When South Africa gets called to the carpet on the front page of the New York Times for failing to adequately promote circumcision as a means to prevent the spread of HIV, why doesn’t anyone go after American doctors who almost universally tell parents that there’s no medical reason to make the cut?
The American Academy of Pediatrics says:
Scientific studies show some medical benefits of circumcision. However, these benefits are not sufficient for the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) to recommend that all infant boys be circumcised.
In the Northwest, where newborn circumcision rates have dropped to well under 50 percent, most organic-milk drinking, cloth-diapering, alternative-education espousing parents now consider it nearly cruel and unusual (neither Oregon nor Washington Medicaid insurance plans cover the procedure).
But in Africa, apparently, circumcision is the new breastfeeding.
From the Times:
Some other African nations are championing the procedure and bringing it to thousands. But in South Africa, the powerhouse country at the heart of the epidemic, the government has been notably silent, despite the withering international criticism the country has endured for its previous foot-dragging in fighting and treating AIDS.
“Countries around us with fewer resources, both human and financial, are able to achieve more,” said Dr. Quarraisha Abdool Karim, the first director of South Africa’s national AIDS program in the mid-1990s under President Nelson Mandela. “I wish I understood why South Africa, which has an enviable amount of resources, is not able to respond to the epidemic the way Botswana and Kenya have.”
At my 6-month-old son’s checkup this week, I asked his pediatrician to explain, and got the now standard answer: “There is no medical reason to perform a circumcision.” But if that’s true in the U.S, why isn’t it true in Africa?
My first thought was that maybe the studies showing a huge decrease in HIV infection rates are bogus. Many public health proclamations are based on reported data (sketchy), but it turns out that’s not the case here. The studies weren’t double blind (obviously study participants could tell whether or not they had been circumcised), but they did take thousands of uncut guys and randomly assign them to be cut at the beginning or at the end of the trial.
And basically the number in the uncut group who contracted HIV over the course of the study was generally more than double compared to the cut (about 1.3 percent versus .6 percent in one Ugandan study). Those are small percentages but it meant the difference of about 30 men in Uganda, surely significant to them and their families.
So assume the studies are accurate. Why is it happening? Is it a lack of modern plumbing that means Africans are not as able to keep their parts clean, giving the bugs more places to hide out? That was my doctor’s guess.
Could public health messages about cleanliness have the same effect as a delicate if simple operation? If that’s the case, shouldn’t the story be at least as much about a need for clean running water, which would prevent loads of other deadly and devastating diseases? Personally, I think circumcision is a somewhat bizarre, archaic practice, not unlike religion, that lots of people just go along with because it’s what they’re used to.
Granted, South Africa has had a poor reputation for addressing AIDS. During a visit there in the late 1990’s, local papers were full of articles claiming AIDS prevention was a way for white imperialists to discourage Africans from breeding. That seems silly. But parents (and adult men) in the United States would have a pretty hard time swallowing a governmental mandate to remove non-essential skin from an essential body part. Especially if it wasn’t even our government.
#88, “Male circumcision” is a poor term that was coined only because it was an acceptable alternative to “genital mutilation.”
mutilation: to injure, disfigure, or make imperfect by removing or irreparably damaging parts
I’m not comparing male circumcision to female circumcision. That’s why I said “I take it all the haters would be ok if they only cut off the tip of the clit?” It’s only MOST of the nerve endings, and it has no real benefit. Same thing as male circumcision.
Here’s another definition:
victim: one that is acted on and usu. adversely affected by a force or agent
Finally, your opinion of the OP’s family life really has shit to do with whether he has a valid argument on circumcision.
@ 103, I disagree. We have nurtured a culture where anyone, anytime, who had something bad (whether real or perceived) happen to them can claim victimhood status. It’s getting to the point where kids are going to grow up claiming victimization because they end up having different political views than their parents. Guys like Vince are just one more manifestation of this. I’m free to speculate about his family life and how much that plays in his delusions since he brought it up.
By the way, circumcision doesn’t qualify to even your definition of mutilation. They did believe it had valid medical benefit before, just like removing tonsils earlier in the 20th century. Sure, we know better now, but that hardly makes it retroactively barbaric.
#104 having Republican parents doesn’t compare to having your human rights violated. Don’t be a jackass.
Whether they thought it had a valid medical benefit doesn’t have anything to do with the definition of mutilation, either.
Your human rights weren’t violated. You weren’t mutilated. Get over it.
I need to add: by your reckoning, anyone who get amputated for having a life-threatening infection is also “mutilated.” You better rethink that last paragraph you wrote.
Yes, amputation could be considered mutilation. Whether it has a medical benefit or not. Read the definition. I’ll remove the unrelated bits so you can comprehend:
to make imperfect by removing parts
Many reputable scholars agree that circumcision is a human rights violation. What is your agenda here, besides justifying your own circumcision to yourself?
Oh for fuck’s sake.
Mutilation, by connotation, means that it was done with harmful intent. That’s why circumcision and amputation fail to meet the definition.
Many reputable scholars also don’t believe that climate change is happening as a result of worldwide greenhouse emissions. (None are peer-reviewed, but it doesn’t change the fact that they are, indeed, reputable scholars in the skeptics’ ranks.) Doesn’t make them right.
I am interested in their writings, however. Do you have any links? Or at least names?
As for me… interesting that you want to make it about me. My only agenda is that I do not wish to see a bunch of false victims validated as real victims. It’s an insult to real victims of childhood trauma. Unless their actual penises (i.e., shaft or glans) were damaged in a botched circumcision, they are not.
w7ngman,
“Mutilation” has a really damn strong meaning. The connotation is not necessarily that it was done intentionally (you can get mutilated by a woodchipper), but definitely that it disables an important bodily ability. The foreskin has function, but your penis still works without it. It may meet the literal dictionary definition of “mutilation” in your eye, but I agree with Matt. It’s like arguing for ethical vegetarianism by constantly talking about “mass murder.”
As for “human rights violation,” what does that even mean? I agree that it is a violation of a right I think humans should have. And I guess you could call that victimhood, if you were being a literalist. But it comes across as “you should feel like shit for this, what’s wrong with you?!” That’s probably ineffective (who wants to listen after you’ve just insulted their penis?), it’s self-defeating (makes it sound like individual preference is unreasonable), and it makes it sound like your argument is supported only by hyperbolic word selection and emotional manipulation.
And it gives me mental images of penises in woodchippers. Which isn’t all that different from Steve Buscemi in a woodchipper, but still, please stop.
Connotation is subjective. Are you trying to say that if female genital mutilation isn’t done with harmful intent, that it isn’t mutilation? Try again.
“Unless their actual penises (i.e., shaft or glans) were damaged in a botched circumcision, they are not.”
I think having nerve endings forcibly removed counts as damage.
No, connotation is not subjective, as you well know or you wouldn’t choose such a strong word.
You remind me of anti-abortion protesters, twisting facts and using loaded words and distorting the words of your opponents. (You’re logically challenged if you think that female genital mutilation can be compared in the manner you choose.) I bet you even want to outlaw it, even though, as quoted in the very post that started all this, there are some medical benefits to the procedure. I guess you want to make the choice for everyone else, though.
I wouldn’t choose to have my son go through it, now that we know more than we did 40 years ago. But you, like me, are not a victim of anything. Get on with your life, and stop wasting your energy lamenting what you can’t remember you ever had. It’s a selfish indulgence.
#122, what facts have I twisted? What words of yours have I distorted?
Nowhere did I suggest I want to ban circumcision or make choices for anyone else. In fact, you’re the one that seems to think it’s ok for parents to make a choice for their infant about a body modification that has questionable benefits.
Why can’t FGM be compared? You said male circumcision isn’t done with harmful intent, and that’s why it isn’t mutilation. FGM isn’t necessarily done with harmful intent, either, but it’s still mutilation? #110 says my penis still works circumcised. Victims of FGM’s parts still “work”, too, but male circumcision is ok and FGM isn’t? Maybe you need to find a real argument instead of vaguely claiming that I’m not allowed to compare the two.
No one ever answered my question: would it be ok to just cut off the tip of the clit if it was believed that it prevented disease? At that point it shouldn’t be mutilation, since it wasn’t harmful intent and it still works.
“Get on with your life, and stop wasting your energy lamenting what you can’t remember you ever had.”
You seem to be confusing me with Vince. I don’t lament about my own circumcision. I lament about those that have not yet been performed needlessly and can still be prevented.
#110, what does human rights violation mean? It means having an unnecessary body modification done without my consent. That’s it. I never played the victim card or tried to make anyone here feel bad. I don’t feel bad for being circumcised and I don’t expect anyone else to. The people that should feel bad are the apologists and the doctors that perpetuate myths about the benefits of circumcision.
The fact is that cut penis seems perfectly normal because it’s all over the place. If all we ever saw our whole lives was uncut penis, I think “mutilation” would be a reasonable description of a cut penis.
Maybe you need to find a real argument instead of vaguely claiming that I’m not allowed to compare the two.
I never said that you’re not allowed to compare the two. You’re free to. I think it’s ineffective rhetoric, and unnecessary, and Matt and I actually *agree* with you in effect. Lord.
No one ever answered my question: would it be ok to just cut off the tip of the clit if it was believed that it prevented disease?
That’s because the tip of the clit is not anatomically analogous to the foreskin; the clitoral hood is. To answer your question, I don’t see any practical or moral distinction from male circumcision there. The “tip of the clit” is a different story.
#110, what does human rights violation mean? It means having an unnecessary body modification done without my consent. That’s it. I never played the victim card or tried to make anyone here feel bad. I don’t feel bad for being circumcised and I don’t expect anyone else to.
Fair enough.
If all we ever saw our whole lives was uncut penis, I think “mutilation” would be a reasonable description of a cut penis.
I don’t really get the impression that it’s that way in Europe. Good, too, because associating a “mutilation” taboo with something like that is a genuinely fucked up thing to do for those who have no choice in the matter — especially if they’re a small minority.
#114, “I never said that you’re not allowed to compare the two.”
Sorry, that was directed at #112’s “logically challenged” comment.
“I think it’s ineffective rhetoric, and unnecessary”
I actually didn’t bring up FMG. That line of rhetoric is partly in response to #41.
Nevertheless, Matt is making meaningless distinctions between male circumcision and FGM, and he’s doing it in order to avoid considering circumcision a form of mutilation. He has yet to present a good reason why FMG should be considered mutilation any more than a male circumcision performed under the same circumstances.
“That’s because the tip of the clit is not anatomically analogous to the foreskin; the clitoral hood is.”
True, thought I don’t think it changes my point.
@#115: There are multiple types of female genital cutting, which I’ll use instead of “FGM” for clarity. One, Type IA, is analogous to male circumcision and involves the removal of the clitoral hood. I don’t know much about the procedure since it’s not taught in the U.S., although it does happen rarely, for medical reasons.
Anyway, no other forms of female circumcision can be compared other than Type 1A (and maybe Type IV, which is really more genital damage than real “modification”). And other than having issues with scarring and nerve damage (which may be greater than male circumcision, I don’t know) I think it’s a fair comparison. Any other types — not at all a fair comparison, and that’s generally what people think of when using “FGM.”
If you’re trying to point out that Type 1A female circumcision is illegal in the U.S. and that it’s a blatant double standard, I agree. But I don’t agree that most Americans actually *educated* on the procedure would consider it mutilation, unless the nerve damage risks are meaningfully greater. I think you’re seeing a double standard when there’s really just low familiarity and generalization. If there were any sort of cultural or religious pressure to allow the practice, I seriously doubt it would be illegal or widely frowned-upon.
My understanding on Circumcision is that it’s not specifically a medical procedure.
Historically, circumcision where practiced was part of a puberty rite that signified a male’s (and yes, a female’s) passing from Childhood to Adulthood. The pain would mark the moment of separation, the drop off in sensation would shift the focus from the self to the world, and its ritualization would create a space where the boy would sense himself becoming a man within the society he lived in. Even the female version was historically viewed as a passage to adulthood by those who underwent the ordeal – ask the African girls who suffered through the ordeal thanks to their GRANDMOTHERS, who went over the heads of their daughters to have their grand-daughters circumcised.
The Jews, of course, shifted the time of circumcision to just after the birth; probably in an effort to separate themselves from others. And in the English Speaking world, its acceptance started more as an anti-masturbation movement than a cleanliness movement (although I’m sure cleanliness made its mark in the propaganda).
So many of us have been cut without our consent. It wouldn’t surprise me that if we were left uncut at birth, there’d be very few circumcisions done by choice (why mess with what is?) unless it were done as a ritual or puberty rite. And since we Americans tend to see puberty rites or rituals as inherently evil, we WOULD probably see the cut penis as a mutilation, simply because it would appear UNNATURAL to us.
And we’d probably have a lot more sex, with a lot fewer hangups (although some hangups would probably be strengthened, I’m guessing).
It’s laughable that so many grown men waste a lot of energy whining about how they were “mutilated” as newborns.I mean,come on!There are no more pressing issues in your lives?As a physician I see many seriously ill patients,who deal with their serious medical issues with more fortitude than most of the whiners on this site.So you were circumcised as a child;big freaking deal!They are worse fates;than the dubious “loss of sensation.”Get a life.
Since I saw it stated once early in the thread and just in case it was stated again… they don’t chop off the end of your dick, geniuses. Some of you have watched too many movies.
In circumcision, they cut off your foreskin, the skin-wrap around your dick. That’s it. The rest of your dick is left intact.
Still wondering how many pro-circumcision guys here would elect to have the surgery done as an adult. And why do they insist that everyone else has to be okay with it?
My uncut lovers never wanted to use a condom. “It doesn’t fit right,” they’d complain. Would circumcised men have greater rates of condom use?
I sure wish my husband still had his foreskin. We didn’t have our kid cut.
Circumcision is just so much cleaner and healthier, and it’s the right choice to make for your daughter. Removal of the redundant clitoral hood and labia prevents infections and makes vulvar cancer impossible. There’s no medical study to support the belief that uncircumcised women have more sexual sensation. Come on! The labia are just useless flaps of skin that stink and harbour bacteria. I’m tired of these anti-circ nuts complaining about their “loss of sensation”, “genital mutilation” and other such blather. It’s a parental right to amputate sexual tissue from your children. Female circumcision is done by women, and it has been done for thousands of years, so if it were really harmful it would have died out.
I’m so glad that American moms are cutting their boys in accordance with Muslim law. It’s just a matter of time before they accept the same benefits for their daughters. Female circumcision is here in the U.S., and once its benefits are understood, it will be just as accepted as male circumcision, because really they are done for exactly the same reasons.