Germany: Parents Cannot Get Boys Circumcised

T2 the nerve endings are the same but you don't think they get numbed by years of underwear chafing? If you have a wound it hurts like hell the first time you touch, the more you touch it the less it hurts because the nerves get de-sensitized. The same is true for the penis.

I refer back to my previous point though, men who are circumcised are not likely to decide that they have been wronged or that there is something wrong with them. If people like T2 who are otherwise reasonably reasonable scoff at Silvery's article like he did I doubt it is possible to reach them. What I can hope is that they like Aldeth can agree that it would be a good idea to let the owner of the penis decide themselves whether to cut off part of it or not even if they themselves didn't get that choice.

Small note, I had never even heard about penile cancer before this thread so I doubt it is a big problem circumcised or not. The only way I in my rather limited knowledge can imagine circumcision lowering the risk of it would be that there are fewer cells in a circumcised penis and thus less body mass in which a cancer can grow. With that reasoning we should, as was mentioned in the article, cut out the breasts of small girls before they develop to stop breast cancer.

 

Really? You've got to be kidding me on that one. The whole argument of 'you cut off part of your wanker you must have less feeling' is what I disagree with. That is closely followed by 'My gawd man, doesn't that thing swinging down there chaf?'

That's the majority of arguments I hear against circumcision - just a bunch of wives tales and urban myths. The doctors in Silv's article only mentioned one side -- they didn't even address the other side's arguments or go to the length of the posters here to at least agree there are some (albeit minor) benefits for circumcision. I find that disturbing in what is supposed to be a respected magazine. In a reputable article I generally expect to see the pros and cons laid out -- even if the two sides are extremely lopsided. That wasn't done at all, the article was just one sided.

Other than the ridiculous argument, I don't really care if a person is circumcised. I will say that had I not been circumcised I would have had to endure a lot of bullying in school ... well a lot more. Everyone in PE class was circumcised and to not be would have targeted the boy as a freak.

But that's not the case anymore.

I personally left the decision up to Mrs Bruno, who researched the issue and then decided on circumcision. I'm not sure her reasoning and I didn't ask.

... and I suppose the risk of cancer in midgets is far less than that for the obese. That's really a stretch.

 

Tal, you're making assumptions. I never said all doctors were wrong, only that the article linked was extremely biased (perhaps justifiably but I'm not really concerned about it). I also said the arguments by some members of the boards about circumcision were wive's tales and urban myths.

There are some nut cases who want to equate circumcision with ritualistic genitilia mutilation -- what a bunch of BS. Such statements really diminish the absolute horror the women in such situations go through. Taking a little excess flesh off the penis (which was probably first started by some moron trying to get his 12 year old son to stop whacking off) is nothing comparied to the removal of the clitoris. They're not even in the same league. There are also some who put circumcision and castration on the same level in arguments. Ridiculous. When idiots start making such extreme statements it weakens the argument. It may be a form of mutilation, but more like piercing and tattoos -- so make those illegal too.

I think these types of laws are a waste of time and taxpayer money.

 

From the American cancer society [Linky]:

T2,
the problem is that when adults make the decision over whether to get their foreskin cut off or to get a tattoo or a boob job that's ok because it is adults making the decision for themselves. Naturally, when children are being circumcised, it's adults making the decision also, but the procedure is irreversible and they don't have to carry the consequences themselves. As indicated by the statement of the cancer society, it is largely an unnecessary medical procedure.

Circumcision is used for cultural reasons and that it prevents penile cancer is just a rationalisation.

 

It is worse to cut off an arm than a finger but you are still cutting things off.

 

Ragusa, you're confusing my ranting against rather silly arguments with agreement of the procedure.

I've seen small children with piercings and there was even a push to tattoo children with identification in case of stranger abduction a while back in the US -- I view these things similar to circumcision. There are also a lot of unnecessary medical procedures a parent can force onto their children (tonsillectomy comes to mind and is not necessary in most cases). A country can outlaw them all if they want but it's still a waste of government time and money IMO.

 

dmc is completely correct here. The only way evolution works is by removing genes from the population that diminish one's chances of reproducing. The top three causes of death in the US are heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. What they all have in common is that they typically only manifest themselves after the age when one would be reproducing. Evolution can't act to remove any genetic predispositions towards these diseases from the species, because by the time that you see the negative affects of these conditions, your genes have already been passed on.

By Monty's reasoning, no one should have an appendix, and men definitely shouldn't have nipples. Evolution doesn't work that way. The only way evolution works are removing conditions that hinder or prevent one from reproducing. Those genes then aren't passed on to future generations, eventually eliminating them from the gene pool.

If something neither helps nor hurts one's chances of reproducing, there's nothing for evolution to work on. Those genes will likely stay in the species. As an example, look at things like hair color and eye color. Evidently, there's no universally ideal hair color or eye color, as we still see all the different types today. (Granted in people of African and Asian descent, black hair and brown eyes is practically all you ever see, but the larger point is that if having blonde hair or blue eyes was an impediment to reproducing, we wouldn't see any people with blonde hair or blue eyes. It isn't, so the phenotype persists.)

 

dmc's comment still applies, you haven't changed the precepts of the argument. Having neither an advantage nor disadvantage is no reason for evolutionary change -- there needs to be a fairly significant advantage or no change at all will occur. There is no reasonable expectation of seeing boys born with and without foreskins even if the foreskin is unnecessary. By the reasoning you used having an appendix or tonsils or nipples in men would simply be a random occurance -- obviously not the case.

 

You're using a circular argument and not really considering how evolution works. Also, homo sapiens have only been around for ~200,000 years and we have no evidence I know of which can accurately describe the male reproductive organ of early homo sapiens let alone that of australopithecus africanus (which did live three million years ago). Is what we have an improvement from back then? I don't know. Is what we have now the ideal? Again, don't know.

Evolution does not always take the best long term path or the path to make the best end product. It simply takes the path that is best at that moment in time -- for whatever reason. Evolutionary arguments are rather silly when discussing such things.

 

That much I'd agree with - if it were a major impediment to reproducing, then surely it would have been eliminated.

Evolution doesn't have a design in mind - it's not working towards anything. Changes occur by random chance, and most of those changes are deleterious. Evolution is not working towards "building a better penis". Or anything else like that. Just because you've gone through countless generations doesn't mean that evolution has optimized something. It doesn't guarantee that you get something that is the ideal solution. All it gives you is something that works - at that particular moment in time.

It probably isn't. There's no reason to suspect that evolution has designed the perfect penis. We can be pretty confident in saying that it has designed one that does a pretty good job of getting genes to the next generation, but there's nothing to suggest it couldn't get better. Just look at me (and I suspect T2). We can throw ours over our shoulder, so obviously we represent an advanced subset - but most guys aren't so lucky.

 

That you would prefer to have your foreskin is a valid argument ... dragging evolution into this with false precepts is not. Such arguments, along with the 'reduced pleasure due to missing flabby skin' and 'reduced pleasure due to callous build up' are just ridiculous and weaken the overall argument.

 

I will concede that there probably was some evolutionary advantage to having a foreskin. It provided a protective layer of skin over some pretty sensitive material. Of course, at the time that evolved, our hominid ancestors were likely walking around without any clothing. So I'm not sure the same advantage that the foreskin gave is still present now, because most people were underwear/pants/shorts/something to cover up.

It should also be pointed out that circumcision will never cause people to be born without a foreskin. If, for the next million years, every male was circumcised, a million years from now, 100% of boys will still be born with foreskins. It's coded in the DNA, and since there doesn't seem to be any great advantage of having versus not having a foreskin in terms of reproductive success, they're not just going to go away.

We can go back to a prior example to explain why. Evolution also has gone to great lengths to ensure everyone has an appendix - even though it serves absolutely no purpose to us. But the thing is it doesn't hurt our reproductive success either (well if it ruptures at an early age it does, but very few people die from appendicitis). So things that don't hurt or help your reproductive success can and do stay present for millions and millions of years.

 

How could you argue: "'reduced pleasure due to missing flabby skin' and 'reduced pleasure due to callous build up' are just ridiculous and weaken the overall argument." T2? Those are very sound arguments. Not only common sense supports them but there are robust science and lots of people who can witness about it. I have a mate who got circumcised due to having a too tight foreskin and he has real problems with actually climaxing when he has sex. When I was in the army there were some dudes who went around with their foreskin pulled back for an entire week so they would be able to last longer when they got home to their girlfriends. What is your argument that those arguments are stupid? They are one of the solid facts of this discussion and a thing that has often been lifted up as a pro of circumcision.