So far as I know, this only happens among the ultra-orthodox. And yes, it's a bad idea. That said, raising the issue strikes me as a weird way to attack the practice of circumcision more broadly, as I'm guessing that not more than a handful of babies have contracted herpes in this way. Or maybe I'm wrong about that; maybe it's a serious epidemic.
You know, I've seen this story a couple of times, and all I can think is how hard is it to get (demand) a blood test? Is there no test for oral herpes?
I'd think to be the kind of mohel who does this sort of thing, you'd just have to pony up with the recent letter from the doctor calling you herpes-free, and all the problems would be solved.
And what Vee-Dub is saying -- how many cases can we really be talking about here?
I probably should have said, "This only still happens among the ultra-orthodox." It's my understanding that this practice used to be much more common but hasn't been widespread for decades.
And what Vee-Dub is saying
To the lighthouse, bitches!
That said, raising the issue strikes me as a weird way to attack the practice of circumcision more broadly, as I'm guessing that not more than a handful of babies have contracted herpes in this way.
The link says 11 in NYC between 2000 and 2011. It also doesn't seem to really be attacking circumcision more broadly.
Clicking through the link, Jill's take on it is weird. The disease-transmission thing is a thing, and if it's a real issue should be minimized. But while it's certainly an odd ritual, thinking of sucking the blood off the newborn's penis as an invasion of the baby's autonomy, or having something to do with sexual abuse, or something, seems bizarre to me. It's a one-time ritual event taking place in a roomful of relatives, and it's not like newborns have a whole lot of bodily autonomy anyway.
6: having clicked the link, I'm left wondering if 11 is more than a handful. I suppose it depends on the size of one's hands.
I'm left wondering if 11 is more than a handful. I suppose it depends on the size of one's hands.
Consider the number of babies who are circumcised in New York City over the course of eleven years.
9: I'm pretty sure almost all of them had tiny hands. Still, I think you're wrong: the original post is either badly written or an attack on circumcision more broadly. She could have said, "Circumcision is weird, but that's not really my point. Giving babies blowjobs should stop." But instead she allowed the narrow point to hint at something larger. Which larger point I'm not especially invested in. I just think this is an odd way to attack circumcision.
But while it's certainly an odd ritual, thinking of sucking the blood off the newborn's penis as an invasion of the baby's autonomy, or having something to do with sexual abuse, or something, seems bizarre to me.
Yeah, it seems consistent with a common tendency in our society to interpret anything that bears any resemblance at all to child molestation as actually being child molestation and aggressively fighting it on that basis. Which actually makes it weird that she doesn't seem to be objecting to circumcision generally; it's okay for a grown man to take a knife to a baby's penis but not to put his mouth on it?
It does seem like a lot to me. I don't know the population size of babies born to families that engage in this ritual, but my guess is that we're talking under a thousand a year? And then figure that the eleven babies hospitalized probably means many more infections that didn't require hospitalization.
You almost wonder if the herpes problem is one guy -- that there are three mohels in NY who do this, and one of them is wildly infectious.
It's also possible that I'm misinterpreting her, as per 10.
How many infant penises fit in a hand?
But now I am wondering how many babies were circumcised by a mohel in New York City in those years. More than a million? More than five million? More than in the rest of the country combined? Maybe!
Ah, right, the relevant question was how many babies were circumcised in these years by mohels in NYC who engaged in this practice. Probably under a million but still maybe more than in the rest of the country combined.
Total live births in NYC in 2009 was 126K. With that as a baseline, I'd be surprised by more than a thousand or so ultra-Orthodox, which is the number you need -- someone Reform/Conservative/Modern Orthodox might go to a mohel, but probably not the bloodsucking kind.
Probably under a million but still maybe more than in the rest of the country combined.
Quite possibly. How common is this even among the Ultra-Orthodox? Does anyone know? I had never even heard of the practice before it started being discussed on blogs a few years ago.
A thousand or so ultra-Orthodox births, that is. Not the NY Orthodox population entirely.
I'd be surprised by more than a thousand or so ultra-Orthodox, which is the number you need -- someone Reform/Conservative/Modern Orthodox might go to a mohel, but probably not the bloodsucking kind.
The ultra-Orthodox have way higher birthrates, though, so that's an additional complication.
Total live births in NYC in 2009 was 126K.
I never, ever would have guessed that the number would be that low. Is that for the whole city? Or just the glittering island of Manhattan?
18: very, very uncommon, as I understand it. I think LB is probably right above: there are only a handful of blood-sucking mohels in the country. And I'll conjecture further that all of them were trained by one guy.
Here's my source, p. 15. That doesn't sound that odd to me for the whole city: ~8M, so ~4M female, ~1M fertile women, of the fertile women one in ten has a baby in any given year. No?
I remember this being a thing in the 90s after one mohel infected a handful of kids on Long Island, I think. Whatever sect that was apparently stopped after that. I believe the late Mr Hitchens got in on the hollering-about-it act.
Ah, it seems the Times article linked in the Feministe post has some estimates:
Oral suction is no longer a part of most Jewish circumcisions, but among the more than 250,000 ultra-Orthodox Jews in the New York area, the ritual remains commonplace. In its study, the C.D.C. estimated that roughly 3,600 newborn boys a year in New York had circumcisions that included the procedure.
That looks like a reliable source. And when you put it like that, it makes sense. My assumption was both cut from whole cloth and completely unexamined.
Also, NYMag told me last week that (I think) 70% of the Jewish children in NYC were ultra orthodox. (Apropos of nothing, pretty much.)
26 to 23. Which isn't to say the Times is unreliable. Far from it; it's the paper of record.
Here's the CDC report, if anyone wants to dig deeper.
2, 4 - Our OB was actually a mohelot, in part because she already had the needed malpractice insurance. Do mohels in New York not require any sort of insurance? Can insurance companies not screen for this?
27: and that sounds weird. I mean, I suppose it depends on how one defines who's Jewish. Only those people who answer "yes" when some Chabanik asks, "Are you Joosh?" then maybe.
Page 74 of the vital stats pdf says that there were 6,627 live births that were "Jewish or Hebrew". That's probably going to be heavily Orthodox, because a lot of non-Orthodox Jews would probably show up in the stats as just "White" unless there were a direct question about religion/ethnicity.
But that still makes 3,600 bloodsucking circumcisions a year sound high -- that's more than half of all the babies that show up as Jewish in the city stats, so the city would have to be undercounting Jewish babies and it would still have to be almost all the boys.
32: It's 64% of children, I guess? And just "orthodox," not necessarily ultra.
My assumption was both cut from whole cloth
Antisemite.
36: No, it's cool. He checked it for other fibers first.
27,32: you're right that it sounds weird, but I do know that in Israel the percentage of ultra orthodox children is much higher than the ultra orthodox part of the general population. Which makes sense, when you consider ~8 children per household compared to ~2.
But that still makes 3,600 bloodsucking circumcisions a year sound high -- that's more than half of all the babies that show up as Jewish in the city stats
The first part of 25 says "250,000 ultra-Orthodox Jews in the New York area". Then it refers to "3,600 newborn boys a year in New York". I'm guessing that should be "the New York area" as well. Including the suburbs, towns where most inhabitants are on the dole, etc.
But that still makes 3,600 bloodsucking circumcisions a year sound high -- that's more than half of all the babies that show up as Jewish in the city stats, so the city would have to be undercounting Jewish babies and it would still have to be almost all the boys.
Looking at the actual report, the section on how they arrived at this estimate contains some fairly dubious assumptions.
Specifically:
To estimate the number of males potentially exposed to direct orogenital suction each year, first the number of males entering full-day or half-day kindergarten in Jewish day schools in New York City in 2010 was obtained (6,197) (1). Next, the proportion of those children attending schools that could be considered ultra-Orthodox (Hassidic, 2,665 [43%] and Yeshiva, 1,797 [29%]) was derived from New York City data included in a national census of Jewish day schools (2). Next, an assumption was made that 100% of males entering Hassidic schools (2,665), and 50% of those entering Yeshiva schools (899) would have had direct orogenital suction, yielding an estimated annual population at risk of 3,564. This estimate was multiplied by 5.75 (years) to estimate the number of male infants (20,493) likely exposed to direct orogenital suction during the April 2006-December 2011 surveillance period (Table 2).
It also estimates that the 11 cases could be traced to between 3 and 8 mohelim.
Hitchens apparently wrote about it in 2005, not the 90s. His take is more or less what you'd expect.
Isn't it obvious that Jill is having an "ooh yuck" response? Whether anyone gets a boner or not, finding out for the first time that a man who is not a relative follows up on cutting off part of a baby's penis by sucking the blood off it with his own mouth is a bit of a shock. Finding out for the first time that babies have part of their penis cut off at all is a bit of a shock. It doesn't really strike one as equivalent to your dad checking your baby genitals for diaper rash. I don't know why that's surprising.
I understand that questioning non-consensual genital surgery on infants is understood to be inherently anti-semitic. But for fuck's sake, use an anti-bacterial wipe. Why is that controversial?
I also--radical me--think babies should probably get immunized, even if they're in a religion that forbids it. I'm not at the point of saying we forcibly ban circumcision or forcibly immunize babies, but as a personal opinion, I don't think it's insane.
46: But Jill can't be shocked that circumcision exists -- she might be opposed to it, but not surprised by it. And she knows (or should know, if she's sort of normally well-educated) that among Orthodox Jews, it's done at home in a religious context rather than as a medical procedure. While the bloodsucking thing might be a surprise, I do kind of think there's an obligation among civilized people not to publish an "Oh yuck" response to someone else's religious rituals. Object if they're harmful, but not just freak about their being gross.
(And we're back to Haidt. It's not that I don't understand disgust as an emotion, I just don't think it's moral, and I think that someone doing something wrong out of disgust shouldn't think of it as a good excuse.)
There is no immunization for herpes.
50 to 47. Also, I agree with LB's 48.
So anything that any small sect of any religious group does to bodies is something I can have no reactions to? Where do we draw the boundaries between "orogenital suction" and "digitally checking vaginas for chastity"?
I'm not even talking about passing a law. And God knows this is not my usual position on these sorts of things. Maybe I need to just be fine with everything people who say "it's part of worship" do to the bodies of other, smaller humans. It's not my kid.
Is that a line that needs to be drawn? I say, why not both.
I don't think there's much to be done, safety-wise, other than banning it or requiring HSV testing for mohels. (If we happened to have a presidental herpes researcher reading the thread, cough cough, we might get an informed opinion on whether that's practical.) Antibacterial wipes, AFAIK, don't prevent herpes transmission.
Isn't it obvious that Jill is having an "ooh yuck" response? Whether anyone gets a boner or not, finding out for the first time that a man who is not a relative follows up on cutting off part of a baby's penis by sucking the blood off it with his own mouth is a bit of a shock.
Yeah, I agree that this is almost certainly what's actually going on. I just think the way she phrased it in the post is kind of odd in the way it alludes to sexual abuse as if that's the obvious way to interpret this sort of thing.
But like VW, I'm not especially invested in the larger issue here, and I'm certainly not going to try to argue the pro-circumcision side.
I've always found debates about circumcision confusing. It seems to be that it's obviously wrong to circumcise infants, but also obviously not worse than all sorts of fucked up religious and cultural stuff that parents are allowed to do to their children. But I feel like a lot of people don't find those two things obvious.
52: If you bracket out the risk of disease transmission, and the issues around circumcision at all, which I find perfectly reasonable to be concerned about, then I do think your reaction to the oral-genital suction is a little unreasonable. It's an eight-day old baby: the baby isn't perceiving the event as having a mouth on its penis, it's not really processing it at all except in the most basically sensory way. The intent isn't to abuse the baby, the baby doesn't perceive it as abuse or really at all, why is it your business to be disgusted?
If you do a circumcision on the toilet seat, you should be safe because you can't get herpes from a toilet seat.
It's probably not beside the point that those of us who have lived in Brooklyn have seen the endless struggles between the ultra-orthodox communities and their neighbors. Most recently, there's been all this stuff about families getting frustrated with feet-dragging rabbis and finally going to the police to say their child is being repeatedly molested by someone in the community. Some of the community gang up on that family to shut them up. Crimes aren't crimes if they're ultra-orthodox crimes.
59: I've heard about it before; I'm not shocked by much now. I'm just saying Jill's reaction is not insane.
58: I'm pretty much with you. We didn't circumcise Newt because it seemed like an unnecessary injury and we didn't have any cultural or religious reason for it. But the percentage of circumcised men who object to it in retrospect is so low that it really seems like a very minor injury, and not something to worry about much.
I don't think you have an obligation to refrain from saying "oooh yuck" if something strikes you as gross. You do have an obligation to avoid legally banning it, and you should probably practice a little bit of charity necessary for pluralism, but I don't think you have an obligation beyond that.
Our country was founded on mutual tolerance and coexistence of religious weirdos, and that's important, but tolerance doesn't have to mean approval of every ritual that strikes one as gross.
I think it should be legal to suggest that, hey, maybe using an antibacterial wipe instead of your fucking mouth on an infant's wound is probably a slightly more sanitary way to perform minor surgery.
62: "Not insane" is a low bar. I can empathize with the reaction, I just think it's rude and I disapprove of the way she wrote about it. Focusing on the disease transmission risk is fine, and if she'd stuck to that I wouldn't object. Getting freaked out about a religious ritual because it's disgusting to you is the sort of thing I expect decent people not to do in public.
I think it should be legal to suggest that, hey, maybe using an antibacterial wipe instead of your fucking mouth on an infant's wound is probably a slightly more sanitary way to perform minor surgery.
Which is exactly what the City is doing (more or less).
Along with requiring a consent form for parents who choose to ignore that advice.
Getting freaked out about a religious ritual because it's disgusting to you is the sort of thing I expect decent people not to do in public.
Hmmm. Public disapproval by the arguably "decent" of, I dunno, Christian Scientists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Raelians, Scientologists, and other groups seems pretty common.
halford beat me to it. but "decent people" do it all the time. Probably you too, LB! Fundamentalist Mormons with child brides? Christian Scientists letting babies with appendicitis die?
There's a combination of (1) my standards for 'decent' are my own. Being disgusted by someone else's religion is a time-honored tradition among people who don't share that religion, but I don't approve of it; and (2) objecting to religious practices as harmful is distinct from objecting to them as disgusting. Part of why I don't like Jill's reaction is that it seems to me to make it harder to talk about the real health risks -- if I were an Orthodox Jew, I wouldn't want to talk about risk-reduction tactics with anyone who I believed thought about my traditions that way.
"because it's disgusting" was part of that sentence.
People disapprove of Christian Science because it's child abuse and of Scientology because it's a transparent scam.
No, I'm willing to go on the record with Fundamentalist Mormon non-consensual "bride taking" as disgusting. Letting babies die to see if Jesus will save them, too. No sweat.
Well, now we can go back to #6, and respond by saying "Anybody who brings up this issue on a blog with more than 30 readers, even if they do not appear to be attacking circumcision in general, should know that the ensuing discussion will heavily feature people attacking circumcision in general."
But it's not just disgusting, it's also evil. No one's arguing that you should approve of all religious practices so long as they're disgusting.
To me "gross" and "weird" are things you can't really judge about other people's cultures and religions. Gross and weird are such culturally dependent notions. I wonder if we're seeing a similar breakdown on this issue that we saw on baptizing the dead (which is weird, but doesn't actually hurt anyone).
But what's disgusting about it is that it's rape -- it's an actual injury to the "brides". And the same with not treating kids with life-threatening injuries. I don't think there's anything at all wrong with objecting to that sort of thing, no matter how you feel about it. It's when someone treats their disgust alone, separate from any reasonable belief in the harm of the practice, as a reason to object that I think they should learn to mind their manners.
(And for the record Jill's focus on the supposed sexual nature "oral suction" isn't my take at all. What is pissing her off is that "It's my religion!" too commonly is an accepted excuse for all sorts of bad behavior. [Baby boy penis kissing/sucking isn't actually uncommon as a gesture of affection in our phallus-worshipping world, incidentally.])
Well, now we can go back to #6, and respond by saying "Anybody who brings up this issue on a blog with more than 30 readers, even if they do not appear to be attacking circumcision in general, should know that the ensuing discussion will heavily feature people attacking circumcision in general."
Not if all 30 are Orthodox Jews. But yes, point taken.
76: I was on the other side of baptizing the dead. I think it seemed to me like a significant insult to surviving family members and coreligionists. I suppose I shouldn't consistently object if it were done privately so that survivors didn't find out about it.
I just don't think the line between "harm" and "disgust" is a very robust one in this context (not a meaningless one, just not a robust one). Is a Scientologist who gives up her income to go work for nothing on a pretend naval vessel being "harmed"? Probably! But it's also her religious commitment and in that sense benefits her, and I don't think "harm" alone is driving the disapproval there -- there's a strong element of disgust as well (e.g., "transparent scam"). Or what about the 14 year old child bride of a Mormon fundamentalist, who willingly and enthusiastically consents to the marriage -- disgust or harm? I'd say that "putting your infants' bloodied penis in the mouth of a stranger in a not very medically sound procedure" falls squarely somewhere in the middle of the harm/disgust interstitial zone.
To be clear about my own views, I think that the law absolutely, 100% should protect the rights of religions to exercise their religious beliefs through ritual and practice, even in cases of fairly clear "harm." I am probably more absolutist about that than many people here. No one should ever interfere with the right of the ultra-orthodox to use this ritual -- that's what we do in as Americans in a pluralistic society.
But legal tolerance and personal approval are two different things. I just don't think that we have an obligation to refrain from being grossed out in public about things that we find gross, and I don't think most people actually live up to LB's standard.
78: I'm not quite following you. I read her as unambiguously objecting to the oral-genital contact in itself, separate from the disease-transmission risk. At which point I don't get what makes it 'bad behavior', as opposed to merely weird (by my standards) behavior, other than her disgust. It resembles things which are harmful bad behavior, but looks clearly distinct and (other than the disease-transmission risk) harmless.
For the record, I think it's harmful to ban masturbation. I don't think it should be illegal, but I think it's a disturbing religious practice that hurts people in the short and long term.
82: Oh, she was. But I think she was getting annoyed with the fair play issue. As she says, in any context but a religious one, sucking baby dick will land you in jail. So she seems bothered by the fact that claiming "religious practice" makes something ok that nowhere else would be, because mouth-to-genital contact with babies is regarded as a violation of the infant.
84: Ah, okay. That's a plausible read, and clears up my confusion about her argument.
I mean in any other context chopping off parts of someone else's body will land you in jail. The dick-sucking part is clearly less harmful than the circumcising part.
As she says, in any context but a religious one, sucking baby dick will land you in jail.
Wuh oh
in any other context chopping off parts of someone else's body will land you in jail
Wuh oh
I mean in any other context chopping off parts of someone else's body will land you in jail.
No, it's quite okay if you're a surgeon.
It's okay, Sifu! Maybe you're a surgeon!
If that's her thinking, then I continue to think she's being a jerk. Sexually molesting infants is wrong, and against the law. Intruding on their bodily autonomy really isn't -- what you do to clean an infant after a diaper change would be a terrible intrusion on an adult, after all, and would be a terrible intrusion on even an untrained baby if it were being done for sexual gratification by the adult.
This practice isn't 'sucking baby dick' in any way that makes it resemble molestation - it resembles 'sucking baby dick' only in the same way that changing a diaper resembles genitally groping a baby.
You're probably not a mohel, though, so 90 is only to 88 and not 87.
Some kind of quickie Mohel joint in vegas... maybe a correspondence course... no?
83: The transit authority insists on its ban regardless of the religion of the passenger.
I've got no beef with circumcision (hur hur!) and actually pretty much disagree with Jill's argument. I just don't think it's nuts. She's a feminist writing on a feminist blog and has written lots and lots about various indignities visited upon women and their bodies that are justified by the invocation of religion. It is not insane that she would see this matter in the same way, and the argument is part and parcel to various arguments about children and babies being people with rights even if they can't express them.
I'm right there with you agreeing that her reaction isn't nuts. I can follow her thinking, along the lines you lay out. I just think it takes her to a place that she should have recognized as wrong.
The "this would be child molestation in any other context" argument is kind of dumb.
I bet there's not even a law against sucking a baby's dick. But if there were, it would be interesting to read the exemption for mohels. It's fine as long as you're sucking blood off of it?
Can there be any doubt that if this were a Muslim instead of an orthodox Jewish practice, the Malkins of the world would be shouting from the digital rooftops about ritual sexual abuse of infants?
99: the blood-sucking, that is. Circumcision is obviously common to both traditions.
The "this would be child molestation in any other context" argument is kind of dumb.
Wrong, maybe, but not dumb. Lots of people found it a persuasive argument that involuntary pre-abortion transvaginal ultrasounds "would be sexual assault in any other context", myself included.
I didn't realize until just now that muslims typically circumcise.
I bet there's not even a law against sucking a baby's dick.
Phew!
I think that walked right up to the analogy ban and cut off a part of its penis.
The dick-sucking part is clearly less harmful than the circumcising part.
Actually . . . what are the mortality stats on circumcision? The dick-sucking conceivably might be more harmful, comparatively.
104 to 101, but apply it as you'd like.
Lolly! Lolly! Lolly! Get your adverbs here!
Also, NYMag told me last week that (I think) 70% of the Jewish children in NYC were ultra orthodox.
What?!
Back to reading the thread.
78: [Baby boy penis kissing/sucking isn't actually uncommon as a gesture of affection in our phallus-worshipping world, incidentally.]
We just skipped right over this, right? I should just never have children, right?
109: I'll go find where I read it, but I think it's only typical in very macho cultures. No baby dick sucking necessary for you!
110: What the fuck? I'm trying to imagine what you'd do if you walked in on a relative sucking your baby girl's clitoris. I presume the correct thing to do would be throw them through a window.
Whoa. That was a doozy. I thought it was dog, not baby, penis affection that was not uncommon. Also, what?
Phew!
Right. It could come in handy some day.
Let me just get right out and say it: sucking an infant's penis is disgusting. I hope I haven't shocked anyone's sensibilities, but that's just how I feel.
There was a thing with some Congressman who wrote a semi-autobiographical novel about Korea? Vietnam? And seeing an adult man affectionately kiss a baby's penis there. And he got called a pervert, and then people said no, it's actually not unusual in [wherever this was].
I have a lot of books with titles like "The Reign of the Phallus." But nonono. We're talking about something kiss-like as I understand it. Not some, er, sustained activity.
105: Actually . . . what are the mortality stats on circumcision?
This is a good question. It had never occurred to me that death might ensue.
I thought it was dog, not baby, penis affection that was not uncommon.
I feel like we are learning interesting things abou your home's book collection.
The Greeks liked their peens. What can I say? (Googling trying to find the hilarious vase painting of a woman watering a line of phalloi growing from the ground like so many daffodils? Bad idea jeans.)
"The Rain of the Phallus" is a whole different type of book.
122 was written before seeing 121 but it does fit.
115
There was a thing with some Congressman who wrote a semi-autobiographical novel about Korea? Vietnam? And seeing an adult man affectionately kiss a baby's penis there. And he got called a pervert, and then people said no, it's actually not unusual in [wherever this was].
Jim Webb, in his 2006 Senate race against Allen. See wikipedia :
In October 2006, the Allen campaign issued a press release quoting several passages from Webb's novels with sexual content, including graphic references to female anatomy and purported pedophilia, homosexuality and incest, citing a passage in which a Southeast Asian father ritually places the penis of his young son in his mouth. The press release said that the passages showed a "continued pattern of demeaning women".[31] Allen's campaign refused to tell a local radio news station, WTOP-FM, whether it in fact had issued a news release on the matter.[32]
I have a former high-school friend, now Facebook acquaintance, whose son nearly died after being circumcised because he had hemophilia. Apparently the parents knew there was a genetic risk and ordered no circumcision, but the hospital was badly run and the procedure was performed anyway. I gather that the kid's almost-but-not dying may have been the very event that led my former friend to give himself over to Jesus.
120
115: Jim Webb, Vietnam.
Webb said he saw such an incident in Bangkok. See here :
In a radio interview on October 27, 2006, Webb described the Allen campaign's tactics as "smear after smear", and called the attack on his fiction baseless "character assassination". Webb defended his fiction work, saying that "the duty of a writer is to illuminate [his] surroundings". He said that the scene involving the man and his son was based upon an incident in a Bangkok slum that he witnessed as a journalist[55] and that it was "not a sexual act".[56]
114: But it's totes paleo!
I have a copy of Keuls's book (Reign of the Phallus) on the top shelf in my office; many students notice it and seem a little disconcerted. I do often think of it as Rain of the Phallus, but not in the sense Moby probably meant--I envision millions of little penes falling out of the sky and *squelch*ing on the pavement.
I was making a piss joke, to be certain.
Subjective genitive/objective genitive ambiguities make the best jokes!
As a heathen, I see no reason for circumcision, but I haven't seen a reason against it, if it's what people want. One wouldn't want a mohel with oral herpes to be doing it, obviously, and clearly other precautions should be observed, as evidenced by Bave's friend's kid with hemophilia.
114: Let me just get right out and say it: sucking an infant's penis is disgusting.
I've heard that parents sometimes suck the snot out of their infant's nostrils, though.
126: Ah, okay. I stand partly corrected.
Pro tip: They make a rubber snot sucking tool.
132: My baby definitely felt violated by that thing.
Then you can use it to blow dust off camera equipment.
My baby definitely felt violated by that thing
Were you using it on the nostrils or the penis?
This is important! Nostrils or penis?! The baby knows the difference!
Now you are violating my baby with your mind!!!
In other Jewish wiener news...
Those google news saved searches really pay off sometimes.
Val Treks, the least popular tour operator,
130: but I haven't seen a reason against it
You are aware that there are a few distinct internet subcultures which devote a great deal of energy and bandwidth to expounding on the reasons against circumcision, right?
142 was me.
The subcultures include, but may or may not be limited to:
1. Hippy/woo-oriented attachment parenting types.
2. Outraged Men's Rights Advocates.
3. Pleasure-centric gay men.
Let's not forget Outraged atheists, Outraged libertarians, and Slippery slope fans who think the current status of children is nothing more or less than slavery.
To be clear, I think circumcision is fucked up, and should be eliminated in all but the few cases where it is medically necessary. I do not, however, necessarily agree with anti-circumcision activists regarding the degree to which it is fucked-up. Equating male circumcision to female genital mutilation is, I think, ridiculous and harmful, as it undermines the case against both practices. Not all anti-circumcision activists make this equation, of course, for which they should be commended.
Here are the salient arguments against circumcision, from my perspective:
1. It's non-consensual.
2. It impairs later sexual function.
3. It carries an unacceptably high risk of serious physical damage.
4. It tends to legitimize many other actions that are harmful to both children and adults.
5. Its proponents have a long and well-documented history of lying in order to defend the practice.
And whichever way you slice it, it's just a vile, brutal, degrading act, regardless of what your bullshit sky god supposedly said to some jackass in the desert 3,000 years ago any religious justifications offered.
By comparison, the whole sucking-the-blood-off thing is utterly trivial.
Why do the superatheists always go for "sky god" or "sky fairy"? Are the earth gods or mountain gods more friendly to PZ Myers?
142:I spent some time over at IMDB tonight looking at a radical intactivist interpretation of Lars van Trier's Anti-Christ. It was in the message boards, and I couldn't believe what I was reading, but apparently it is gone, deleted. Maniacal symbolism and numerology, it was amazing and beautiful in a kind of madness. Fox's lair was the womb.
Here's a Link for a taste
I found something else by "totemstack", dated Oct 2009, but the message board piece went on for thousands of words
Do not think of He as a male, and She as a female. As a classical hero, he could be anyone. He will face the Most Evil in a strict canonical way. The Evil witch is his own irrational evil side. They reflect mankind as a whole. He will administer swift Justice for a double crime she commits (male and female genital mutilations), for which she will receive a double death sentence (strangulation and burning). This square numeric resolution structure mirrors the formal numeric pledge from the master story teller:Antichrist: 10 letters. Anti: 4 (square). Christ 6 (two triangles), merging of Male and Female essence, classical Freemason style, and Star of David.
Structure: prologue, 4 Chapters, epilogue. The end of the four chapters (square) should be explicit about the Name of the Beast, as it resonates with Anti (4 letters) in Antichrist. there are six parts total (2 triangles).
particularly appreciate that the Antichrist is presented through feminine witchcraft. From a culture practicing genital mutilations, I know all too well the fundamental role of tribal sisterhoods in demanding male and female genital mutilations. Patriarchal societies do not imply that matriarchal power has vanished; kept unofficial, almost underground, it is here with strong economic implications. Traditional ceremonies are the seat of the feminine power; such are the opportunities for widows to get offered a roof, or sell their cooking skills, for matrons to scheme to arrange the next (forced) marriage, etc... The official power being male generally, men do not have to use occult means in order to impose circumcision. The infamous circumcision kidnappings are a threat coming largely from clan sisterhoods. Finally someone points to the fact sexual mutilations have been historically, and are still today worldwide transmitted through largely feminine occult conspiracies.It's time we get reminded of this crime against humanity as the most evil of evil in the Christian jargon. Antichrist is very specific about what this film maker and many Christian Europeans consider the most profoundly relevant Christian contribution today (replacing circumcisions with water baptism). It shows the most important "sin" still unchecked. Unlike other crimes, sexual mutilations can be legislated to near-extinction. No wonder why everyone keeps beating around the bush in comments here (where is the Antichrist in the movie?): isn't the most evil of evil routine practice in some places?
Anyone serious about analyzing this movie will see the commanding execution and form, and will appreciate the pure elegance of the pledge/resolution tandem (Name of the Beast - Both Male and Female Genital Mutilations). It will stand out over time.
Why do the superatheists always go for "sky god" or "sky fairy"?
Maybe because Yahweh seems to have originally been a sky god?
146: I did just approvingly share a lefty church image on FB. Doesn't mean I like JHVH though. Regardless of whether he increases the number of rocks by exactly one.
Sigh. Didn't mean to stay up this late.
Oh well.
Myers is often a jackass too. Tedious. Petit bourgeois.
Does "superatheist" mean an atheist who denies the existence of n gods, instead of n-1?
A baby boy local to me died after being circumcised. His (muslim) parents took him to their (asian, quite old, have no idea whether he is religious or not) GP - at the same practice I go to, though not the one I see - and were told not to worry. So they went home and didn't do anything although by all accounts he was bleeding fairly copiously.
Kid A referred to circumcision as genital mutilation in a school exam last week. I told her that wasn't a polite way to talk about it in public, but that's basically how I think of it too.
How did no one comment on the "there's no law against sucking a baby's penis" thing? Or was that a joke?
For example...in new york state
S 130.45 Criminal sexual act in the second degree.
A person is guilty of criminal sexual act in the second degree when:
1. being eighteen years old or more, he or she engages in oral sexual
conduct or anal sexual conduct with another person less than fifteen
years old; or
2. he or she engages in oral sexual conduct or anal sexual conduct
with another person who is incapable of consent by reason of being
mentally disabled or mentally incapacitated.
It shall be an affirmative defense to the crime of criminal sexual act
in the second degree as defined in subdivision one of this section that
the defendant was less than four years older than the victim at the time
of the act.
Criminal sexual act in the second degree is a class D felony.
AND
S 130.00 Sex offenses; definitions of terms.
The following definitions are applicable to this article:
2. (a) "Oral sexual conduct" means conduct between persons consisting
of contact between the mouth and the penis, the mouth and the anus, or
the mouth and the vulva or vagina.
Hasn't it been basically confirmed that male circumcision really does prevent the spread of disease?
That's a pretty strong argument in favor of circumcision in my book. Even if the same preventative effect can be gained by washing frequently and thoroughly, you never know when your kid is going to grow up to be a slob.
Hasn't it been basically confirmed that male circumcision really does prevent the spread of disease?
Yes. It's the only thing that has been shown to be effective in Africa at lowering men's risk of getting AIDS.
Lots of things prevent disease. Some are worth it, some are not, some are only worth it some of the time. Pre-emptive infant appendectomies, for instance, have not yet caught on.
I thought it was more complicated than that. Namely, there is some statistically significant protection afforded by circumcision for men living in cultures with really high HIV rates and where no one ever, ever wears a condom. But that say men in France, where men are generally not circumcised for non-religious reasons, don't have higher rates of infection than say the US where men generally are circumcised.
Infant orchiectomies would eliminate prostate cancer.
Why do the superatheists always go for "sky god" or "sky fairy"? Are the earth gods or mountain gods more friendly to PZ Myers?
Because cheeseball inspirational Christian representations always go for looking upwards at the sunrays piercing through the clouds. And that's the type of thing that aggravates superatheists more than anything else.
Yeah. They're not talking about one among a bunch of elemental gods, they're talking about this guy, who art in heaven.
161: I took that to mean that the basic effect of circumcision is quite small, but in dangerous environments, small effects are subject to huge multipliers.
132: My baby definitely felt violated by that thing.
The traditional bulb version or the AMAZING can't-praise-it-highly-enough NoseFrida Snot-sucker?
165: The effect doesn't look that small for protecting heterosexual men. It basically cuts the risk in half.
166: The WINDI seems like a fun product.
Here's a related scenario.
When I was at Auburn, I shared an office with a guy from Ghana. He had a small horizontal scar under one eye, which he said was given to him with a hot blade at birth, and marked him as a member of his ethnic group. It was also supposed to have medicinal properties, but he didn't put any stock in that.
He liked to tell a story about when he first came to America. He was completely lost, wandering around Auburn looking for university housing. He approached a woman to ask for directions, and she immediately began speaking to him in his language. Turns out she was also of his ethnic group and recognized the scar. She in turn introduced him to the African ex-pat community and made his transition to US living much much easier.
So is this little scar a sign of child abuse?
165: Right. I just meant that circumcision isn't likely to prevent a lot of disease in the US for a variety of reasons (the effect is small, maybe exists only for p-i-v sex, etc.). There have been studies, but nothing looks super conclusive.
166: I'm having trouble not reading that product name as "Fry Baby", baby's first deep fryer.
169: Jewish ritual circumcision is abuse; Ghanan ritual scarring is exotic.
172: Yeah, Pokey did too. And I tried it on myself - it's totally unpleasant-feeling.
But it's so amazingly effective! I could never get the bulb kind to do anything.
I got the bulb kind to work once and removed the biggest ball of gloopy snot I'd even seen come out of his head even to this day.
It just kept coming out longer and longer until this big chunky bit pulled out and he screamed.
63.last: Anecdata: My friend who had the procedure at 18 reported significant decrease in sensation, which was his goal so as to make him last longer in the sack. I think the relatively small fraction who object in retrospect has everything to do with not having an alternative for comparison and not having any way to undo it, so might as well just not bitch.
To really settle the issue would require talking to people who were indifferent to the procedure from the standpoint of sensation but had it done anyway. Maybe Mugabe's big experiment will provide the necessary data.
An 18 year old had surgery on his genitals because he was unhappy about coming too fast? Had he tried thinking about baseball?
There was an article on Slate several years ago by a guy who'd been circumcised as an adult for medical reasons. His conclusion was that the sensations were different, but not necessarily better. A friend who'd had it done gave a similar report.
It just kept coming out longer and longer until this big chunky bit pulled out and he screamed.
Are we talking about mohels again?
That "let me show you ladies how to be a real feminist" guy whose name I forget had it done as an adult and pronounced it way, way better post-circ.
So is this little scar a sign of child abuse?
Well clearly in the culture it is in no. In American culture, maybe if you did that it would be abuse. Certainly, I would imagine that cosmetic facial scarring of infants would be generally frowned upon.
In general I think non-medical circumcision is something that really oughtn't happen, and shouldn't really be legal (personally I have my doubts if it is legal at the moment anyway, but.)
Look, I just felt like Hawaii needed a little botox around her lips.
179: He is an odd duck, for sure. We tried to persuade him to try less drastic measures but he figured why use a subtlety when brute force is available. It was his style.
Funny you should use "duck" in this context.
185: hilariously, it is possible that circumcision for sexual reasons is an illegal maiming in the UK: see R v Brown in the Lords.
(This is actually where my suspicions about the legality of circumcision in certain jurisdictions arise.)
There was an article on Slate several
years ago by a guy who'd been
circumcised as an adult for medical
reasons.
I think I remember that one: "Circumcision is Great. So why are we wasting it on Babies?"
Speaking of ducks (and people with brains currently stuffed far too full of philosophy of crime), did you know that one of the more puzzling cases on attempts (and coincidentally also with parties the Queen and Brown, although a different Queen and a different Brown) was one involving a boy who attempted to sodomise a duck, who was convicted on the grounds that the act was physically possible?
Sadly, you see, I did.
...on the grounds that the act was physically possible?
Before YouTube, you really had to want to know to find out something like that.
Well clearly in the culture it is in no. In American culture, maybe if you did that it would be abuse.
Don't give me that cultural relativism crap. Is it a justifiable harm or isn't it.
176: Not that I know of. I was just mocking my own gut reaction, which seems to be that since I have a good deal of cultural affinity with American Jews (that is, I think of most Jews as culturally like me, and, for reasons stemming mostly from ignorance, extend that to the Orthodox), I'm more likely to react negatively to strange behaviours. Whereas with these Ghanans (and any number of other cultures of which I'm less familiar) I tend more towards the exotic reaction. I'm not in any justifying these feelings, and would never mean to base any moral code around them, but they do exist to some extent. Does that make sense?
It's not relativism. You asked if it was a sign of abuse; it may be a sign of abuse in American culture, but clearly in that culture it is a sign of loving affection. I do not think it rises to the level of abuse on its own.
I also don't particularly think it is a justifiable harm, although arguably it is justifiable in that community in a way it wouldn't be in America (another way a relativism might sneak in.)
156: Thank you! I honestly didn't know what the law looked like on those matters. So why, according to that law, does this not count? I don't mean LB's "we all touch babies on their genitals" argument, but just on the face of it, how is sucking the blood off a baby's penis with your mouth not a crime?
That "let me show you ladies how to be a real feminist" guy whose name I forget
Hugo Schwyzer.
http://www.hugoschwyzer.net/2006/10/11/circumcised-at-37-a-personal-story-and-a-rebuke-to-the-mras/
Because context matters -- that's a definition of "criminal sexual conduct", and what the mohel is doing, although it can be described in the same words as what a child molester might do, isn't sexual conduct. A prosecutor might decide that it was, and go ahead and prosecute, and that would certainly not be ruled out by anything in the law, but the defense would be that this is not sexual conduct.
To the extent that it's not being prosecuted, it's not being prosecuted because the people who make decisions about prosecution (to the extent anyone's thought about it) have decided that it's fundamentally different from the sort of behavior that the quoted statute was intended to prohibit. Reasonable people could disagree about that, but in a prosecutor's shoes I'd make the same decision.
198 to 195, and apparently the netnanny relaxed overnight.
And whichever way you slice it, it's just a vile, brutal, degrading act
This is just stupid.
I'm not crazy about involuntary/pre-adult ritual scarring either. However, several of my points in 145 do not apply, so overall, I am somewhat less stridently opposed to it.
All of these justifications based on other practices relating to infants and medical procedures ring awfully hollow to me. In virtually no case is infant circumcision medically necessary. For older children or adults where it is, then obviously I have no problems with it, especially given that there is a strong expectation of informed consent at that point. Most of the other things that adults do to infants or very small children easily pass every test in 145. Infant ear piercing would be a slight exception, but those holes will grow closed, or at the very least be barely noticeable in adulthood.
With circumcision, we're talking about an almost always permanent, invasive, painful, and useless action which is defended based on fear, superstition and stupidity. Causing an infant to experience a huge amount of pain and trauma, based on a desire for conformity and submission to the will of a fictional creature is beyond stupid, it is completely fucking moronic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_cranial_deformation
Seriously, check out the Paraca skulls. Like something out of Alien.
I was wondering about Ghanaian scarring this morning when reading this thread. The guy I knew had a much bigger scar than a small one under his eye though, two on a cheek I think. I don't know what I think about it tbh.
For some reason the "argument by contempt for all religions" technique rarely convinces even non-religious people.
Causing an infant to experience a huge amount of pain and trauma
In a hospital situation, they're actually numbed to the gills.
And if you tell someone they have a broken, debased, irreparably damaged, and semi-functioning cock, you should expect them to find you condescending and obnoxious.
Unless they're into that sort of thing. I mean, not my scene, but I understand there are those that are.
they have a broken, debased, irreparably damaged, and semi-functioning cock
God that made me laugh. "No, really, your penis isn't sensitive enough" just seems so baldly ridiculous I have a hard time engaging it in good faith.
Certainly "debased" is the wrong word.
154 to 201? Ok, good, because equating circumcision to female genital mutilation is also just stupid.
also, "It impairs later sexual function"? Seriously? I'll thank you not to assess my sexual functioning.
But while it's certainly an odd ritual, thinking of sucking the blood off the newborn's penis as an invasion of the baby's autonomy, or having something to do with sexual abuse, or something, seems bizarre to me.
I found this really weird too. There were other comments in the comment thread that also made this connection, seeming to claim that babies had some kind of bodily autonomy that required consent. It strikes me as a kind of hysteria about autonomy and sexuality. You import adult notions of 'consent' and 'autonomy' into this inherently highly intimate and physical relationship between parents and infants. Maybe based on a fundamental discomfort with the kind of deep dependence that exists between parents and children...as Freud points out this initial dependence is the source of a lot of our neuroses.
I also find it squicky to import this sexualized conception of adult autonomy and consent into parental love for their kids. This is the kind of thing that leads to these nasty cases where child protective services gets called when parents take photos of their toddlers naked in the bath.
In virtually no case is infant circumcision medically necessary....With circumcision, we're talking about an almost always permanent, invasive, painful, and useless action which is defended based on fear, superstition and stupidity.
Circumcision is very beneficial in preventing STDs, not to mention penile cancer, cervical cancer, and so forth. If there was a vaccination as effective against STDs as circumcision we would probably be requiring it.
I am slightly suspicious of arguments that seek to replace rights with the deep and loving relationship between one human and another. In general they seem to have a really bad track record.
(This is of course the one place they are pretty justifiable, but still, you know what I mean.)
d that would certainly not be ruled out by anything in the law
Probably would be by RFRA, or by the First Amendment before Scalia gutted it.
Or, more precisely, I guess by NY's RFRA (assuming there is one) or the NY constitution.
214.last is banned. (The kind of important thing about vaccines is that in general any harm is temporary.)
215: I think that parents have some rights to autonomy in their relationship with their kids. But more fundamentally, rights are not natural, they are also a relationship (between the enforcement mechanisms of the state and the individuals who have rights or must respect the rights of others). The state does attempt to protect the rights of children not to be abused or molested. But as you expand the rights of children you have to ask whether replacing the relationship between parents and children with the relationship between children and state enforcement entities (child protective services, foster care, orphanages) really benefits the kids. There should be some presumption for parents.
I think the RFRA argument would be tough (I actually don't know if there's an NY RFRA, so I'm thinking federal). First, barring this one ritual doesn't seem like a substantial burden on the exercise of religion, and second, if you're going to make the argument that it's the same conduct that would constitute sexual abuse in another context, that's a pretty compelling interest there. I think a prosecutor exercising prosecutorial discretion not to treat this as criminal would be doing the right thing, but it's a close enough call that I'd be surprised if a RFRA claim worked.
I am slightly suspicious of arguments that seek to replace rights with the deep and loving relationship between one human and another. In general they seem to have a really bad track record.
What the hell? Aren't you the one defending Luddism in the other thread? I think the "deep and loving relationship between one human and another" system of familiar relations has more of a track record than the "rights objectively enforced by the state" system.
Also, looking at Wikipedia, the medical evidence looks pretty mixed at best, and most professional medical bodies don't think it is called for medically.
221 meant to refer specifically to parent/very young child relations.
221: Eh I actually disagree, I think that the liberal rights based system is far preferable to the conservative deep and loving relationship one. Look at the Catholic Church for the most obscene parody of this, but in general, give me rules bound recourse to some technocratic professionals over love any day.
More seriously, people trot out `rights are inappropriate here' all the time, and it is generally really handy for them --- look at women's rights in the 19th century, frex. (Or worker's, for that matter.)
223: yes I agree, I think. I think it is the big exception. But even then I have my doubts about some things.
220 -- I disagree - I think a prosecution for ordinary Jewish ritual circumcision (barring some absolutely clear evidence of health risk such as a knowing herpes infection) would pretty clearly and obviously fail strict scrutiny. There was some discussion around this when San Francisco and Santa Monica had circumcision bans on the ballot, both of which thankfully failed. But, as such a case will never be prosecuted, we'll never find out, and who knows what a court would actually do.
I think a prosecution for ordinary Jewish ritual circumcision
But we weren't talking about that, we were talking about the mouth-on-penis thing. You're probably right about a ban on ordinary circumcision, but that's different.
I think the mouth-on-penis thing would probably also survive strict scrutiny (I certainly think that it should), but, again, we'll never know.
Also, is strict scrutiny really the appropriate standard here? You wouldn't be looking at a law that singled out Jews, but a failure to have special exemption for them.
Strict scrutiny is kind of a shorthand -- I think it would survive the Sherbert test (which the SCOTUS got rid of, but RFRA reenacted), which is indifferent to whether or not the law is one of general applicability.
Even under current Supreme Court precedent, a law that singled out Jews would almost certainly be unconstitutional. Lukumi says that even a law that is neutral on its face is unconstitutional if it is in fact targeted at a practice of a particular religion.
Strict Scrutiny should be a movie.
230: RFRA/Sherbert, all you need is a compelling state interest. With any kind of legislative finding that circumcision is a harm to the baby, that seems like a slamdunk easy win for the state to me.
I'm generally OK with circumcision (full disclosure: both of my boys are circumcised) but I can imagine a time in the relatively near future when it will in fact be banned and I would be OK with that too. I have no understanding of this from 192, Don't give me that cultural relativism crap. Is it a justifiable harm or isn't it. There is no discussion of this cultural practice that is not enmeshed in cultural relativism.
That's not how the Sherbert or RFRA test works. Compelling state interest is not satisfied by some mere legislative finding of harm -- the whole point is that you need something more than that. In the words of Brennan, ""it is basic that no showing merely of a rational relationship to some colorable state interest would suffice; in this highly sensitive constitutional area, '[o]nly the gravest abuses, endangering paramount interest, give occasion for permissible limitation." Moreover, the state needs to show that the limitation is needed as to the particular individual or child in question; a showing of generalized "harm" is not enough. Finally, the state would have to show that a prosecution was the least restrictive means of achieving its goals. Put it all together and you as the state have a pretty high hurdle to overcome in a case of ritual circumcision.
I mean, again, this is all totally hypothetical -- the odds of a child sexual abuse prosecution for Jewish ritual circumcision approach zero. But come on, "strict in theory, fatal in fact" is one of the top 5 all time con law cliches.
Lifelong, irreparable, bodily injury to a child is something that applies to every child who undergoes circumcision, if we regard the bodily change resulting from circumcision as an injury at all -- the particularized harm takes place with each (not medically indicated) circumcision. Should a legislature find, as they could without absurdity, that that change is an injury, it's hard to imagine what could be a more compelling state interest than preventing bodily injury to defenseless infants. And at that point, the state's allowed to prevent it from happening, and there's no less restrictive method of preventing it than making it criminal.
235: Again, RFRA, and Sherbert before it, aren't exactly strict scrutiny.
I think I am perhaps sorry for the tone of comment 212. I should just skip threads on this topic.
I don't like where this is headed.
. Should a legislature find, as they could without absurdity, that that change is an injury
I just disagree -- pretty strongly, actually -- that there is in fact a degree of injury from circumcision at issue for the individual in question sufficient to enforce a prosecution for sexual abuse against an orthodox Jewish ritual circumcision. And that is the legal standard -- you would need to show that there is in fact an injury as to a particular infant-- it's not just that a legislature could find "without absurdity" that there generally was some injury involved in circumcision. Under Sherbert and RFRA, it's absolutely clear that the State couldn't just rely on legislative findings, or generalized statements about bodily harm. =
it's absolutely clear that the State couldn't just rely on legislative findings, or generalized statements about bodily harm
Nonsense, to the extent you're stating it with that strength. The injury with respect to each infant is the missing foreskin -- showing that with particularity in each case isn't difficult at all. The anomaly is that we don't at the moment regard foreskin-removal as an injury in the same manner we'd regard, say, ritual pinkie-toe amputation as an injury. (I don't personally think it's a significant injury. But if the state chose to regard it as such, it's not a hard case to make at all -- you're amputating a body part.)
But if the state chose to regard it as such, it's not a hard case to make at all -- you're amputating a body part.
The state doesn't get to decide this, under RFRA. There needs to be an actual showing of harm as to an actual individual person. Given the medical knowledge we have about circumcision, and the number of circumcised people, (or, especially, the oral contact following circumcision that's at issue here) there's essentially no way to make the case that there's a significant injury following from ritual circumcision. That the state includes some legislative findings on the issue or characterizes it as "amputation" is really not particularly important.
I know a guy who had an non-ritual pinkie-toe amputation by the scoop of a skid loader. He wasn't even Jewish.
243: The state doesn't get to decide this, under RFRA.
Again, nonsense. I'm not saying that a RFRA victory in a lower court would be absolutely impossible, courts do all kinds of funny things. But you're talking as though the legislature's findings as to what the state's compelling interests are is irrelevant, and that's simply untrue.
And of course RFRA doesn't apply to the states, and most states don't have a state RFRA.
I honestly think you're digging yourself in a hole here for no reason. A legislative statement of generally compelling interests is surely "relevant" but the enquiry needs to be whether there is in fact a harm to the specific individual in question sufficient to justify a criminal prosecution. The state cannot just define its own compelling interest -- that's the whole point of the test. In the case of ritual circumcision, there very clearly is not an injury sufficient to justify a prosecution, and that is true regardless of whether there were some generalized legislative findings about circumcision as a harm or as "amputation."* This isn't a hard question. Check out the hoasca case.
*We've kind of shifted ground here -- we started talking about a prosecution for the blood sucking ritual under the child abuse laws, we now seem to be imagining a criminal statute aimed at ritual circumcision. Both, I think, would be unconstitutional, although the former might only be unconstitutional under state law.
I'm circumcised, but really don't understand the reflexive need that some circumcised people have to defend the practice. Has my "sexual function" been impaired, have I been injured? Obviously I have no idea; because my consider considers it normal, and I don't have the alternative to compare it to.
I mean, part of penis was cut off as an infant because doctors were pushing some bullshitty medical reasoning (my parents are not religious), it's not the worse thing in the world, but on balance doesn't seem like it was a good idea.
I just dropped in to see what consideration my consider considers.
There is no discussion of this cultural practice that is not enmeshed in cultural relativism.
There are lots of objective medical benefits to circumcision (although they are hard to find on the net because buried under vociferous anti-circumcision stuff). So it's not all pure relativism. But given that the infant is not the one deciding it's impossible to say whether those objective benefits justify the trade-offs involved.
there very clearly is not an injury sufficient to justify a prosecution
Again, that's not 'very clear'. Almost else you'd do to a baby that left a lifelong scar would be an injury that, in the absence of medical necessity, would be prosecutable.
Check out the hoasca case.
*And you're right, we have shifted ground. But the whole discussion's silly, given the absence of a RFRA law in NY.
It's not like I'm this huge circumcision enthusiast. I do not, however, like having my experience narrated to me in tones of grave concern, and I find it ridiculous to be told that something fairly neutral that my parents, who are not especially vile, brutal, degrading people decided to do when I was several days old was an act of life-altering cruelty. And when it's compared to cutting off the er, clitorides?, of young girls, I find this offensive on behalf of, oh, everybody.
e holding there wasn't that the legislature had to make a specific finding for each individual that might possibly be affected
Of course not. The law is that the facts of the case need to demonstrate that the law as applied to the individuals in question responds to an actual injury, seen in context sufficient to make the state interest "compelling." In other words, a court gets to look at the actual extent of the harm and determine whether it is sufficiently "compelling" to justify the specific intrusion upon religion, not just the legislature's characterization of that harm. (And, even after that, the state can only use the least restrictive possible means to avoid the harm).
In the case of Jewish ritual circumcision, you have an act that is (a) of the highest possible religious significance and for which (b) demonstrations of real-world injury to specific individuals are, at best, extremely questionable. The fact that the legislature would decide to classify it as a harm tells you something. But it couldn't possibly be dispositive, and given what we know about the medical history of circumcision, couldn't justify a statute criminalizing circumcision under a Sherbert/Yoder standard.
Honestly, you just didn't understand the law of Sherbert/Yoder/RFRA as it applies to these kinds of cases. That's fine. People get things wrong and you're not an expert. There's no need to keep digging in.
252: if it helps, you're obviously right. That said, it's so not worth worrying about, as this is the direction that this conversation MUST always take. It is an immutable law of the Internet.
That said, I'm pretty sure that you're only this defensive because your cock is broken, debased, irreparably damaged, and at best semi-functional. I mean, that's certainly the case for me.
You're only saying that because you're not very good at being antisemitic.
256 before seeing 255 obviously. Keep working.
which (b) demonstrations of real-world injury to specific individuals are, at best, extremely questionable.
You keep on saying this, but of course it's insane. First, the repeated invocation of 'specific' individuals is loony -- each 'specific' male infant that has been circumcised is missing a body part. There's no question as to whether any given circumcised infant has been affected -- the process of circumcision affects each circumcised infant similarly. The only question is whether removal of a foreskin is going to be counted as a harm, and that's the sort of question that's clearly within the purview of the legislature.
I am the proud possessor of unparalleled antisemitism, thankyouverymuch. I just don't really care one way or the other about circumcision. I mean, if the conversation turns to blood libels, you can count me in!
The legislature can define "harms" but courts* get to decide whether the "harm" is in fact a "compelling state interest" sufficient to justify the intrusion on the specific religious practice, which is a fact-specific inquiry not defined, or bounded, by the legislative description of what the "harm" is. Then, the court -- not the legislature -- gets to decide whether the state has adopted the least restrictive means of preventing the harm.
So, in the case of a law banning circumcision, how would this work. A court would have to consider whether removal of the foreskin was in fact sufficiently harmful to justify a ban on the practice, given the medical issues at stake and the ritual's religious importance to Jews. I don't think that, given the history and medical evidence around circumcision, this is a hard question -- there is little evidence of foreskin removal causing medical harm, and a long history of the practice. The ritual is of paramount importance to Judaism. Moreover, criminalizing the practice is clearly not the least restrictive means of discouraging whatever medical problems there are with the practice. The court could look at the Legislature's stated reasons for the ban, but the fact that the legislature defined circumcision as "amputation" would not be particularly meaningful for the above analysis. Thus, it's a clear loser under RFRA.
I'm getting kind of sick of this, because I feel like you're arguing for the sake of arguing. I will gladly admit that you know more than me about some other legal area if you drop this particular one.
*under RFRA, or strict scrutiny more generally.
I do not feel that I was brutalized or degraded either, and my sexual functioning is just fine. I'm always a bit mystified at people who have really strong feelings about circumcision one way or the other, but I realize that's just the way of the internet.
BARBECUE MADE OF BEEF IS NOT FUCKING BARBECUE.
I think you've got a particular interpretation of the facts stuck in your head, and you're confusing disagreement with you about those facts as misunderstanding of the law. Repeating over and over again that circumcision isn't a harm, it isn't it isn't it isn't it isn't, doesn't mean that a court would in any way be compelled to agree with you in the face of legislative findings that it was a harm. Removal of a healthy body part is (while I personally agree that it's not a particularly significant harm and people who get bent out of shape over it should probably get a hobby) very very similar to things that are undeniably harms, and a legislative finding that the state regarded it as such would be persuasive.
Have you read the case you brought up? It turned in part on insufficient legislative findings of harm.
I'm getting kind of sick of this, because I feel like you're arguing for the sake of arguing.
I think I've got a nomination for the 2012 Captain Renault award.
I think people who fuck barbecue with their circumcised cocks are broken and debased, though it's possible that they're not irreparably damaged.
doesn't mean that a court would in any way be compelled to agree with you in the face of legislative findings that it was a harm.
No, of course not. But the legislative findings couldn't possibly be dispositive either, which you seem to think, and which is simply wrong as a legal matter.
The bottom line question would be -- what evidence of harm is there from circumcision that a court would be able to consider? Do you have any evidence of harm? You seem to be saying that a legislature could decide that it's kind of like other kinds of bodily mutilation. That's true, but it wouldn't particularly bind a court, which would have to look at the actual harm imposed by circumcision to Jews -- not the legislature's conclusions about the nature of the harm -- and compare it to the importance of the ritual. I don't think there's a remote chance, given the history of the practice and its medical nature (doctors recommended it for years, and there's the evidence of STD prevention) that a court would conclude that the harm involved was of such significance, as applied to this particular practice, to justify criminalizing circumcision.
I don't think there's a remote chance, given the history of the practice and its medical nature (doctors recommended it for years
OK, now let's discuss getting your tonsils out. Vile, barbaric mutilation, or just torture?
I don't think there's a remote chance, given the history of the practice and its medical nature (doctors recommended it for years, and there's the evidence of STD prevention) that a court would conclude that the harm involved was of such significance, as applied to this particular practice, to justify criminalizing circumcision.
And I think as a matter of fact, if societal attitudes about circumcision had changed enough to get a prohibition through the legislature, that you're flat wrong about this.
Vile, barbaric mutilation, or just torture?
And they made me eat toast for breakfast the next day.
Ah, that's a different argument, that's purely a speculative fact question and doesn't butcher the relevant law. But, as to that speculation, no, I don't think a change in societal attitudes would be enough (and certainly shouldn't be enough, given that the whole point of RFRA and the first amendment is to protect minority religions from the societal attitudes of a majority) to persuade a court. For example, I think if, say, the San Francisco circumcision ban was enacted, it almost certainly would have been struck down by a court as unconstitutional under the standards mentioned above.
If, of course, there was actually new medical evidence about severe harm from circumcision, that would be a different story.
You're drawing a purely imaginary distinction between 'medical evidence' of harm and societal attitudes about circumcision. The 'medical evidence' is that a circumcised baby is missing a healthy body part. That's not something that new evidence is required to show, it's not in dispute. The question is whether the society we live in regards the deprivation of the opportunity to live life with a foreskin as harmful, and that's the sort of question that is properly left to the democratic process.
208: In a hospital situation, they're actually numbed to the gills.
From a 1998 survey:
Of the physicians performing circumcisions, 45% use anesthesia
From here:
http://www.cirp.org/library/pain/
Post-operative analgesia. Very few children receive analgesia for the post-operative pain of circumcision. Howard et al studied the post-operative pain of circumcision for a period of 24 hours. Howard (1994) reports that circumcision pain is severe and persistent and continues beyond the 24 hour period of the study. Acetominophen (paracetamol) may be helpful in relieving post-circumcision pain.
Apparently, up until fairly recently, there wasn't even a chance that newborns would receive any sort of anesthetic or analgesic during/after circumcision. And yet the arguments of the pro-circumcision side were all exactly the same in the past. So who does it make sense to trust, the people who have been concerned about infant pain and trauma all along, or the ones who were dragged kicking and screaming out of the Middle Ages just a few years ago?
Why are you talking strict scrutiny/RFRA in the first place? Wouldn't a state law against infant circumcision just be a neutral law of general applicability for free exercise purposes, putting us in the world of Smith? (This is a genuine question--I'm no expert. But a law like that sounds a lot more like Smith than Hialeah to me.)
For example, the santeria practices at issue in Lukumi -- ritual slaughter of animals, not for food consumption -- have very strong societal disapproval, and a ban on them is consistent with the general animal cruelty laws. But the SCOTUS unanimously found, even after Smith, that this harm was insufficient to justify a law targeting the santeria religious practices.
The question is whether the society we live in regards the deprivation of the opportunity to live life with a foreskin as harmful, and that's the sort of question that is properly left to the democratic process.
That's a statement of principle, but it doesn't actually reflect the law (or, at least the RFRA/strict scrutiny/Sherbert) law. I also disagree with the principle -- protection of religious practice from majoritarian definitions of "harm" is extremely important.
244: I know a guy who had an non-ritual pinkie-toe amputation by the scoop of a skid loader.
How about this? How about I start a heterodox sect of Pastafarianism which teaches that the Flying Spaghetti Monster mandates that all Pastafarian girls have the first joint of their left baby toe removed soon after birth. They can even be anesthetized for the procedure, although analgesics afterwards are catch as catch can.
Now, these girls will grow up in a supportive community, they'll learn to walk and run naturally without part of their toe, and uncut feet will look kind of weird and bizarre to them. And when they're out in public, as long as they're not barefoot or wearing open-toed shoes, nobody will even be able to tell.
So it won't be disgusting or brutal at all to amputate part of a healthy toe for no reason except superstition and conformity, especially after a few centuries have passed and it's all traditional.
Would y'all support that? Also, they will never get first-joint-of-the-toe cancer, so: benefit!
I think strict scrutiny is just wrong. But RFRA is right (although it doesn't apply to the states, so this conversation is nonsense as applied to state law unless the state has a RFRA analog) -- RFRA was as I understand it passed to reverse Smith, and reintroduce religious exemptions to neutral laws of general applicability.
Bob Marley died from toe cancer, so it's even more justified.
Why are you talking strict scrutiny/RFRA in the first place? Wouldn't a state law against infant circumcision just be a neutral law of general applicability for free exercise purposes, putting us in the world of Smith?
Because we got started on that discussion. But there are two things. First, many states interpret their own constitutions to impose strict scrutiny, or have adopted mini-RFRAs (California has left the question of whether our constitution imposes strict scrutiny open, and a mini-RFRA was vetoed by Pete Wilson because of complaints about prisoner lawsuits). Second, depending on the origin and nature of the law, a court could conclude that an anti-circumcision law did, in fact, target religious practice, putting you in the world of Lukumi.
It's really hard for me to imagine a future united states where circumcision would be banned and where such a ban would be held up. It sure seems to me like something that should be covered under the first amendment. It's hard for me to imagine that conservatives would let precedent from a case about hippie drugs get in the way.
Would y'all support that?
Sure, absolutely. I mean, I wouldn't support it personally, I would retain my right to think it was horrible and gross and complain about it, but I think it should be protected under our constitution, which should protect minority religious practices.
275: Without the skid loader, it's not fun.
275: Right. Banned or not, this is a pretty good analogy, and there's no way a RFRA or constitutional claim would protect the Pastafarian practice. Circumcision is at this point grandfathered in, as having thousands of years of tradition behind it, but anything similar would clearly be within the power of the state to prohibit.
I wouldn't say there's no way. Natlio's example depended on a showing of an absence of harm (i.e., that they'll learn to walk and run naturally without part of their toe). Again, we're dealing in hypotheticals, but if the state can't show that the people involved are actually being harmed (on some standard that is greater than circular reasoning "we have deemed this particular act a harmful act") then the law can't survive strict scrutiny.
For example, in the hoasca case, it wasn't enough to show that the Government thought that using drugs was bad and that therefore the participants in the ritual were being harmed. They had to put in actual medical evidence of harm before the district court, and the district court concluded that the Government's medical evidence just wasn't good enough to justify banning the practice.
Now, in reality, would the loss of a pinkie toe really be harmless? I think not, since my understanding is that you really do need that toe to walk or run normally. But assuming that Natlio's hypothetical world holds -- that there really was no ongoing harm from the ritual -- I think it's more likely than not that the ritual would survive under strict scrutiny.
The skid loader accident happened in about '87 or so if that helps.
I think we can get to comity if I agree that if it's true RFRA (where applicable) requires the state to exempt the Pastafarians from any laws that would otherwise prohibit them from amputating female children's toes under the circumstances set forth by Natilio, then a fortiori it would also prohibit any ban on circumcision.
That seems right -- again, on the probably unrealistic assumption that losing your pinkie toe is about as medically significant as losing your foreskin.
Everyone knows pastafarianism isn't a real religion and doesn't deserve real religious freedoms.
280 - really? Because that sounds fucking mental to me. I'm not rabidly anti-circ - I don't have to be in this country where it's just not an issue - but I do think it's as bizarrely, unnecessarily arbitrary as Natilo's scenario.
I'm not sure that word -- arbitary -- means what you think it means.
Or "arbitrary". Either one, really.
A friend of mine has very few toes - 2 1/2 or 3, an amniotic sac accident probably, she poked her foot out and her toes got chopped off or something - and she can walk and run just fine. So yeah, all the noodlettes would have no reason to complain.
she poked her foot out and her toes got chopped off or something
Okay, now you've got my attention.
What is in there that can remove a toe?
Could explain why kids want to have their feet under the covers before trying to sleep.
Right. Is this some sort of dentata thing?
Oh, they just stopped growing outside the sac perhaps? She has tiny stumps. Bobbles.
Erm, arbitrary - I think I have the meaning right - Determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle - but may well not have used it very well. I don't think religion counts as necessity, reason or principle, which others might well disagree with.
It's like you guys have never even heard of uterine sharks.
Anyway, she can run without falling over, even when pregnant, so Natilo's parallel is perfectly valid. And clearly mental.
In the USA, we are a country founded on the proposition that a bunch of religions can be totally mental if they want to, within fairly minimal boundaries.
Would y'all support that?
No, there's a bone in there. More chance of complications.
Also, almost anyone can walk fine without the pinky toe. It's unnecessary.
I mean, I'm a devotee of the religion they were all running away from, but it's a pretty important principle.
299: And lots of guns. Those come next.
And, my dad has a cousin (adopted), who has various health problems, including terrible circulation and very bad feet, and both his little toes FELL OFF AND HE THREW THEM AWAY.
298: it's not merely a question of decisions derived from reasoned deliberation. Precedent can also render a decision non-arbitrary. Honestly, I'd like it if the word meant what you want it to mean -- I'd like to be able to say that all kinds of stupid shit is arbitrary -- but it just doesn't. Which was my point: Jews (because that's who we're talking about, right? not just any old circumcisers?) have been mutilating their boy babies' cocks, leaving them broken and debased and irreparably damaged, for centuries and centuries. Continuing to do so, even absent compelling science suggesting that the practice cuts down on infectious disease, just isn't arbitrary in any meaningful sense of that word, I don't think.
The toe analogy is a lousy one because there are definite, certain, proven, medical and lifestyle benefits to circumcision and not to toe removal. A good analogy would be minor surgery which had some kind of rational justification to it, but where the benefits fell short of the level where you could clearly impose such a procedure on a minor without their consent. Cosmetic dental surgery? Braces?
because that's who we're talking about, right? not just any old circumcisers?
Maybe Muslims too, anti-semite.
What else should he have done with his fallen-off toes, Asilon?
Anyway, that's why we mutilated our kids' cocks: because we balanced harms. We took the centuries and centuries of religious practice, practice that we deem stupid but that my parents deem rather important, and stacked that against mutilating our children without their consent. We added a dash of "this might keep their mutilated and debased cocks from becoming totally disease-ridden" and voila! We had them circumscribed by a non-cock-sucking mohel (the second of which was a total fuckwit, but that's a story for another day)! Maybe we made a lousy decision, but when placed against the backdrop of all of our other horrible parenting blunders, I'm not going to lose sleep over this one. Regardless, it wasn't arbitrary. Also, my wife thought it was somewhat important that the boys' cocks look like mine: debased, irredeemably damaged, and, I'll have you know, totally disease free.
even absent compelling science suggesting that the practice cuts down on infectious disease,
There is plenty of compelling evidence that it does just that, as well as cutting down on non-infectious diseases and minor health issues like UTIs and infections. Ignoring all that is like having a hypothetical discussion about some other thing that isn't circumcision.
and, I'll have you know, totally disease free.
Pictures.
309: but my point wasn't about that. Ignoring that my point wasn't about that is debased and damaged.
312: only if my congressional campaign is successful.
Debased and damaged is the new horrible and degenerate.
307 - personally, I would have mummified them. They were probably half-mummified already. My mum was at the GP with him when the doctor unbandaged his feet and asked, er ...... what happened here?
And honestly, any old circumcisers.
Jews (because that's who we're talking about, right? not just any old circumcisers?)
But "just any old circumcisers" is often what the circumcision debate is about, VW (and of course this debate often, okay, almost always, reaches fever pitch on the internets, because the internet is where you go to argue when they've cut off your cable for non-payment and you can't watch reality TV). Yes, Jews have engaged in this practice for centuries and centuries, which makes it non-arbitrary, obviously, for Jews (the weight of tradition; the meaning and significance of a time-honoured ethnic-religious-cultural rite of passage...not arbitrary!).
But until very recently, and for many (four? five? six or more?) decades of the twentieth century, circumcision was the default (in North America, and perhaps elsewhere?) for infant boys who were not Jewish. It was performed at the hospital by a doctor (so: not by a mohel, not as part of a rich-in-meaning-and-precedent religious-cultural ceremony), most often without any pain relief whatsoever (because infants couldn't feel pain was the theory, now strongly discredited), and on highly dubious medico-moral, not to say social hygiene, grounds (it must be more sanitary to get rid of that ugly-looking foreskin thing, because ew, yuck! that thing looks weird).
I'm pretty sure the circ debate is largely about whether the practice should still be normative (for all boys, not just Jewish boys) on respectably medical grounds. I think the medical evidence in favour is spotty at best, and I believe the evidence should be more than spotty in order to justify taking a knife to a newborn's flesh, frankly.
But: while I'm hardly "pro"-circ, the various ways in which anti-circ arguments tend to intersect with (either active or residual) anti-semitism is exactly what gives me pause about joining the "anti" side of the debate. "Barbarous" and "cruel" do sort of smack of "protocols of the elders of Zion" language to me; and also, I do think there's a significant difference between an ethnic-cultural-religious ceremony with family and friends and centuries of precedent to give it meaning, and a procedure (apparently medical, though the medical grounds are highly contested) performed under the bright cold lights of a sterile hospital setting.
I think the medical evidence in favour is spotty at best, and I believe the evidence should be more than spotty in order to justify taking a knife to a newborn's flesh, frankly.
it drives me a little nuts when I see people dismiss the medical evidence because it seems so ideological. There appears to be an organized campaign among anti-circ types to dismiss what in any other area would be conceded as obvious. I mean, you have mulitple randomized trials showing 50 percent (!) reductions in HIV transmission for circumcised men compared to uncircumsised ones, numerous studies showing reductions in HPV transmission and other STDs, and a whole set of medical conditions ranging from painful but relatively minor (phimosis, balanoposthitis) to rare but major (penile cancer) that simply do not occur among circumsised men. Plus an obvious reduction in UTIs. This is hardly spotty. It doesn't necessarily make circumcision 'worth it' -- you can argue those conditions can be handled other ways, and that staying uncircumsised has benefits too -- but you can't simply wave it away.
non-cock-sucking mohels
non-Wizard-cock-sucking mohels?
322: possibly the distrust is because the pro side have, as noted, a pretty poor relationship with the truth when arguing their case ("newborns don't feel pain!" WTF).
the internet is where you go to argue when they've cut off your cable for non-payment
Cut off your what? That phrase, in this thread, could have been better chosen. This makes it sound like Shylock has started working for the TV company.
Randomized trials of circumcision, eh?
You're holding out for a double-blind randomized trial?
Honestly, it's a wonder the majority of the male populations of France and the UK, etc. don't just lie on the ground and twitch, so disease ridden are they.
Or are you lying on the ground and twitching, ajay?
326: the assignment phase must be a real letdown for some parents.
328: I think all the randomized trials were done on adults in Africa.
There really has been great movement against the whole "newborns don't feel pain" bullshit in hospitals, but it's been somewhat recent. Hospitals started introducing protocols under which the baby boy is given 1. a sugar-soaked pacifier 2. anesthetic pecker cream 3. a numbing shot right after that and 3. follow up with infant Tylenol.
it's a wonder the majority of the male populations of France and the UK
Or conversely, that most American men aren't impotent and wracked with PTSD.
the pro side have, as noted, a pretty poor relationship with the truth
My sense is that partisans on both sides have this problem.
Or are you lying on the ground and twitching, ajay?
No, I'm more of a running-in-circles-frothing kind of guy.
anesthetic pecker cream
Thinking about baseball doesn't work for everybody.
322: Dude, you link to some stuff, and we're supposed to be instantly converted? Medical evidence can be shitty just as any other evidence can be. I don't have a strong opinion about circumcision, pro or con, but at this point you're beginning to come across like a fanatic on the subject.
329: that certainly seems like relevant information.
Also, I don't think it's 50% reduction in HIV transmission. I think it reduced men's chances of contracting HIV over (say) 6 months by about 1/3. Which is still significant. But I believe they're still trying to tease out whether or not the circumcision affects mens' behavior and quantity of sexual partners, or if it actually reduces transmission in a given exposure.
The fable of the fox who lost his tail comes to mind. People on the pro side have a very strong motivation to believe arguments about why their side is correct.
Thank you anonymous penis-protector.
321: it must be more sanitary to get rid of that ugly-looking foreskin thing, because ew, yuck! that thing looks weird
God help me, this made me laugh. (To be clear, to forestall misunderstanding: that thing does not look at all weird or yucky, but I imagine opinions differ.)
Has anyone here ever met anyone with penile cancer? I've never heard of anyone actually having it. So lowering the risk of it doesn't really seem necessary. As for HIV protection, well, if my son ever decides to move toAfrica and have a lot of unprotected sex, I'll suggest circumcision to him. Stuff like phimosis - get circ'ed if necessary. And again, perhaps men don't talk about this stuff much, but the only people I've ever heard mention UTIs have been women - another nonscary prospect.
I haven't said anything about cruelty, impotence, whatever. It just seems weird and unnecessary to me, and odd that people defend it as a rational choice, rather than a quirky hangover.
And I've said it here before I'm sure, that the first time I saw a circumcised penis in the flesh I was very confused before I realised what had happened to it. But I did then go on to have a lot of sex with it, so you know, I'm not prejudiced.
asilon -- i have half summoned you in the congestion thread.
I don't have a strong opinion about circumcision, pro or con, but at this point you're beginning to come across like a fanatic on the subject.
Me neither but I do get his annoyance. IME there's a bit of a tendency on the anti side to to argue like the "impaired function and PTSD" is on equal footing with the medical upside and it really isn't.
335: dude, this is the internet, what else can we do except link to some stuff? The scientific evidence for some health benefits of circumcision is extremely strong, in any less emotionally loaded context it would simply be accepted as fact. Instead we have lots of comments in this thread saying the only justification for the practice is ancient superstition. I don't think the health benefits are so overwhelming that they make a case for mandatory circumcision -- the life threatening conditions involved are either extremely rare (penile cancer), or can be prevented by safe sex (STDs).
CDC fact sheet on circumcision and health .
I shouldn't have said mandatory circumcision above - that would obviously be far too intrusive -- I mean that they aren't so overwhelming that they justify a really strong rec or pressure on parents. I mean, people can always choose for themselves to do it as adults if they wish.
345: I don't care one way or the other. If a man possesses a foreskin, he will have to take more care in washing and cleaning it than another man who doesn't possess a foreskin. That's about it. In societies in which washing and cleaning, and safe sex practices in general, are less prevalent, the question will be more relevant.
304: Jews (because that's who we're talking about, right? not just any old circumcisers?)
Actually, I am a tiny, tiny bit more sympathetic to circumcision when it occurs in a religious (Jewish, Muslim, whatever) context. I still think it is fucked up, but given that the vogue for Gentile circumcision is based on the belief/claim that it would hinder masturbation, that is even more fucked up.
345: in any less emotionally loaded context it would simply be accepted as fact
I'm dubious about this. All of that medical evidence, in a US/European context, looks like grasping at straws to me. And even in sub-Saharan Africa, HIV/AIDS is not a health crisis because of a prior lack of circumcision, it's a health crisis because of the disastrous after-effects of European colonization and the current effects of neo-colonialism. Getting your baby circumcised in Muncie, Indiana isn't going to do jack shit to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa, so why is that played like a big trump card in this debate? Do you get your kids vaccinated for yellow fever or typhus? Why not? Don't you know they kill hundreds of thousands of people every year? How could you be so cavalier about those health risks?
Getting your baby circumcised in Muncie, Indiana isn't going to do jack shit to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa...
In Uganda, WSIMFUS* is the most used section in the personal ads.
*Women seekng Indiana men for unprotected sex
347: That's about my take on it. In the US & Europe I can't see male circumcision as a major trauma either though, with all sorts of considerations to be hashed out before deciding. Like getting baby girl's ears pierced, it's way, way down on the outrage list.
But I did then go on to have a lot of sex with it, so you know, I'm not prejudiced.
The lengths people will go through to prove that they aren't anti-semites.
it drives me a little nuts when I see people dismiss the medical evidence because it seems so ideological. There appears to be an organized campaign among anti-circ types to dismiss what in any other area would be conceded as obvious.
Honestly, I'm not part of any organized campaign. The main reason why I didn't have my son circ'd is that I didn't want him to grow up and join a 'Reclaiming Our Foreskins' support group. The next thing you know, he'd be quoting Robert Bly on the mythopoesis of natural masculinity, or something cheesy like that.
And, more seriously, in choosing not to circ, I took my cues from both the American and the Canadian Pediatric Associations, neither of which (hardly anti-medical) medical bodies recommend routine neonatal circumcision. I don't think the medical evidence is nearly as strong as you are asserting here, PGD.
247
I honestly think you're digging yourself in a hole here for no reason. A legislative statement of generally compelling interests is surely "relevant" but the enquiry needs to be whether there is in fact a harm to the specific individual in question sufficient to justify a criminal prosecution. The state cannot just define its own compelling interest -- that's the whole point of the test. In the case of ritual circumcision, there very clearly is not an injury sufficient to justify a prosecution, and that is true regardless of whether there were some generalized legislative findings about circumcision as a harm or as "amputation."* This isn't a hard question. Check out the hoasca case.
So you are claiming that, if New York State decided to ban blood sucking circumcisions because of the deaths that have resulted and if a mohel defied the ban and performed a blood sucking circumcision that killed the baby, New York State would be unable to prosecute because it couldn't demonstrate harm. I have my doubts to say the least.
345: It's not the linking to stuff, it's the speculating about our sinister motives for not already being convinced by your links.
348.1: the same argument was used, bizarrely, to promote Kellogg's Corn-Flakes.
346: people can always choose for themselves to do it as adults if they wish.
Well, yes. They can.
Isn't it interesting that so few do, though? If the health advantages and so on are so strong? Doesn't that make you think again about how obviously good a thing it is?
I mean, I was first vaccinated against polio when I was very young. I didn't really have much choice in the matter. My parents took me to the doctor and said "open your mouth". I didn't enjoy it much because the vaccine tasted very bitter. But if for some reason it hadn't happened to me at that age, I'd certainly get it done now. The health arguments are very convincing.
Isn't it odd that the same doesn't apply in this case? Isn't it odd that this is a medical procedure that happens, almost exclusively, to people too young to decide for themselves? That the vast majority of men who are still in a position to make the choice at a later point in life are completely unconvinced by all these arguments you've been wheeling out?
the same argument was used, bizarrely, to promote Kellogg's Corn-Flakes.
How?
Also I think it was meant be less exciting to the digestion and sense than other food, and this meant less self-abuse.
Keir is correct. A nation fed on bacon and eggs would have far too much surplus energy and drive, and would probably be given to such vices as drinking rum, betting on horses, wearing the collar unbuttoned, scoffing at pastors, brawling in streets, being an immigrant and LUST (ooh). The America of the twentieth century was to be a pallid, lacklustre nation of emotionless, filleted, myopic men and women, and such creatures are best raised on Corn Flakes.
Cornflakes: US::asofoetida powder: India?
Yes, down to the weird vegetarian religion thing.
Oudemia, look at the links I just posted in the UVA thread, and weep.
Overnight, the penis thread rises.
this debate often, okay, almost always, reaches fever pitch on the internets, because the internet is where you go to argue when they've cut off your cable
That's an exaggeration. The people arguing about circumcision almost never had their cable cut cut off entirely.
THE MAINTENANCE CAME AND HE COCKED IT BUT ITS MOHEL!
364: Nothing that some corn flakes won't take care of.
A nation fed on bacon and eggs would have far too much surplus energy and drive
Less protein, less passion!
(Please, someone else know what I'm talking about!)
Only after a quick Google. There is a fairly extensive Wikipedia article on the guy.
369. Of course. Did you know he had a Wikipedia page?
Isn't it interesting that so few do, though? If the health advantages and so on are so strong?
Forty members of the Zimbabwe parliament just had it done as a part of a nationwide pro-circumcision campaign.
372: If forty members of the Zimbabwe parliament jumped off a bridge, would you too?
373: No, that would require a fillibuster-proof majority.
Rob, when i am casting for the role of Rational McSanepants, I do not start my star search in the Zimbabwean government. Also, that's a tiny number of people.
Far better than Wikipedia, Stanley Green is in the DNB:
http://www.oxforddnb.com/public/dnb/92286.html
We (my brother and I) just thought he was mad. Something else to look out for on the 38 bus route from Victoria to either set of grandparents. We had a copy of his pamphlet, and I don't think I had any idea what he was on about.
Also, that's a tiny number of people.
Well, if the deal being offered is "chop off the end of your penis for purely altruistic reasons whose outcomes won't be immediately apparent to you" it is not surprising that there are few takers, and those that you do get are ones who have a major investment in their public image as good people.
