my point was that it isn't up to you to state that being uncut is the preferred choice, whether I have had sex once or 1000 times with a cut man, I know what I like, having more sex with cut men won't change my mind or are you now "telling" me that the ones I did have sex with somehow "got it wrong"?.

It is down to every individual to decide what they prefer & up to them how they reach that conclusion but you are so desperate to prove yourself right that you are resorting to "telling" people it is so. It really is quite amusing.

I am suggesting it sounds pretty clear you have a small sample and can only speak for YOURSELF. I am proposing a POLL of people, all with wide experience, which quite clearly you don't even have. That's OK but don't act like you could possibly have an OBJECTIVE opinion with a small experience.

and as I already posted, it would depend entirely where you did this "poll". But it really is beside the point, this thread was about cutting off babies foreskins. Babies don't have sex so what pleasure they or their partners may or may not get out of it is irrelevant as...... babies don't have sex.

Babies grow up, dear.

They grow to an age when they can make informed decisions on circumcision, and correspondingly gain the benefits.

You're never going to accept as valid the opinion that people should have a right to make up their own mind on circumcision, rather than relying on their parents, are you?

SC

I agree. Use your common sense for you and yours. Leave the rest of the world alone as far as their FREE CHOICE to follow established religions, be a PROUD member of their ethnic group (yes, JEWS), and authorize a perfectly safe minor surgical procedure IF they choose. Your business is your business. What right do you with your obvious prejudices about a safe medical procedure have to dictate your tired morality on large portions of the people of the planet?

i know proud Jews and how proud Jews behave JT. you are not one of them!

Your opinion. Thanks for sharing your personal insult.

it is not an insult but a rational statement. "my" proud Jews wear a yarmulke at Jomtien Beach and in Walking Street. "my" proud Jews are not lamenting about discrimination and "my" proud Jews don't condemn Iran with every second or third sentence. they are not frightened by cheap talk from an Ayatollah or a dwarf such as Ahmadinejad and last not least they are well aware of Israel's capability to handle Iran.

calling my statement an insult is just proof that i am right.

They grow to an age when they can make informed decisions on circumcision, and correspondingly gain the benefits.

You're never going to accept as valid the opinion that people should have a right to make up their own mind on circumcision, rather than relying on their parents, are you?

SC

We've been over this 100 times already. Infancy is the ideal time to do it. If it is not done in infancy, it general does not get done, yet it is something where good SCIENTIFIC arguments can made for its health benefits, not to mention the religious and ethnic identity issue. If people are forced to wait, you force them into a much more traumatic experience if they do choose it, especially psychologically. Infancy is without a doubt the most humane time to do it, by far.

I accept it as a valid OPINION. I do not accept it as a valid or fair LAW. If such laws are passed, they would be horribly onerous and unfair.

my point was that it isn't up to you to state that being uncut is the preferred choice, whether I have had sex once or 1000 times with a cut man, I know what I like, having more sex with cut men won't change my mind or are you now "telling" me that the ones I did have sex with somehow "got it wrong"?.

It is down to every individual to decide what they prefer & up to them how they reach that conclusion but you are so desperate to prove yourself right that you are resorting to "telling" people it is so. It really is quite amusing.

I am suggesting it sounds pretty clear you have a small sample and can only speak for YOURSELF. I am proposing a POLL of people, all with wide experience, which quite clearly you don't even have. That's OK but don't act like you could possibly have an OBJECTIVE opinion with a small experience.

and as I already posted, it would depend entirely where you did this "poll". But it really is beside the point, this thread was about cutting off babies foreskins. Babies don't have sex so what pleasure they or their partners may or may not get out of it is irrelevant as...... babies don't have sex.

Babies grow up, dear.

yes they do, where they can chose to have the cut if they want. But wait a minute, even you have admitted that wont happen in most cases so to the rational mind proves something about how great it is.

They grow to an age when they can make informed decisions on circumcision, and correspondingly gain the benefits.

You're never going to accept as valid the opinion that people should have a right to make up their own mind on circumcision, rather than relying on their parents, are you?

SC

We've been over this 100 times already. Infancy is the ideal time to do it. If it is not done in infancy, it general does not get done, yet it is something where good SCIENTIFIC arguments can made for its health benefits, not to mention the religious and ethnic identity issue.

So because no grown man would do it to himself, we should do it to babies who can't resist. That really seems like a strange argument to me.

When it comes to enduing pain, I would rather ask a grown man to endure more pain than a baby to endure less. Whether the baby remembers it or not is irrelevant, in my opinion. Of course, my opinion is swayed by my role as a father, but I am sure I am not in a small minority with that opinion.

Forcing operations on babies for SCIENTIFIC reasons sounds a bit eugenics to me.

SC

I agree. Use your common sense for you and yours. Leave the rest of the world alone as far as their FREE CHOICE to follow established religions, be a PROUD member of their ethnic group (yes, JEWS), and authorize a perfectly safe minor surgical procedure IF they choose. Your business is your business. What right do you with your obvious prejudices about a safe medical procedure have to dictate your tired morality on large portions of the people of the planet?

i know proud Jews and how proud Jews behave JT. you are not one of them!

Your opinion. Thanks for sharing your personal insult.

it is not an insult but a rational statement. "my" proud Jews wear a yarmulke at Jomtien Beach and in Walking Street. "my" proud Jews are not lamenting about discrimination and "my" proud Jews don't condemn Iran with every second or third sentence. they are not frightened by cheap talk from an Ayatollah or a dwarf such as Ahmadinejad and last not least they are well aware of Israel's capability to handle Iran.

calling my statement an insult is just proof that i am right.

100 Jews, 100 opinions. Really dude if you don't think you have insulted me you have a reality problem.

They grow to an age when they can make informed decisions on circumcision, and correspondingly gain the benefits.

You're never going to accept as valid the opinion that people should have a right to make up their own mind on circumcision, rather than relying on their parents, are you?

SC

We've been over this 100 times already. Infancy is the ideal time to do it. If it is not done in infancy, it general does not get done, yet it is something where good SCIENTIFIC arguments can made for its health benefits, not to mention the religious and ethnic identity issue.

So because no grown man would do it to himself, we should do it to babies who can't resist. That really seems like a strange argument to me.

When it comes to enduing pain, I would rather ask a grown man to endure more pain than a baby to endure less. Whether the baby remembers it or not is irrelevant, in my opinion. Of course, my opinion is swayed by my role as a father, but I am sure I am not in a small minority with that opinion.

SC

no you are not.

100 Jews, 100 opinions. Really dude if you don't think you have insulted me you have a reality problem.

I'm not going to ask again. Chill out.

yes they do, where they can chose to have the cut if they want. But wait a minute, even you have admitted that wont happen in most cases so to the rational mind proves something about how great it is.

We've been over this. Adults who had it done are almost always HAPPY they had it done and that it was done in infancy. To paint this in simplistic black and white when it is a complex, nuanced social issue is flawed. Pushing these extremist anti-circumcision prejudices on all of humanity is simply not acceptable and if you represent a movement, expect a huge pushback.

Actually I believe its a well documented fact that uncircumcised men have greater sensitivity

According to The American Academy of Family Physicians it is not a "fact". It is a matter of great controversy.The AAFP Commission on Science has found that:

The effect of circumcision on penile sensation or sexual satisfaction is unknown. Because the epithelium of a circumcised glans becomes cornified, and because some feel nerve over-stimulation leads to desensitization, many believe that the glans of a circumcised penis is less sensitive. Opinions differ about how this decreased sensitivity, which may result in prolonged time to orgasm, affects sexual satisfaction. An investigation of the exteroceptive and light tactile discrimination of the glans of circumcised and uncircumcised men found no difference on comparison. (24) No valid evidence to date, however, supports the notion that being circumcised affects sexual sensation or satisfaction. http://www.aafp.org/...rcumcision.html

Thanks for that. The radical anti-freedom of choice, anti-freedom of religion, anti-freedom for Jews to preserve their ethnic identity, anti-science foreskin fetishist activists are constantly making up false claims for their propaganda.

BTW, this is definitely an amusing thread. Too bad it's buried in Bedlam.

there you go with your nasty little name calling again. you aren't doing your argument any favours when you can't even admit that the people who oppose you are doing it for the benefit of childrens rights.

What have you got against children anyway?

Actually I believe its a well documented fact that uncircumcised men have greater sensitivity

According to The American Academy of Family Physicians it is not a "fact". It is a matter of great controversy.The AAFP Commission on Science has found that:

The effect of circumcision on penile sensation or sexual satisfaction is unknown. Because the epithelium of a circumcised glans becomes cornified, and because some feel nerve over-stimulation leads to desensitization, many believe that the glans of a circumcised penis is less sensitive. Opinions differ about how this decreased sensitivity, which may result in prolonged time to orgasm, affects sexual satisfaction. An investigation of the exteroceptive and light tactile discrimination of the glans of circumcised and uncircumcised men found no difference on comparison. (24) No valid evidence to date, however, supports the notion that being circumcised affects sexual sensation or satisfaction. http://www.aafp.org/...rcumcision.html

Thanks for that. The radical anti-freedom of choice, anti-freedom of religion, anti-freedom for Jews to preserve their ethnic identity, anti-science foreskin fetishist activists are constantly making up false claims for their propaganda.

BTW, this is definitely an amusing thread. Too bad it's buried in Bedlam.

there you go with your nasty little name calling again. you aren't doing your argument any favours when you can't even admit that the people who oppose you are doing it for the benefit of childrens rights.

What have you got against children anyway?

Now she is accusing me of hating children. Not worthy of a response.

Lobby to parents all you want as long as you don't unfairly suppress the information from the other side about medical benefits. But don't push this prejudice on all humanity under force of law. That's my issue here.

1. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

I'm no legal scholar, so I don't know what legal weight an article like the one above carries. Not much, I expect, given that it seems to be universally honoured in the breach. It also combines claims to facticity with statements of value.

I may not be a jurist, but I've been to plenty of seminars in my time where bored and tired participants cobble things like the above together so they can meet their objectives, please their constituencies, please each other, justify having been sent to the seminar, and get everything closed off so they can catch planes and get home in time for Friday Night Football (I'm thinking of this kind of event held in Canberra). This sort of thing was very popular in the 70s through to the early 90s when funding for them dried up. I'm not a big fan of the UN, and I suspect this is the way they come up with their declarations.

To state that "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights" is a value statement dressed up as a statement of fact. One might wish it were so; one might believe metaphysically that it is so, but it may in fact not be so. Indeed, operationally, it clearly is not so. It certainly doesn't apply to an Untouchable in India; nor does it confer dignity upon an infant born into an impoverished and/or marginalized community in many countries. Of course it should be so, and we know what the UN declarers are getting at, but one is not born equal and free in dignity and rights just because the UN or anyone says so. To believe that a declaration can bring about a state of being in a person is an example of ipsedixitism ("it is so because I say it is"). In linguistic philosophy it is an empty statement masquerading as a performative speech act. Unlike the speech act of a judge who says "I sentence you ...", the UN declaration above does not in fact perform anything; its words do not constitute an action.

So reference to the UN Declaration of Human Rights or any other pious appeal to good intentions and sweet reasonableness must be viewed within the serious limits, indeed, impotence of these statements and recommendations. If one is unhappy that some parents have their sons circumcised or give their daughters a smack on the bottom, and if one wishes to go further and forbid those parents from doing those things then one should have better reasons for imposing their will on others.

yes they do, where they can chose to have the cut if they want. But wait a minute, even you have admitted that wont happen in most cases so to the rational mind proves something about how great it is.

We've been over this. Adults who had it done are almost always HAPPY they had it done and that it was done in infancy. To paint this in simplistic black and white when it is a complex, nuanced social issue is flawed. Pushing these extremist anti-circumcision prejudices on all of humanity is simply not acceptable and if you represent a movement, expect a huge pushback.

but how know they are happy, if they don't know the alternative, just "maybe" if they had been given the choice they would have been happier with then uncut version. Sadly for them they will never know.

Those men who HAVE had it done in adulthood & are truly happy with the results are the only ones who can say so for sure, from their individual prospective.

it's a sort of vicious circle really where those who had it done have no option BUT to be happy or at least say they are with the cut version, they have very little recorse to do anything about it anyway. Which is a bit sad really.

100 Jews, 100 opinions. Really dude if you don't think you have insulted me you have a reality problem.

I'm not going to ask again. Chill out.

Out of interest, what would we have to do to get this thread closed, as it doesn't seem that there islikely to be any change in opinions until we start to vigourously insult each other, at which time our opinions will become more polarised and extreme.

SC

yes they do, where they can chose to have the cut if they want. But wait a minute, even you have admitted that wont happen in most cases so to the rational mind proves something about how great it is.

We've been over this. Adults who had it done are almost always HAPPY they had it done and that it was done in infancy. To paint this in simplistic black and white when it is a complex, nuanced social issue is flawed. Pushing these extremist anti-circumcision prejudices on all of humanity is simply not acceptable and if you represent a movement, expect a huge pushback.

but how know they are happy, if they don't know the alternative, just "maybe" if they had been given the choice they would have been happier with then uncut version. Sadly for them they will never know.

Those men who HAVE had it done in adulthood & are truly happy with the results are the only ones who can say so for sure, from their individual prospective.

Great arguments for you to make when you are LOBBYING to parents not to do this. No problem. I happen to favor parental CHOICE in this matter and strongly oppose codifying anti-circumcision in infancy prejudice into law. Is that OK?

I favour the individual choice of the individual who it is being done to. Take from that what you will.

I favour the individual choice of the individual who it is being done to. Take from that what you will.

Ideally we could ask the baby what his adult self would say about the matter. But we can't. So almost everywhere in the world the perfectly acceptable, perfectly safe, perfectly non-barbaric, health promoting MINOR surgical medical procedure of infant circumcision is available as LEGAL optional choice for the parents to decide. I say keep it that way but do more to promote informed parents on all of the pros and cons of the issue, including the obvious lack of possibility of getting consent. Also if you are telling them they should wait and let the child decide LATER, it is only fair to inform them that if they do decide later, it will be much bigger of a deal especially psychologically.

Oh I agree with you if for example the child is sick & needs urgent medical assistance or has broken a limb & needs the parents to make the descision of treatment for him. Just not when it is not a medically required procedure.

For me, your argument is the same as saying it would be ok for asian parents to have ther kids eyes widened as a baby as they wanted it them to look more western as an adult. I think anyone would be be objecting to that.

One thing is not another. There is no realistic comparison between infantile circumcision and infantile cosmetic eye surgery! There is no good reason to do the latter in infancy. There are many good reasons to do the circumcision in infancy if that is the choice of the parents for religious, ethnic, social, or health reasons.

There is no good reason to the latter in infancy. There are many good reasons to do the circumcision in infancy if that is the choice of the parents for religious, ethnic, social, or health reasons.

that could be deferred until maturity when the chils is old enough to make the choice. the premise is the same, parents chosing to do an irreversible medical procedure on a baby when the child is in no physical harm. I'm pretty sure that every country in the world agrees that children should not be operated on unless it is a medical nessecity & often as a last resort not as a pre-emptive possible reduction to a possible issue in adulthood.

...

I'm pretty sure that every country in the world agrees that children should not be operated on unless it is a medical nessecity & often as a last resort not as a pre-emptive cure to a possible issue in adulthood.

Elective male infantile circumcision obviously ordered by the parents or perhaps in fundamentalist countries by religionists is LEGAL pretty much globally. So your assumptions about the specific procedure that is the topic of this thread is just wrong. You are free to lobby parents and governments. I think informing parents of your POV is just fine. I think changing laws is an infringement.

So reference to the UN Declaration of Human Rights or any other pious appeal to good intentions and sweet reasonableness must be viewed within the serious limits

That is for sure. Infants can not make decisions about precedures that will benefit their health. That is why it is up to the parents to figure out what they think is best.

just a loophole in the process, one that there is a growing movement to close. Just cause it is being done right now doesnt make it right does it. Idon't intend to go off topic but to make the point, in US current laws regarding gay marriage in some states still mean it is illegal. Does it make it right. no, should it be challenges. yes.

but I said, agreed, not law. If I went to my GP & said, lop off my sons balls, he might get testicular cancer, I would be denied & likely get a visit from social services. I have a history of pancreatic cancer in the family, will they remove my sons pancreas because he might get it one day (a massive chance actually) No they ont, why, because it is wrong & doesn't have the backing of religiosity to fight for the right to do it.

just a loophole in the process, one that there is a growing movement to close. Just cause it is being done right now doesnt make it right does it. Idon't intend to go off topic but to make the point, in US current laws regarding gay marriage in some states still mean it is illegal. Does it make it right. no, should it be challenges. yes.

Gay marriage is an expansion of freedoms that doesn't infringe on the rights of anyone else. What you favor is an onerous REDUCTION in freedoms of:

Parents rights

Religious rights

Ethnic identity rights

Medical doctors rights

It is no loophole. Do you realize your movement is a direct attack on Islam and Judaism? Do you think those are minor forces in the world, especially Islam?

If something is right it's worth fighting for. My only concern is individual rights & if that upsets the religios then they can fight back but one would hope they would look inward at why their faith allows this abuse on childrens basic individual human rights.

All these comparisons to castration, female circumcision, eye widening, even gay marriage are absolutely irrelevant. Infant circumcision is something different from all of these.... for reasons given clearly several hundred posts ago.

Nobody has proved that it is harmful to the baby. Parents have the right to decide what is best for the baby if it is not harmful.

If something is right it's worth fighting for. My only concern is individual rights & if that upsets the religios then they can fight back but one would hope they would look inward at why their faith allows this abuse on childrens basic individual human rights.

It is not child abuse. It is a minor medical procedure that we now know is health promoting and the most humane time to do this useful thing is infancy. Good luck with your crusade. You're going to need it.

I've said it before, this is something that is almost NEVER a problem for the adults who had it done. There are indeed a lot of much more important human problems in the world that do indeed well deserve human energy and activism a lot more than this triviality.

All these comparisons to castration, female circumcision, eye widening, even gay marriage are absolutely irrelevant. Infant circumcision is something different from all of these.... for reasons given clearly several hundred posts ago.

Nobody has proved that it is harmful to the baby. Parents have the right to decide what is best for the baby if it is not harmful.

Ten snaps!

It's the usual spin.

All these comparisons to castration, female circumcision, eye widening, even gay marriage are absolutely irrelevant. Infant circumcision is something different from all of these.... for reasons given clearly several hundred posts ago.

Nobody has proved that it is harmful to the baby. Parents have the right to decide what is best for the baby if it is not harmful.

Hear, hear. As far as I am concerned, Jingthing won the argument a few pages back.

NEXT.....

Unbelievable really! This is the fourth longest thread in OTB's history.... on such a trivial subject.