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[CortJstr]

For the record, I feel similarly about infant baptism -- I think Christians should be baptized when they feel ready and can understand the significance of the ritual.  My kids are unbaptized because I feel odd making a promise on their behalf.  So the circumcision thing is part of a larger value set surrounding which choices we have a right to make on behalf of our children, and which ones are best postponed until they can choose for themselves. 

Isn't this why there's Confirmation? Or is that just a catholic thing?

[jay-ell]

Catholics confirm at 16; Lutherans confirm at 14.  I don't know about other denominations. 

Yes, that's the rationale behind it.  But then you have this thing where you baptize people who can't agree to the promises you're supposed to make, so you add a different ritual to let them say later, "yeah, I meant that stuff my parents said when I was a baby."  Doesn't that seem a little...contrived? 

Plus, Jesus was baptized at 30.  That's enough of an endorsement for me, but my (Catholic) in-laws are a little horrified about my heathen babies. 

[miles]

Circumcision has been recommended to help fight AIDS in Africa. This was recent, but I don't know the current state of the debate.

And I'm OK with my cut cock even though sex is supposed to be better as an uncut male, but probably because I really can't imagine it otherwise. It's like when my friend was trying to convince me how awesome it was to be a woman with a pu$$y that provides multiple orgasms. I was all "no thanks, excuse me while I go beat off and take a nap."

[jay-ell]

Circumcision has been recommended to help fight AIDS in Africa. This was recent, but I don't know the current state of the debate.

I have heard this too.  My understanding (based on a cursory reading of the latest news in a brief google search) is that science hasn't figured out *why* there seems to be a correlation between lowered transmission rates and circumcision, nor whether there is any causation.  I understand there's also a fear that touting circumcision as a preventative measure could actually decrease condom use rates, so they have to be very careful about how they promote it. 

Still, you don't want to take a chance, and if I were an African mama I'd be more inclined to take that precaution.

[JorgeFabregas]

Speaking dogmatically, I think for the Jews (observant ones among us should feel free to clarify) it was a sign of the Covenant between their tribe and the Deity.  For Christians, Christ is the New Covenant and the rite of communion is the sign of that covenant, therefore circumcision is unnecessary.  Also, it undoubtedly makes converting heathens easier if you don't threaten their willies with mutilation as a price to join the cool crew.

Although Paul is circumcized, he is just so furious at Christians who think that they need to be circumcized. He says that he wishes the knife would slip. Then there was Peter's deal: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts%2010:9-48&version=31;

My wife asked why circumcision was the sign of the convenant. The best that I could come up with was that the convenant was partially a promise about generations (stars in the sky, grains of sand on the shore, etc.) and thus the sign was chose for a generative organ.

[JorgeFabregas]

science hasn't figured out *why* there seems to be a correlation between lowered transmission rates and circumcision

I think that it probably has something to do with increased surface area (more places to have a open wound, etc.). On the other hand, there are sometimes Accidents when performing the procedure.

[littlefallsmets]

I dunno, though.

I reckon that the reason for the religious basis for circumcision is the same as MOST of the prohibitions in the Scary Volcano God Monotheisms... health concerns. Scrambling around in the desert without a whole lot of clean water to spare, trim that shit back a little and you'll get less dick infections. Less dick infections means a stronger healthier tribe. Difficult to explain this to an ignorant wanderer? Tell him that Scary Volcano God demands it and, also, threaten him about it.

Pig and shellgiraffe were pretty high risk foods with the tech of the day. Homosexuality and contraception slow population growth and with less population growth comes less power growth for the priests and kings. Alcohol was an easy thing to blame social unrest on. Enter: Scary Volcano God and threats of torture. Call me cynical but I have to believe that, at best, any kind of symbolism was retconned on hundreds of years down the road.

Social controls, sometimes benign or originally benign-minded, to be communicated out to people living short brutish lives in a structure they can understand.

A series of strategies for maintaining and expanding the power of the existing elite, turned into stories that can be communicated to people whose education is exactly at the level required to toil all day to make the elite comfortable... later turned "meaningful" and "romantic" and "mystical" by people down the road of history with the time to creatively rationalize combined with a spark of the fear of their own morality, urging them to find a greater meaning in a series of antiquated social controls.

Anyway.

Just wanted to add that I don't buy the strategy of setting up circumcision and female genital mutilation as equivalent... there are structures that seem to match across the genders but don't serve the same purposes, y'know. Consider the nipples. Useless on a dude but because the programming is easier if both genders have them, I have nipples. Even if there's a surface structural equiv between the vulva and... the weird stuff flappin' around the end of a dude's wang... that doesn't mean that they serve the same purposes, functions or uses.

Female genital mutilation is a social control basically specifically to negate most if not all of the pleasure portion of a woman's sex drive as that helps maintain the order in a sexist male-dominated culture.

I dunno, I'm circumsized and if I was going to have an even higher sex drive WITH a tiny bit of flapping skin that traps gross crap close to my body, holy God, I'm glad for it... I would've had a stroke and gone vegetative in my teens had my sex drive been any higher and any more frustrated.

I don't buy the idea that just because the two structures seem to be superficially originated out of the same genetic design, these things are somehow the same.

[jay-ell]

Later, when I have time, I will refute your argument with facts. 

I have lots of them. 

[Ruta Bagas]

Isn't the idea that those things are fundamentally connected because they involve outright, unjustified theft of another person's bodily autonomy, albeit to wildly differing degrees of severity? (Obviously this only applies where it is actually an idea and not the whinings of a blinkered prick.)

I mean, obviously they're not even close to being equivalent, but as this was a discussion about circumcision and not FGM it seems like the only reason to bring the latter up in that way is to imply that because forced circumcision isn't as bad it must be OK, which would be nonsense, or that by attacking forced circumcision people like me are equating the two, which is both nonsense and offensive.

[theinevitable]

what he said.

come on, why do we think it is OK to cut off part of a guy's dick. why do we have to be OK with that.

[pmcd9]

Ruta Bagas, you had me at blinkered prick.

To answer JL's question, I'm cut, but I don't feel any remorse.  If it's had a negative effect on me it's one that I haven't noticed.  I might like to be uncut, but only because it's less common.  I don't like to be in the mainstream.

[jaydub]

To answer JL's question, I'm cut, but I don't feel any remorse.  If it's had a negative effect on me it's one that I haven't noticed.  I might like to be uncut, but only because it's less common.  I don't like to be in the mainstream.

Rebel without a hood?

[jay-ell]

Here it comes.  Please wait while I bring it.  With Science. 

I reckon that the reason for the religious basis for circumcision is the same as MOST of the prohibitions in the Scary Volcano God Monotheisms...Social controls, sometimes benign or originally benign-minded, to be communicated out to people living short brutish lives in a structure they can understand.

Yes yes fine fine we've done this and we're done with it.  Point is, some people continue to do some of these things (like circumcision) because they are a sign of faith.  Arguing that the practice began because of health concerns that have since been addressed in other ways does not mitigate the fact that believers will continue to believe.  Nobody's asking you to believe in Scary Volcano God Monotheism...but just because you don't believe in it doesn't make its practices invalid. 

Just wanted to add that I don't buy the strategy of setting up circumcision and female genital mutilation as equivalent... there are structures that seem to match across the genders but don't serve the same purposes, y'know. ...Even if there's a surface structural equiv between the vulva and... the weird stuff flappin' around the end of a dude's wang... that doesn't mean that they serve the same purposes, functions or uses.

Funny this should come up.  I happen to be writing an article on the clitoris at the moment, and as such have been reading a lot of anatomy lessons.  Here's how it works:

The sex organs develop in the womb before the twelfth week of gestation.  The clitoris and the penis begin identically -- Lie Bot got that much right, at least.  It's the same tissue with the same set of nerves.  The clitoral hood, which protects the clitoris and keeps it moist, likewise develops from the same set of tissue as the foreskin.  And in fact, they serve the same function -- lubrication and protection.  If the clitoral hood is removed, the clitoris will dry out, harden, and lose some degree of sensitivity -- just as the glans of the penis does after circumcision.  There is not "a surface structural equiv between the vulva" and the foreskin; there is a direct, biological, developmental connection between the two. 

Rarely, some women have a clitoral hood that is excessively large and obscures the clitoris, interfering with sexual pleasure.  It is possible to trim the clitoral hood to allow exposure of the clitoral glans.  This procedure is known as circumcision, and it is distinct from female genital mutilation, which generally involves removal of the clitoris -- more comparable to cutting off the tip of the glans just below the head. 

In fact, as you correctly stated,

Female genital mutilation is a social control basically specifically to negate most if not all of the pleasure portion of a woman's sex drive as that helps maintain the order in a sexist male-dominated culture.

Which is why, even though there are direct biological equivalences between the clitoris and the penis, circumcision and FGM are (IMHO) distinct concepts and should be treated as such.  So, in short, even though your underlying assumptions were absolutely wrong, you have in fact ended up at some conclusions that I tend to agree with, in spite of it all.  Hopefully I have cleared up your fundamental misconceptions so that when you make this argument in real life you will be able to do so with biological facts in your pocket instead of some vague notion that "boys got a penis, girls got a verginer."  I can provide citations if you like. 

I dunno, I'm circumsized and if I was going to have an even higher sex drive WITH a tiny bit of flapping skin that traps gross crap close to my body, holy God, I'm glad for it... I would've had a stroke and gone vegetative in my teens had my sex drive been any higher and any more frustrated.

This is a hilarious observation. 

[lprkn]

female genital mutilation, which generally involves removal of the clitoris -- more comparable to cutting off the tip of the glans just below the head.

yikes

Calling people barbarians and savages is something I'd totally be okay about bringing back, in the proper context, of course.

[Ben-San]

Circumcised, doesn't really bug me. I figure if a dude doesn't love his junk, there's a bigger issue going on than whether or not there's a little bit of flippy skin up front or not.

Smets, I'm pretty sure we've had this conversation before but your chain of causation is pretty messed up regarding how religious law comes into being. You seem to think that the process was "Although I live in a pre-scientific Bronze Age community, I am intelligent and therefore believe in invisible microorganisms for which I have no evidence and in which there is no reason to believe rather than the much more intuitively-plausible magical explanations for which I have no evidence and belief in which has been drummed into me. This is because intelligent people are inherently atheistic regardless of circumstance or society. However, because everyone else is stupider than me and therefore not as intelligently atheistic as I am, I will make up a story that will make them believe."

The actual process, as far as anyone can tell, is more likely to have been "I am an intelligent person and therefore look for causes to go with effects. The cause appears to be uncircumcised penes and the effect appears to be people's junk turning bad in the desert. Since my society believes fundamentally in the existence of an omnipotent God and we have no reason to believe in any other medium for this cause to propagate to this effect, we can determine that God doesn't like people to wander in the desert with uncut man-business."