I still have occasional swelling.
|
|
That'll decrease as you get older. |
Posted on 04/05/2006 5:19:29 PM PDT by Giant Conservative
The debate about neonatal circumcision is over. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), neonatal circumcision is the result of ignorance, bad medical practice and American social and cultural pressure. Regarding the three most commonly cited justifications for neonatal circumcision (penile cancer, venereal disease and penile hygiene), the AAP now states that the benefits are negligible, which means that the majority of American men are walking around without foreskins for no good reason. Yet, the barbaric practice shows no sign of abating, and for this reason I plan to shed some light on the cultural dark spot of circumcision.
The U.S. stands alone as the only country in the world (including developed, developing and undeveloped countries) where neonatal nonreligious circumcision is routine for physicians and their unwitting patients.
In contrast, 80 percent of the planet does not practice circumcision, and since 1870 no other country has adopted it. China, Japan, Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Scandinavia, Holland and Russia have never condoned the practice (except for religious purposes), and of the other countries that do practice neonatal nonreligious circumcision (Canada, Australia and Great Britain), there has been a regimented decline in circumcisions by about 10 percent per decade in accordance with the advice of each country’s own respective medical institutions.
If we take a look at the latter group of English-speaking countries, the statistics show just how wildly disproportionate the U.S. endemic is when compared with its English speaking cousins. In the second-highest-instance countries, Australia and Canada, the amount of neonatal nonreligious circumcisions is estimated to be about 30 percent, compared to Great Britain where only 1 percent of males can expect to have their foreskins cut off before they have even acquired one-word language acquisition to be able to say “No!”. In the U.S., however, the number of circumcised males is estimated to be approximately 80 percent. Only in America has medical science taken a back seat in the fight for the foreskin.
As Edward Wallerstein aptly points out in Circumcision: The Uniquely American Medical Enigma, “[i]n 1971 and 1975, the American Academy of Pediatrics Task Force on Circumcision declared: ‘…there are no valid medical indications for circumcision in the neonatal period.’” Subsequently, this decision has been endorsed by The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in 1978 and by the AAP in 1999.
And yet, Wallerstein highlights that “[t]he ‘firm’ declarations should have caused a marked drop in the United States circumcision rate. They did not.” The truth is that neonatal circumcision is deeply rooted in American culture: so much so, in fact, that many American parents actually believe they are doing their sons a service, when, in only one foul slice, the dangers of penile cancer, venereal disease and bad hygiene are purportedly quashed (along with premature ejaculation, masturbation, and general ugliness). But American parents have been grossly misguided.
The AAP affirms that the majority of reported benefits by which parents justify circumcision are groundless hearsay. Notably, penile cancer might be preventable through circumcision of the foreskin, just as the potential for most diseases is eliminable by the complete removal of the vulnerable body part — I bet I could guarantee you would never contract Hotchkiss brain disease if you let me cut your head off too — but the fact is that the foreskin is an important, healthy and irreplaceable part of a child’s body, and in the absence of overwhelming medical evidence proving the link between retention of the foreskin and penile cancer, the AAP has had no choice but to disregard this cultural claim.
Furthermore, as far as the argument that circumcision reduces the risk of contracting venereal diseases goes, Wallerstein crucially highlights that “health” circumcision originated in 19th century England, where the theory emerged that masturbation was responsible for such things as asthma, hernia, gout, kidney disease, rheumatism and even alcoholism.
The Victorian aversion to all acts sexual was fertile ground for genital mutilation to take root and, since the English cultural practice stormed the U.S., beliefs about the purported benefits of the practice have barely changed, while Great Britain has become a born-again circumcision virgin. Consequently, the link proposed between any disease and the foreskin is outdated fallacy — including venereal diseases.
As if that was not enough, the AAP also states that “there is little evidence to affirm the association between circumcision status and optimal penile hygiene.” Consequently, parental supervision of the foreskin is a far more appropriate measure for reducing the chances of infection in a boy’s penis than a radical surgical procedure, especially when the short-term effects of circumcision can include anything from changed sleeping patterns to psychological disruptions in feeding and bonding between mother and infant, profuse bleeding, subsequent infection from surgery, and even death.
Moreover, the AAP recognizes that circumcision causes extreme pain and trauma for infants, since circumcised infants exhibit deterioration in pain threshold as much as six months later when receiving mandatory vaccinations, while the long-term physical and psychological damage is undocumented.
In short, the idea that neonatal circumcision is the answer to all of men’s ills is erroneous. Like the Jewish religious practice of circumcision, American nonreligious circumcision is dependent on the acceptance of cultural beliefs, and the sad truth is that Americans hold to the norm as tenaciously as they hold to the scalpel, although they do not entirely know why because they are not being told.
Religious circumcision is one thing, but circumcision for no good reason ... well, what is the sense of that? There is none! Removal of the foreskin is a cultural mistake, and I hope that on reading these facts you will break the ghastly cycle if the choice ever becomes your own. It’s about time the foreskin became sacred too.
You never heard of a clitorectomy?
The girls clitoris is removed, cut out, surgically removed, just like a boy's foreskin is cut off. The idea is to keep her from that particular "g" spot.
It's an African practice, mostly east Africa, but is done as far north as to southern Egypt.
Disgusting, barbaric and unnecessary, as I think circumcision is.
Maybe these horrible things were okay centuries ago, but, today? Nope.
You're going to have a tough time selling that world-wide ban to Israel.
Barbarism. Hmmm. I'm not buying it.
I still have occasional swelling.
|
|
That'll decrease as you get older. |
Twenty skins a week and a chance to get a head. ; )
Lol. If you really knew women, you would KNOW that 99.9% of all women on this planet, liberal, conservative or don't know, have absolutely NO interest whatever in circumcision.
It's most interesting that you talk with women about it. You must be quite an interesting person to have that subject come up in polite converstaion. In all my life (many decades of it) male circumcision has never, never, never, ever come up even once. I live in a very liberal city, work at a very liberal place, have some liberal women friends and am, myself, very conservative. And that topic never came up.
I'm not Jewish, so perhaps that accounts for it. Why else would it EVER come up in conversation?
PERHAPS, when I saw the "David" in Florence, back in 1975, I might have THOUGHT about it, but my friends and I were entranced with the butt on that statue, not the, er, frontal part. Other than the occasional Greek/Roman statues, the subject would hardly ever come up.
I had to put in a comment on the first page of the thread because it was such a novel thread topic.
I haven't heard that one in years. Mazeltov
Well put.
You won't hear the circumcised back down. It's turned into an emotional thing and when that happens, brain turns off.
The foreskin wouldn't be on human males if it were bad for them. It would have been bred out by nature if it were.
If the foreskin were so evil, dangerous and stinky, 90% of the world's males WOULD BE circumcised, instead of the other way around.
We've learned to eat pork too. Jews, Arabs and Muslims still don't eat it. Well, neither do Hindus. HEY, that's more bacon, ham, sausage and pork roast for MOI!!!
Circumcision made sense if you lived in a dry desert environment with no dependable water source to clean oneself...other than for primitive reasons...nope seems archaic now.
after my circumcision I couldn't walk for nearly a year.
But when it was done, I was only 8 weeks old. ;-)
One thing, Female circumsism was never okay, ever, centuries ago or today.
In some ahem...practices, it's sewn up as a sort of "chastity belt."
Saw this earlier. Not interested. I'm looking for a thread on public breatfeeding or pitbulls:)
I'm a woman, and it came up as a topic when my friends and I were having boys. Some got their boys circumcised, and others did not.
I'm not touching this one with a 10" pole.
I'd wait a day or two myself. No sense rushing things.
Ahhhh, but you don't really know what you are missing, do you?
So will your son when he gets old enough to realize that his ***** looks drastically different than everyone else.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
