Should I circumcize my son?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Perhaps he also thinks Vas Deferens is a Dutch football team

LOL... but is he fit?

Asher: He was talking more to Tom, who can't even see it for religious reasons.

[Asher]

Originally posted by OneFootInTheGrave
Did anyone mention that people without foreskin are resistant to AIDS?

didn't bother to read the whole thread.

Obviously not. There are more reports saying either there's no real difference between cut and uncut men and AIDS and that cut men are more vulnerable than there are saying uncut men are more vulnerable. There are reports saying all three things, 28 known such reports, and when the data from all 28 reports is put together, there is a "significantly higher chance" for cut men to get HIV -- if they DO NOT WEAR A CONDOM. This is a moot point, you should be wearing a condom!

Modern studies have tended to show the opposite of what you're saying, anyway, so I wouldn't try to use it anymore.

BTW, if you're interested, I posted a couple links in this thread that specifically debunked and told where errors were made in the sampling for the studies who said uncut men are more vulnerable...

[tandeetaylor]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Do you understand anything?

Ooooh, also unneccesarily harsh.


I don't know how to spell "unneccesarily" anymore. Is that right? I think I'm losing connections in my brain that have to do with spelling.

[JohnT]

550+ posts and still going? That new mod is slacking on the job, heh?

[Imran Siddiqui]

I don't know how to spell "unneccesarily" anymore. Is that right? I think I'm losing connections in my brain that have to do with spelling.

Does that mean you don't know what unneccesarily means... Perhaps I don't as well .

Spelling mistakes as debating techniques are trivial and stupid. Says more about the idiot that makes the point than the person who made the mistake.

And John, yeah, he's a slacker .

[Asher]

Originally posted by SuperSneak
Whatever...I find it very amusing that the people who are sitting in lofty judgement have not and probably will not ever face the topic, so you really have nothing to say as far as I'm concerned.

The problem here, Sneak, is you're boiling down the issue to a simple "I have a kid and you don't, so I suddenly have a better opinion on the matter". Incase you didn't read the first post, you'll see she asked for *MEN* to post about how they feel about being cut/uncut, not about what it's like for a parent to agonize over the decision.

Since we've decided (along with almost every pediatric society in the western world) that there is more harm than good in circumcision, and since you're not doing the circumcision for religious purposes, you're doing it for some other reason that you yourself don't even want to tell us. Was it so he'd look more like daddy, Sneak, or do you have some deep logic behind it?

[tandeetaylor]

Originally posted by JohnT
550+ posts and still going?

Join in the hilarity.

[DinoDoc]

Good God! Why is this thread so active? It is even more pointless than the Finn club threads.

[tandeetaylor]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Spelling mistakes as debating techniques are trivial and stupid. Says more about the idiot that makes the point than the person who made the mistake.

I agree. See my first "harsh" post above. Do it now!

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by tandeetaylor
I think the AIDS issue, while interesting, is moot. For one thing, there are so many ways to counterbalance any supposed higher chance of contracting it, and for another, if one wanted to guide all one's action towards one thing (that probably wouldn't happen) NOT happening, there are other unjustifiable-in-other-ways actions one could take. Unless he IS (or probably is)going to contract AIDS if he isn't circumcised, I don't see how it makes for justification.

Perhaps as a useful prevention.

However he can always get circumzsized later if the evidence is overwhelming in 5- 10 years time, actually until he starts having sex, aids vaccine should be available too

But you never know what the extra stuff in skin can protect him from than again??? Anyway a personal decision it is...

[Tom31]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Obviously you have no legal training of any kind, because you can't understand that cutting foreskin is a de minimis wounding.

Well, you might be interested in reading this letter from the lawyer who founded the McGill Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law in Montreal:

http://www.courtchallenge.com/letters/somer1.html

Note the following sentence:

"However, even the rabbis with whom I talked agreed that male infant circumcision is not de minimis."

[Provost Harrison]

The opinion of someone else is irrelevent, the matter should be debated rationally, not be done by a process of namedropping..

[tandeetaylor]

Originally posted by Asher
Incase you didn't read the first post, you'll see she asked for *MEN* to post about how they feel about being cut/uncut, not about what it's like for a parent to agonize over the decision.

Woo hoo! Someone who can read!

I admit, I've gone into smiley paradise, and won't likely be coming back soon.

[Pekka]

onefootinthegrave, You couldn't express my opinion any better .

[Asher]

Originally posted by OneFootInTheGrave
Perhaps as a useful prevention.

However he can always get circumzsized later if the evidence is overwhelming in 5- 10 years time

Modern studies show the opposite trend, actually. Here are some links to get your started:

http://www.cirp.org/library/disease/HIV/vanhowe4/

http://www.circumstitions.com/HIV.html

http://www.nocirc.org/statements/hiv_statement2001.html

http://www.reproline.jhu.edu/english/6read/6issues/6network/v18-3/nt1832a.html

In short, all of the studies showing uncut men are more succeptable tend to come from Africa, where there also tend to be inherent educational/social issues between who is circumcised and uncircumcised, depending on tribes, etc. As soon as you look at data in the western world, like the US, the situation reverses itself:

From the last article I cited:

In the United States, on the other hand, data from the 1992 National Health and Social Life Survey, a nationally representative sample of 1,511 men and 1,921 women between the ages of 18 and 59, showed that there was no evidence of a prophylactic role for circumcision in regard to sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). In fact, circumcised men were slightly more likely to have had both a bacterial and a viral STD in their lifetime.2

Likewise, it has been observed that circumcision of men had no significant effect on the incidence of common STDs (genital herpes, genital warts and non-gonococcal urethritis) in Australia.