Circumcision ban bill

March 4, 2010 3:10 AM

Is this the start of an internet driven revolution The fact that America circumcises most of its infant males has probably happened, because doctors told parents, that it was better for their sons, cleaner and such. As people usually do what the medical profession tells them to do this practice became entrenched in the US. Because of the access to different sources of information about the ins and outs of this practice on the 'net, many people are saying they do not want their new born sons circumcised. The interesting thing from the link are the comments. The ramifications of if baby boys, are to be given the same legal rights as baby girls run very deep.
posted by dollyknot (39 comments total)

*Hides Under Table*
posted by Joey Michaels at 3:14 AM on March 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

Excellent; this is a topic that MetaFilter does well. hamburger
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:16 AM on March 4, 2010

I can't see where this could go wrong. Nope.
posted by smartyboots at 3:18 AM on March 4, 2010

This post needs to be fleshed out a bit more.

One of the mods might nip it in the bud.
posted by chillmost at 3:18 AM on March 4, 2010 [3 favorites]

The proposal classifies male circumcision as genital mutilation and supporters of the bill say male infants can't possible consent to the procedure.

By definition, both of those statements would be true.
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:19 AM on March 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'm uncut, see me strut. Get used to it.
posted by flippant at 3:20 AM on March 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

Hooooooboy.
posted by perilous at 3:20 AM on March 4, 2010

My parents are very religious (Catholics) and when I was born they didn't even think about not having me circumcised.

In fact, they were so adamant that they instructed the doctor to cut off as much of my penis as possible. So he cut it off just below my chin! As such, I've lived all of my days without any arms, legs or even a body - I'm just a head sittin' up on a stump of a neck.

But do I reget it? NO SIR! It makes me sick to see young, irreligious people nowadays walking around with their penis arms and their penis legs and their hugh penis bodies flapping around in the breeze, living lives of pure sin, unwares that - come judgment day - the LORD will burn every inch of evil penis flesh away in the lake of fire, which is hell (Rev 20:10). Penis.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 3:21 AM on March 4, 2010 [4 favorites]

I know where I stand on this issue, as do probably most people. But there's no way of discussing this dispassionately. Any statement potentially makes a judgement on a person's body, parents, or religion. It's like some unholy triumvirate of doomed debate.
posted by Sova at 3:24 AM on March 4, 2010 [2 favorites]

She had lil' boy kids and she chose to 'cise them
She was the agent of unspeakable abuses
Her choices were violent, malicious and distant
Her kids now cut up for the state of Massachusetts

It's been taken away! Hey!
It's been taken away!
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:30 AM on March 4, 2010

Are there any statistics that show people are getting circumcised less? Last I'd heard, the overall rates for the U.S. hadn't changed.

People like Andrew Sullivan running around calling it "Male genital mutilation" are ridiculous.
posted by delmoi at 3:32 AM on March 4, 2010

I used to be against circumcision until the study indicating circumcised men have a lower risk for contracting HIV (obviously it doesn't protect against transmission through sodomy or sharing heroin needles, so let's just leave it there). Now I'm ambivalent.

Glad you are participating in the community, even if your first post was a one link fox news effort.

Anyone know where I can get some fried calamari this late at night?
posted by BrotherCaine at 3:32 AM on March 4, 2010

I dearly hope that calamari is not some kind of sick euphemism.
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:35 AM on March 4, 2010

State lawmakers will debate a bill today that would make it illegal for parents to circumcise boys, unless there's a medical reason. It would ban the procedure on any male under the age of 18 even for religious reasons.

Yes, but why ban something when the medical profession is ambivalent. The most recent statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics reads as follows: "Existing scientific evidence demonstrates potential medical benefits of newborn male circumcision; however, these data are not sufficient to recommend routine neonatal circumcision. In circumstances in which there are potential benefits and risks, yet the procedure is not essential to the child's current well-being, parents should determine what is in the best interest of the child. To make an informed choice, parents of all male infants should be given accurate and unbiased information and be provided the opportunity to discuss this decision. If a decision for circumcision is made, procedural analgesia should be provided."

But there's no way of discussing this dispassionately.

Refer to medical experts. If the position of the professional body of pediatricians is that "parents should determine what is in the best interests of the child" why should lawmakers interfere?
posted by three blind mice at 3:37 AM on March 4, 2010

Because of the access to different sources of information about the ins and outs of this practice on the 'net, many people are saying they do not want their new born sons circumcised...

This post needs to be fleshed out a bit more.
One of the mods might nip it in the bud.
posted by chillmost at 6:18 AM on March 4 [+] [!]

I see what you did there.
posted by spoobnooble at 3:38 AM on March 4, 2010

I always get excited when I see a post just before it's deleted. Makes me feel special.
posted by Shutter at 3:39 AM on March 4, 2010

Previously: [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14] Yep, we've had a lot of circumcision discussions. It's interesting to notice that it really heated up around 2005-2006 (nos. 9-13 above).

Sorry for the derail; please continue.
posted by koeselitz at 3:39 AM on March 4, 2010

YOU'LL PRY MY FORESKIN FROM MY COLD DEAD HAND
posted by fleacircus at 3:43 AM on March 4, 2010

I'LL PRY MY FORESKIN FROM YOUR COLD DEAD HAND
posted by koeselitz at 3:45 AM on March 4, 2010 [2 favorites]

My lazy, overweight mother had me circumcised. She rode her fixie to the doctor's office, dropped me off and then took our cat to the vet to have it declawed. On the way home she stopped and made an appointment at the abortion clinic and bought a Mac. When she got home she cooked dinner for me and my father, who was quite the audiophile.
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:45 AM on March 4, 2010 [11 favorites]

Given the state of public health and health care in America, even despite our abysmal insurance industry, male circumcision does not seem to make sense. I'll certainly grant that. However, the comparison to female genital mutilation is insulting to pretty much everyone; it either diminishes the enormity of FGM, or otherwise implies that circumcised men are irrevocably damaged beyond functionality.

Given that FGM involves practices that go as far as cutting off parts of the labia and/or the clitoris, male circumcision is not really analogous at all. Yet somehow, someone always taints the well of these conversations by making the analogy.
posted by explosion at 3:48 AM on March 4, 2010

true; circumsision is more like snipping off the clitoral hood.
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:50 AM on March 4, 2010

I read that the American practice of near-universal male circumcision comes mostly from the Victorian moral-hygiene/anti-sex ideology of Dr. Kellogg (of Kellogg's fame), who believed that it would (a) be more hygienic and (b) make sex less pleasurable, leading to less temptation. Thankfully, his practices for girls (applying carbolic acid to the clitoris to condition against sexual pleasure) didn't catch on.
posted by acb at 3:53 AM on March 4, 2010

The thing that bothers me most about circumcision, to be honest, isn't the pain. Maybe children need to learn as early as possible how to handle pain - I don't know. The thing that bothers me most about circumcision is that parents in the US don't generally do it because of health concerns, or because of religious factors, or because of cultural norms. They do it because that's how their thingie looks, and by god, if they're gonna have a kid, their kid is gonna have a thingie that looks just goddamned like it. Not only is that f-ing creepy when you sit down and think about it - it's also just a bit more of the frat boy mentality that pervades the lesser policies by which our society is governed. We get chopped because they got chopped, just like we might get hit because they got hit or we go to church because they went to church, no reason beyond that. It's precisely the same thing as the institutional bureaucracy that keeps young medical students pulling internships where they have to care for critically injured patients for 12 hours at a stretch on two hours of sleep out of every 48.
posted by koeselitz at 3:57 AM on March 4, 2010

The ramifications of if baby boys, are to be given the same legal rights as baby girls run very deep.
Please expand.
Also: needs the SLFNV tag.
posted by tellurian at 4:00 AM on March 4, 2010

It's precisely the same thing as the institutional bureaucracy that keeps young medical students pulling internships where they have to care for critically injured patients for 12 hours at a stretch on two hours of sleep out of every 48.
What?
posted by tellurian at 4:05 AM on March 4, 2010

Here in Massachusetts, some say there are bigger issues at hand for lawmakers.

Chukka-wow-wow.
posted by Kinbote at 4:06 AM on March 4, 2010

I started thinking about this subject, after watching Michael Moore's
documentary 'Bowling for Columbine' where he makes the point that gun
ownership in Canada, approaches gun ownership in the US, yet gun crime
in the states is far higher, why?

So I started digging around in nationmaster as regards national
statistics and male circumcision rates caught my eye.

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Circumcision-(male)

Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Benin,
Cameroon, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Gabon, Gambia,
Ghana, Guinea, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon,
Libya, Madagascar, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, Niger,
Pakistan, Philip pines, Qatar, Republic of the Congo, Samoa. Tonga,
Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Korea, Sudan,
Syria, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, United States of America, Uzbekistan,
Vanuatu and Yemen.

My contention is that it does not change the individual that much, but changes society.

So the obvious question then becomes 'what changes does infant male
circumcision make to the individual male psyche'?

Many will say it is only a little bit of skin about 10 to 15 square inches, but some estimates have it that the 'little bit of skin' contains around 20,000 nerve endings.

From

http://www.norm-uk.org/function.html


Presumably these nerve endings connect to the limbic system, my hypothesis is that the limbic system regulates neurotransmitter production, another part of my hypothesis comes from Plato, namely we must separate passion from reason, it is my hypothesis, that infant male circumcision, alters the balance between passion and reason in the individual.

It is my hypothesis that infant male circumcision makes the individual more reasonable and less passionate, which is good for the family because it makes the male tamer and more predictable, so one can see how the practice became entrenched.

This can be seen in the behaviour of arguably, the greatest chess player ever, Bobby Fischer, there is good evidence that Fischer was born of a Jewish mother and a Jewish father but was not circumcised.

After he demolished Spassky in 1972, when he returned to America, the cold war hero, he had the whole of the western world at his feet, but he turned his back on fame and fortune and became a recluse, not the behaviour of a rational man, one could argue, but one could also argue that emotionally he did not like American culture, where everything is bought and sold, including foreskins. Probably he did not want to be sold like tooth paste.

But it seems to me, the countries listed earlier are more narrow minded, more right wing and more cynical, less empathic, more ruthless and venal.

The enormous cynicism exhibited by the largely circumcised US in 1991, when they did not march all the way to Baghdad and try Saddam as a war criminal then, instead of spending the next 12 years torturing the
Iraqi people and then trying Saddam, is the sort of thing I mean. And before anyone says the Brits were in on it too, I read somewhere or other, both Norman Schwartzkopf and Peter de la Billière wanted to finish the Job, but Colin Powell said no, so then you might say, why didn't John Major tell de la Billière to ignore Powell and finish the job, well around that time, Major was committing adultery with Edwina Currie, the Jewish MP and so was effectively muzzled.

It is my belief, that what should run human civilisation is principle, not people or groups of people. Just groups of people to make sure principles are adhered to, a good example for principle is the Hippocratic oath,
first do no harm.

One group of people that presumably exists to see principles adhered to, are UN delegates, in '91 when the emotionally kind thing to do, would have been to march all the way to Baghdad and finish the job, but this would have been seen as giving the UN teeth, countries breaking UN resolutions and tin pot dictators like Slobodan Milosovich would not like a UN with teeth would they? If they had have finished the job in '91, it is probable that Milosovich would not have embarked on his career of genocide.

Now I'm going to get a bit silly.

As to what caused the second world war, many pundits will say Hitler caused WW2, this is like saying Gavrilo Princip caused the first world war, which is ludicrous, it is not hard to see what caused WW2, it was WW1.

Men like Hitler are two a penny, given the right economic conditions and a homicidal maniac will come to power, history is littered with them.

So what caused WW1?

Up until 1867 Germany did not exist, then it came into existence under the helm of Bismarck.

From around the time of Columbus, European countries had been carving up the planet willy nilly, with Germany being the new kid on the block, and wanting a piece of the action, so Germany started colonies in North Africa and the pacific.

England and France did not like this so started blockading German ships, or to put a finer point on this, since the time of Waterloo, England said jump and France asked how high?

And now for something completely different.

The first big row between Princess Diana and the rest of Royal family happened when she refused to let them circumcise William and Harry, this interesting piece of scuttlebutt, tells us something, namely Prince
Charles is circumcised, so how come the British Royal family were circumcising their sons?

One of Queen Victoria's sons, Edward Prince of Wales, was very wayward, one can imagine, Queen Victoria's Jewish Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli advising her that there was a method of taming the male, by ensuring he gained less visceral pleasure from sex.

All this leads me to guess that the Kaiser, Tsar Nicholas and George V all Grandsons of Queen Victoria were circumcised.

One bit in wikipedia made me laugh.

"Although they occasionally toured the British Empire, George preferred to stay at home with his stamp collection and lived what later biographers would consider a dull life because of its conventionality."

Is this the behaviour of a circumcised King or an uncircumcised King is open to conjecture, but what we can be sure of is, George was deeply implicated in the Jingoistic brinkmanship, that caused WW1.

In my studies of circumcision, I discovered that Hadrian banned the practice and this possibly led to the diaspora, because he could not tame the circumcised tribes that lived around the coast of the Mediterranean
because they were more fanatically logical, than European people, my evidence being Masada.

People reading this, will imagine that I am condemning circumcision, not in the past I'm not, in the past it was the right thing to do, so history could unfold as it did. WW2 led to the invention of computers, rockets, nuclear technology and the cold war space race.

All the people who suffered and died in WW2, will have suffered and died in vain unless we consider Heaven and space to be synonymous.

But I do think that this practice should be seen as child abuse in the future with MRI scans being done to acquire evidence.

My dream is that, identical male twins separately adopted from birth will be discovered, with one being circumcised and the other being left intact, so psychological studies can be carried out.

Another possibility is to find a couple who would normally circumcise their sons and have just had identical twins and pay them not to circumcise one of their sons, to compensate them for the embarrassment of one of their sons not being sic normal.

Many people on this list will assume I'm anti Jewish, far from it, my four favorite men of all time were Jewish, namely Spinoza, Einstein, Fischer and Bob Dylan.

Regards

Peter
posted by dollyknot at 4:06 AM on March 4, 2010 [7 favorites]

On the one hand -- I respect the right of the individual to come to his or her own conclusion on this issue. There is evidence for and against, and reasonable, thinking people can find just as much convincing in the one side as in the other, depending on each of their unique backgrounds and experiences. I can find just as much cause to see why one person would call it harmless as I can find cause to see why another person would call it genital mutilation.

On the other hand -- there is one argument which I do admit I'm a bit skeptical about. Circumcision opponents state that it leads to decreased sensitivity on the part of the male. I can accept this is true to some extent. However -- I have, er, "enjoyed the company" of a fair number of circumcized men. And there was, er, "incontrovertible proof" that they were just fine in the sensation department, thank you.

So I can only conclude that the decreased sensitivity isn't as much of a factor as one would think. Because I'm fairly sure that I'm not THAT good in bed.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:08 AM on March 4, 2010

hamburger

Probably not the right joke for a circumcision thread.
posted by Forktine at 4:11 AM on March 4, 2010

me: “It's precisely the same thing as the institutional bureaucracy that keeps young medical students pulling internships where they have to care for critically injured patients for 12 hours at a stretch on two hours of sleep out of every 48.”

tellurian: “What?”

Well, y'know. "Precisely" in the sense of "the same bureaucratic sort of institution," not "the same thing in fact and deed." I meant it's the same hazing-oriented culture; 'I will inflict this pain on the young solely because it was inflicted on me.'

No biggie.

dollyknot, I hate to say this, but... er... this would probably fit better on your own blog, since you've got so much to say about it.
posted by koeselitz at 4:13 AM on March 4, 2010

All the people who suffered and died in WW2, will have suffered and died in vain unless we consider Heaven and space to be synonymous

in 4 days within simultaneous rotation.
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:14 AM on March 4, 2010 [2 favorites]

dollyknot, i can only hope this some kind of elaborate satire.
posted by modernnomad at 4:15 AM on March 4, 2010

(this is)
posted by modernnomad at 4:15 AM on March 4, 2010

Probably not the right joke for a circumcision thread.

Hot dog?
posted by cirripede at 4:17 AM on March 4, 2010

dollyknot, i can only hope this some kind of elaborate satire.

If it wasn't evident by the post, signing it, "Regards, Peter" clinched it.
posted by explosion at 4:20 AM on March 4, 2010

Why stop there? I certainly didn't consent to having my umbilical cord cut.
posted by sswiller at 4:20 AM on March 4, 2010

Did you just, insert the, commas randomly or is, there some pattern I am, missing?

TODD LOKKEN
posted by Justinian at 4:21 AM on March 4, 2010

Wow! Is that Hermann or Bobby Fischer? because if it's Herman, that's awesome (sorry jonmc).
posted by tellurian at 4:22 AM on March 4, 2010