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Reader Feedback on "Foresight"
Thanks for the response, Paul. It's always nice to know, through actual demonstration, that a journalist is paying attention to his readers. As far as the actual argument itself goes, though, I believe it's over. Not, as one might think, because of the Sorrels research documenting the serious sensory detriments caused by male prepucectomy, but because of the fundamental medical and legal standards. That's because all normal, healthy, functional human body parts -- the male foreskin included -- are automatically assigned a basic, inherent, fundamental value by medical ethics and relevant law. And this standard value precludes their amputation without a direct medical health necessity. Unfortunately, for the proponents of routine and ritual male prepucectomy, there exists no authoritative article, legislation, or other source providing a valid and supportable justification for uniquely and singularly denying the male prepuce that basic, inherent, fundamental value. In short, circumcision proponents must necessarily assert that the male prepuce is uniquely and singularly to be excluded from the basic standards of ethics and law, but they cannot cite any authoritative grounds for doing so. Thus, pro-prepucectomy advocacy fails from the very outset. There simply is no rational justfication for the procedure. The same standard which invalidates potential prophylaxis as a pretext for the amputation of any healthy, normal, functional human body part applies every bit as much to the healthy, normal, functional body part classified as the male prepuce.
--ACK
08/23 |
Hey everyone-- Great to read your comments on the story. Since so much of this discussion is about the effects of circumcision on sensation, I wanted to flag this other Hooksexup story (linked to in "Foresight") about the recent study that sought to objectively evaluate circumcision-related sensation loss through touch-test sensitivity testing. The study was meant to address just the problem AWF raises--nobody can feel another's toothache. By testing sensitivity to various gauges of monofilament (a method developed to evaluate people with peripheral neuropathy), researchers determined that circumcision does indeed remove the most sensitive parts of the penis. Here's the link: https://hooksexup.com/dispatches/festa/howinsensitive/
--Paul
08/23 |
“Men who have been circumcised just have no idea what they are missing.” “AWF, if you are circumcised, you are missing almost everything.” “No less a form of sexual dysfunction.” I find these statements pathetic and arrogant. And “the skin just has to toughen up.” Is that your opinion as a medical expert? Golly, I thought I was getting quite a bit out of sex, but now these worthies come along to tell me I’m not. How presumptuous of me to think I can evaluate my own experience! But never mind that: epistemologically these statements are absurd. No one can feel another’s toothache. No one can experience another’s sexual pleasure – or lack thereof. If an adult were circumcised after having had already had an active (uncircumcised) sex life, we *might* be able to arrive at some conclusions, but even then they would only be tentative, because there’s no way to know how that compares w/ sex after a childhood circumcision. Personally I like to think we are all having a good time, and wonder why some people doth protest too much. (BTW, the word is clitoridectomy.)
--AWF
08/22 |
OK, this site doesn't take HTML. More detail on the circumcision-HIV (dis)connection at https://www.circumstitions.com/HIV.html . Literally hundreds of other crackpot reasons for circumcising at https://www.circumstitions.com/Stitions.html AWF, if you are circumcised, you are missing almost everything. An analogy is at https://www.circumstitions.com/Pleasure.html#music
--HY
08/22 |
Excellent summary. You can find more detail on the HIV (dis)connection here. Not only is circumcision a cure looking for a disease, but there are literally hundreds of other crackpot reasons for doing it, so it is not just a personal attack to look at the motivations of its advocates - first and foremost, that they may be fighting to justify what was done to them. (One thing in the article I find puzzling: "this lower HIV prevalence may simply be because a significant number of men who were circumcised as boys in Kenya, Lesotho and Tanzania didn't survive their circumcisions long enough to be studied" - sounds a bit like the Vatican having as a relic the skull of John the Baptist as a boy. Seriously, though, men who were circumcised and got HIV would be much less inclined to go back and be counted.)
--HY
08/22 |
To AWF: Following circumcision, the skin on the head of the penis gets thicker and thus less sensitive. Normally the foreskin protects the head most of the time. Without that protection, the skin just has to toughen up. Men who have been circumcised just have no idea what they are missing. The result is no less a form of sexual dysfunction than what women in some third world countries experience when their clitoral hoods are removed in one of 5 basic forms of female circumcision. Yet the former is practiced every day in the US while the latter is reviled and banned by law. Because somehow it is supposed to be less wrong to mutilate a male baby's genitals without sound medical reason or consent than it is to mutilate what amounts to the exact same tissue on girls. And before anybody jumps on me over the female circumcision thing, please not that not all female circumcision involves a clitorectomy.
--JL
08/22 |
If you cut off your balls then you can reduce your odds of getting testicular cancer to zero. Or have your breasts removed at puberty to eliminate the danger of breast cancer. This is no more a rational case for ritual genital mutilation than reduced risk of HIV possibly resulting from circumcision.
--JL
08/22 |
I'd take this guy's analysis of medical literature a lot more seriously if his bio picture had hair and a shirt.
--REM
08/20 |
I can state from first-hand experience that the most sensitive parts of the penis are the head and particularly the ridge around the head. These are not cut off in a circumcision. You'll excuse the pun, but am I missing something here?
--AWF
08/20 |
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