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My boiling point has come and gone.
14 years ago
General
In Canada and the United States of America, the term Circumcision is very deeply misused.
What most people do not know, and blindly walk into, is that the "American" method of Circumcision is not circumcision at all. Rather it is an invasive and methodical way devised to mutilate. The European model of Circumcison removes very little skin. This is the way it has been done for thousands of years. Originally, only the very end of the extra skin was removed. This was for cleanliness.
In America, and Canada; the method used on infants today, is a method that was devised by John Harvey Kellogg (Co-Founder of Kellogg's Yes. the breakfast Cereal company) as a way to deter them from masturbating. It is a very aggressive procedure that removes 90-95% of the foreskin, sometimes leaving barely enough to allow a non-painful erection.
This very same man advertised the mutilation of sexual organs as the best way to prevent someone from "Sinning" reccommending the use of acid on a female, and anesthetic free circumcision on a male. This from the very same man who pushed as hard as he could for Eugenics (Systematic destruction of genepools to make the world one race.) He believed that immigrants, and "non-whites" would "deeply damage" the gene pool.
This procedure is almost always done without anesthesia. After all, General Anetshesia cannot be used on infants safely, and local makes the penis swell. This makes it very difficult for doctors to manipulate it and therefore any form of painkiller at all is ignored in the name of making it easy.
If at this point you have yet to grasp the level of wrongness involved in this practice, let me explain to you exactly what the procedure entails in the "American" model.
Obviously the infant is strapped down. This is the same regardless.
The area is sterilized with Betadine. An Antiseptic solution.
Anaesthetic injections will cause the penis to swell, causing pain and making the surgery more difficult. Both injections and topical anaesthetic creams can be dangerous. As such it is forgone. However if it is administered it is usually done right about now.
The foreskin opening in a newborn is normally very small, to prevent the entry of foreign matter. The first stage of circumcision is to grasp the foreskin with forceps, and widen the opening. The foreskin is normally attached to the glans by a membrane called the synechia. The glans and inner lining of the foreskin are still developing in the young child. During circumcision, the synechia must be torn apart. Naturally, this is excruciatingly painful. It is described by doctors as "the same feeling one has when their fingernails are forcibly ripped from their fingers." The skin is then clamped, and scissors are used to cut a slit. It's then peeled back to expose the now raw and bleeding glans. Depending on method it differs here, but most common in America and Canada is the "Plastibell" method. A bell is placed over top of the Glans and the foreskin is laid over it. A ligature is tied in the ridge of the bell, as tightly as possible around the foreskin. Oozing will occur if the ligature is loose. After one or two minutes to allow for crush, the foreskin is sliced off at the distal edge of the ligature using a knife or scissors. The surgeon trims as much tissue as possible to reduce the amount of necrotic tissue and the possibility of infection. The handle of the bell is snapped off at this time. The rim of tissue will become necrotic (dead) and separate with the bell in 5 to 10 days. Occasionally, edema (swelling) will trap the plastic ring on the shaft of the penis. In this case it's usually necessary to cut off the ring, using a guide and ring cutter, although application of ice will sometimes reduce edema enough to remove the ring. Circumcision removes (on average) one third of the penile skin system (sensitive inner and outer preputial layers), including the peripenic dartos muscle, the frenar band, and part of, if not all of, the frenulum.
Did I mention? This procedure can take anywhere from 6, to 20 minutes.
6 to 20 minutes of inimaginable pain, being inflicted on your new born infant son. Your baby boy, getting slowly tortured and mutilated, marked for the rest of his life with a procedure he would never have himself gotten if you had not FORCED it upon him.
Circumcision in all forms is wrong.
It is no different than rape. It is aggravated, sexual assault. if this were done by someone other than a liscensed physician. Even if they 100% knew what they were doing. Even if they used some form of anestetic. We would still recognize it as a crime, and that person would never see the light of day again.
Having a doctor do it does not make it right.
There is no consent.
It is no different from Molestation or Rape.
The American model of Circumcision is an atrocity that MUST be stopped at all costs.
We cannot claim to hold human rights high and still allow this barbaric procedure to continue.
In the 1950s, female circumcision was outlawed. It was made "wrong" and we still consider it to be wrong. Why is it then, that when a little girl is touched like this; it is wrong. But if you do this to a boy it is completely fine?
If you don't believe what you have read here today to be true. Do the research yourself. You will quickly find that this is all true.
Don't complain to me about religion. I don't care about your beliefs. By doing this you force your religious views on your child, who may one day grow to believe something different from you.
Don't tell me that there are benefits. Any benefits gained. (Being only one, an 100% prevention of phimosis. Which by the way is easily remedied WITHOUT circumcision. The rest of which are nonproven, or impossible to back up.) Can easily be countered by one of the very real deficits.
Don't tell me that you don't lose a lot of sensitivity and a lot of pleasure. When I was twelve I could still sort of feel the glans when I touched it. I could feel something. Now I can feel nothing at all. Don't you DARE tell me that it doesn't affect men in this way. I know from experience. I know.
You can't sit idly by in your ignorance any longer.
Grow up people.
Learn before you act.
~Snow Taradien
(If you still don't believe me after reading this and you have taken time to look it up. I do have links. I WILL supply websites, Hundreds if needed. To prove and back up my point.)
(If more than 20 people complain, I will remove this journal. If it is removed for me, I will put it back up. But until I recieve 20 TO MY FACE complaints. This journal will stay up. Discuss.)
What most people do not know, and blindly walk into, is that the "American" method of Circumcision is not circumcision at all. Rather it is an invasive and methodical way devised to mutilate. The European model of Circumcison removes very little skin. This is the way it has been done for thousands of years. Originally, only the very end of the extra skin was removed. This was for cleanliness.
In America, and Canada; the method used on infants today, is a method that was devised by John Harvey Kellogg (Co-Founder of Kellogg's Yes. the breakfast Cereal company) as a way to deter them from masturbating. It is a very aggressive procedure that removes 90-95% of the foreskin, sometimes leaving barely enough to allow a non-painful erection.
This very same man advertised the mutilation of sexual organs as the best way to prevent someone from "Sinning" reccommending the use of acid on a female, and anesthetic free circumcision on a male. This from the very same man who pushed as hard as he could for Eugenics (Systematic destruction of genepools to make the world one race.) He believed that immigrants, and "non-whites" would "deeply damage" the gene pool.
This procedure is almost always done without anesthesia. After all, General Anetshesia cannot be used on infants safely, and local makes the penis swell. This makes it very difficult for doctors to manipulate it and therefore any form of painkiller at all is ignored in the name of making it easy.
If at this point you have yet to grasp the level of wrongness involved in this practice, let me explain to you exactly what the procedure entails in the "American" model.
Obviously the infant is strapped down. This is the same regardless.
The area is sterilized with Betadine. An Antiseptic solution.
Anaesthetic injections will cause the penis to swell, causing pain and making the surgery more difficult. Both injections and topical anaesthetic creams can be dangerous. As such it is forgone. However if it is administered it is usually done right about now.
The foreskin opening in a newborn is normally very small, to prevent the entry of foreign matter. The first stage of circumcision is to grasp the foreskin with forceps, and widen the opening. The foreskin is normally attached to the glans by a membrane called the synechia. The glans and inner lining of the foreskin are still developing in the young child. During circumcision, the synechia must be torn apart. Naturally, this is excruciatingly painful. It is described by doctors as "the same feeling one has when their fingernails are forcibly ripped from their fingers." The skin is then clamped, and scissors are used to cut a slit. It's then peeled back to expose the now raw and bleeding glans. Depending on method it differs here, but most common in America and Canada is the "Plastibell" method. A bell is placed over top of the Glans and the foreskin is laid over it. A ligature is tied in the ridge of the bell, as tightly as possible around the foreskin. Oozing will occur if the ligature is loose. After one or two minutes to allow for crush, the foreskin is sliced off at the distal edge of the ligature using a knife or scissors. The surgeon trims as much tissue as possible to reduce the amount of necrotic tissue and the possibility of infection. The handle of the bell is snapped off at this time. The rim of tissue will become necrotic (dead) and separate with the bell in 5 to 10 days. Occasionally, edema (swelling) will trap the plastic ring on the shaft of the penis. In this case it's usually necessary to cut off the ring, using a guide and ring cutter, although application of ice will sometimes reduce edema enough to remove the ring. Circumcision removes (on average) one third of the penile skin system (sensitive inner and outer preputial layers), including the peripenic dartos muscle, the frenar band, and part of, if not all of, the frenulum.
Did I mention? This procedure can take anywhere from 6, to 20 minutes.
6 to 20 minutes of inimaginable pain, being inflicted on your new born infant son. Your baby boy, getting slowly tortured and mutilated, marked for the rest of his life with a procedure he would never have himself gotten if you had not FORCED it upon him.
Circumcision in all forms is wrong.
It is no different than rape. It is aggravated, sexual assault. if this were done by someone other than a liscensed physician. Even if they 100% knew what they were doing. Even if they used some form of anestetic. We would still recognize it as a crime, and that person would never see the light of day again.
Having a doctor do it does not make it right.
There is no consent.
It is no different from Molestation or Rape.
The American model of Circumcision is an atrocity that MUST be stopped at all costs.
We cannot claim to hold human rights high and still allow this barbaric procedure to continue.
In the 1950s, female circumcision was outlawed. It was made "wrong" and we still consider it to be wrong. Why is it then, that when a little girl is touched like this; it is wrong. But if you do this to a boy it is completely fine?
If you don't believe what you have read here today to be true. Do the research yourself. You will quickly find that this is all true.
Don't complain to me about religion. I don't care about your beliefs. By doing this you force your religious views on your child, who may one day grow to believe something different from you.
Don't tell me that there are benefits. Any benefits gained. (Being only one, an 100% prevention of phimosis. Which by the way is easily remedied WITHOUT circumcision. The rest of which are nonproven, or impossible to back up.) Can easily be countered by one of the very real deficits.
Don't tell me that you don't lose a lot of sensitivity and a lot of pleasure. When I was twelve I could still sort of feel the glans when I touched it. I could feel something. Now I can feel nothing at all. Don't you DARE tell me that it doesn't affect men in this way. I know from experience. I know.
You can't sit idly by in your ignorance any longer.
Grow up people.
Learn before you act.
~Snow Taradien
(If you still don't believe me after reading this and you have taken time to look it up. I do have links. I WILL supply websites, Hundreds if needed. To prove and back up my point.)
(If more than 20 people complain, I will remove this journal. If it is removed for me, I will put it back up. But until I recieve 20 TO MY FACE complaints. This journal will stay up. Discuss.)
It should be a choice left up to the child. Not the parents!
.w.
/is circumcised for the record.
For years, doctors were assured that babies couldn't even feel pain! (Believed not to have developed enough nerve endings. We now know it is quite the opposite. They feel more sometimes than we can.)
If a single male had been able to remember such an event... a SINGLE male. Do you think it would still be as popular now?
I don't understand how it is that parents can willingly let their child be mutilated.
What about the rights of the child to speak for itself in other issues like security, feeding, and where it wants to live? And how about the rights of children to not go to school, or to simply reject their parents entirely?
If the guardian has full control of the child, then we assume that the guardian has the child's best intent in mind. If the guardian therefore feels that circumcision is appropriate, than we must allow the guardian to follow through with this.
In any sense it is wrong. This isn't like feeding the child. This isn't like them being disobediant. You cannot logically argue those points because they are not the same.
If you do not provide shelter, food and keep the child from harm, it will inevitably die. If the child does not want to go to school, then so be it. There is a legal mandate however maintaining that children must be educated.
That said there is a such thing as home school.
Circumcision however is something that is decided. It is a Decision, not something mandatory by any rights.
You cannot argue that it is the same.
Don't even try.
Why should a child be made to do something just becuase he happened to be born into a religion that he did not choose?
Disregarding that point, why can not circumcision then wait untill a time when the child can make the decision for themselves reasonably, weighing up any pros and cons? Something that affects ones body, one's own health, should not be forced upon us. We should choose it. If your father were to lop off your arm as a child, leaving you horribly disfigured for life, would you then have no qualms with him if he justified it with "I thaught it was for the best for you"?
I apologize for getting involved in stirring controversy up.
And I replied in the first place to express an opinion counter to the one I read. In retrospect I agree it was a bad idea. I have been having a rough day and my reasons for posting were juvenile. In fact I would imagine I did because I wanted to be angry, and all for the wrong reasons.
Hence my withdrawal. I caught myself before I could do something I would regret.
I hope that is a satisfactory answer for you, and that you will think no less of me for this little incident.
You certainly piqued everyone's curiousity in why you think what you think about the subject.
Here, I'll say it like this: if I assume that God has his best intentions for me and my family, and that he wants only good for us, then I must also assume that his laws are good for us, even if I don't understand why. As such, I must assume circumcision is a good thing (at least if I am Jewish (or possibly Muslim, too). If you aren't, feel free to do whatever you want, and I wish you the most happiness because you have no obligation to circumcise).
There are, as far as I am aware at least, no laws in the jewish religion that require pain or death for perfectly healthy and upstanding individual. Circumcision is the only thing that borders on "mutilation" as the term would be used. I don't have an answer for why this law of all others is different, maybe I should ask somebody about it. But following my previous assumptions and beliefs, than I am forced to assume that it is good for me and my family to perform this act on any newborn male child on his eight day (assuming, of course, the child is well. I know a family that there son is a year old and still is not circumcised, because the child has a heart condition).
If the original assumption I have made can be broken, that God wants what is best for me, than obviously my whole foundation falls apart.
Coincidentally -this next bit is something I DO know for sure - the original incarnation of circumcision only removed overhang. Not the entire foreskin.
And the first is incorrect, ya. It's a commandment, and that's it. if it has any reason, it's to signify the contract between God and Abrham,
And yes, the second part is indeed true! I read it in a book in a library once. Random trivia is fun~!
As I said, you are one discriminating against Jews now. Go figure, after all that persecution (which you never personally endured most likely) that the one to continue such acts would be yourself.
That's why a child should be taught how to think, not what to think. A child should be taught how they can figure out themselves what is true and what not. The only reason religious leaders do not want that is because they know that if children are allowed that decision they will most likely see religion for what it is, and not believe.
It is also not persecution because I apply it without discrimination. Nobody, including myself or anyone else, should be allowed to mutilate their own child without the consent of that child. It is very easy to shout religious persecution to avoid having to defend your stance on why you should be allowed to mutilate your child for a god that might not even exist, and the child might not believe in. Especially considering so many people regret that they were circumcised, and wished their parents had never done it.
Guardians do not per definition know what's in the best interest of the child, and it has been pretty much proven that circumcision is ont in the best interests of the child unless it's for medical reasons
If my friend was born with two Jewish parents, then why is it that he is Buddhist now?
Its because Jewish is not a Race. It is a system of belief.
You cannot be BORN a jew. You can be made a jew.
The people who believed you could be born a jew, were the Nazis.
I mean, you're defending circumcision because you're jewish, and there are well known mitzvot about circumcision, but at the same time i've checked some of your submissions and favorites out of curiosity and i get the impression you're gay? Aren't there also Mitzvot stating that to embrace homosexuality is wrong?
Is is not, then, hypocritical to say that you feel something is right because your religion has influenced your view as such, but then to quite happily do somethign your religion tells you is wrong because you enjoy doing it?
It's not a sin to be gay. Only one act is a sin, that of having anal sex with another man. I have little intention of doing said act.
Furthermore, there is the concept of forgiveness. I can transgress on something, and be forgiven for it if I repent. So, yes, I can make an argument that the son who is uncircumcised can "repent" and get a circumcision later on in life. The father, however, has an obligation as well to have his son circumcised. It would be much harder for the father to fulfill his obligation the older his son gets.
Now, that being said, I think your comment is an unfair comparison. I am defending circumcision because I am jewish, yes. I would also defend gay rights, however, because I think treating people equally is important.
What I am afraid of, as you will have noted, is that circumcision will become banned, illegal. People should be allowed to choose for themselves what path they follow. I would never want to live in a society that forbade gays from existing in it, and I'd like to think that a Jewish society would do no such thing.
There is, at least as far as I can see, no hypocrisy from my end.
I propose it be left until the child is capable of making that choice for themself.
Perhaps for religious families an exception could be made? Or maybe hospitals should not offer it as a choice, as they currently do.
Couple A: religious, knows about the practice, wouldn't perform the ceremony in a hospital anyway.
Couple B: Never even heard of it as a thing, don't care, never consider it. The child never even knows.
Couple C: Surprised that it isn't an option, but waits until the kid is older and asks him. Kid will likely say no, since it hurts like hell and he's likely very happy with the way he is.
This honestly doesn't sound bad to me, because Couple A gets what they want, while B and C are alright as well.
A child has the right to speak for itself, a child has the right to things like security, feeding, and a roof over their head. The child is legally obligated to be educated. It can refuse to do any of those, but it then has to face the consequences of those. That is a decision the child however makes. Being circumcised is not a decision made by the child.
Several laws are in place to protect children, not to mutilate them. As Panda said, it's not mandatory to circumcise your children, it's an inhuman decision made by the parents of the child. A decision they have no legal right to. As panda stated in his journal, if this would be done by anyone else at any other age, with or without anesthetic, it would be a crime
I don't so much have a problem with circumscision, especialy if it is for a medical reason or due to hygene, as is the reason given in the Jewish Mitzvot and the Qur'an, but I despise the notion that it can be forced onto one's child because you happen to follow a religion. The child did not choose, and so should not be mutilated simply becuase his parent's religion demands it.
If a religion demands it then a child should be allowed, by all means, to accept a circumcision when he is old enough to judge the decsision reasonably, perhapse in his teen years; Surely their God(s) would understand the wait, and would actualy be proud that the child and his family did not just blindly follow the rules, after all God (atleast in the Abrahamic faiths, which to my knowleged are the most prominant supporters of circumscision) is omnibenevolant, as well as omnipotent and omniscient, is he not?
I will say again, though, that a child should not be pressured or forced to allow themselves to be mutilated, to have a part of their body removed, or otherwise accept injury. To say otherwise is, for the vast majority of the population, hypocritical.
Personaly I don't like the thought of circumscision. Despite what the benefits may be, I just don't like the idea. But I would respect and probably defend someone's right to choose it.
[/thread]
In all seriousness though I don't want this to become a religious debate. This topic should remain what it is.
Why routine infant mutilation is wrong.
Then again, our staff and teachers and such thend to be more open about sex education than in the USA (LOL, Abstinence, what a joke)