:rolleyes:
Fine, I won't bother anymore.
Such as? I never advocated legislation against any cultural practise as such. I just don't feel there is need to not apply existing legislation on the basis of some cultural or religious consideration. Which means I am quite ok with application of the rule that you're not allowed to have something covering your face in public (as has been the law in Holland for at least 200 years), not even if you're a religious dingbat. Also, you're not allowed to inflict grievous bodily harm on a small child (or any other person for that matter). Again, not even if you're a religious dingbat.
You are the one who's sympathetic of making sweeping changes to the protection of the law just to satisfy some synthetic concept of 'freedom of religion'.
AAP has decided there's no medical reason for performing male infant circumcision, but they don't condemn the practice for religious or cultural reasons. (Physicians just say it's not covered by insurance; they'll do it but only if paid in cash.) :rolleyes:
I think some reasons this turns into disagreements is (a) the religious aspect (kind of hard to tell all the Jews they can't cut their baby penii anymore because it's considered mutilation), and (b) men used to make most of the physician population and the medical rules (older generations are probably cut and changing their opinion means they've been mutilated).
The resason why discussion of male circumsion turns into disagreements is because some people think it's an okay practice. :o
Yes, the people who think it's okay are Jews (for religious reasons) and other men who've been circumsized (for cultural reasons).
I admit to regret (and guilt) that I let my ex decide that our sons would be circumsized. I should have followed my gut instinct and said No, but even the pediatrician said "looking like daddy and other boys in the locker room is more important than you realize".
:(
#1. This and circumcission are completely medically unnecessary.
#2. Culture is powerful - it defines us in part. You can't ignore it.
Given #1 and #2, the best course is to teach people not to cut their kids' pee-pees. But, because we just LOVE to do it, out of tradtion, some fucked up cultural inertia, because I don't want my Bobby's pee-pee to look different, because if a girl's getting off on anything but my cock doing the deed then she won't be enough of my slave, or whatever; if we just HAVE to do it, then doing it much less, is much better. Less is more, see. :)
But what about the Jews? If FGM is "criminalized", then why would the bris be "grandfathered" or excluded on a religious basis.....
I was just wondering how the European males on this forum feel about it. We all know they must be dirty and carrying all sorts of STDs, eh? :o
Very long edit: Cultural/ religious practices that maim others should not be protected by the medical community. The medical community shouldn't be endorsing doing something to a minor, let alone an infant, that isn't medically necessary. It makes them seem less credible.
I'm perfectly okay with the decision to circumsize if it is seen fit that there is a medical need for it, just as any other surgery is performed on a child. But not just because it may or may not reduce STD transmission (in the males only BTW, doesn't really help females in that respect). It's not a vaccination, or a 100% known protectant. Taking drastic measures on a person's body for such a minimal gain is really ignorant. Sex education and protection is a much better way of doing things.
Hubby is the same way, and I have no complaints. All is well in our household! ;)
Cat, I tried to make it clear that the medical community doesn't condone infant male circumcision for medical reasons, but they also won't condemn it for religious reasons.
Even if the whole medical community agreed to stop cutting baby boys in the hospital setting for ANY reason, a bris can take place in the home with a 'trained' rabbi.
I read your post, GGT. I know it's hard for them to condemn practices in our PC world. And it's not just religious people that do it anyway; there are many small practice doctors that will probably never change their position on it no matter what AAP recommends.
I guess I expect better of our "medically advanced" society but I shouldn't. We mock other cultures practices but still perform barbaric ones on our own. We really are no different; humans are in constant hypocrisy of themselves no matter the race or nationality. (Myself included at times)
:up: to Cat.
You're gestating a girl. If it were a boy and your husband was a cut gentile, what would you do? Hypotheticals are hard that way :(
Girls will come with strange decisions, too. Will you 'make' her get her the HPV vaccine, knowing what we know (or don't know) now, based on what your pediatrician says?
I get what you are saying, and luckily I'm not in that position. It would be a tough one I'm sure, especially if extended family get involved. I'd hope I could educate my partner to understand why such a tradition is silly, but that's always easier said than done.
As far as HPV goes, I'm hoping by the time we get to that bridge more data will be out, and we can make a well-informed decision then. My current issue with the vaccine is that it only takes care of certain kinds of HPV, and needs vast improvement in my eyes.
Unfortunately, the rumor is that school systems are going to start requiring it so I may not have the choice whether or not to do it.
I'm not against vaccines by the way. I plan on having baby girl vaccinated for all of the necessary ones.
There's the rub. Between my first and second children, the Varicella vaccine became a public school mandate. That's Chicken Pox. They also changed the college mandates for meningitis vaccines. But my son said screw that, and just decided to skip the "mandated" physical exam before he started college. Ha, he also refused to get a campus ID with a photo.Quote:
Unfortunately, the rumor is that school systems are going to start requiring it so I may not have the choice whether or not to do it.
I'm not against vaccines by the way. I plan on having baby girl vaccinated for all of the necessary ones.
:bulb:
Well, I prefer my men cut.
That's an aesthetic call. Adult men can decide that for themselves. The "risks" of the procedure are different in adult men than infants.
But now you've opened up the discussion of WHY do you "prefer cut men"? Does that come from looking at porn? Looking in the mirror? Wanting someone who looks different than your own body?
Porn currently shows women looking like hairless pre-pubescent minors, with fake boob implants. No wonder people are confused.
Are you saying men with foreskin smell bad?
I've never had sex with a foreskin, but I've bathed them enough. Smegma. Yeah, it sounds as bad as it smells. :eek:
Only if you don't wash for a week. And then all your other bits smell too. :rolleyes:
Precisely.
Nothing wrong with letting a grown up decide to skin his genitals (or pierce her clit, or inject ink under his/her skin with an electric-powered needle), but forcing it on non-consenting people is wrong.
No shit.
Gee, genitals smell bad when you never wash them? I can only imagine how bad an unwashed vag would smell... so let's use that as an argument against heterosexuality (or women in general), shall we?
I don't know, but as a woman I'd hate to be stuck in a desert with no showers, wearing a body blanket all the time.
Maybe that's why burkas were made in the first place....
It's one thing to keep a foreskin clean, even without water. It's an external organ. But women ovulate and menstruate.
:eek:
Hm. I see a few of you have mentioned cleanliness as some kind of issue in this circumcision debate. Quite aside from the retardation of cutting off something because a boy might not clean it throughly enough, is this seen as a relavant part of the issue? Because i have to tell you, my wang smells no different from any other part of my body unless (like any other part of my body), i dont wash it. Girls genitals seem much the same in this regard. And cutting their bits off for hygiene reasons doesnt seem to be brought up very often.
Same as why male models shave their legs and chests to look boyish while working out to have big muscles?
Meh, im not convinced by this. If we wanted them big and fat, with saggy tits and big bushy pubes, we would just be accused of having mother complexes. Now were accused of being quasi-paedos.
Maybe rather its because in movies all that pubic hair and fat looks gross, while in the bedroom its better to rub your face against soft smooth skin than a big mass of hair (or stubble)
Until proof is shown, im going by the practical reasons rather than the pseudo-freudian ones.
As much as I agree (generally - there is something hot about a little hair above the vag... like a landing strip, guiding me in... :D) there's been a recent deal made in the press about cosmetic surgery some older women are getting - to trim back their genitals, so that their genitals do actually look pre-pubescent. Ewww. So maybe there is something to GGT's idea... other than the basic, biological reality that pubescent women are biologically attractive to men, because they represent the best chance to have the most kids in a monogamous relationship (since they have the largest number of available years of fertility).
Doi. Just like women are biologically attracted to older men, who are more suitable to help raise children (more stability, economic resources, etc.), but this mere fact of biology doesn't make all women gold-digging perverts with father issues, any more than all men are pedophiles for being attracted to younger women.
Hi Spawnie :) I asked because I really don't know. I don't look at porn routinely, but I know it's mostly all about hairless flesh and size of boobs or dicks. I'm sure my porn 'exposure' is limited (and someone will come along to tell me what I'm missing)....but there's nothing inherently WRONG with hair.
Shaving, in fact, is what makes hair course and feel like sand paper, since it grows out every day. From men's 5 o'clock shadows to women's legs. And really, if people weren't broadcasting pictures of genitals that looked like pre-teens, or commercials for hair removal, would you really think it's "bad"? No, you wouldn't even have a comparison, to compare.
What's next? Some fashion statement that eyelashes and eyebrows are ugly too? We already have the manly men shaven head, or the stubbly 3 day beard is sexy thing going on.... and "hairy men" getting waxed before they go to the beach.
Should we all just use depilatories to bare our whole bodies and go around that way because it makes sex "more enjoyable"? Slathered in smelly sunscreen lotions and wearing hats? Really?
Hence, waxing!
Go get a "Brazilian wax" and get back to us. Don't post the pictures, though.
(There's also the currently rather expensive, but permanent, laser hair removal option... personally, something I'll probably do when the price point comes down. Not for all of my pubes, but the ones on my sack and my shaft are definitely gonna go. Shaving those always terrifies me.)
Yeah, women routinely pluck their eyebrows to look "more feminine." What of it?