It's only dickish because people are still politically correct about biological child-rearing. Weird though how it's not politically incorrect to leave children without proper caregivers when people, who desire children, are competent and capable.

I don't think anyone with the desire to adopt is having second thoughts about adopting a child because of/lack of circumcision... maybe and even so they probably aren't fit to adopt anyways so it's a moot point.

I think it's dickish because you're implying he and his wife have been rejected for adoption already and because you're making light of their fertility issues.

I wasn't making light of fertility issues. I was highlighting there are other ways to attain a child if you care so much to raise a child.

It might not have been what you intended, but it read very much as "What-- you haven't gotten over the immense emotional mountain of trying to biologically conceive children and looked into adoption yet?"

I didn't intend for it to be that harsh or emotionally charged, but I certainly am not going to run away from it either.

I think it's dickish to keep saying "dickish" in a discussion about dicks.

Again, you missed my point - what I'm saying is that a parent who adopts doesn't have to think about circumcision, because that decision has already been made.  So, the only way you need to worry about circumcision is if you have a biological child.  Since the odds of my wife and I having a biological child are lower than most people's, I thought it was relevant to mention that (i.e. to specify that this was something we'd have to deal with if we had a bio child, as opposed to adopting) in my original comment.  All the rest was baggage you attached to that.

Allons-y!

Of course mentioning it was relevant in your mind even if it didn't matter at all to the topic at hand.

Most people on TNT are aware of our fertility issues, so anything I say about kids is colored by that.  If this was a hard news site, sure, it's not relevant, but we're hardly a hard news site, are we ?

Allons-y!

Well if you make multiple threads on it then the 5 people that post on here probably would be aware.

My dad's neighbor was circumcised at age 12 and the kids mom made him go around and show all the neighbors. Ah, the 1950s.

I HAD HAD SEX WITH HUNTER S THOMPSON. HE CAME IN MY MOUTH AND I SWALLOWED IT. I SHOULD HAVE HAD HIS BABY. WE WOULD BE BALLIN' LIKE KOBE'S SON!!

These studies controlled for number of sex partners and use of condoms, so your critique is invalid.  I can also guarantee that male circumcision does nothing to reduce sexual pleasure or desire, and I've only ever heard people who haven't Ben circumcised and are strongly opposes ti the whole thing claim it does - there's little to no actual evidence that it affects sexual response in a negative way.  The comparisons to female circumcision are completely off base.

Allons-y!

We've been around this before. People that make purchases very rarely are public around criticizing their purchases. People who weren't given any choice in the matter are even more likely to just accept their position.

I'd like to see this "guarantee", personal anecdote in regards to how well your penis works not exactly a guarantee.

People who weren't given any choice in the matter are even more likely to just accept their position.

Women who have undergone forcible FGM speak out against it all the time, and even those who buy into it Stockholm-syndrome like admit that it reduces or eliminates their sexual pleasure (they just see that as a feature, not a bug).  Can you at least agree that even if male circumcision is wrong, there's still no comparing it to FGM?  They're just not even in the same ballpark in terms of what their impact is on the ability to experience sexual pleasure.  In fact, can you even find me one peer reviewed study that shows that male circumcision results in greater sexual dysfunction?  Everything I've seen has show little to no difference in the circumcised population.

Allons-y!

Women who have undergone forcible FGM speak out against it all the time...

Yeah because they are forced (as if there is non-forcible FGM lol) at a time when they usually know or at least have an idea what the fuck is going on. You perform forced circumcision on 6-12 year olds and pretty sure you'll get a bunch of people speaking out against it.

Can you at least agree that even if male circumcision is wrong, there's still no comparing it to FGM?

No.

I'm pretty sure that you had no idea what your hardon felt like as a baby or what it really felt like to go through that procedure. But I'm almost certain a girl could feel that pain for a long time. Doesn't lessen it in any regard because it was done earlier when you didn't have the capacity to remember the pain.

Hell, I could bash your skull in a baby, you would no fuckin' idea that you suffered a traumatic brain injury, now it's just part of your life. That's all you know and nothing else.

I like how you shnuck in that peer-reviewed shit so I post a study and you knock it down quick right for not meeting your goal posts. Nice.

Peer review is the standard for scientific research.  Can you articulate what your problem is with peer review?  

Allons-y!

Here's one:

There was a decrease in masturbatory
pleasure and sexual enjoyment after
circumcision, indicating that adult
circumcision adversely affects sexual function
in many men, possibly because of
complications of the surgery and a loss of
nerve endings.

Yes, it's about adult men but I assume babies tend to grow up to be adult men.

Also, can you articulate to me, going against all common sense and intuition, why you don't think cutting off a portion of skin with a significant amount of nerve endings would not result in the reduction of stimulus?

You buried the lead from your own link: "There were no significant differences in sexual drive, erection, ejaculation, and ejaculation latency time between circumcised and uncircumcised men" - so the penis works the same.  The main finding seems to be that masturbation is more difficult...I will give you that - if you're circumcised and your masturbate without using some kind of lube you're asking for trouble.  Since these guys mostly grew up masturbating with the aid of a foreskin, presumably they weren't aware of that.  I highly recommend Astroglide.  It also appears that complications seem more prevalent with adult circumcision (which the study looked at) as opposed to infant circumcision.  Your linked paper also notes that "Studies of circumcision and sexual function have been mostly done on neonatally circumcised males [2,3], and little difference was found in sexuality in these studies" - further indication that infant circumcision is the better choice, if you're going to do it.

Allons-y!

The only way to do a controlled study is to do it on guys that got circumcised later in life, which this study proves have a reduction in feeling.

You can't do a study on a guy that was circumcised at birth because he has no idea what it is like to be not circumcised. It's a ridiculous and silly way to look at it.

The only way to do a controlled study is to do it on guys that got circumcised later in life, which this study proves have a reduction in feeling.

Adult circumcision is fundamentally different than infant circumcision, though - you're going to remember it, for one.  I think it's also safe to assume that there are more likely to be complications and the whole experience is likely to be more traumatic, because the organ is larger, and because infants heal faster than adults do.  It's just not an analogous surgery.

You can't do a study on a guy that was circumcised at birth because he has no idea what it is like to be not circumcised. It's a ridiculous and silly way to look at it.

If sexual performance and self-reported levels of pleasure are the same, what does it matter?  Even in the study you cited, the majority (52%) said that their pleasure levels were the same or better than before they were circumcised.  If this was truly the traumatic mutilation you make it out to be, wouldn't you expect a heck of a lot more to say they had problems?

Allons-y!

Adult circumcision is fundamentally different than infant circumcision, though - you're going to remember it, for one.

Oh like with most cases of FGM, which I stated above?

I'm sure if you circumcised female babies they would still receive the same benefits of faster healing and shit you're describing with mutilating male babies.

BTW, I am glad you used "MORE TRAUMATIC" as in it is already traumatic.

If sexual performance and self-reported levels of pleasure are the same, what does it matter?

It's not the same and it does matter. What do you think these guys did? Have a pleasure meter by their beds before and after circumcision and were able to measure their pleasure amounts? It's psychological. If you just got an irreversible, pretty much pointless surgery done, you're probably more than likely to accept your stuck with it for the rest of your life.

If male rape was truly the traumatic experience I make it out to be then wouldn't you expect more males to come out and say they were raped... we can go on for forever with this stupid line of reasoning.

If male rape was truly the traumatic experience I make it out to be then wouldn't you expect more males to come out and say they were raped... we can go on for forever with this stupid line of reasoning.

The correct parallel would be more victims of male rape reporting that it was traumatic.  Do many male victims of rape not say that it was a bad thing?

Are there surveys done asking male rape victims if they had a good time?

If you just got an irreversible, pretty much pointless surgery done, you're probably more than likely to accept your stuck with it for the rest of your life.

I simply don't agree with that.  It simply doesn't make sense to me to think that if male circumcision was as traumatic and awful as you're making it out to be, that it would have continued for as long as it has - or for that matter, that the people who've had it done to them wouldn't feel like they were missing something.  I masturbate regularly, I have sex regularly, I enjoy both, no pain, no premature ejaculation (or difficulty finishing, as far as that goes) - I really don't know what I'm supposedly missing here?  That's the one thing that I've never heard any anti-circumcision person explain adequately to me - if everything works, what, exactly, is the problem with it working (presumably, since there's no way to really compare until we figure out how to do brain transplants or something like that) slightly differently?

Allons-y!

Based on all the conversations I've had with all the circumcised and uncircumcised men I know, there's just no question that circumcised sex (including masturbation) is less pleasurable. It just doesn't look as good on camera.

I HAD HAD SEX WITH HUNTER S THOMPSON. HE CAME IN MY MOUTH AND I SWALLOWED IT. I SHOULD HAVE HAD HIS BABY. WE WOULD BE BALLIN' LIKE KOBE'S SON!!

I mean of course it's more of a controversy because it is about a sex organ, I don't disagree, but then so is female circumcision, which was/is practiced for the same reasons as male circumcision when the idea was conceived. It has never been really about sexual safety or health reasons, and has been about reducing sexual pleasure.

Just because it comes from the Bible doesn't mean it's not for health reasons.  There are a lot of requirements from the Old Testament that stem from health issues.

I'm also not sure there's any Judeo-Christian tradition of concern about male sexual pleasure.  And I also know of no reason to believe that sexual pleasure is diminished.  I can't really conceive of sex sans condoms feeling better than it does now.

There are a lot of requirements from the Old Testament that stem from health issues

What, like Leviticus 18:22?

I was thinking more in terms of cooking preparations, but yes, homosexual sex carries with it greater health problems than heterosexual sex.  I think that particular proscription, however, was more influenced by the need to produce more believers.

You're saying that they had the statistics and studies back then to prove that homosexual sex was more dangerous than heterosexual sex, hence why they banned it? This is long the lines of pork being banned because it was harder to preserve?

No, I was acknowledging that there are greater health concerns related to homosexual sex than to heterosexual sex.  It's possible that people had noticed a trend without hard numbers but, like I said, I think that proscription was intended to ensure the birth of a greater number of believers.

So they were guessing, like they could have been guessing that cutting a bit of the penis off would reduce pleasure.

Philo also claimed that circumcision "spiritualizes" the Jewish male by decreasing pride and pleasure, hence enhancing the spiritual persona of the Israelite male (De Circumcisione, 11:210). For Maimoinides, circumcision both quiets lust and perfects what is defective morally. The "diminution" of the penis is not performed to correct a congenital problem but to diminish the pleasure principle through the painful surgical process. It alters the sensibilities of the male in ways commensurate with the optimal moral life of the Jew.

I mean it seems intuitive. It's "mild" neutering really.

god that place is fucked up

I HAD HAD SEX WITH HUNTER S THOMPSON. HE CAME IN MY MOUTH AND I SWALLOWED IT. I SHOULD HAVE HAD HIS BABY. WE WOULD BE BALLIN' LIKE KOBE'S SON!!

Where do you come up with "propaganda"?  I just thought it was an apt comparison (and not one that I've heard anyone else make) - I'm not a pro-circumcision activist or something, I'm just thinking out loud about this issue.  If anyone has his ideological blinders on, it's you.  

And "same or even less benefit"? Are you kidding? One involves committing an action - having sex, the other protects you from something you haven't done at all. A vaccine protects me from other people everyday, a circumcision maybe protects me from myself - if I am a retard that doesn't know to properly clean himself.

Due to heard immunity, if you live in the United States or another developed country, you're very unlikely to actually get any individual benefit from those vaccines, because you're very unlikely to ever come in contact with those diseases.  If you skipped all your kid's vaccines, there's probably a less than 1% chance that your kid would ever actually come down with any of those diseases.  Of course, if everyone did that then all those diseases would quickly make a comeback, which is why vaccines are as close to mandatory as we're comfortable making them - but that doesn't change the fact that at an individual level, for any particularly individual, you're probably more likely right now to be harmed by the vaccine (even though adverse reactions to vaccines are rare, they do happen) than protected by it - hence the success and visibility of the anti-vaccine movement...there's a grain of truth at the heart of their crazy.

Allons-y!

I've seen the comparison made before, and it is propaganda. I have ideological blinders on when my penis is intact and I don't know anyone immediately that is barbaric enough to butcher their infant sons? I'm not the one that has to live with it.

Due to heard immunity, if you live in the United States or another developed country, you're very unlikely to actually get any individual benefit from those vaccines, because you're very unlikely to ever come in contact with those diseases.  If you skipped all your kid's vaccines, there's probably a less than 1% chance that your kid would ever actually come down with any of those diseases.

• I actually go to developing countries and alot of people do nowadays so of course that is beneficial to get vaccinated.

• Is there a massive wall around the USA which I am not seeing? Because I am pretty sure people from developing countries are coming to the US all the time in airplanes and boats and cars. The vaccination protects me from them too.

The grain of truth here is what JoshV is saying that SOME vaccinations are not immediately necessary, especially those that are not contagious via air-borne or general human contact. You're comparing them to vaccinations that require intimate human contact, wholly different things. That's another reason why calling circumcision a vaccination is beyond silly. Cutting off my friggin' hands is a vaccination from the common fuckin' cold, saves me the damn trouble of washing my hands or using Purell.

Is there a massive wall around the USA which I am not seeing? Because I am pretty sure people from developing countries are coming to the US all the time in airplanes and boats and cars. The vaccination protects me from them too.

We're talking odds here - yeah, people from developing countries come to the US, but most of those that do come aren't sick and the odds of any random unvaccinated individual coming into contact with someone who is sick are pretty slim.  

Allons-y!

You see no parallel at all between injecting your child with a biologically active agent that could kill him (although will more likely benefit him), and removing a portion of his body, which has a small chance of causing harm, and a large chance of protecting him against STDs should he engage in unprotected sex?  In both cases you're risking some harm for some benefit, and in both cases you're making the decision because the kid is incapable of doing so.

Allons-y!