Now Santa Monica intactivists want to get an anti-circumsicion ballot in for 2012. While our commenters keep fighting over San Francisco’s ballot measure, watch a rabbi and an anti-circumcision activist have the most awkward and unsexy conversation about penises you’ve ever heard.
If you wanna read more about anti-circumcision points of view, check out Circumstitions.com and Intactivist.com. For pro-circumcision points of view, check out Circinfo.com. Many gay men continue to be in favor of dicks no matter their appearance, just so long as they’re available.
Via Joe.My.God.
james
That video in Intactive.com’s front page is just disturbing! Poor baby.
bbg
“Radical secularists” are behind the proposed ban? Do the atheists know this?
meego
SF will eventually be over-run with stinky cheese dicks! Barf!
ChiGuy76
@bbg: Good point. I have bumped into a significant amount of atheists that support infant male circumcision.
With the amount of attention this issue is receiving, I am getting sick to death of the resulting debates. Both sides spend so much time shouting each other down or posting snide, pythy comments and think that they are making sound intelligent arguments. All this hyperbolic speech that it’s “child abuse,” a “violation of human rights,” or equal to female genital mutilation, quite frankly has me turned off to the debate completely. I’ve approached the point of complete and total apathy. I really don’t care what parents decide. If you oppose circumcision, then don’t have your sons circumcised.
Personally, I am happy and grateful that I am circumcised and if I had sons, I would have them circumcised as well. Now, can we please move on to something more important like repealing DOMA or fixing the economy or passing ENDA all of which deserve so much more of our time energy and attention.
Jeffree
Doing something like this at a city level makes no sense: parents who want their son circumcized will just have it done outside the city.
It’s an elective procedure, & any decision on promoting it or banning it should be based on risks vs. benefits. That means that doctors (espec. Obs) need to come up with some consensus or at least guidlelines.
divkid
oh tish and pish! i hates it when i can’t feel strongly enough ’bout stuff.
just dunna know. i’ll go with gut — okay… probably best to leave baba alone. yes, that’s it. so stop it RIIIGHT now!
but, um, then again…(?)
more crucial is to discover where all that quality skin is going. think of the fine gloves(better than calf skin leather), lampshades, and psycho-killers’ patchwork flesh-suits they could furnish.
but most of all enquiring minds want to know this: jeffree, which do *you* prefer, a matt or gloss finish? *giggles like japanese schoolgirl behind hand*
hyhybt
“Many gay men continue to be in favor of dicks no matter their appearance, just so long as they’re available.”
“Good answer! Good answer!”
@ChiGuy76: ENDA is still hopeless, and will remain so until the next Congress at earliest. Important it may be (and it is!) but there’s simply nothing *to* talk about on that front right now.
Nate
@meego:
It already is. Infant circumcision rates in SF are around 10-20% I believe.
SteveC
I am not against circumcision.
But I am absolutely opposed to circumcision being performed on ANYONE without their informed consent.
When performed on a child it is nothing better than child abuse.
SteveC
@Jeffree:
Child abusers are indeed resourceful.
SuperCat
Yeah, lets have a debate about whether or not it’s alright to continue a barbaric practice that mutilates boys and stunts their future sexual pleasure.
Cause that’s what civilized people do. Debate things.
Eric
@SuperCat: Having and Ugly gross looking uncut cock stunts their future sexual pleasure as well…Pulling down your pants and having someone say no thanks your uncut isn’t gonna help. I shouldn’t have to unwrap twice to get to the treat.
hyhybt
@Eric: Picky, picky, picky…
I think it matters more who the penis (or what’s left of it, if you prefer looking at it that way) is attached to is more important than whether there’s a foreskin on it or not.
But then, I’m hardly an expert.
AMB
Activists in San Francisco have qualified a ballot initiative to outlaw shitting on male infants. They claim that male infants deserve the same treatment that girls get upon birth: a shitless welcome to the world.
Mrs. Cybil Wright, a concerned citizen, states that “this legislation is ridiculous! Those anti-shit-on- your-son radicals might try to argue that boys have the same human rights as girls, but any fool knows better!”
Supporters of the ban, feel that males have a right to decide for themselves, whether or not they want to be shit on. “This is a personal decision, not a parental decision. Shitting on your son, without his consent, is improper. Parents should delay shitting on their sons until they are 18” says Miss. Dee Cent, founder of the “Got-No-Shit-On-Me” foundation.
Peter Dumas, a pro-shit-on your-son supporter says “shitting on male infants is deeply embedded in our American culture/psyche. I was shit on, my father was shit on, and his father before him was shit on! What kind of lunatic would want to try to legally force us to stop shitting on our offspring? This is America. Land of the free!”
A spokesperson for the “The AMM/American Medical Monster” said this:
“Shitting on the male infant is not essential to his good health, but if we are paid a pretty penny, by a pin head parent, we will happily oblige, and shit on their kid.”
If the measure passes, shitting on male infants would become a misdemeanor, even if it is done for “religious reasons”.
“Shitting on the 8 day old male is the oldest religious practice on earth, for craps sake! It is a sacred ritual to shit on our sons. I find it deeply offensive and disturbingly racist that anyone would try to legally prohibit me from pooping on my boy. I am commanded by THE LAW to do this” said Mrs. Fran Aticle.
Josh
I’m pro-circumcision. I support every man’s right to have HIMSELF circumcised.
Imposing that choice on a baby though is completely wrong.
Nobody would say it was ok to hold down a grown man and cut off part of his penis, but when it’s done to a baby it has the same effect – he has no say in it, and he’s without those body parts for the rest of his life!
If the grown man deserves the right to decide for himself, then so does the grown man that the baby will become.
The parents won’t be using the penis (at least I hope not!). The son will, so let him decide for himself.
Josh
@ChiGuy76: “If you oppose circumcision, then don’t have your sons circumcised.”
So, in other words then, whether or not one’s penis is permanently modified should be left up to the whim of the parents?
How does that make any sense? The parent is not the owner of the penis. The parent isn’t the one who makes use of the penis. So why on earth should it be up to the parent to decide if part of it gets cut off.
Only the OWNER of the penis in question has any right to decide!
DavyJones
@Josh: Oh come on; parents make life-altering decisions which have a much larger impact on children’s lives all the time.
Fountouki
Making irreversible, medically unnecessary changes to a person’s body without this person’s approval is NOT okay. When parents force a religion upon their children, then that’s the OPPOSITE of freedom of religion. Children are born irreligious and biological males are born with a foreskin. And they should stay this way until they are old enough to decide for themselves what they want.
prohomo
@meego: Oh shut up! Keeping your dick cleanis keeps the cheese away, you idiot. What, is that too much work for you?!
Hugh7
@Meego: You mean, the way Japan, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Holland, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Holland, Switzerland, Belgium* … are now “over-run with stinky cheese dicks!”? Oh dear!
*in fact, most of the non-Muslim developed world outside the US.
@Chiguy76: And what if your sons aren’t happy to have had (the best) part of their dicks cut off? “I like it therefore you will like it” doesn’t often work for any other matter of personal preference.
@Jeffree: You’re right, and the Federal law banning ANY genital cutting of females should just be amended by the deletion of “female” and the addition of “foreskin” to the list (“any part of the labia majora or labia minora or clitoris”) of parts that may not be touched. “Any part” means we need not concern ourselves here with the undeniable horrors of African tribal customs. The risks vs benefits come down against it, but we should also consider ethics (“First do no harm”). Obgyns have ruled themselves out. They wouldn’t let Intact America have a booth at their convention last month saying that is “beyond the scope of the practice of obstetrics and gynecology”. (Which makes you wonder why so many obgyns – specialists in women and childbirth – do this male genital surgery.)
@Eric: You don’t. A foreskin isn’t the wrapper, it’s the candy – expecially from the owner’s point of view.
@AMB: Nice parable, with one comment: shit washes off.
@DavyJones: The decision to cut a normal, healthy, non-renewable functional part off his body (and it would be off his _genitals_, wouldn’t it?) is not like any other decision. For starters, the alternative is doing nothing, and it’s an alternative that the great majority of parents in the world take, because this “important decision” isn’t even offered to them, let alone pushed on them. (And not because they’re backward, either. The experiment has been done. Australia and New Zealand used to circumcise as ruthlessly as the US in the 1950s, they found it did no good, and they’ve all but stopped and it’s now hard to find a doctor willing to do it. There have been no epidemics of the things it was supposed to be good for, and a generation of boys and men don’t look like their fathers, with no problems there, either.)
Matt_miami
All the dick and ball expects on this site and nobody has brought up the issue of sensitivity. Before my son was born, I did some research and educated myself on the issue. So when my son was born I instructed the doctor to cut off some, but not all of his forskin. Leave enough to cover the head so the millions of nerve ending are covered and don’t become desensitized, so when he gets a B.J he’ll be able to climax without jacking off into an open mouth. But cut off enough so it’s easier to clean and limit the amount of cheese that can collect in there.
The choice doesn’t have to be stinky cheese dick or clean and numb. Partial circumcisions while not very popular are slowly becoming more main stream.
StoutScout
This type of legislation with just drive circumcision in utero. Granted it may lead to more “Ooops!” moments and then they’ll just have to suction the whole fetus out.
I took an informal street poll of some SF homeless men. Shockingly the uncircumcised were less concerned with their lack of foreskin than their lack of food and safe place to sleep. I don’t understand how things that happen every day can be more important that the portion of life devoted to sexual pleasure. It boggles the mind.
sotakeidotcom
Should parents be forbidden to give their children operations to correct a cleft palate or lip? How about pierced ears? I personally believe in the rights of the parent, and this law is opening up a huge can of worms. As for penile sensitivity, this is RIDICULOUS. Circumcised men do NOT have problems with penile sensitivity. The most common sexual problem in men is premature ejaculation, so think of it as getting a leg up.