Bogus Evidence That Male Circumcision Prevents HIV Spread

[Laura]

The whole circumcision thing really gets me riled up; I guess you noticed. I think that everyone who has anything to do with circumcising an infant or anyone for any reason other than a REAL, certifiable, medical reason with lots of back-up evidence, should be arrested and tried for criminal assault. They should all do time in a prison. Every single one of them.

I will NEVER get over the circumcision that I was witness to and the horrible screams of that baby will ring in my ears forever. I've got five children and they have all cried for various reasons at various times, some of those reasons including having something painful happen to them. But never, ever, EVER, in all my experience of hearing babies cry did I hear anything like that poor little boy in my doctor's office that day.

As a result, even though I was under enormous pressure from everyone around me to have my son circumcised, I was able to stand against it. All I had to do was remember those cries. It gave me strength to stand up for what was right. And whenever anyone mentions circumcision, I hear that baby again... and all the millions and millions - or billions - of other babies cries down through history, and the horror of this world and the lies and cruelty just seem more than can be endured.

I was able to protect my son... I only hope I can encourage other mothers to protect theirs.

 

[domi]

The damage from circumcision far outweighs any claimed protection from aids. That's like saying one armed men never die in plane crashes, so all the men go out and get an arm cut off without stopping to consider the fact that the odds of dying in a plane crash are vanishingly remote relative to the population numbers.

Not to mention that there are some relatively simple ways to avoid getting AIDS... that do not involve mutilation of an important cluster of nerve endings that map to the brain.

But, since you have brought up the subject - and I am absolutely, categorically AGAINST it - (I was present once when an infant boy was circumcised and I have NEVER forgotten the horror of it!) - I think I will use this thread to collect the evidence AGAINST circumcision, beginning with my own thoughts on the subject.

All one has to do is read Martha Stout's The Myth of Sanity to understand the kind of damage this type of trauma at an early age can potentially do.

What's next, circumcision will stop you from smoking later on in life? It is amazing what gets passed as science nowadays.

 

[efields]

Laura with your volumes of type of others opinions, its interesting that you have any say at all. Do you have a Penis? How the heck would you know? Take it from One mans opinion: Its a happy thing being cut! Nothing is in the way of total sensation from your partner.

I would be mortified to pass my judgments on a Vaginal procedure. Your a little over your element here Laura. Or do you secretly have a penis? sorry I didn't really mean that but you have entirely too much to say about mens genitalia. Sure you can have your opinion even if its only others opinion you are relying on. Better to keep to thing you know what you speak of as in personal experience.

I stand by my previous suggestion that ANYTHING that gets in way of thorough cleaning in not doing anyone a service. I could be wrong but that is this mans opinion. I think a surgeon should perform the operation, not some unqualified religious zealot.

 

[anart]

Laura with your volumes of type of others opinions, its interesting that you have any say at all. Do you have a Penis? How the heck would you know? Take it from One mans opinion: Its a happy thing being cut! Nothing is in the way of total sensation from your partner.

I don't think I've seen a more short sighted view-point presented in one of your posts, efields. I don't have a penis either, but I can read the research, both physiological and psychological and come to the very clear conclusion that circumcision is not only unnecessary, it is harmful to the body and the mind. Interesting that as someone with a penis, you can not come to the same conclusion - wonder if that's due to being circumcized as an infant?

Also, I assume you've been circumcised your entire adult life - if not, then please correct me - but how could you possibly know what 'sensation' is like when one is 'uncut' if you've always been 'cut'? Using your own flawed logic, you don't have a foreskin, so how can you speak about foreskin - it's flawed logic, remember? Your impression on that one facet is also purely subjective - it's like saying, 'I like potato chips, so everyone should not only like potato chips, but eat only potato chips, because that is what I like'.

I would be mortified to pass my judgments on a Vaginal procedure. Your a little over your element here Laura. Or do you secretly have a penis? sorry I didn't really mean that but you have entirely too much to say about mens genitalia. Sure you can have your opinion even if its only others opinion you are relying on. Better to keep to thing you know what you speak of as in personal experience.

I stand by my previous suggestion that ANYTHING that gets in way of thorough cleaning in not doing anyone a service. I could be wrong but that is this mans opinion. I think a surgeon should perform the operation, not some unqualified religious zealot.

So, you have no stand on female genital mutilation? You think that is alright, or since you don't have a clitoris, is that something you cannot research and comment on? Cleanliness and being 'uncut' are not mutually exclusive - you come across in this post as not only being woefully ignorant of physiology and psychology, but also as being a little boy who's feelings got hurt because his 'opinion' was not agreed with. Sheesh.

 

[Fifth Way]

Wow efield! Thank god I am not an administrator for this forum because I'd ban you this second! Here is why:

Laura with your volumes of type of others opinions, its interesting that you have any say at all. Do you have a Penis?

So you submit a hideous manipulative article under the headline "compelling evidence" and as a result from that silly action you are presented with a ton of data of research of INDISPUTABLE evidence, that shows how horrendously stupid your article recommendation really was. As a reaction you do not come with research or data to verify your point but you insult Laura. That is very suspicious.

How the heck would you know?

a.) from the data, silly! b.) from that experience with the screaming baby - remember? You may be dealing with serious denial issues here to over-read this - but then again - you appear to be mutilation vicim yourself. Even though it is not 100% clear, which may be a sign that you pretend to be something you are not, and the only explanation for that would be that you want to manipulate:

Take it from One mans opinion:

You seem to stress the MAN-thing as you are trying to point out that you are one and Laura is not. Do you have manhood issues? Some kind of inferiority complex maybe?

Its a happy thing being cut! Nothing is in the way of total sensation from your partner.

This entirely subjective an personal experience can a.) not be verified b.) not generalized and c.) is totally meaningless for the issue at hand. From the first page of this thread that you apparently did not read:

Does circumcision affect a man’s sexual function and pleasure?

Circumcision removes complex tissue containing thousands of highly specialised fine touch receptors and nerve fibres. The loss of sexual sensitivity is proportional to the amount of foreskin removed; a tight circumcision that prevents movement of the foreskin during intercourse and other sexual activity is particularly damaging. Men circumcised as infants may be unaware of this, but many men circumcised as adults report a definite loss of feeling and versatility.

I would be mortified to pass my judgments on a Vaginal procedure.

Yeah? Why is that? You cannot feel other peoples pain? Why don't you have a look at this documentary: Razor's Edge - The Controversy of Female Genital Mutilation

Your a little over your element here Laura. Or do you secretly have a penis? sorry I didn't really mean that

Of course you did! Why write it otherwise?

but you have entirely too much to say about mens genitalia.

Says who? You? A manipulator with manhoodproblems? And again you try to spin the facts. It's not that Laura has a lot to say about "mens genitalia" but about babies genitalia mutilations. Well - Laura has children. Do you?

Sure you can have your opinion even if its only others opinion you are relying on.

You are confusing "opinion" and "data". Or maybe you don't and do it deliberately to manipulate?

Better to keep to thing you know what you speak of as in personal experience.

Why would that be? To make you right? Who acts like that? Seems familiar?

I stand by my previous suggestion

You didn't "suggest" anything. Can't you remember what you wrote. Why don't you look it up then? Don't you care maybe? Who behaves like that? Sounds familiar.

I could be wrong but that is this mans opinion.

Do you have manhood issues? Some kind of inferiority complex maybe?

Maybe you can not feel other peoples pain, not even that of screaming helpless bays with a heart rate of 180 that pass out, as you are unable to feel empathy in general? Maybe you want to relay on personal experience only because you can't comprehend concept that relate to "humanity" . We have a huge thread here on this forum concerning humanoids like yourself. Maybe you'll find it. ^$@#%&Y())(^T#@?"!~

 

[manitoban]

Thank you Laura for posting all the evidence against this barbaric practice. As the mom of a young boy, I've had to listen to other mothers talk about doing this to their infant boys and it just horrifies me. I was also pressured to do this to my son, and I never considered it for a moment - its just plain cruel and totally unnecessary! It needs to be stopped!

 

[Pierre]

Efield,

If you re read carefully this thread and particularly Laura's post, you might see that the suffering induced by circumcision at an early age is a factor that deserves to be taken into account.

Do males who went through circumcision remember the pain they felt ? Do they know the blockages and fear this pain has induced ?

Maybe that it's because of such of blockages anf fears that you allow yourself to boast subjective opinions so aggressively.

 

[Approaching Infinity]

Laura with your volumes of type of others opinions, its interesting that you have any say at all. Do you have a Penis? How the heck would you know? Take it from One mans opinion: Its a happy thing being cut! Nothing is in the way of total sensation from your partner.

In searching for an example of an evil act whose negative
value would not elicit doubt in any social situation, ethics
scholars frequently mention child abuse. However, psychologists
often meet with paramoral affirmations of such behavior
in their practice, such as in the above-mentioned family with
the prefrontal field damage in the eldest sister. Her younger
brothers emphatically insisted that their sister’s sadistic treatment
of her son was due to her exceptionally high moral qualifications,
and they believed this by auto-suggestion. Paramoralism
somehow cunningly evades the control of our common
sense, sometimes leading to acceptance or approval of behavior
that is openly pathological.

Efields, you are essentially saying: "Laura, were you tortured as a child? Take it from one man's opinion: It is a happy thing to be tortured when young! It teaches one an important lesson on life about endurance and knowing one's place in the world!" Your paramoral acceptance of such obvious pathological behavior is stunning.

 

[Laura]

Better to keep to thing you know what you speak of as in personal experience.

Okay, let me tell you about my "personal experience." I did hypnotherapy for over 25 years. My clients were men at a ratio of 2 to 1 over women. Many - if not most - of these men had a wide spectrum of issues which included self-esteem and related sexual dysfunction. Every single one - no exceptions - of the men with these problems, were circumcised.

Now, I cannot say that I specifically identified the source of their problems as circumcision because, at the time, I was not considering that as a possible cause and did not undertake any protocols to determine a direct relationship, but I can say that the issue was brought up a number of time by the men themselves who harbored strong anger against their parents for "mutilating" them.

I also would like to mention the extremely odd fact that America - the only place other than among Jews and Arabs where circumcision has been widely practiced for years - seems to be a country that is suffering wide-scale sexual dysfunction as can be witnessed by the extraordinary demand for Viagra.

Last of all, yes, your response was over-the-top defensive which is obvious from your need to be insulting and to feel that your manhood was being personally threatened. In my experience (not as a man, but as a therapist to many men with a broad spectrum of issues), most men who take such an attitude are, at some level, extremely uncertain about their "abilities." More than this, when it was necessary to deal with such problems between a couple, I often found that the partner of a man who had a highly inflated opinion of his ability to perform - generally phrased in the very terms you have used - was not in agreement with said opinion. Such men had very fragile egos and their partners often had to reassure them of their "competence" just to avoid being flamed and keep the peace. But the truth was that these women were very unhappy with the "performance" and that unhappiness manifested in other areas of the relationship. The two most common problems were 1) erectile dysfunction and 2) premature ejaculation.

In short, pardon me, but your slip is showing.

 

[domi]

Laura with your volumes of type of others opinions, its interesting that you have any say at all. Do you have a Penis? How the heck would you know? Take it from One mans opinion: Its a happy thing being cut! Nothing is in the way of total sensation from your partner.

I would be mortified to pass my judgments on a Vaginal procedure. Your a little over your element here Laura. Or do you secretly have a penis? sorry I didn't really mean that but you have entirely too much to say about mens genitalia. Sure you can have your opinion even if its only others opinion you are relying on. Better to keep to thing you know what you speak of as in personal experience.

I stand by my previous suggestion that ANYTHING that gets in way of thorough cleaning in not doing anyone a service. I could be wrong but that is this mans opinion. I think a surgeon should perform the operation, not some unqualified religious zealot.

Aren't you running a program associated with your generation, e.g. being condescending towards a woman? Sounds like you have a fixation on your member.

 

[Z...]

I stand by my previous suggestion that ANYTHING that gets in way of thorough cleaning in not doing anyone a service. I could be wrong but that is this mans opinion. I think a surgeon should perform the operation, not some unqualified religious zealot.

I think dude you cannot stand for anything, not after you came here and tried to convince us circumsision will help prevent AIDS.
To be honest I was totaly shocked not when I read such BS statment but when I realized there are people ready to belive in it.
If we were to listen further to wisdoms of your logic we should start advocating removal of different body parts because they get in a way of cleaning.
So please be kind and spare us.

In any case I suggest you study this thread, it might be useful with further opinions

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=3925

 

[mada85]

Yesterday I read through the articles Laura posted concerning male circumcision with mounting feelings of absolute horror and disgust. I read the post from efields today, with a different sense of disgust.

Laura with your volumes of type of others opinions, its interesting that you have any say at all. Do you have a Penis?

How dare you insult Laura like that? Can you not see that she is presenting verified, scientific data that shows how harmful and traumatic circumcision is to baby boys? What does the gender of the person relaying such information matter? You seem to have serious issues with women.

How the heck would you know? Take it from One mans opinion: Its a happy thing being cut!

Obviously you've never known anything else, and the somatic memory of the trauma is affecting you even now, whatever age you may be. Or, you are simply here to attempt to manipulate and insult.

Its a happy thing being cut!

So, you think it's a happy thing for a defenceless baby, who comes into this world with the expectation that his parents and others will care for him, and who deserves to be treated with the utmost sensitivity and respect for his helpless state, that it's OK for this baby to be STRAPPED DOWN to a board and then to have the most INDESCRIBABLY PAINFUL and TRAUMATIC procedure carried out on him WITHOUT ANAESTHETIC? A procedure which severely hinders if not completely destroys his ability to develop higher consciousness? You think this is OK? You are sick.

Your a little over your element here Laura. Or do you secretly have a penis? sorry I didn't really mean that

If you 'didn't really mean that', why did you leave it in your post? Seems you are a person who can't or won't say what he means.

this mans opinion

You're very anxious to stress the 'man' thing. Again, seems that you have serious issues with women.

Go back and read all the articles that Laura posted here yesterday, especially 'Infant Circumcision: "What I Wish I Had Known"'. If you can read these articles and still have no empathy for the boys who are mutilated in this manner, and from your post it seems that the concept of empathy is foreign to you, then I for one suggest you leave this forum.

 

[arkmod]

Laura with your volumes of type of others opinions, its interesting that you have any say at all. Do you have a Penis?

Do YOU think with your Penis? If so, this phenomenon has not been yet researched, as far as I know. But from what I see the results are not very encouraging :)

 

[Alana]

Speaking of penises, especially castrated ones:

From the book by Alexander Lowen, Narcissism: Denial of the true self:

He then told me [Mark, the client who went to the author for therapy] that he had always had the image that his body was a penis; his head was the glans while his body was the shaft. Could anything be more phallic or narcissistic!

The image of the body as phallus implies that Mark thought he had to be hard and strong. He prided himself on his erective potency, but while such potency is a precondition for orgasm, sexual pleasure and satisfaction depend on the discharge of the excitation and release of the tension. A man must surrender his erection to achieve orgasm. The emphasis on erective potency rather than orgastic potency stems from a commitment to be "there" for the woman. This was Mark's basic orientation in life. He had been seduced into this position by his mother's promise that he would be her "special" love. Unfortunately, as a child Mark could not see the emptyness of this promise. He did become her "special" love, but at the expense of his sexuality and sexual feeling. He gave up his orgastic potency for for an exaggerated erective potency[...]

Mark's case and his relationship with his mother explain how he became a narcissist, and how he came to hate women although he was not conscious of it. I am not saying that this is execlty the case with efields, it just that his posts reminded me of this case: his putting down of women, his narcissistic inability to see facts that contradict his beliefs, the sexual problems that surface through his writings.

 

[Laura]

he had always had the image that his body was a penis; his head was the glans while his body was the shaft

Interesting remark. The doctor who did some research on the subject that I mentioned who said that he found evidence that the sexual organs map to the brain in a similar way that the Chinese system maps the body to the feet (reflexology), pointed out that the foreskin maps to the neocortex and men who have been circumcised are damaged in their abilities to perform certain mental functions that take place only in the neo-cortex.