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by LibertyUNH on 12:08 AM July 25th, 2005 EST (#1)
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Current discrimination against men is mainly the result of EROSION of Biblical values -- like the requirement of two witnesses for a conviction and severe punishment for false accusers. It is therefore strange that some of us attack Biblical values and try to pass antisemitic laws!
How can you be fighting against bigotry and discrimination and at the same time try to pass Anti-Semitic laws?
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by Anonymous User on 01:37 AM July 25th, 2005 EST (#2)
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It's bigoted to assert that the right to genital integrity, which for me means the right to uninterupted sexual development, which is the birthright of all humans, is anti-Semitic: you would have to assert that it was anti-Muslim also. But, in fact, it is no more anti-Semitic (or anti-Muslim) to believe in the right to uninterrupted sexual development than it is anti-white to be opposed to slavery.
In any case, one could modify these laws to exclude religious circumcision, although I pity those people who were deprived the freedom to develop without interruption. I assert this as a Jew, though I was not mutilated for religious reasons.
As for Judeo-Christain values, I will enumerate the moral rules that involuntary neonatal circumcision violates. These moral rules form the basis of Judeo-Christian morality. Involuntary cirucmcision violates just about every one of the moral rules. So fighting for uninterrupted sexual development, which follows from the moral rules, affirms the fundamental tenets of Judeo-Christian morality.
What moral rules does routine infant circumcision violate?
The right to uninterrupted sexual development comes from consideration of the moral rules. A statement of the moral rules is given in Morality: Its Nature and Justification, by Dartmouth philosopher Bernard Gert. Here's a list of moral rules violated by routine infant circumcision.
1. The moral rule not to deprive a person of pleasure (by desensitizing the organ and limiting its function); (Is it anti-Semitic not to violate this rule? No!)
2. The moral rule not to deprive a person of freedom (by removing the choice to decide whether to undergo this procedure, and by limiting options to pleasure others); (Is it anti-Semitic not to violate this rule? No!)
3. The moral rule not to cause pain; (Is it anti-Semitic not to violate this rule? No!)
4. The moral rule not to disable (the procedure is sexually diminishing -- statistical evidence is available in the scientific literature, and anecdotal accounts from restoring men and their partners is available); see my previous post about what is lost, and also see the lost list--don't let a woman tell you you don't need your foreskin because she doesn't like them, since it's not her body. Feminists should have a deep appreciation for sentiments like that. After all: when it comes to their bodies, it's their body. Unless you believe that their bodies are worth more than male bodies.
In cases where the procedure causes death
5. The moral rule not to kill
is violated (a no-brainer).
Since doctors, and even the AAP recommendation do not provide parents with before and after photographs of the procedure (a medically responsible thing to provide for what might generously called plastic surgery--though this is not ordinarily supposed to result in loss of neurological function); since the do not inform parents about the possibility of distressing complications such as trapped penis, as happened to a relative of mine; since they do not inform parents what anatomical parts their son can look forward to missing in his adult life, and how the loss of sensory feedback mechanisms due to the amputation will affect his (and his future partner's) perception and performance of sexual intercourse and foreplay
6. The moral rule do not deceive
is also violated. Indeed, it's fairly certain that doctors and health-care professionals do not properly inform parents of precisely the specialized structures that are permanently removed by the practice. In addition, doctors take the Hippocratic oath, so
7. The moral rule to keep your promises
is violated, along with the general moral rule to
8. Do your duty.
and
9. Do not cheat.
These are violated in several ways. One way is that circumcising physicians will decline to say what the long-term negative effects of the procedure are, and will refer anyone who asks to a sex therapist. This is medically irresponsible. Surgeons should know the possible complications of the surgeries they perform, and must inform patients. They can't fob that responsibility off on others.
What are some of the complications?
Circumcision impairs sexual functioning; when performed on infants, it decreases the blood supply to the organ, and stunts its growth--see, for example, the lost list. Note the effects of the amputation of the frenar artery (a major artery), and the forcible removal of the prepuce from the glans (a procedure analogous to removing a nail from the nail bed), which prevents the glans from completing its development. The volume of the intact glans is 12% greater than that of a circumcised glans, due to the altered blood flow (referred to as "back-flow") and scarring. Doctors don't inform parents and patients about these effects, so they can fairly be called professionally irresponsible. Often, you'll hear a circumcising doctor claim that sex problems aren't his specialty; however, ignorance of the long term effects of this surgery, which removes what would normally become in adulthood 15 square inches of specialized, irreplacable tissue, three feet of veins and arteries and betweeen ten and twenty-thousand nerves, can also fairly be called professionally irresponsible.
Yet all of this is acceptable for boys. Men don't want to admit they were impaired--a little experience restoring would be a real eye opener for them. The assumption is that if you can reproduce and ejaculate, you're still ok. FALSE. You can't experience "whole body" orgasms; you have no foreskin for foreplay, which many cirucmcised men want to skip, because it's not pleasurable--it has to become an intellectual exercise undertaken for the benefit of your partner since the sensory experience is gone; your neurological map is altered; you have no forekin to stimulate the G-spot of the female; and the mechanics of intercourse are different--hard thrusting is needed. Restoring--a process which takes several years--can reverse some of these effects significantly enough to be worth it for many men, and it give a person a sense of control over his body. There's no reason to give in entirely to the "medical-industrial complex."
With infant circumcision, generally so much skin is removed that the deficit has to be made up from scrotal and pubic skin, leading to penile webbing, and other complications which exacerbate the tendency of the immobilized, taut skin of the circumcised penis to pump out the female's lubrication during intercourse, leading to dryness and irritation; this effect does not happen with intact genitals. The experience of restoring men and men circumcisied in adulthood confirm these effects.
To refuse to acknowledge the scientific validity of these finding, on the specious grounds of "anti-Semitism" is absurd, anti-scientific, anti-male, and flies in the face of the most basic principles of Judeo-Christian morality.
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by LibertyUNH on 05:28 AM July 25th, 2005 EST (#4)
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> In any case, one could modify these
> laws to exclude religious circumcision,
> although I pity those people who were
> deprived the freedom to develop without
> interruption. I assert this as a Jew,
> though I was not mutilated for religious
> reasons.
Even though I am far from being an observing Jew, I would not support a law which outlaws part of Judaism (and Islam). That violates separation of Church and state.
> 1. The moral rule not to deprive a person
> of pleasure (by desensitizing the organ
> and limiting its function); (Is it anti-
> Semitic not to violate this rule? No!)
Circumcision reduces risk of HIV greatly. Besides, we do not know if anything will be left of modern sexuality 18-20 years from now, when these boys will become adult.
> don't let a woman tell you you don't need
> your foreskin because she doesn't like them,
> since it's not her body. Feminists should have
> a deep appreciation for sentiments like that.
> After all: when it comes to their bodies,
> it's their body. Unless you believe that their
> bodies are worth more than male bodies.
I am not a feminist -- have several MRA articles I published in newspapers. If feminists legalised abortion, that does not mean we should take our own step away from religious values.
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by Anonymous User on 08:44 AM July 25th, 2005 EST (#5)
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> In any case, one could modify these
> laws to exclude religious circumcision,
> although I pity those people who were
> deprived the freedom to develop without
> interruption. I assert this as a Jew,
> though I was not mutilated for religious
> reasons.
Even though I am far from being an observing Jew, I would not support a law which outlaws part of Judaism (and Islam). That violates separation of Church and state.
Absolutely false. Imposing your religious beliefs on others, by depriving them of the freedom to develop sexually without interruption, is religious fanaticism, and that violates the separation of church and state. The separation of church and state does not include the right to impose your religious views on others, especially when that means diminishing their sexual organs.
Moreover, it violates the 14th Amendment to the constitution that female genital mutilation is outlawed, but male genital mutilation is not.
Circumcision reduces risk of HIV greatly. Besides, we do not know if anything will be left of modern sexuality 18-20 years from now, when these boys will become adult.
You have yet to make any kind of case that a controversial experimental finding justifies paternalism in medicine, Nor have you explained why all persons do not deserve impartial treatment with regard to the right to uninterrupted genital development.
Even if this canard were true, it does not justidy mutilating the sex organs of men. We also cannot predict whether those men would prefer not to have 15 square inches of specialized, irreplacable tissue removed, and to have their penises shortened. Circumcision removes 25% of the total length of the penis. To assert that this has no effect whatsoever on the quality of life of men is ludicrous. And implying that this is a reason to impose your religion on defenseless infants is outrageous. You have completely failed to address the moral rules here. I stated them. You are now obligated to explain why the violation of moral rules, the foundation of Judeo-Christain morality, is justified. I assert that it is no more anti-Semitic to assert the sovereign right to uninterrupted sexual development, as it was asserted in the case of FGM, than it is anti-white to be opposed to slavery.
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Even though I am far from being an observing Jew, I would not support a law which outlaws part of Judaism (and Islam). That violates separation of Church and state.
Then you would agree that the State has no business outlawing female circumcision, which is a religious practice/rite in some instances as well.
Circumcision reduces risk of HIV greatly.
Irrelevant. My health, or lack thereof, is none of your, or anybody else's, business. My own future health concerns do not provide justification for you cutting off a part of my body without my concent.
Incidentally, indeed I was mutilated as a baby, which is why I've started a program of foreskin restoration. I was born with a foreskin. I intend to die with one.
"Existence exists. A is A." -Ayn Rand
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by Anonymous User on 09:06 AM July 25th, 2005 EST (#7)
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Circumcision reduces risk of HIV greatly.
Irrelevant. My health, or lack thereof, is none of your, or anybody else's, business. My own future health concerns do not provide justification for you cutting off a part of my body without my concent.
Precisely. All patients have the right to refuse treatment. Studies have shown that not only is involuntary circumcision not cost-effective, it degrades the quality of life of its victims. Men's reproductive rights begin, as women's do, with the right to uninterrupted sexual development. That right must be asserted impartially, without regard to gender. Involuntary circumcision can be outlawed, at the very least, if it is not therapeautic and not religious. However, the religious observance could wait until the person concerned reaches the age of consent, if this sacrifice is indispensible. This is a reasonable compromise, respecting the expression of religion and the right of a person to own his own body. It also ios a fair test of faith. Genital cutting of persons without their consent will lead to a prison sentence of 12 years in Italy.
Incidentally, indeed I was mutilated as a baby, which is why I've started a program of foreskin restoration. I was born with a foreskin. I intend to die with one.
Likewise. For me, restoration is not only a way to regain some of the sexual experience that was brutally taken from me without my consent, at a time when I was most vulnerable, it is a political stand against that perverse ideology of hate that cannot stand to leave the genitals of other persons to develop without interruption. There is more than one way to be a Jew. A group of people who whine because they cannot exercise what could fairly be called a pedophilic desire to mutilate the genitals of infants must not determine who is and who is not a Jew.
As I say, it is religious fanaticism to insist on mutilating the genitals of others on the pretext of religion. Religion must embrace and extend the moral rules: it has no business violating them, in service to perceived religious commands, however purportedly lofty.
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by Anonymous User on 10:26 PM July 25th, 2005 EST (#12)
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I know a man who was circumcized as an adult (not by choice, long story) and explains in detail how he lost over 90% of the sensation in his penis. He explains how the foreskin acted as a buffer during sex and without it sex and even masterbation are far less enjoyable. He describes it like going color blind suddenly as an adult, as opposed to being color blind all your life and not knowing the difference.
I must say, as much as I believe in religious freedom, I have become all the more anti-circumcision after hearing what this man has to say, and seeing how much scientific evidence backs up what he is saying. In any event, I oppose the anti-male discrimination more than anything else. If it's illegal for females, it should be illegal for males too. There is one type of female circumcision that's exactly equivalent to male circumcision, and it's illegal.
Marc A.
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I must say, as much as I believe in religious freedom
I also believe in religious freedom. However, we must remember that religious freedom does NOT mean one is free to mutilate the genitals of another person.
If one wishes to mutilate himself in the name of his religion or whatever, then more power to him. However, as the old saying goes, "Your freedom to swing your fist ends where my nose begins." Or in this case, one's religious freedom to cut off body parts ends where another person's foreskin begins.
THAT is the proper rebuttal to the "religious freedom" argument.
"Existence exists. A is A." -Ayn Rand
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by Anonymous User on 12:37 AM July 26th, 2005 EST (#14)
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I happen to like the moral rules, but we are agreed that there are several ways to approach this. My rights were violated.
My answer to UNH is how dare he tell me that I don't have a right to my own body, that I don't have a right to uninterrupted sexual development. What arrogance. After restoring, I thought I would come to some kind of peace about what was done to me. Instead; as I regained sensitivity and control; as I grew back some of the considerable quantity of skin and muscle that should have been my birthright; as I began to experience whole-body orgasms instead of mere ejaculatory releases; as sex became more pleasant for my girlfriend, who was previously left irritated and uncomfortable because I lacked a cushioning foreskin; I began to see more clearly than ever how ugly involuntary circumcision is, and how profoundly ignorant and lacking in empathy for others that its proponents are. It is truly barbaric, mean and nasty. I found myself even less capable of stomaching those these moral morons who speak about involuntary infant circumcsion as if its "nothing." If it's "nothing," then why do these frightful miscreants, these Nazi-like defilers of the human body, these genital terrorists insist on doing it? Granted, it's nowhere near as great a social evil as nuclear war, but it is a social evil nonetheless.
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If it's "nothing," then why do these frightful miscreants, these Nazi-like defilers of the human body, these genital terrorists insist on doing it?
Exactly! I've heard people say "But it's just a little piece of skin! It's nothing!"
Well if it's really "nothing", then why are they so damned insistent on cutting it off?
"Existence exists. A is A." -Ayn Rand
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by Anonymous User on 06:20 PM July 25th, 2005 EST (#11)
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As others have pointed out, the issue here is the inequality created by the laws banning female circumcision (H.R. 941 and S. 1030), not religion. These laws state:
`(a) Except as provided in subsection (b), whoever knowingly circumcises, excises, or infibulates the whole or any part of the labia majora or labia minora or clitoris of another person who has not attained the age of 18 years shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.
`(b) A surgical operation is not a violation of this section if the operation is--
`(1) necessary to the health of the person on whom it is performed, and is performed by a person licensed in the place of its performance as a medical practitioner; or
`(2) performed on a person in labor or who has just given birth and is performed for medical purposes connected with that labor or birth by a person licensed in the place it is performed as a medical practitioner, midwife, or person in training to become such a practitioner or midwife.
`(c) In applying subsection (b)(1), no account shall be taken of the effect on the person on whom the operation is to be performed of any belief on the part of that or any other person that the operation is required as a matter of custom or ritual.
Notice that there is no religious exemption here. Is it acceptable that this law could be considered Anti-Islamic?
Also, note the penalty under this law. Apparently, a feminist would think that a woman has a right to kill her unborn daughter through abortion, but if a woman has her daughter's foreskin removed, she deserves to rot in prison. In other words, a girl's foreskin is worth more than her life! Just another example of that strange feminist "logic".
Many of the authors of books and writings on this circumcision double standard are Jewish, and I don't think they were being anti-Semitic when they wrote about this topic. Take for example, Edward Wallerstein's excellent book, which does a very good job at pointing out the double standard, many years before there was ever an organized anti-male circumcision movement (1980).
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by Anonymous User on 02:20 AM July 25th, 2005 EST (#3)
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Let me not mince words: it is, at the very least, fanaticism to impose involuntary, non-therapeautic circumcision on neonates, or on non-consenting persons outside your faith, and call it "anti-Semitism." Fanaticism is intolerable in a democracy that upholds the principle of the separation of church and state.
To call opposition to non-religious, non-therapeautic infant circumcision anti-Semitic is fanaticism. What is religious fanaticism? A religious fanatic is someone who breaks a moral rule to follow a religious command.
It is immoral to violate moral rules to follow religious commands. You can visit sites on the web that feature gruesome, graphic videos of religious fanatics at work. The London bombers were religous fanatics: they were following what they believed to be religious commands, even if that meant violating moral rules.
I've enumerated the moral rules that involuntary, non-therapeautic neonatal circumcision violates in another post. I leave it to the reader whether the definition of fanaticism and the moral rules as states comports with his sense of morality.
In my view, religion, in its finest sense, has the capacity to deepen mans innate capacity for compassion towards others. Art, literature and religion can do that; philosophy and reason by themselves cannot. But in its worst sense, religion becomes religious fanaticism: the will to violate moral rules in dogmatic adherence to religious ideals. Religious belief does not justify violating the moral rules: instead it elaborates on them.
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by Anonymous User on 09:27 AM July 25th, 2005 EST (#8)
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They lost their rights by violating mine:
contempt for parents lost these days I feel
and hatred for those circum-pedophiles,
who strapped me, gasping, to a circumstraint,
who tore off, like a nail from the nail bed,
the foreskin from my neonatal glans...
My mother enjoyed my father intact:
surely they desired the same for their sons?
"They did what was best," we like to believe:
twenty-five percent short, minus the sleeve;
pleasure diminished, to give and receive;
lost structure and function: reason to grieve;
my bedtime ordeal: a struggle to breathe...
These days, should anyone ask who they were,
"Genital terrorists!" I shall aver.
Their history went the way of my skin--
Scarred, tattered remnants, in memoriam...
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by Anonymous User on 11:33 AM July 25th, 2005 EST (#9)
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Separation of church and state supports freedom from government action against religious expression; however, it is a cynical perversion of first amendment protection to assert that religious expression encompasses involuntary surgery on persons who cannot give their consent. Non-therepeautic removal of healthy tissue cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be considered a speech act. Unfortunately, the case against FGM argued that MGM was a "speech act" and was therefore protected under the First Amendment! It was then argued that FGM was so medically harmful that it could not be considered speech protected under the First Amendment.
So the legal argument for the FGM did a disservice to the anti-MGM movement.
A problem with anti-MGM legislation, apart from the ugly and hateful slur of anti-Semitism with which religious bullies wish to tar anti-MGM legislation, even when this is against non-religious, non-therapeautic mutilation, is that the courts do not recognize the standing of the plantiffs. However, the anti-FGM bill was enacted in 1998, so that in 2015, and every year thereafter, a class of discriminated persons will
have been formed: the class of those persons who were born on or after 1998 who were circumcised involuntarily, and who were therefore discriminated against by virtue of the violation of their right to equal protection under the 14th amendment of the United States Constitution. This class will have standing in the court.
We will not be bullied by religious bigots and fanatics and busybodies who insist that removing irreplacable tissue and diminishing the sexual organs of others is somehow "speech" and must be protected. It's violence, not speech. If it is any kind of speech at all, it is hate speech.
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by jenk on 02:49 PM July 25th, 2005 EST (#10)
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Doctors are not treating this as a Jewish procedure. I am Catholic, it was written on our charts with my first son, who I had at 19. The doctor asked me about circumcision, which I did not know what it was. He told me that it was no big deal, that it simply cut off extra skin which was unnecessary, and would keep him from getting infections and make it easier to clean. It didn't hurt a bit and the baby would suffer no bad consequences.
I was lied to. Until the law makes male genital mutilation illegal, nothing will change. Doctors will continue to lie about it because they make money off it.
If Jews want to push for legislation which says they can file for a Jewish exemption of the law, then I am fine with that. I would make it hard so only truely active Jews can do this, those who are committed to go to servises every week, and observe all the holidays and such. Circumcision should not be viewed as a cheap way to get into heavan. Of course the law must also state that middle eastern people in the US have the right to circumcise their daughters.
Good luck with THAT one.
Liberty UHN has been a great asset, do not dismiss him as a feminist. i do think that disagreement over this issue is inevitable but should not sway anyone from fighting against the procedure. Sorry, boys come first.
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by n.j. on 05:17 PM July 26th, 2005 EST (#16)
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Here in Germany, there is no special law against FGM because it is considered to be covered by existing laws. At least that was the answer by the conservative government to an inquiry of the opposition years ago. But the ongoing MGM proves the existing laws are either not enough, or are not being applied in an appropriate manner.
The Anti-FGM-bills of the US sent the wrong message to other countries. A gender neutral bill would correct that and possibly bring the end of this antisexual terror elsewhere.
Also, the US have been accused of many human rights violations themselves and this could be a good opportunity to improve their image. Politicians should thus be very interested.
Of course, on the other hand, there's a problem with it being a Jewish tradition, which probably makes MGM nearly impossible to outlaw in my country (in contrast to the African religions that are not considered important). The jewish community is at the core of what makes the US uncanny to us Europeans: the strange mixture between education and modernism on the one hand and arcane traditions that are somehow shielded from the influence of the former on the other.
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