Penis Preference

[marshlander]

In the flacid state cut looks better in my opinion...

And no its not mutilation or barbaric. My circumcision was due to societal norms, because my Dad and brother were, and looks better reasons and I don't hate my parents for that.

And if I ever adopted a baby boy or something someday I would circumcise him for similar reasons.

As long as its done near after birth, the person never remembers it. I sure don't.

Oh and the other issue (in North America at least) is Locker Room issues...because cut is the overwhelming norm, I have seen time and time again the 1 or 2 uncut kids in the gym class get mocked.

Since when has the loss of any part of the body not been mutilation? That is an unemotive and correct use of the term. To deliberately inflict mutilation, though, on an infant who is clearly unable to give informed consent hardly seems the mark of a caring society.

There are societies all round the world that ritually maim their children. Just because everybody does it cannot make it right. I have no problem with a procedure being carried out for genuine medical reasons or with the informed consent of the individual.

Of course there is a ton of research, much of it conflicting, but Boyle et al. in their study of male circumcision (pub Bond University Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, 2002) stated that "the genitally intact male has thousands of fine touch receptors and other highly erogenous nerve endings—many of which are lost to circumcision."They concluded, "Evidence has also started to accumulate that male circumcision may result in lifelong physical, sexual, and sometimes psychological harm as well."

The fact that there is the chance of "lifelong harm" should mean the procedure should never be carried out routinely. Just because you don't hate your parents for chopping off part of your dick doesn't mean you haven't involuntarily lost something that the evolutionary process put there in the first place. The American Academy of Pediatrics concluded in 1999 that "there was insufficient data to recommend routine neonatal circumcision" (Pediatrics 103 (3): 686–693); the Canadian Paediatric Society does not recommend circumcision for newborn boys and notes that "many paediatricians no longer perform circumcisions" (2002 Canadian Medical Association Journal 154 (6): 769–780) ... I could go on, but I daresay I've made my point

So-called "societal norms" dictate your "looks better reasons". "Locker room issues" is bullying by another name. Bullying is never acceptable and can (and should) be tackled. Attitudes can (and, again, should) be changed to protect the victim who in turn perpetrates the abuse on the next generation. That kind of unquestioning acceptance is used to justify all sorts of inhumanity, whether it's making someone feel a freak if their feet have not been painfully bound, their forekins are intact or they have escaped the horrors of female genital mutilation.

By all means come back at me with a decent argument, but many people will never be able to accept that the unnecessary mutilation of infants is acceptable because it "looks better".

[Canucker]

Its not like your chopping off a leg or arms, its an aesthetic cosmetic surgery that leaves the penis fully functional afterwards.

Culture is culture. I don't like it when in Mexican countries they have dog or cock fights, but thats part of their cultural norms.

In North American its culturally normal for males to be circumcised for aesthetic/cosmetic reasons.

This isn't the case in Europe. But please don't go inflicting the European view onto North America.

Disagree with it, but don't advocate it to be illegal.

Same issue with spanking, I was spanked as a child, and many many parents still do this today in North America, and I get very PO'ed when someone comes in saying they want to make it illegal because they "know better".

[marshlander]

Its not like your chopping off a leg or arms, its an aesthetic cosmetic surgery that leaves the penis fully functional afterwards.

To the best of my knowledge, aesthetic cosmetic surgery is generally elective. This procedure does not fall under that category when the "patient" is a child.

By all means chop whatever you like ... off your own body. I haven't read (or even written) anything here that implies that circumcision should be illegal ... just that the individual going under the knife should be allowed freedom of choice. Isn't it just possible that, were it to become normal for males to be uncut until adulthood, a significant number would not bother?

[princealbertofb]

And if I ever adopted a baby boy or something someday I would circumcise him for similar reasons.

I'm sure that YOU would NOT circumcise anyone, Canucker, and probably not your own kid either; you'd have it performed by the doctor, and wouldn't do it yourself... If you had to do it yourself, I doubt that would you would even know how to go about it, let alone know how to deal with the subsequent discomfort. But maybe you aren't afraid of blood...
Oh, it sounds soooooooo easy...
*Takes scissors. Nip, nip, nip... * That's it?
*Howling baby in the background*

I'm sure that's not what you meant, but you had better express your sentences in a clearer and better way.

And for whom it might interest, a definition of MUTILATION from the Harrap's 21st Century Dictionary:
Mutilate (verb) (mutilated, mutilating)
1 to cause severe injury to (a person or animal), especially by removing a limb or organ.
2 to damage something severely, especially to alter (eg a text, song, etc) beyond recognition.
Mutilation (noun)
1 severe physical injury, usually visible and permanent injury.
2 severe damage.
mutilator noun.
[16c: from Latin mutilare to cut off, from mutilus maimed.]

I will conceded to you that circumcision may not be considered severe mutilation by some, but it still remains a form of maiming. Why should we do to little boys, routinely, what the world is trying to fight against for women's health and sake (i.e. clitoridectomy and infibulation for example)? I'd agree with Marshlander that a young man should have a choice (an informed one) to have it performed, whether for aesthetic, or medical or other issues...

[princealbertofb]

A little story here which might enlighten you. My younger brother was born of two European parents in the state of New York on Saint Patrick's Day. The doctor (probably being or Irish and / or maybe Jewish descent) not only wanted my mother to call the newborn child Patrick but also wanted to perform circumcision on him, since it was practised in the United States.

My mother refused both. Did she make the right choice??? Obviously not, since as a young adult, at the age of 19 or 20, my younger brother eventually had to have circumcision performed for medical reasons. But what is important here is that it was HIS choice and HIS decision to go through with it and nobody else's.
Incidentally, it turns out he was gay too... lol. (Not that that has anything to do with the matter of circumcision.)

[princealbertofb]

Its not like your chopping off a leg or arms, its an aesthetic cosmetic surgery that leaves the penis fully functional afterwards.

or not...

You are obviously talking of your personal experience, which, while it is accepatable testimony on a personal level, doesn't make it evidence...

As Udabar mentioned a few posts before yours, his penis is sensitive, but not very sensitive, or not that sensitive. It's difficult for one to know what others feel and also difficult to know what one's missing, especially when one has not really had time to experience what it's like to have foreskin.

I suppose however that medical experiments have been made to test and gauge sensitivity, and men who've had to undergo treatment after having had some experience of an adult penis with foreskin will be the ones able to compare... I'm ready to take their word for the better feeling of an uncut appendage. I think my brother said as much about sensations being blunter in his penis after the operation.

What's more, sometimes the operation goes wrong and the work is botched, severing the frenulum for instance, which is highly sensitive. Probably this hasn't happened to you, and you're lucky. But how can YOU compare? The sad thing is you never will be able to now and that's a freedom of which you were robbed by your father and his forefathers etc... Maybe it's time to rethink culture and tradition?