Cristiano

Ban-happy SF targets male circumcision | San Francisco Examiner

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Joshua Nightshade

This thread will not end well.

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Milla Janick

God hates foreskins.

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Amity Slade

Okay, I'll need to be educated on this issue. I didn't think that circumsicion was a harmful procedure.

I have to admit, all I know about circumsicion I learned from the South Park episode about Ike's bris. I thought the lesson they all learned in the end was that a circumsicion is cool because it's just trimming it a little to make it look bigger?

Bard Jameson

I will introduce a referendum to ban parents from cutting their children's hair before age 18. My dad used to take me to the barber shop and have them give me a "butch". I still have the pictures, and the nightmares. It should be a crime.

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Richie Waves

hmm

We can all agree it's repulsive to do it to female babies. I guess there's a very good reason why boys don't receive the same cultural protections.

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Camille Serpentine

I always thought male circumcision came about because not a lot men wash well there and it would prevent diseases and problems.

Richie Waves

Doesn't really make sense to me. We evolved with the skin there. many many people here in Ireland, the majority in fact, aren't circumcised.

Joshua Nightshade

That's basically it.

It was a religious thing hundreds of years ago because of poor hygiene and poorer sanitation, but now it's an outdated cultural expectation that serves no practical purpose at all.

You don't cut off an infant's hands to teach them to wash them properly. It takes effort to let things progress to the point of infection, or else the majority of Europe and the UK would have guys' dicks falling off.

Camille Serpentine

I agree, I was just guessing at the ancient reasons for doing it.

Though I must say.. Men.. please wash that area more if you do have your foreskin.

PLEASE!!!

Joshua Nightshade

In the US, it's not very common for guys to be uncircumcised (although that's more and more the case these days.) So I don't think a lot of guys grow up with the necessary knowledge they need to know they're supposed to clean themselves a bit more diligently.

In other countries where circumcision is rare, cleanliness is usually better.

Smegmacock is no fun for anybody.

Ranma Tardis

Yea it is wrong to cut the end of the Penis off of those babies. If they want a trim job they need to wait until they are 18. An infant can not give consent and oh children's hair grows back. Those boys foreskins are gone for life.

Carolyn Saarinen

I've long been baffled by the fondness for medically un-necessary male circumcision among even non-Jewish and non-Muslim Americans. I think it first came to my attention via the Web. Because, whenever a forum degenerated into nationalistic bashing of each others countries, I noticed that sooner or later, an American poster would throw one or both of the following accusations at some British poster:
1. British people have 'bad' teeth.
2. British men are not circumcised (and presumably, therefore, unhygienic).
Weird I know, but I did come across it several times before I got more choosy about forums.

In God Is Not Great Christopher Hitchens cites a case from 2005 in New York where an Hasidic mohel (circumciser) had infected several baby boys with genital herpes. leading to the deaths of two of them. This was because he practised peri'ah metsitsah where the foreskin, after being cut, is sucked off the end of the infant's penis and spat out along with a mouthful of blood. (I'm not making this up!). Hitchen's point was that the mayor intervened in the investigation of this matter to emphasise that the most important issue was that free exercise of religion was not being infringed! Well, it was an election year.

Just today, I was depressed to hear on the news that Rwanda is attempting to combat AIDS by introducing a programme of male circumcision. Depressed because, while circumcised men are at lower risk of contracting the HIV virus, using condoms would protect them better and also protect women who, of course, gain no protection at all from men being circumcised. The last thing African women need is another excuse for men to insist on unprotected sex!

[Wow, I know a lot about male circumcision don't I? ]

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Joshua Nightshade

The jury is still out on this, the results are not conclusive.

But either way, yes, condoms would present an even greater reduction of HIV infection rates than relying on circumcision alone, and circumcision does nothing to protect women who are culturally expected and pressured not to make their male partner (or rapist, in some parts of Africa) wear one in the first place.

It's disappointing that they're not being pushed while circumcision is.

Richie Waves

Wat

Cristiano

Aliselia Aeon

I know a lot of men say that their pleasure is diminished by circumcision.

I don't feel that circumcision is necessary in this day and age (and location) because we have the ability to be clean. I do think that boys need to be educated on how to keep suitably clean if not circumcised-especially since it hasn't been a common thing here in the US.Perhaps fathers that have been circumcised need to learn how to teach their uncircumcised sons proper hygiene?

I do know how I feel personally about being with a man who is uncircumcised. I ain't having nuthin' to do with it unless I know it's washed. lol

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Tess Whitcroft

Is it constitutional for a city board of supervisors to ban a procedure required by some religions?

Tess

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Walker

I'm pretty sure my mother taught me how to wash there before I even started primary school... you know, while she was still bathing me regularly and teaching me how to bath myself in the future. Isn't that how it works for most boys this side of the pond? I don't think boys give a crap about being naked in front of people (regardless of gender) at that age, so it's probably the best time to teach that "essential". It becomes second nature.

Lucifer Baphomet

Phimosis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sometimes they're necessary

Nothing worse than missing a party when you're 18 because you got your foreskin to fully retract for the first time in your life that morning, have your foreskin swell and refuse to go back, watch your glans turn blue, and have to go to hospital for an emergency circumcision.

I speak from experience

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Beathag McMahon

I would guess probably not.

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Cincia Singh

Circumcised men in the South African trial (2005) were 60% (95% CI 32% to 76%) less likely to acquire HIV than their uncircumcised counterparts. A mathematical modeling study, based on the South African trial, estimates that the practice of male circumcision could avert two million new HIV infections and 300,000 HIV-related deaths over the next 10 years in sub-Saharan Africa.

More recently (2007), two randomized controlled trials in Kisumu, Kenya and Rakai, Uganda showed, respectively, 53% and 48% reductions in HIV acquisition among circumcised men than uncircumcised men in the trial. These results strongly suggest that male circumcision could play an important role in the struggle against the continued rise in new HIV infections.

The World Health Organization (WHO; 2007), the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS; 2007), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC; 2008) state that evidence indicates male circumcision significantly reduces the risk of HIV acquisition by men during penile-vaginal sex, but also state that circumcision only provides partial protection and should not replace other interventions to prevent transmission of HIV.

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Wildefire Walcott

WTF, Cris done trolled his own forum.

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Joshua Nightshade

If there's an actual medical necessity like that then by all means, sure.

But that affects a very small percentage of men, compared to the number of routine circumcisions that happen every day.

Adam was circumcised as well for the same issue, but it's not enough of a risk that it should be done on a common basis.

Amity Slade

Freedom of religion doesn't give blanket protection for anyone to do anything, merely beause an act is justified as a requirement of practicing a particular religion.

Like any other law that would encroach on religious freedom, the law will be balanced against compelling government interests, necessity to protect those interests, narrow tailoring to protect those interests, and other hurdles.

However, in this case, given that male circumsicion is such a long-standing requirement in the practice of some religions, San Francisco is going to have a tough, tough time defending it from a First Amendment challenge, and I don't see this law (if it passes) surviving such a challenge. On the other hand, I have to admit I don't know a lot about male circumsicion, I'm not fully informed on what harms are associated with it.