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.
Muslims circumcise, see my post #400.
Muslims DO circumcise; exactly when they do it varies from culture to culture. There's nary a foreskin in Mecca.
You got it.....and in this case, as much for the ladies health as well.
It's a dying practice, like it or not.
I personally couldn't care less. So why are you getting all hot and bothered by a little piece of skin on a guy's penis?
Well, YOU came to ME with your reply. You posted to me, obvioulsy all hot and bothered, NOT the other way around. Nice try.
Circumcision was one of the first, if not the first pragmatic, as opposed to dogmatic, schisms in the earliest Catholic/Christian Church.
The first Christians were Jewish, of course, but soon Gentiles converted (thanks muchly to Paul, the Jew - turned - Roman, the disciple of the Gentiles). Christian Jews or Jewish Christians expected the new Gentile Christians to be circumcised because they had to become “pure” and “clean,” as was the Jewish law for males.
Those first Christian Gentiles refused to do so. Thus the first schism – over circumcision. But the end of the first century the popes (successors of Peter, the first pope) had declared that Gentiles did not have to be circumcised.
The first popes were: St. Peter (32-67, St. Cletus (76-88) St. Clement I (88-97), St. Evaristus (97-105), St. Alexander (105-115), St. Sixtus I (115-125). They wrestled with the circumcision problem right from the get-go.
That decision effectively shut out Jews. THEY wouldn’t have anything to do with the impure, unclean, un-circumcised Gentiles, thus isolating and segregating themselves from the rest of the Christians. The Gentiles wouldn’t get circumcised, thus isolating and segregating themselves from Jews.
Arabs were Gentiles. They were some of the first Christians too. They wouldn’t circumcise their male babies either. It was anathema to them, like it was to all Gentiles. The first Muslims, in the 7th century, were Arabs, but with the spread of Islam to MOSTLY non-Arabs (75% are not Arabs) the practice of circumcision did NOT catch on beyond the Jewish faith.
Since Muslims, Hindus, Oriental Asians, Africans and Christians (except for the U.S.A.) don't practice circumcison, that WOULD BE about 90% of the world that DOESN'T practice circumcision.
"Because there is no N.O.W. advocating for men's rights in this country."
If NOW knew what the benefits were to a woman being with an uncirc'ed man, they would be shouting it from the rooftops. Intercourse is less painful, there is less "pounding" needed for the male to achieve the pleasure response and that in turn leads to better pleasuring of the woman.
Well, YOU came to ME with your reply. You posted to me, obvioulsy all hot and bothered, NOT the other way around. Nice try.
?
I'm not looking for a confrontation here. I'm just keeping things factual. Why are you acting this way over something as minor as circumcision?
"Ask Imam" says you were correct and I was incorrect. My apologies.
And, since you keep coming back to me, I guess it's just as important to you. Why are YOU acting this way over something as minor as circumcision?
When you remove all the specialized erotogenic nerve endings that are in the foreskin, you're going to lose sensation, pleasure.
Not to mention that when the little helmet is rubbing up against Jockey's all day for decades, it's gonna lose sensitivity and become calloused. Which leads to more *ahem* female discomfort in order for the male to achieve climax. The foreskin prevents that.
I'm against circumcision, but how am I impervious to the facts about it????
I have not read anything to convince me that my husband and I made a wrong decision for our son.
If he somehow chooses to have a promiscuous lifestyle and circumcision really is proven to cut down on STDs, then he can get circumcised as an adult.
Ask imam has got to be the final authority. You're right. I'm wrong.
Lol. It's still a barbaric, unnecessary, disgusting practice (as is female circumcision).
Thank you for bringing FACTS via personal experience to this thread. ;-)
*shrugs*
Whether it be something minor (circumcision, television, etcetera) or something major (illegal immigration, abortion, etcetera), the facts must be made known!
Fact-O-Man, AWAAAAAAY! *flies off*
I'll guess Maureen Dowd. It might explain her bad track record with keeping the men in her life.
I think you're being sarcastic but I'll take it at face value.
As far as I know circumcision is prescribed in the Hadith and not in the Koran itself, so perhaps that explains the variance in practice.
You remind me of the Libertarian nuts who feel children are at the mercy of their overbearing parents, and should be allowed to make adult decisions on their own if they wish. I also think you have entirely too much time on your hands, since I cannot remember any other male I know ever complaining about his glans rubbing against his clothes causing discomfort...maybe your cleaners are using too much starch.
Just checked with my husband, who agrees with RipSawyer that if his foreskin were not there walking would be exceedingly uncomfortable (unless he decided to be a nudist, I suppose). Perhaps those who are circumcised just don't know what they're missing.
Initially the pressure came from a South African girlfriend, apparently it's common practice there and she didn't like my foreskin but when I checked out the procedure on the internet I manfully resisted the temptation to have it done.
However I then moved to a mainly Muslim country and in the course of my time there I had a number of girlfriends all of whom wanted me to be circumcised, mainly on the basis of culture I would say. After living with the woman who is now my wife for a while I eventually gave in to the pressure and had the op.
Like I say there is no problem, all the people stating "facts" one way or the other frankly don't know what they're talking about. The sex is no better and no worse, the cleanliness issue is no better and no worse and there is no more discomfort without a foreskin than there was with it.
It is a totally neutral experience (except for the day or two after the op when it hurt like heck!)
That is why the Catholic Church opposes war as well as abortion, because it subscribes to the same consistent life ethic that I do.
It is sometimes referred to as the "seamless garment" code of ethics, meaning that it is internally consistent. And, it is consistent with Christianity: I can't imagine Christ dismissing the deaths of children in war as "collateral damage", as the Neocons do, or accepting abortion, as the Left does. Oh, and Christianity never needs to be hyphenated. It is what it is, and the life and message of Christ is enough to sustain it...I hope that one day civilization abandons the "Old Testament" mythology of "Abraham" and crew, which is used to justify so much wrongdoing... including, though hardly limited to cutting the genatalia of baby boys 8 days after birth (or later in the case of Islamic tradition) as a bizarre obsessive-compulsive circle of blood sacrifice meant to appease an anthpomorphic conceptualization.
Incidentally, had the Apostle Paul not virulently opposed circumcision, Gentiles never would have accepted Christ.
Undoubtedly, Paul's opposition to circumcision met with many of the same insults that have been sent at me.
But Paul won, and history is the better for his victory.
Circumcision was wrong: the Apostle Paul, and I, are right.
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