reduce HIV transmission - showed conflicting results.

"Previous studies have been problematic and shown contradictory results" points out co-author Professor Ronald H Gray from the Bloomberg School of Health at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA.

"Studies focusing on men circumcised in adulthood were highly selective, because there were medical indications for surgery, circumcised infants can't provide before and after comparisons and in most studies sample sizes were small and follow-up was short.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080107101013.htm


See also:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070726131332.htm

[HamdenRice]

18. "Previous studies have been problematic and shown contradictory results"

Odd that self proclaimed "skeptics" embrace an painful unnecessary operation performed on infants that real science suggests is perfectly useless.

[Silent3]

19. "*Real* science"? "*Perfectly* useless"?

It seems that there is some real science suggesting that male circumcision does produce some benefit in reducing the transmission of HIV.

Whether such studies are the final word might be argued, but it's not "unreal" science just because you disagree with the results. I'd have to say, if the results are accurate, blocking HIV is somewhat useful, not "perfectly useless".

I'm no big fan of male circumcision, but it doesn't strike me as being anywhere in the same ballpark as female circumcision in terms of damage and lost sensation. I lost my foreskin as an infant, well before I could have had any say in the matter, but that fact doesn't fill me with a sense of outrage at my parents or a terrible sense of loss. Since I can't get my missing foreskin back for a with-and-without comparison, perhaps I can't know for certain if there's any pleasure I'm missing, but I certainly don't feel like I'm missing out on anything.

To the extent such things matter to me as a mostly hetero male (I did date a pre-op male-to-female transsexual for a while) I'd have to say I find a circumcised penis more appealing than uncircumcised, but that's probably just cultural bias.

[HamdenRice]

24. Cutting off the penis entirely is almost 100% effective in preventing HIV transmission!

Circumcision is a procedure in search of a reason.

That has always been its position in medicine. Virtually unknown among non-Jews in the US, certain somewhat **cough cough** eccentric doctors began publicizing the urgent necessity for routine circumcision in the late 1800s as a cure for masturbation and the "obvious" "universal" complications of masturbation, such as **cough cough** insanity and blindness.

Shortly thereafter, it was recommended to be universally practiced on "Negro male infants" in order to reduce their sex drive, hence protecting white women from the "epidemic" of black on white rape.

Now it is being proposed in Africa as a way to reduce HIV by 66% or some such other figure. Now that's logical -- persuading people to have this surgery so that they can justify having unprotected sex with only a 44% chance of getting a disease that is universally fatal in the absence of drug cocktails that are not available in most poor communities in Africa.

While there may be some scientific evidence that circumcision reduces HIV transmission, from a public health standpoint, putting any resources into circumcision, instead of into free condoms, sex education, and drug cocktails is, frankly pure crackpot "woo wooery," but nevertheless, it seems to have been gleefully embraced by the self described "skeptic" community, which is stupefyingly gullible with respect to any bird brained idea, so long as it is pushed by any self described "conventional" medical practitioner who possesses a lab coat and a corporate logo.

[Silent3]

25. Woo who?

Are there more effective ways to reduce HIV transmission, and to allocate scarce public health resources, than circumcising every male on the planet? Sure. That doesn't make studies that show HIV transmission reduced by circumcision "woo", however. And it doesn't automatically follow that just because circumcision is performed that everyone who gets it done will receive a direct or indirect message that they can then "justify having unprotected sex."

...it seems to have been gleefully embraced by the self described "skeptic" community...

I have yet to run into one person here who is "gleeful" about circumcision. Just because one doesn't react to circumcision as if it were one of the greatest horrors of human butchery every conceived, and just because one is receptive to the idea that it might have some positive benefits (whether or not that is the result of "circumcision (being) a procedure in search of a reason"), doesn't mean the only alternative attitude is gleeful support and promotion of the procedure.

Modern medicine and medicine of the 1800s are about as closely related as chemistry is to alchemy. Even the germ theory of disease wasn't well developed until the end of the 1800s, and it still wasn't widely accepted or acknowledged during the early 1900s. Routine randomized clinical trials for medical treatments didn't even begin until the 1900s. You recitation of the quackery of the 1800s, while interesting, doesn't really apply here except perhaps as a historical perspective on why circumcision may still be common even if past alleged reasons have proven unfounded.

...which is stupefyingly gullible with respect to any bird brained idea, so long as it is pushed by any self described "conventional" medical practitioner who possesses a lab coat and a corporate logo.

If we're talking about truly modern medicine, it's certainly not perfect, but those guys in the lab coats have on the whole earned themselves a greater benefit of the doubt than "alternative" medical practitioners, and a greater benefit of the doubt than, say, people who "gleefully" embrace practically anything herbal, "natural", and non-Western, while simultaneously casting suspicious scorn on nearly all of modern medicine, especially if (*gasp*) someone might make some money from a given drug or treatment.

At any rate, I guess I don't find circumcision any more objectionable than tattoos and body piercing, and often more aesthetically pleasing than the stupid, ugly choices teens and adults often make when it comes to tattoos and piercings. Does it have much value as a medical procedure? Probably not. It's more like a silly modern tribal custom that may, by chance, have a few benefits. There doesn't seem to be much evidence that it's particular harmful either.

Does it bother you that people aren't as upset about it as you want them to be? Is anything short of your prescribed level of alarm promotion and "gleeful" acceptance?

[TZ]

26. Its fauxrage

Cause I posted it. We all know I'm not really a scientist...:crazy:

[HamdenRice]

29. Oh yeah, I forgot

all of my postings are only all about you.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

I forgot, and thanks for reminding me. You are the center of my universe!

Btw, one little nugget of logic and fact. Did you notice that I posted in this thread before you did? Mightn't you also have discovered that I did not respond directly to your posts, but you responded thrice in my subthread?

Hmmmmmmm........

:shrug:

[TZ]

32. Peer review science I posted.....

You have posted about 1.5 ad homs per response in this thread.
Don't worry though, I'm not coming over to steal your precious foreskin, which I guess is more important to you than this:
"Randomized control trials, including in Uganda, Kenya and South Africa, have shown that circumcision can reduce the transmission of HIV in heterosexual men by as much as 65 percent. Introducing it widely in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in southern Africa where male circumcision rates are low, could prevent an estimated two million infections in the next ten years and save as many as four million lives over the next 20 years."

Saving up to 4 million lives? Silly scientists don't they know that the foreskin is the most precious thing in the entire world?

[madinmaryland]

33. Off-subject here (for obvious reasons that this thread has disintegrated),

but what happened to the Deadskins on Sunday? We haven't seen much of you in teh Lounge.

:hi:

[HamdenRice]

30. About 95% of what you wrote is addressed to these guys ---->

I'm still poring over your post to find something responsive to what I wrote so that I might respond.

[Silent3]

31. Sure I'm addressing straw men...

...but they're your strawmen, such as the supposed people who are "gleeful" about circumcision, and those who supposedly automatically bow to any decree emanating from a white lab coat or a big corporate logo.

[TZ]

22. Male Circumcision Efforts Lag In Africa Despite Evidence Of Dramatic Impact In Preventing HIV

ScienceDaily (Aug. 6, 2008) — With millions of lives at stake over the next two decades, researchers and advocates at the AIDS 2008 Conference today called on the global health community to ramp up male circumcision to significantly reduce risk of HIV infection in Africa, and to move quickly to integrate the life-saving procedure into other comprehensive efforts to prevent transmission of the disease in the vulnerable nations of eastern and southern Africa
At an event organized by Population Services International (PSI) in Mexico City today, speakers cited new findings suggesting that they can overcome many of the concerns donors and governments have given for not making circumcision more widely available to men in the region, among them fears that the procedure could not be done safely in low-resource settings, that it would lead to increased risk-taking behaviors, sexual dysfunction, and a backlash based on cultural and religious sensitivities.

New results from a male circumcision initiative implemented by PSI in Zambia suggest instead that cultural resistance can be overcome and that it is possible to carry out male circumcision (MC) safely and effectively in medically unsophisticated settings, using nurses and clinical officers to do the procedures as part of a comprehensive prevention program.

recently published study in Kenya, described at the briefing by co-author Robert Bailey, an epidemiologist with the University of Illinois, Chicago, reported no increased risk-taking behaviors among newly-circumcised men. And a new study that Bailey's team presented for the first time at the conference in Mexico City concludes that compared to an uncircumcised control group, newly-circumcised men reported "increased penile sensitivity and enhanced ease of reaching orgasm," addressing fears that circumcision would reduce sexual pleasure and function.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080804155120.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080804155120.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070724113945.htm

[Name removed]

34. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[TZ]

35. To compare it to female circumcision

as was done here is sexist bullshit. And NO I am NOT cherry picking data. Unless you think the UN and the WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION are woo-woo? Yes, I am jewish and I don't know many uncircumcised males. Nor have I EVER met anyone IRL who was circumcised that makes a big deal about it.
Yes, its a personal choice..but its NOT mutilation as many say--if you don't want to get one for your child so be it. But don't you DARE accuse me of being biased when I am posting SOUND AND RESPECTED PEER REVIEWED SCIENTIFIC DATA.
The anti-circumcision stuff on this board reminds me like the anti-abortion people..emotions not facts.
So if you've done your research you know better than these scientists and health experts yes?
http://www.who.int/hiv/mediacentre/news68/en/

And I do admit when I'm wrong. I also don't let my bias agaisnt religion mark my SCIENTIFIC opinion.

Read more at:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/search/index.php?type=news&keyword=HIV++and+circumcision§ion=all&period=365&page=1

This site is a summary of different scientific articles that are being published.
Find me a scientific article that supports your view, cause I don't see it.

BTW, thanks for the ad hom. You have just reminded me why DU and I don't fit well anymore.

I'm sick of wasting my knowledge on people who don't want to hear it.

[Pale Blue Dot]

36. No problem.

Sorry to see you go.

BTW, I doubt that you read or processed anything that I had to say in my post, because your response didn't address any of my points. You seem to prefer strawmen.

[semillama]

21. As I am facing the possibility of being a father to a son in a couple months

I've discussed this issue with my wife. We both agree that if the baby is a boy, we'll let him make his own decision on what to do with his foreskin.

[Silent3]

27. If you dangle a crystal pendulum...

...over a baby boy you can determine if the boy wants to be circumcised or not by the way the crystal swings. Go ahead and make up your own system for what kind of motion means what. :)

[semillama]

28. But what if it indicates he's an Indigo Child???

The Horrors!!!

[Evoman]

37. I think circumcision is stupid.

Yeah, I've heard the arguments...doesn't convince me worth shit.

Number one, I'm extremely skeptical of things that have been done for the sake of tradition that only within the last 30 or so years have a justification. Suppose that no one in the world had ever heard of circumcision, but studies on men who had accidentally lost their foreskin showed a 60 percent decrease in aids transmission. Would we consider it worth it cutting of a very sensitive body part to do that? Uh, no. If we found out that getting half your pinky cut off reduced your chances of getting malaria or ebola or any other disease by 60 percent, you think we would have a nation of babies missing pinkies? Probably not...unless Jesus liked cut off pinkies. Then we would be cutting of pinkies left and right so that daddy's hand looked like baby's hand.

Number two: your cutting off someone elses junk without their permission. Tattooing your kids, piercing your kids, and circumcizing your kids all fit into the same category: your fucking with something that is not yours. Yeah, adults should obviously have some control over their kids...but cutting off pieces of them isn't something I can support.

Number three: Cleaning your dick isn't that hard. If it gets troublesome when your old, then get it cut off then....old people are on so many painkillers that a cut dick is a nice change of pace from arthritis pain. Besides, as soon as your old enough not to be able to wash your own cock, your basically not using it anyways.


Number four: A fine mix of fucking with condoms and not fucking every single hole put in front of you should help reduce your risk of aids. Honestly, that 60 percent will only get you so far if your going to be a dirty motherfucker. Besides, if you live in North America, a good percentage of women probably won't fuck you if you got the skin because they've been taught to hate it.....so really, your chances of getting aids is probably less because a sizable percentage of women probably won't wanna piece of your tuque anyways.

Number four: I don't care if my dick doesn't look like my dads dick. I don't care if my kids dick doesn't look like my dick. Cut that shit out...it's fucking creepy.

Number five: Your cutting a baby's dick because he's got a better chance of not getting a disease we may or may not have a cure for in 18 years (and which can be avoided with proper education) and because he might possibly have a problem with cleaning it in 80 years? Really? Seriously?

Of course, that's just my opinion. Do whatever you want to you offspring...I don't fucking care. Come close to my kids with a knife, and you'll fucking taste my foot through your ass. Good thing about that, though, is that you don't have to worry about aids when no one will sleep with you because you have a size 12 poop-shoot and half a pair of Nikes in your colon.

[cosmik debris]

38. I have a question. OOPS, I should have posted this as a response to the OP

Has the "cause and effect" relationship between HIV and foreskin ever been proved, or is that just another Post Hoc argument?

On the surface, it sounds pretty lame. And I wonder why so many accept it without a direct "cause and effect" link.

[Evoman]

39. I haven't done much study in the area.

But from what I remember, most of it is based on studies of circumcision in Africa. As to the science of it, I believe the foreskin has more receptors (cd4?) that allows the virus easier access than an uncircumcised penis.

[cosmik debris]

40. My reasoning was over simplified.

If you wrap that rascal, the foreskin is irrelevant.

If you don't wrap that rascal, you are a fucked duck anyway, so the foreskin is irrelevant.

But that's not science. That's just my own speculation.