Comments on: To cut or not to cut: The question of circumcision https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/04/24/to-cut-or-not-to-cut-the-quest/ Mon, 26 Apr 2010 07:58:38 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.6 By: ginger https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/04/24/to-cut-or-not-to-cut-the-quest/#comment-517693 Mon, 26 Apr 2010 07:58:38 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/04/24/to-cut-or-not-to-cut-the-quest/#comment-517693 Sarah@43 – Oh dear. Didn’t anyone at the doctor’s office think to suggest underwear or button-fly pants or getting up earlier so he could dress more slowly and carefully? Surgery seems like a drastic solution to what sounds like a sartorial rather than a medical problem.

]]> By: DuWayne https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/04/24/to-cut-or-not-to-cut-the-quest/#comment-517692 Mon, 26 Apr 2010 07:46:41 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/04/24/to-cut-or-not-to-cut-the-quest/#comment-517692 Glad you were charmed, I was not. I could give a damn whether you remember jack shit, nor do I give a fuck what the asshole was responding to. I said that the jackass was claiming that cut men are less for it and sexually dysfunctional, which garnered a skeptical response. This happened on a couple other threads around that time, including the huge thread on the post Pal linked to.

I don’t like being accused of reading comprehension problems or flat lying.

And for what you are denying, I refer you back to the quotation at the top of this page.

Shy of an uncircumcised man getting circumcised later in life, the uncircumcised have no idea what sex is like sans foreskin either. And even then they have no idea what sex is like for someone who grew up without one. I am not denying it is possible it might be better or at least different. I am simply saying that I really could give a fuck. I have no problems with sexual function or any other functionality.

It really seems to me that the problem you are having is that I’m not traumatized by my lack of foreskin. I am not sure why you find this so very threatening or problematic, given that I don’t support circumcision. Or are you saying that the only way to not be against your position is to cry into my pillow at night, mourning that foreskin I lost so many years ago? Or do I just need to accept and admit that I am less of a man?

]]> By: Hugh7 https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/04/24/to-cut-or-not-to-cut-the-quest/#comment-517691 Mon, 26 Apr 2010 06:14:15 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/04/24/to-cut-or-not-to-cut-the-quest/#comment-517691 @Anton Mates: “AFAIK, from what little survey work has been done on the subject, American women tend to prefer circumcised penises.”
All we have is one study (Williamson & Williamson) of 145 Iowa new mothers (54% of those sent the survey). 97.9% were Caucasian, 1.4% (2) were black, and 0.7%(1) was Hispanic. Only 24 of them had ever encountered an intact man. 77% preferred a circumcised penis because it “seems more natural” and 54% because it “stays softer”! Yet that is the whole basis for the claim about “American women”.

@DuWayne: Charmed, I’m sure. Yes, I’d forgotten that post from November 2008, just as I imagine you forget it was in response to a blog claiming the Intactivist movement are “foreskin worshippers”.

And for what you are denying, I refer you back to the quotation at the top of this page.
“Men circumcised at birth saying that they prefer being circumcised makes as much sense as a man deaf in one ear extolling the virtues of monophonic sound”

That has a particular resonance 🙂 for me, because I’m old enough to remember when stereophonic sound was new, and I was very skeptical that another channel could add anything of value to music (which is, after all, only sound) – until I actually heard it.

]]> By: zeb https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/04/24/to-cut-or-not-to-cut-the-quest/#comment-517690 Mon, 26 Apr 2010 02:49:23 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/04/24/to-cut-or-not-to-cut-the-quest/#comment-517690 Conversation seems to have dried up so:

Eunuchs anyone?

]]> By: John https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/04/24/to-cut-or-not-to-cut-the-quest/#comment-517689 Sun, 25 Apr 2010 23:09:01 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/04/24/to-cut-or-not-to-cut-the-quest/#comment-517689 As much sense as some of the arguments are against male circumcision…they just ring hollow to me. I’m cut, and after researching it myself am damn happy about it. I remember watching a Penn & Teller Bullshit episode on it. Their argument was “hey you might have smegma…but that’s a natural lubricant!” and “every woman we asked was repulsed by an uncircumcised penis but..they’re wrong!”

I’m going to be honest. I like getting laid. The pro-smegma argument and the pro-thewomaniswrong argument are not going to accomplish this for me. They will actively hinder me. It’s not “natural” to cut hair or to shave with a laser etched razor either…and that goes for the face and the nether regions. These are cultural inventions that have become convention…and I will be fitting in thank you very much. …I just noticed a wicked double entendre I stumbled upon there… yay me 🙂

]]> By: DuWayne https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/04/24/to-cut-or-not-to-cut-the-quest/#comment-517688 Sun, 25 Apr 2010 22:26:11 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/04/24/to-cut-or-not-to-cut-the-quest/#comment-517688 Oh, and I am curious about what exactly I am denying?

No, I am not the least bit upset that I have a circumcised penis. It has always done what I wanted it to and with very reasonable results. While I have come to conclude that male circumcision is ultimately not something that should be inflicted on infants, I am not going to pretend that I am somehow lacking or feel bad that mine was cut.

So what the fuck exactly am I denying here?

]]> By: DuWayne https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/04/24/to-cut-or-not-to-cut-the-quest/#comment-517687 Sun, 25 Apr 2010 22:05:17 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/04/24/to-cut-or-not-to-cut-the-quest/#comment-517687 Hi Hugh, Fuck You. I have more than adequate reading comprehension skills, I am perfectly capable of parsing what people actually fucking say.

http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2008/11/why_male_circumcision_and_fema.php#comment-1206772

I am not going to wade through the shitstorm of a thread on the “Science Based Medicine” thread he linked to again, but the same fucking shit showed up there too.

]]> By: Hugh7 https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/04/24/to-cut-or-not-to-cut-the-quest/#comment-517686 Sun, 25 Apr 2010 21:07:37 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/04/24/to-cut-or-not-to-cut-the-quest/#comment-517686 @ Birger Johansson: That is called “the Sand Myth”. See http://www.circumstitions.com/sand.html . Where sand is a problem, an open wound is the last thing you want.

The similarity between male and female genital cutting is ethical: both are human rights violations. (But when you compare apples with apples, tribal with tribal, they are quite similar. 80 boys died of tribal circumcision in one province of South Africa alone last year, and they’re just as dead as all the girls who’ve died of FGC. “Medical” FGC was covered by Blue Cross Blue shield till 1977, but now it’s illegal.)

@Azkyroth: Neither have I ever seen circumcised men called “deficient” or “sexually dysfunctional”. They seem to jump to that conclusion when you point out that cutting a richly innervated part off the penis can only do harm to their sexual experience. It is the ones who are angry about that who are reacting appropriately, not those who deny it.

]]> By: Greg Laden https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/04/24/to-cut-or-not-to-cut-the-quest/#comment-517685 Sun, 25 Apr 2010 15:57:52 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/04/24/to-cut-or-not-to-cut-the-quest/#comment-517685 Technically, it is possible that his religion also forbade zippers, so whatever.

]]> By: Sarah https://gregladen.com/blog/2010/04/24/to-cut-or-not-to-cut-the-quest/#comment-517684 Sun, 25 Apr 2010 15:54:34 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/04/24/to-cut-or-not-to-cut-the-quest/#comment-517684 My two cents as a woman.
I’ve been sexually active with circumcised men as well as uncircumcised (husband is uncircumcised). In all honesty, I prefer the uncircumcised. (Although I know a lot of women who prefer “cut” men, although I don’t think many of these women have ever seen an intact man so can’t really compare).

I say keep baby boys intact and if they want to chop their willies up when they grow up then they can get it done.

Okay, amusing (to me) anecdote time: I did know a young man who wanted to get circumcised because he kept getting his foreskin caught in his zipper (I was working in a doctor’s office at the time) he’d managed to slice the poor thing all the way from the tip, about a quarter way up his penis. I don’t think he cared much about HIV when requesting his snip and his mom was pitching a fit because their religion forbids body mutilation.

]]>