Harry's Place

Male genital mutilation is no more acceptable than female genital mutilation.

For once David Lindsay is right.

Shame on you for simply assuming the parents have the right to sexually mutilate their children. It’s amazing that the greatest crimes pass uncommented on, unnoticed as long as they’re advocated by a priest.

I really don’t give a toss for religious customs of any kind, but female genital mutilation (excision of the clitoris) prevents sexual pleasure (this is the professed aim of this practice), while male circumcision does not, on the contrary. (It may be harmful in other ways, although most doctors say it isn’t.) Let’s don’t invent new urban legends, there are enough of them anyway.

while male circumcision does not, on the contrary.

Liar. The forskin has approximately 5 times as many nerve endings as the head of the penis.

“Maimonides said that the effect of circumcision was “to limit sexual intercourse, and to weaken the organ of generation as far as possible, and thus cause man to be moderate…for there is no doubt that circumcision weakens the power of sexual excitement, and sometimes lessens the natural enjoyment; the organ necessarily becomes weak when … deprived of its covering from the beginning. Our sages say distinctly: it is hard for a woman, with whom an uncircumcised [man] had sexual intercourse, to separate from him

I held myself back from swearing at you, I’ll let Christopher Hitchens do it for me http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U93ZiR692l4

Whether or not male circumcision is harmful or beneficial, affects sexual pleasure, or anything else is completely irrelevant. It’s the principle that’s at stake here, i.e. that no-one has the right to chop off a piece of someone else’s body without that person’s informed consent. By definition, newborn infants cannot give informed consent. That’s why people are sent to prison for having sex with them.

If I were to found a new religion today and declare that snipping off the tip of the earlobe of newly-born boys was a sign of the “covenant” between said infants and Almighty God, would I be allowed to do this? Of course not. One snipped earlobe and I’d be in front of a court charged with GBH. Yet somehow Jews and Muslims are allowed to mutilate their male children for no other reason than they’ve been doing it for a long time.

Religious circumcision, of either sex, should be banned unless the person undergoing the procedure is legally an adult. If Jews and Muslims don’t like it – tough. Let them obey the law or leave.

Its more to do with hygiene than anything else and was originally also, its just that Judaism and Islam incorporated this into religion. In Africa many Christian males are circumcised under the banner of religion.

Those who circumcise their children for religious reasons are fanatics and should fuck off back to whatever rat hole they came from.

Oh God, do we have BNP’s support on this one? Fucking kiss of death.

Also the other “kiss of death” was reported by Christopher Hitchens during one of his debates.

Apparently, the ancient traditional way for a moyle to cut off a boys foreskin involves having the man suck up the blood with his lips.

Sigh, well an ultraorthodox moyle in New York city had herpes on his lips, and apparently if you cut a big hole in a baby boy’s penis and infect it with herpes the boy will die from the infection. So this man killed a number of babies.

God surely must approve of circumcision! It’s so successful at securing his blessing!

Male genital mutilation is no more acceptable than female genital mutilation.

Have you had them both done then?

Some posters sympathise with those extreme right Austrian MPs who want to have a statistic only to incite against Muslims. For Jews usually to not circumsize in Hospital.
Racism is bad on principle and it does not matter who is the victim.
If incitement is going on against Muslims I find it despicable.

The people who made this proposal may be foul racists, but the discussion is legitimate. Circumcision is child abuse, not quite as horrific as FGM, but close enough.
I oppose circumcision, just as I oppose any other form of ill treatment inflicted by the religios upon defenseless children, and I think many secular jews would wholeheartedly agree.
A particular thesis should be judged by its validity, not by the people who hold it.
Here’s another clip from Mr Hitchens on the issue:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvZpEiaLvpU

what about medical circumcision? Is that ok?

Medical and surgical procedures on children should be illegal unless they are necessary for medical, not cultural or religious, reasons. And that includes tattoos, and piercings.

Speaking as a gentile who had a circumcision performed by a gentile doctor for gentile reasons, can I just say anyone would think I had been subjected to abuse from reading the above comments.

In no way do I accept that male and female circumision are in any way comparable, althgough having said that I am not sure about common practice in jewish circumcision – ie anaesthetic and so on/

And may I just say that my circumcision – not to my knowledge at any rate – has in no way significantly diminished my sex drive or my sexiual enjoymewnt. Which gets me in plenty of trouble, might I add.

hi judy, you were great.

What a disturbing thread.

Ok, I have to admit that if I am to trust your description, “the freedom party” is doing it wrong.

However that doesn’t change the fact that circumcision of babies is morally/ethically indefensible. Absolutely indefensible.

And the creeps in this thread who wish to defend the indefensible make me completely sick.

What other body parts could you defend depriving your children of? Or is the most sensitive part of his sexual organ the only part?

Josh Scholar, speaking as a religiously mutilated creep I would just like to suggest that you have got a bit of a bee in your bonnet about this. You do have a tendency towards hyperbole which doesn’t necessarily serve your argument.

May I suggest that we refuse to stand up against something that is so clearly and simply morally indefensible that is in the Jewish religion then we have no moral standing to ask Muslim to question Mohammad’s commands.

Is Josh Scholar kidding us about the moyle sucking up the blood?

If there are any photos or videos of this being done, the moyle would probably get life without parole.

Just saying.

but at the end of the day, josh, it remains a matter of opinion rather than fact, and as it is the single most observed mitzvah that has united the jewish people for thousands of years it deserves a more considered approach than you are offering.

I was in Austria about a month before HC Strache was elected. According to Austrians that I spoke to, Strache and his Freedom party are unquestionably Nazis.

I wrote about the elections at Pajamas Media.

Although that the Freedom Party is probably hoping to gather this data in order to incite racial prejudice, I’d guess that they’re also spending large amounts of money to have a database that will, in the future, help them easily identify and perhaps round up Jews and Muslims.

This would be especially helpful for the Strache-types if the Jews and Muslims feel the need to hide their ethnic identities for one reason or another…

…it is the single most observed mitzvah that has united the jewish people for thousands of years…

It doesn’t “unite” me to the Jewish people, it gives me a reason to question our sense and morality.

I don’t see how having contempt for our immorality is suppose to “unite” me with other Jews.

I say us because despite a few people here who got confused about that, I am technically Jew, though one who doesn’t believe this nonsense.

I don’t see how preventing parents from circumcising their children can be considered racism. I can understand fears that it might compromise the cohesion of religious communities as Karl says, but these have to be balanced against the rights of the individual. Members of those communities can always choose to have themselves circumcised when they reach adulthood (and having it done in adulthood is safer and doesn’t result in the same unsightly scarring); they cannot choose to have themselves un-circumcised.

In the UK, we don’t allow under-18s to get (at their own or their parents’ behest) tattoos, and you can’t even get a genital piercing until the age of 16; yet we allow parents to have a part of their son’s body permanently removed for (in an age of soap and running water) entirely cultural reasons. All permanent genital modification should be illegal under the age of 18.

preventing parents circumcising their children would be discriminatory because it would criminalise jews if they carried out the religious obligation of brit milah which is more or less universal even in non-orthodox families and is mandatory for the orthodox.

J.R., on the country such a law would not be discriminatory because it would equally prevent religious and nonreligious people from violating the rights of their children to have whole bodies.

I aplogize for not changing my nickname from “troll inspector” which I’ve been using to talk to that insane antisemite, Mr. M.

I’m still curious what kind of antisemite he is, whether his hatred of Jews came from Islamist preachers or Nazis.

j.r.
27 November 2009, 10:26 pm

preventing parents circumcising their children would be discriminatory because it would criminalise jews
———–

It is NOT discriminatory if you are subjected to the same law as me, and everyone else. What you are demanding is special treatment, ie discrimination in favour of you, and against me.

Either everybody get’s t

j.r.
27 November 2009, 10:26 pm

preventing parents circumcising their children would be discriminatory because it would criminalise jews
———–

It is NOT discriminatory if you are subjected to the same law as me, and everyone else. What you are demanding is special treatment, ie discrimination in favour of you, and against me.

Either everybody get’s t

Either everybody gets to mutilate their children any way they want, or nobody does. And in my book nobody does, because our children are not our property and the public have a duty to protect them all, equally, from harm.

You want to argue about whether criminalising brit milah would be discriminatory. The point is it would mean orthodox jews couldn’t live in this country. On that basis it would discriminate against jews.

Similar arguments are made about ritual slaughter, and again in that case the argument for banning is promoted by fascists and nazis.

:) except of course that ritual slaughter isn’t actually happening which is what makes the argument unfair.

j.r., such a law would not outlaw Judaism, it would change Judaism, much for the better.

Wasn’t the one of the morals of story of Abraham and Isaac that wrong is still wrong even when it’s commanded by God?

I guess that’s a very modern interpretation, but it’s a morally superior interpretation.. An infinitely morally superior intepretation.

The idea that Abraham failed his test.

Such an interpretation would give mankind hope. Compassion should come before holy books.

As I said mankind lacks hope if such a modern idea doesn’t become universal.

I don’t think even Hitler tried to ban circumcision. Congratulations to those on this thread for outdoing him.

It is a sad thing to read a lot of comments on circumcision instead of subject matter of my comment. The Austrian freedomites want to count Muslims. In a country where there is no statitics on abortion this is impossible. So why do they demand it? In order to use the reply of the minister of health to to incite against Muslims and Jews who circumcise their boys.
In austrian context this is very clear. And that should be very clear also in the British context, if BNP will jump on this. But of course those raving here about circumcision will have then the choice of backpeddling or of joining in the antimuslim and antijewish chorus of BNP.

I don’t think even Hitler tried to ban circumcision. Congratulations to those on this thread for outdoing him.

Do I stand accused of caring about the civil rights of babies more than Hitler did?

The Austrian freedomites want to count Muslims.

In the US we count people every few years in the census. Knowing how many people you have in your country and statistics on them isn’t considered that alarming.

I hesitated to comment about the point of this post because it seemed so obvious, but apparently it needs to be said again..

Apparently some commenters don’t know about Austria’s history. It’s not like America and it’s not the ‘Sound of Music,’ full of charming Von Trapps who hate the Nazis. Austria was just as complicit in their rise of Naziism as Germany was. The didn’t receive half the blame that Germany did, so they haven’t come to terms with their racist history.

I visited Austria in the early ’80’s when most of Europe was fairly pro-Zionist. Even in those days, the synagogue in Vienna was surrounded by armed guards. None of the synagogues that we saw in any other country felt the need to guard themselves that way.

Now they all probably do, but things have changed.

In any case, a Nazi party is attempting to make a list of Jews and Muslims. Don’t you see how this could be a problem?

What an extraordinarily silly post.

preventing parents circumcising their children would be discriminatory because it would criminalise jews if they carried out the religious obligation of brit milah which is more or less universal even in non-orthodox families and is mandatory for the orthodox.
Textbook begging the question.

j.r., such a law would not outlaw Judaism, it would change Judaism, much for the better.

Well there’s a good example of begging the question for those interested in such things. Meanwhile on planet earth there isn’t going to be a law banning infant circumcision any time soon. But fascists such as those in Austria and the BNP in the UK will continue to obsess about such badges of difference.

Male circumcision and female gential mutilation are completely different things. There no similarity at all. Anyone who lumps them together is either malicious (Lindsay comes to mind) or an ignorant idiot (Josh, on this occasion).

Male circumcision does not interfere with a normal sex life.

Female gential mutilation does.

having it done in adulthood is safer and doesn’t result in the same unsightly scarring

Definitely on the ignorant side.
There is no “unsightly scarring” whatsoever.

Those who circumcise their children for religious reasons are fanatics and should fuck off back to whatever rat hole they came from.

There’s the BNP thugs proving how non-antisemitic they are.

Nick (in South Africa), j. r., Gordon Bennet, I’ll say it again WHAT OTHER BODY PARTS COULD YOU DEPRIVE YOUR CHILD OF WITHOUT BEING A CRIMINAL? Or is it only the most sensitive part of his penis?

Fucking disgusting! [Spit!]

Each of you should be totally ashamed of yourself.

Well, Josh, I do not allow an ignorant and rude person like you to dictate to me when I should or should not be ashamed of myself …

You and the Rambam are talking nonsense. All things considered, circumcision renders the glans less super-sensitive. Often, this means that the man can prolong intercourse and give himself and his female partner more pleasure before he reaches orgasm.
Many experienced women are keen to have sex with Jewish men for this very reason.

PS. And it’s highly doubtful that the foreskin is “more sensitive than the glans”. Removing it exposes the glans to more friction, which desensitises it a little, with the results mentioned above. This has no effect on the intensity of orgasm, it merely allows intercourse to be prolonged (in many cases, anyway).

Gordon, is your ignorance on this matter the product of naivety or bloody-minded stupidity?

At the risk of inducing snickers, might I suggest that if you had ever seen a circumcised penis, you might be a little better informed. As a gay man now living in the US, I have seen many, and I can tell you that scarring is standard. Almost all the ones I have seen have a ring scar half-way up the shaft, marking a clear change in colour. Many have scar tissue below the glans, where the foreskin was scraped away. And the glans are very different, rendered dry and calloused by permanent exposure.

From experience, I can tell you the desensitisation of the glans does not prolong sexual intercourse. It does make it more difficult for the penis to become erect, and that may well mean that circumcised boys avoid those embarrassing erections on the bus, but I don’t believe the price is worth paying. No experienced women seek out sex with circumcised men in the vain belief that they last longer – just perhaps a few young ladies as uninformed on the matter as yourself.

Finally, the notion others have put forward that a ban on performing uneccessary genital modification on children would outlaw Judaism, is absolute nonsense. As Joshua Scholar says, it would merely lead Jewish culture to change. Some Jews have already changed in this way; circumcision is not universal amongst Jews (or Muslims). While circumcision is not the same as female genital mutilation, the notion that outlawing it would criminalise Judaism or force Jews out, is the same as the notion that criminalising FGM has criminalised Islam or forced certain African ethnic groups out.

Nick (in South Africa)
28 November 2009, 5:11 pm

preventing parents circumcising their children would be discriminatory
———

Sorry Nick but that’s just tough. It pales into complete insignificance in comparison with our duty to protect children from unneccessary surgical interference. I’m not signing up to some screwball notion that I have a duty to discriminate against some children, and only extend my duty of protection to the others. It’s all or nothing. We have to have principles, and they have to be rational and consistently applied within our territory.

All this talk about how banning circumcision would end Judaism reminds me of when the King of Jordan introduced a bill that would punish honor killing. There were speeches in their Parliament saying that the bill infringed on peoples right to practice their religion (as well as a speech that all the girls killed are whores who deserve death) and the bill went down to defeat.

As Josh has illustrated above in the Jordanian example, there are precedents for the enshrining of murder as a religious imperative.

Don’t ask for, or expect, my acquiescence in the murder or mutilatation of anyone, and especially any interference with a juvenile without the ability to give informed consent.

As a side note a woman who is an apostate form Iraq who lived in Palestine once answered my question about whether people in that area consider honour killing part of Islam.

She said that it is controversial and maybe half the people think it is part of Islam.

Does this make my bell-end a victim or a fanatic?

If those nerve endings were discarded sometime in 1988, then it has no way to offer a riposte. Shame on everyone who just commented- you’re all guilty of genitalism.