So they did this experiment, they being a battery of PhDs for The Journal of Sexual Medicine.
Forty guys — 20 cut, 20 un — were tested to see which group was more sensitive to “genital sensory stimulation” — that’s lab-speak for “pleasure.”
So the 40 dicks were stretched. The 40 dicks were pulled. The 40 dicks were tickled until they blushed a violet crimson.
And what did the 40 dicks yield?
“Research theory, and popular belief, all suggest that penile sensation is greater in the uncircumcised as compared with the circumcised man.” the researchers wrote, stating their premise, then noting that previous testing had always been done on flaccid dicks. By contrast, they would study the upright penis in all its unfurled glory, ones that had been hardened using erotic stimuli such as porn films — as well as non-erotic control stimuli. (Young men, God bless ‘em, can get hard staring at blank walls!)
“Touch and pain thresholds were assessed on the penile shaft, the glans penis, and the volar surface of the forearm.” (The forearm? Dicks have forearms? Actually, touching the arm, as opposed to the penis, seems to be the control.) “Sexual arousal was assessed via thermal imaging of the penis.”
The result: everybody got hot, but uncut men got hotter. What you expected, right?
But not so fast.
This, it turned out, was not the definitive finding it seemed at first. The only reason uncut men got hotter was because they started at a “significantly lower penile temperature than circumcised men.”
Final answer: “No differences in genital sensitivity were found between the uncircumcised and circumcised groups.”
Obviously gay men did not design such a useless use of 40 erect dicks. If there were any gay men on that research team, comprised of three women and two men, they were certainly not Nightcharm readers or in touch with their inner feelings.
You see, boys and girls, nobody cares how uncut cocks feel, poor misunderstood darlings though they may be, huddled in their hoods. It’s how they fucking look! Fact is fucking feels great for everybody, cut or uncut — except, of course, for certain religious conservatives who, we understand, immediately bite off the head of their mate.
When it comes to the Sheathed abd the Shorn, there really is no contest. While we’ve all met guys who are beyond crazy for folds and folds of foreskin, have you ever met anyone who obsessed on circumcised peter?
Neat, perky, forthright head of penis simply has no fan club of its own, no websites with thousands of galleries, no dedicated niche in the porn market. The pandemonium is all on the other side.
Maybe it’s an American thing, this obsession, because our boys are routinely and scrupulously circumcised. Most countries don’t do this, certainly not as a matter of policy.
But then most countries weren’t founded by Puritans. Most countries don’t have the Undead of Plymouth Rock coming back on them generation after generation in the form of — oh, just off the top of our head — the hygiene films of the 1950’s that were showed in high schools well into the 1980’s, the cult of the YMCA with its rows of showers, the general practice of modeling American boys on the military aesthetic (briefly interrupted by the woolly nature children of the 1960’s) seen in crewcuts and, of late, shaved heads (so like the cut dick.)
Clean as a whistle is our thing.
To good patriots like ourselves, drooling foreskin seems foreign, mysterious … dirty. (Not that that there’s anything wrong with dat!) A bit of the Dawn of Man, perhaps, untouched by science. Oh, very hot in the Neanderthal division of hot — but can we make a terrible confession that you promise you won’t hold against us. Uncut dicks — well, they always reminds us a bit of that classic road-trip menu item: pigs in a blanket.
Lets hear it for the all-American penis. For the streamline silhouette and swept-back lines of the exposed cap. Nine out of 10 horndogs agree: cut dicks needs love too.
ATTENTION FELLOW SCIENTISTS AND FORESKIN RESEARCHERS:
Interested in a really good, substantial discussion on foreskin, filled with facts and first-person experience? Check out the commentary left by Nightcharm readers on two previous pieces.
Uncut Men: Boys in the Hood
Remy: Blue Skies Over Dreamland
The in-depth analysis will blow you away. It did us.
I call bullshit. They tested pleasure and pain thresholds on individual patches of skin, one little spot at a time? What about how the dick works as a whole, with all the nerve endings responding in concert?
Stick some of these men in an MRI, give them long, slow blowjobs, and see whose brain freaking lights up.
My partner is cut. I’m not. My dick is so sensitive I could get off fucking an open window. My boyfriend seems to be drastically less sensitive. If I were to masturbate with anything approaching the rough technique he uses, it would actually cause me considerable pain.
uncut is gross. I can’t deal with it I tottally prefer cut. also the reason that most american porn doesn’t advertise CUT MEN is because the majority are so you don’t need to produce a niche when its the most popular.usually its assumed they are cut unless its a special uncut porn.
Kyle=Insane
Just because some men prefer cut dicks is no reason to routinely cut the foreskin of every boy born. I wish I still had my foreskin. Circumcision is not reversable, too much is cut off. One can stretch any remaining skin to somewhat simulate a foreskin, it just isn’t the same.
On the other hand, if the guy likes and want to be cut, as an adult he can have it done.
Comparing the two similar cocks, one cut and the other complete and natural, the cut one is the one that looks dirty to me. Guys should be allowed to make their own decision about cutting up their own penis or not.
interesting site on the issue: (link)
“Clean as a whistle?” Circumcised penises still produce smegma, it just doen’t have a chance to accumulate. And, OMG — doesn’t anyone in this country shower or bathe — it just pulls back, gentlemen! If you can use your finger to pull up your eyelid to put in a contact, you can wash your junk! Next time I hear the “it’s cleaner” defense, I’m going to bash my face into the wall…
I think Cut Cocks just look so much more masculine. I don’t say this thinking Uncut Cocks are not hot, but Cut Cocks just seem more ready-for-action. Does anyone agree with me? Somehow, the cultivated look of a MAN is more attractive to me than that of a very natural-looking MALE. Despite what many people say, I think most gay guys—and straight women, why not?—eventually always go back to wanting a genuine human being. But, I admit, sometimes Uncut is just super hotter than Cut!
I don’t agree with you, Rooks. Playing with foreskin can be so hot, and it’s so sexy to expose the glans by skinning back the foreskin. But cut dicks can be delicious, too; it always depends on the guy himself and his endowment (in some cases, big is beautiful *g*).
Circumcision can be performed for medical (phimosis) or religious reasons (with Jews and Muslims). But I’ve never quite understood the American obsession with “uncleanliness” and sanitizing the male body which is being perceived as being full of germs, secretions of all sorts, and bad smells etc. (see Kyle). Ok, even an uncut European piggy like moi has got a bathroom with a shower stall which he does use on a regular basis.
My sex buddies from the US have had lots of fun with my foreskin, by the way, it really seems to turn them on… The only uncut American guy I’ve had the pleasure of knowing intimately was an absolutely gorgeous Afro-American. Are Afro-Americans more likely to be uncut than Caucasians?
“It’s so sexy to expose the glans by skinning back the foreskin. . . ” - I think so too.
The pics of the uncut cocks above are so sexy. Luv the way how the first one bends, and the foreskin on the second one is just delish.
All hail the mighty foreskin! Okay, so maybe it’s a vestigial organ. It sure is fun to look at and play with!
*agrees emphatically with CJ*
great observation!
Just before I saw this article I was asking myself if nightcharm was ever going to discuss circumcision.
I think uncut cocks are hot, and if I had the choice to make, I would have remained intact. The choice was made instead by my parents, and ironically, they felt guilty and apologized to me about it when I was in my early teens, before I even knew the benefits (or the pleasures) of an intact penis. It was an awkward conversation when my mom said “we would have said no if we had the choice to make again,” and I told her that I didn’t care and was glad I was circumcised. That was when I was probably thirteen years old. Three or four years later, I would have agreed with my mom’s remorse. It’s a human rights issue for me; if I have a son he won’t be circumcised, or at least not until he’s old enough to make his own choice about his own body.
It’s encouraging to read that sensitivity might not be all that different between cut and uncut cocks. It seems illogical to suggest that severing 35,000 nerve endings could result in anything but a sensitivity loss, but maybe sensitivity is about more than nerve endings. I know that people with severed limbs can still “feel” in the limb that has been cut off. After all, sensation takes place in the brain, not the body part. Maybe if someone is circumcised at a young enough age (and infancy is as early as it gets), the brain makes up ways to compensate for what has been lost.
I also agree that a big part of what it means to be uncut is the look. Fortunately, on that front, men have options. A wikipedia article explains how you can restore your foreskin (at least asthetically) by stretching existing skin; if you google “foreskin restoration” there are myriad websites on it. I’ve been interested in the process on and off and have experimented with some of the techniques. There are devices that do it that don’t involve tape and detach easily - so you can still be sexually active in the meantime, and no one knows about it. The process seems bizarre and complicated at first, but there’s good news: you can experiment with stretching without being totally committed. A half-restored penis looks just like a normal, cut cock that happens to have a little more skin. You only look uncut if you pull the skin forward, and your partners will just think you were cut a little loose - you’ll still appear circumcised if you have a hard-on or even when soft if you hook up with someone who doesn’t know what you’re doing. You aren’t all-in until you’re just about done, when your skin is irreversibly stretched, in which case you can pass as a bona-fide uncircumcized male.
I’ve never seen a fully-restored male, but the pictures look quite similar to a natural intact penis. (There is a lot of variety in foreskins; both of my ex-boyfriends were uncut. One guy’s was loose, covered about 3/4 of his head, and was very, very sexy. The other’s foreskin was tight and odd shaped; far, far weirder than any restored foreskin I’ve seen pictures of.)
Hey Guys,
Just have to say that I’m not fussy - I just love both cocks!
if the guys who have foreskins like myself ( English) are clean and indulge in personal hygiene, which is not hard in the western world where we have abundant hot water supplies, then I don’t think infection is an issue. Maybe in Africa there is good reason to circumcise males as the heat and lack of fresh water etc… would cut down on sexually related diseases and HIV. But I have to say guys that pulling your foreskin back and exposing a big purple crown just gets my juices flowing every time.
Psh. I don’t understand how foreskin is gross, but the bumpy, rough scar where someone CUT OFF PART OF YOUR PENIS is just fine.
Hahah! Nice one, Joel!
Piedmont — it’s not vestigial, the foreskin insulates the glans and protects it from irritation throughout life — from feces in the diaper/nappy, to clothing, to the elements for those of us who are nudists.
This is fundamentally a human rights question.
Does your body belong to you or not?
If your body doesn’t belong to you then who does it belong to?
If it does belong to you, then any choice to amputate any part of it is yours and yours alone.
No other person, for any religious, aesthetic, cultural, or elective medical reason, has the right to make that choice for you.
Give me foreskin. I love its look, I love its feel, I love its scent, I love everything about it. I want to hold a hooded cock in my mouth all night long, or better yet feel it buried deep within me for a thousand nights in a tent, high on the side of a mountain in the Sierras. I want to feel my tongue nestled up into the folded warmth of a cock that calls me home. I want to wake in the morning to the sight of skin where the eons of natural selection deemed it useful.
It’s not that I dislike my own cutness, I just prefer the skin; would that I could have mine back again. It’s what I know and enjoy and have most often made love to and called boyfriend.
I have a preference, not a judgement.
Agreed, Wilderness.
Actually… I was born UNCUT… got CUT as an adult… and being CUT has a LOT less sensitivity then when i was not. I choose to because of an injury but still if i COULD i would decide to GO BACK to being uncut.. just so much more better. It feels way too itchy wearing underwear when your cut, loose most of the feeling in the head since its always exposed and rubbing against your pants/underwear and the sex/masturbation was SOOO much more pleasurable when your UNCUT. The only benefit i see of being cut was that you no longer get little cotton pieces from your underwear stuck inside:P lol, and its easier to put a condom on. Thats it fellas. Sums it up if i could tunr back time I would NOT have gone through with the cutting. P.S - Its the worst pain EVER… i couldnt imagine what it feels like for a baby:( Hell, I couldnt even TOUCH myself for a couple weeks afterwards and i would always go to pull back my skin keep on forgettin it wasnt there lol.
Calling circumcision a human rights issue is an extreme exaggeration. Parents have the right make decisions on their children’s behalf. There is no clear definitive proof that the elective surgery is harmful or beneficial, so it all boils down to making decisions so children can develop free from preventable illness or injuries. Its no different than choosing an experimental treatment or procedure for any other disease. You research and inform yourself of the degree of risk & benefits and move on. Not to mention cultural & religious factors. Genocide, freedom, marriage, & circumsion? Thats night and day.
However, from a vanity perspective, I would have preferred to keep my foreskin.
Although about JOe’s remark, you’re only one person, and we can’t completely go by your declaration considering we don’t know if a cut person going to being uncut would have more sensation. Well, that is if you could completely restore everything thats lost anyway.
Circumcision is genital mutilation–pure and simple. We in the West condemn societies that inflict genital mutilation on girls; we overlook it on boys. It’s wrong either way. We need to stop this barbaric practice, now!
Cut cock is UNNATURAL. If someone loves the cut look, just pull back the skin and is cut! (Please stop mutilating this wonderful part of the body)
I’m sorry, but comparing a licensed medical procedure done by professionals that does have potential health benefits to snaring a women’s vagina together with sharp rocks and string & chopping off her clit so she cannot experience pleasure to keep her pure for her future husband’s sake AND sewing her back shut after her husband/owner has used her is completely insulting.
So much is fascinating about this thread. But I guess what first (& always) amazes me in sextalk – and there’s no purer example of it than men talking about penises – is that there’s always a little proto-fascist in the center of the groin with one basic mission: to promote HIS agenda. This isn’t ‘bad’ – it’s just sort of how we seem to be constructed. Issues of hygiene (from “ewww!” to “love that funk”) in the anti- and pro-uncut crowd bespeak all sorts of mostly unexamined ancient drama - what your mommy or daddy did or didn’t do to your dick (and psyche) mixed with all kinds of assimilation and resistance to different cultures mixed with god-knows-what in an inborn temperament. Sexual ‘objects’ may appear to be pretty simple by the time they fuel wacking off, but they are hugely complicated balls of libido. I guess the hope is that we can allow our raging proto-fascist-dicks to wage their exciting wars with each other without it (er) leaking into actual fascism: fueling the kinds of ideologies that crush not only dicks, but the human spirits they bravely (if monomaniacally) salute. [In the this-probably-doesn't-relate-but-it's what's-going-on category, "The Little Princess" is playing on the TCM channel behind me right now: ever notice how pubic Shirley Temple's hair looks? Reminds me of this red-headed (uncut) dick I sucked off last week. MMMM good.)]
cheerz,
Guy Kettelhack
Well, tribal male circumcision is also done with rocks and the like too. But How about this for double standard — in some States here in the US, a woman of 18 years is not able to legally and of her own volition enter a surgeon’s office for a cosmetic procedure to her vulva, but a young man of 15 can enter his urologists’ and get circumcised without any legal problems.
And, yes, there is an ethical issue with neonatal circumcision — private property, pleasure principle, consent, hell, even religion… the parents don’t know what their child will want later in life. Will their child grow up to identify with their raised religion? Will the child value his foreskin? Will the child want to get a sex change? No one can answer these questions. Let the child decide for himself.
You know, I’ve been thinking about this - and looking at the pictures on this entry - and, as much as I’m pro-uncut, I have to say that an uncut cock only looks hotter when it’s flacid. When it’s hard, it doesn’t make any difference to me. They look almost the same; even when a foreskin is visibly there, it just doesn’t make any difference.
If you’re intact, though, walking around naked is like still having something left to be discovered. It works the way a half-covered body is so much more erotic than a naked one. I think I would be an instant exhibitionist if I were’t circumcised.
If there’s no proof that there are health benefits or dangers to circumcision, then it’s a moot point (unless you are at high risk of contracting AIDs, in which case, WEAR A FUCKING CONDOM). The purpose for it, then, lies in its religious and ritualistic value, which, I’m pretty sure, is exclusive to Judaism. Why it ever became a standard religious practice in the place (’sides the fact that Gold told ‘em to), I would be quite curious to know. But I guarantee that the majority of those WASPy parents who allow their son to get snipped do not do so out of religious fervor. They do it because we live in a Christian society derived from Puritans and Protestants, and anything that could permanently make boys less randy, less *bestial*, is clearly a Godly duty. God forbid we should ENJOY the procreative ceremony by which we populate the Earth with good, honest, and CHASTE people. Hey, I’ve got an idea, why don’t we just chop our dicks off entirely? Why, I imagine that would reduce the possibility of STDs ten fold! And you can’t really PROVE there’d be loss of sensitivity. Just a couple million nerve endings, no big deal.
In Africa they mutilate womans genitals so they feel little to no pleasure during sex, so they dont cheat on thier man. Guess they dont trust each other.
Being that Circ was made for the same reason I have to say its moraly wrong, regardless is it achieves making sex less pleasurable.
Re-read your New Testament — circumcision isn’t required in Christianity, for the most part.
Sometimes it’s necessary to state the obvious.
The right to your own body is the most fundamental human right because without your body you don’t exist.
All other human rights depend upon your right to your body.
There is no disagreement that your right to your body starts no later than birth, though some believe it starts earlier than that.
You are born with both an intact body and the right to keep it intact.
Parents do not have the right to cut off pieces of their children’s living flesh.
Even when swayed by superstition, vanity or quackery, parents still have no right to deprive their children of their intact bodies.
To do so is to violate the child’s most basic human right.
Not that anyone called me out directly, but I hever specifically mentioned any one region or culture, so all the anti-christian anti-american bias is unnecessary. And if we as humans, can’t even decide when a human being is considered a human being, then I think parents at least have the right to make decisions about their old progeny. No person can make all of their own decisions, ever. Sometimes decisions have to be made for you and you just have to deal with it. Case in point, I am circumcised. Why? Not because my parents are Christians nor because we are Americans. I had a medical condition which in the process of rectifying my deformity, a decision had to be made. No one violated me and I do quite well remember the day since I was not an infant. Sure, mayabe I might have wanted as an adult to have several holes in my penis, I guess we’ll never know now. What bothers me most, is that people are so quick to view this as a black and white issue just because they have a preference. Regardless, human rights are relative and non-universal, so once again I say ultimately it is up to the parents to decide not the morality activists crusading for pretty dick.
Hey, now that i think about it, my younger cousin Darius was born with 12 fingers, little halflings next to his pinky fingers on each hand. They had doctors tie strings around his “fingers” until they fell off. Was his human rights violated? My aunt Carla wants to go back to college to be a Christian counselor, should I accuse her of hand mutilation? I’m sure those looks of fear, constant humiliation, & whispers of being inbred, especially since they lived in South Carolina at the time, would be worth the satisfaction of not being fooled by superstitious quackery, right?
I agree totally with Wilderness.
No one has the right to amputate part of your body without your consent.
If the logic used is that circumcision prevents other problems later, then we should be removing gall bladders, spleens, tonsils and appendices at birth too!! How ridiculous does that sound? As ridiculous as removing foreskin.
Recent recommendations that sub Saharan African men be circumcised to prevent the spread of AIDS are misleading. We are dealing with a group of men who are uneducated, do not have access to hot water for proper hygiene and either refuse or cannot afford to buy condoms. AIDS can only be spread if you com in contact with the virus. Preventing the contact with prevent AIDS being spread, not circumsion.
As far as the aesthetics are concerned, there are pretty uncut cocks and there are pretty cut ones. On the other hand there are ugly cut cocks and ugly uncut cocks too. This should have no bearing on whether to be cut or not.
Why would anyone want to belong to a religion that demaneded that you amputate part of your body or that of a baby? Where is the logic? But then again when religion enters the door, all logic goes out the window.
So if you’re an atheist with phimosis, what then? How about if you’re agnostic with recurrent balanitis? What if you don’t follow any one clearly defined religion, but your family has a history of penile carcinoma?
Ignoring the religious bias of your definition of logic, I have a scenario. Your child is found to have a benign tumor somewhere on their body that as far as modern medicine conceives has no chance of becoming malignant. What do you do? Do you not remove this part of your child’s body because they have the right to make that decision later in life or do you do what is best for your child?
Children are completely under your care. They also aren’t legally responsible for themselves. Even as adults, you will not always have the right to your own medical health.
Also, asking why would anyone want to belong to a religion that demaneded that you amputate part of your body or that of a baby is just as offensive as asking one of us why would we CHOOSE to be gay or bisexual.
Where is the valid reasoning for this to be considered a human rights issue? Yes, everyone has a right to their own bodies. That i don’t disagree with. But what international doctrine states that male circumcision is a pertinent issue? Furthermore, to get to the heart of the matter, what nonbiased medical association has policies SUPPORTING society intervening and deciding on parental choices BEFORE parental entitlement to make choices in their children’s interests?
I am not advocating circumcision, at least not intentionally since I would not choose to do so willing, but I am advocating entitlement of caregivers.
>>You are born with both an intact body and the right to keep it intact.
>>Parents do not have the right to cut off pieces of their children’s living flesh.
The weak link is the second statement. It’s a nonsequitur to reason from the child rights to the parents rights in negative fashion, when the parents are the ones who will make decisions for the child for many years. The child owns his body, but where is the epistemic warrant for the second statement? To say that it is a human rights violation assumes, without benefit of argument, that the child’s right are both absolute and on par with those of the parents.
>>The purpose for it, then, lies in its religious and ritualistic value, which, I’m pretty sure, is exclusive to Judaism. Why it ever became a standard religious practice in the place (’sides the fact that Gold told ‘em to), I would be quite curious to know. But I guarantee that the majority of those WASPy parents who allow their son to get snipped do not do so out of religious fervor. They do it because we live in a Christian society derived from Puritans and Protestants, and anything that could permanently make boys less randy, less *bestial*, is clearly a Godly duty.
This is where folks display their ignorance of religion and religious history. When circumcision was supposedly inaugurated by Abraham, it was not a new practice. The reason is what is new, the mark of the covenant. Plenty of Ancient Near Eastern cultures are known to have circumcised their males, particularly Egypt. In fact, if you don’t accept the Bible’s account, then you’re still stuck with the Jews getting it from the Egyptians.
Second, the Puritans were Calvinists and believed in something called Covenant Theology, which expressly denies the validity of circumcision for Christians. They did not circumcise their children. They baptized them. The link to circumcision in paedobaptist Christianity is between circumcision, a rite that is said to be no longer necessary for religious reasons and baptism a rite that, in Puritan theology, is the sign of the covenant. There is no religious link between Puritanism and circumcision.
Circumcision for health reasons has its origins in the 19th century, when many diseases’ transmission modes were unknown. It also accorded with Victorian attitudes toward sexuality and masturbation. At the time, Calvinism (and therefore Puritanism) were out of vogue in religious circles, and liberal theology and Arminian theology were taking over in the US and Europe. Simply put, to lay the blame for circumcision at the feet of “Puritanism” is simply false. You can lay it at the feet of medical ignorance of the day and, in terms of religion, on something other than Puritanism. I would also add that it was a QUAKER surgeon, not a “Puritan” (for Quakers and Puritans were never theological cousins), was the one who linked syphilis transmission rates to circumcision, by observing that circumcised men seemed to have lower rates. That study was verified in 2006 in a positive manner. Weiss, HA; Thomas, SL; Munabi SK; Hayes RJ (Apr 2006). “Male circumcision and risk of syphilis, chancroid, and genital herpes: a systematic review and meta-analysis”. Sex Transm Infect 82 (2): 101-9. PMID 16581731. I would add here that syphilis remains an ongoing health problem for gay and bisexual males in the US. Our rates of syphilis transmission have been on the rise in many “gay ghettos.”
Religion may play a small part in the role of circumcision in the United States, for the majority of practicing Muslims and Jews do circumcise their infant sons, it does not in any way account for the 62.8% of the circumcisions done each year. Therefore, there must be other factors causing the American circumcision than. I might add that the World Health Organisation recommended in 2007 that “promoting male circumcision should be recognized as an additional, important strategy for the prevention of heterosexually acquired HIV infection in men, because in Africa, studies have showed a reduced rate of infection among the circumcised males. Several studies have shown that uncircumcised men are at greater risk of human papilloma virus (HPV) infection, and I might add here that we have a vaccine for this now, and I’d recommend that gay men get vaccinated, since HPV causes (a) genital warts and (b) cancer. Studies have found that boys with foreskins tend to have higher rates of various infections and inflammations of the penis than those who are circumcised.
Rather than basing your views on this issue on what you think to be the rights of a child, which is rather difficult to justify epistemically, aesthetics, or even health, and certainly before blaming religion (everybody’s favorite scapegoat) or making claims about medical science having produced no evidence related to circumcision and health, do some research and tell folks to make an informed decision. I realize that’s just too rational for some folks. Likewise, health conditions and disease rates and vectors vary from state to state, country to country, continent to continent. What may not be a problem where you live may well be a problem where others of us live. We do not live in the same neighborhoods in the same conditions. To reason from what they do in your part of the country or your country to what “should’ be done elsewhere is illogical. Let’s take Africa. Here’s a typical reply to circumcision’s use to prevent HIV transmission in Africa:
In a study on transmission rates of HIV from infected males to uninfected females and from infected females to uninfected males in Uganda, the authors found that circumcision status was not a significant factor in the risk of transmission. Sexually transmitted diseases obviously cannot be transmitted until an individual engages in sexual activity. Therefore, a male may make a decision to be circumcised when he is older without losing this claimed benefit.
Here are the multiple problems to illustrate how to think critically about this issue:
1. The study cited would only apply to Uganda. You can’t extrapolate from Uganda to South Africa, Kenya, et.al.
2. Ergo, the objection would, at best, only apply to Uganda.
3. The last statement is duplicitous, for one of the *other* arguments against circumcision is related to pain and another is related to recovery and another to psychology. There’s a reason that Jews do it on the 8th day (best time for coagulation in a male infant), and there’s a reason adult males don’t want to get circumcised. The objection is patently designed to favor the critic’s views. It is therefore circular.
Critics say that circumcision is traumatic, and the long-term psychological effects of circumcision are similar to the long-term effects of trauma. This may be true, but the bottom line is that you can’t interview an infant to find this out, and to say that things like this: shyness, anger, fear, powerlessness, distrust, low self-esteem, relationship difficulties, and sexual shame are related to circumcision as an infant smacks of psychological quakery. These are all issues that have multiple causes; to relate it to something that occurred as an infant that nobody will even remember and for which the initial data that is necessary to make this sort of diagnosis is simply unattainable is unsound methodology…and, yes, I do have a background in both public health and counseling, so I am quite equipped to make this observation.
Marvin said:
Recent recommendations that sub Saharan African men be circumcised to prevent the spread of AIDS are misleading. We are dealing with a group of men who are uneducated, do not have access to hot water for proper hygiene and either refuse or cannot afford to buy condoms.
This isn’t quite true. The studies in question were in both urban and rural areas, so we are NOT dealing exclusively with men who fit the description given in the second sentence. I am quite well aware of the counter arguments for these studies in the medical community. They focus not on the conditions you outline but the rates of infection in certain regions. I am also aware that probability calculations show that in discordant couples exposed for 30 years, some 74% will contract the HIV virus if circumcised, compared with 97% if uncircumcised (with incidence of 11% per year). Critics of circumcision say this is a small decrease. I don’t think so. I think a 23 % difference is quite significant in terms of risk. This is where critics will often argue for a vaccine. That’s nice; but it does not look like a vaccine will be coming anytime soon.
There are remedies for phimosis that do not include the uncessary amputation of the foreskin.
Each male needs to make their own choice about circumcision. IT IS NOT REVERSABLE. Stretching what is left is not the same because there are glands, tissue and other vital componentes that are cut off during circumcision.
I think we should also stop calling men with complete genitals something other than “uncut.” I believe using the work “uncut” implies that it is unnatural somehow. Having a foreskin is the natural state of the penis. Having it cut off is unnatural, painful, unnecessary and should be the choice of the man (not child, parent, guardian or any other person) wearing the penis.
I agree, Gerry Ferry: Circumcision is not reversable. The rest of you blokes, blah, blah, blah.
You’re right, it SHOULD be the choice of the man, but since the man is a child and the child cannot reasonably make his own decisions then it IS the choice of the caregiver. Lets be honest. You have virtually no rights at all. You do not vote. You do not pay taxes. What you do have, is representation by adults and laws to protect you.
Saying there are other remedies is not a valid argument, there are alternative options to any illness. Other options can be explored and failed just the same. In a perfect world, permanent choices would never have to be made & the first choice would always be the best choice, but we do not live in a perfect world.
Saying it is unnecessary is biased and not true. In some cases, it is necessary. Its illogical to base a decision on the opinion of an adult a child will become. There’s no gurantee that the child will even make it into adulthood.
The rights of an adult who does not exist yet, does not circumvent or trump the rights of the guardian. Regardless of everyone’s opinions, this is the legal fact of the matter.
isn’t great that however we manage the inevitably botched job of parents, culture & the medical establishment our erotic imaginations still have such power & scope? sometimes prisons are prods to incredible creativity.
Guy
It’s actually quite simple.
The right to keep your body intact precludes anyone else from having the right to cut bits of it off.
If it was that simple, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
Infant children are completely incompetent. They are unable to have informed consent, thus their power of attorney goes to their legal guardian or the state.
Ask someone who has had an active sex life both with and wiothout a foreskin to see which is better - I was cut at 40 and would NEVER want my foreskin back. Sex is more intense for me and my wife since I was cut - I recommend it to anyone who still has the hood!
i am the typee of guy that doesn’t ahve a preferance. For example, I love Remy Delaine….he is the master, but he is uncut and I still thiink that he has the hootest looking dick in the world! Others like Matthew Rush, are cut, and I still find them hot…….the matter of cut or not doesn’t matter, it is how it looks like as a whole!
well john this time you have opened a bigger can of worms than last time you introduced the cut/uncut theme. wish i had saved a copy of my diatribe of last year was it. could copy and paste it. poor cameron has missed the point although he is argueing from a point of medical exceptions and not from the point of the masses. it has been a delight if not irritating to read all my nightcharm comrades comments. i am for uncut but find cut also hot. but i am for a persons right to choose for himself. barring real life threatening circumstances at birth. but it is a religious issue jewish/moslem and an american christian issue in terms of the motivation to slice off the foreskin at birth. in some tribes it was done as a passage to manhood around the age of 12 or 13. it is a ritual. but we have moved on from all that hocus pocus. well some of us anyway. maybe life was easier when everything was predetermined in the group and homogenous so that no one stood out. each knew his or her place and one did not veer from that point. when i was a boy and in the society i lived in one wore specific clothes for specific times of day and occassion. this is no longer the case in most of the western world. it was easier in some ways. now one has the freedom to wear what one wants whether to the opera, a ball or the disco and they will not be condemned. diversity. u s america is the only country in its religious dillusions that hacked off en mass, generations of foreskins. (more to cum oops i mean come)
So, I agree that parents need to make decisions for their children. That’s what being a parent is all about. The reason is that a baby, being a baby, is unable to fend for itself, to provide for itself. It does not know what is dangerous, healthy, fun, difficult… etc. Circumcision, though? That’s totally a different issue. Imagine that a baby *did* suddenly become cognizant and aware and world-wise: where do *you* think he’d tell the doctor to shove those clippers? Or perhaps he’d say “Oh please doctor, chop off a piece of my penis. It’s for my own good!”
I haven’t missed any point. I see exactly where the opposition is coming from, but I’m not dealing in opinions or ideals. This is the way things are. I’m not arguing from medical exceptions per se, so much as parental rights on their children’s interests, be it medical, cultural, or spiritual.
And as far as babies becoming aware, that would not make much of a difference. Children at later ages resist eating food thats healthy for them and medicine that make them well. Adults don’t heed wise advise on their issues either.
It seems like everyone is so caught up in how things should be that they are caught up in this idealized perception of reality. If and when you all have children, then tell me the way things SHOULD be. Its all well and fine to have ideals, but how often is the ideal real? Not one country on this Earth has outlawed this procedure, so obviously its not as huge a violation as some of you are claiming.
This is a personal decision, pro or con, for parents to decide and its a slippery slope to say what decisions can and can’t be made by parents. A child’s diet is pertinent to their development too, so whats next? Outlawing dietary decisions from parental consent too?
Abusing, torturing, endangering or neglecting a child is a crime in the United States.
Malnourishment resulting from neglect or which endangers a child is a crime.
So, yes, the law already regulates how you feed or fail to feed your child.
Children are not property and parents do not have the right to do whatever they like to them.
Your argument is inaccurate, sensationalist, subjective, & entirely based in emotion, completely ignoring logic, reason, or laws.
There is not a law on Earth that outright bans the procedure, nor is the procedure realistically or unbiasedly any of the adjectives you’ve described.
The law doesn’t regulate WHAT or HOW you feed your child, it regulates how nurished your child is.
And PROPERTY is all semantics. No person is a possesion, but every child is someone’s ward.
Parents have the right to do whatever they want with their children as long as it is in their interests, within the confines of the law.
Quicky question. If this choice is so unquestionably immoral, then have any of you done anything to stop this? Anything substantial and relevant at all? If abortion can be debated on a national level, then so can this.
New article on the politics of circumcision:
To Circumcise or Not?
Just ’cause the law doesn’t ban it doesn’t mean it’s *right*… There’s a difference between making sure your child gets suitable nutrition during its formative years, and chopping off a piece of his dick ’cause “it’s not against the law.”
I understand where you’re coming from, really i do. But be reasonable. By that argument, it doesn mean its wrong either.
In real life, ethics are unclear & can be debated one way or another. Whats “wrong” for one individual or culture is not universally wrong for others.
So unfortunately, it really does all boil down to what is and isn’t against the law, otherwise its just something that is frowned upon. And who gives a shit about a frown.
For God’s sake, medical professionals can’t agree on this, so whats gives you the authority or the right to decide thats its wrong?
Its odd to me that you will almost NEVER find a group, person, or website that absolutely is Pro-routine circumcision but while searching for con-circumcision, it is ABSOLUTELY effortless to find un-objective people, groups, opinions, activism, websites, & various other propaganda Here are a few links of interest that i promise are not completely fanatical.
(link)
(pdf link)
(link)
(link)
Well, there is one other site, but honestly, it is occasionally biased. When it isn’t though, it has some good points. (link)
I LOVE THE FORESKIN! I DON’T KNOW WHY BUT IT SEEMS SEXY TO ME!
Moms! Stop destroying you boy babies’ penis by having him cut because his daddy is..thats the awful