[ItsASecret]

Are there any women here who would allow a trained doctor with a sterile knife to slice of any part of their vagina or clitoris?...Women here in the United States don't have to deal with THEIR OWN kind of genital cutting of any kind.

Yes they do. Women already do let doctors cut them up down there, some want labiaplasty done to remove excess skin, some want a procedure called a clirotal uphooding to reveal the clitoris more if that woman feels she is not getting enough feeling from her clitoris, some women in the porn industry go under labiaplasty and vagiplasty to tighten things so that they fit an appearance "standard". Women do go to doctors to have their woman bits cut up with knives.

Are there any women here who would allow a trained doctor with a sterile knife to slice of any part of their vagina or clitoris? Would any woman here allow a trained doctor with a sterile knife to cut a part of their infant daughters vagina or clitoris? For "hygiene" purposes? For religious/spiritual purposes?

The women in Africa believe there is good reason to cut their infant daughter's clitoris, I think some are religious and some have to do with not wanting their daughter to have any pleasure from sex. There is always some group of individuals who will believe what is said, if there was for whatever reason a sudden increase in infant females having their clitoris removed to avoid sexual pleasure because the religion believes that sex should only be for procreation and not pleasure then there would be some other women who follow suit.

Here's some food for thought: WTF invented circumcision? Someone. somewhere, at some point and stage in history decided to experiment - no doubt on someone else's penis - and think, 'actually, we may as well just cut that bit off'. There aint nowt as strange as folk...

Same can be said for anything in history lol. People follow religion because it is a comforting look on reality, if a particular religion or belief holds that benefits will come from a procedure such as cutting a simple piece of skin that does not cause harm to a high degree then they will do it. But at the same time there are groups with beliefs that if you hack a person apart and eat him you will be offering a God a sacrifice and there will be end result benefits from said God. Who conjured that one up for experimentation? Trying to understand people is an extremely difficult task.

[Hugo-B]

IAS: do you think the first ever circumcision was for religious reasons? I'm wondering if it was medical? Tight foreskin is often the medical cause of adult circumcision, I've even heard of an 'emergency circumcision' (for someone who wasn't aware of how tight their foreskin was until they attempted sex for the first time). I think a medical emergency would more likely have necessitated the first circumcision than religion, but we can only guess I suppose.

trying to understand people is difficult, I agree. I think a lot less value was put on human life centuries ago, and there was a lot more absolutism in society, so if a ruler permitted something there were little to no consequences, leaving quite wide scope for experimentation, particularly on people who were deemed to be expendable like beggars or slaves...

[ItsASecret]

IAS: do you think the first ever circumcision was for religious reasons? I'm wondering if it was medical? Tight foreskin is often the medical cause of adult circumcision, I've even heard of an 'emergency circumcision' (for someone who wasn't aware of how tight their foreskin was until they attempted sex for the first time). I think a medical emergency would more likely have necessitated the first circumcision than religion, but we can only guess I suppose.

Way back when in history I believe it would be for religious purposes, a ritual of sorts. Not to cause harm to the child or anything but to follow a belief. At least that is what I think. I have no interest in looking into the matter but someone else may know.

[jns]

Are there any women here who would allow a trained doctor with a sterile knife to slice of any part of their vagina or clitoris?

I think that many women would allow surgery on themselves for things like traumatic injury, cancer and other such illnesses. It can be a matter of survival. Many woman consent to an episiotomy during child birth. In some cases the traumatic tearing would cause even more damage.

[Stillness]

Babies are born PERFECT!

A lot of babies are born with defects. Some are immediately apparent. Some develop later. There's a woman who just posted a thread in this section of the boards last night whose husband's foreskin on his uncircumcised penis likely contributed to sexual dysfunction and grief in their marriage.

Women here in the United States don't have to deal with THEIR OWN kind of genital cutting of any kind.

If it were this barbaric practice that you make it out to be, then the victimization of their husbands, brothers, fathers, and sons would make them suffer too. Besides that, they do have analogous sex organs and women in the US do experience genital mutilation. Also, people have the capacity to speak intelligently on subjects that don't directly effect them.

But if it's so barbaric, where are the 10's of millions of men and boys who suffer in silence because they live in constant pain. Who is oppressing them? Women? Are they prevented from using the bathroom comfortably, enjoying sexual relations, or reproducing? What are the bad effects? Once in a while there are some, but the same could be said for piercing little girls ears - something that has zero health benefits.

I do agree with you on some level. I wouldn't do it for my sons. I wish that I myself was intact. I just don't see it as barbarism or something deserving of outrage. There are bigger fish to fry.

you've got to slide your hand against it with some kind of lube

I almost never did this when I masturbated. Circumcised men still have loose skin.

People follow religion because it is a comforting look on reality

While I'm sure that's true for some, it's certainly not for all. There are many intellectually honest people who follow their religion because they believe it to be true based on the evidence. Even if comforting at times, the truth that they hold to is unpleasant or requires them to do things they would rather not do.

[Guest]

I'm stunned some would compare this FGM. It's comparing apples and oranges, it's a piece of skin, to compare the two, you would have to remove the head of the penis. FGM involves removing the clitoris and vaginal lips and sewing up the vagina so no penetration can take place. I would suggest some read Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, she gives a first hand account of FGM. There is no moral equivalence.

[Ratty]

Whichever way you look at it, the routine circumcision of baby boys is totally unnecessary:
It can cause complications that can result in severe blood loss and even result in death, it can result in loss of sensitivity of the penis meaning that a circumcised boy will never experience the sexual pleasure that his intact contemporaries will experience, and of course, anaesthetised or not, it will be a highly traumatic experience for a young boy to be exposed to so early in life.

And for what? A slightly reduced chance of contracting infections, a slightly reduced chance of penile cancer, a slightly reduced chance of contracting urinary tract infections, a slightly reduced risk of passing STI's to females. Notice a pattern there? the word slightly is a bit of a clue. The fact is, the supposed benefits of circumcision are so insignificant compared to the risks involved in the surgical procedure are that since as early as the mid 1970's the American Academy of Paediatrics has stated: "there is no absolute medical indication for routine circumcision of the newborn".

The real reason why RIC is so prevalent in the US? as with almost everything in America it all boils down to one thing - money.
Ever wondered exactly what happens to all those poor baby boys' foreskins after they are sliced off from their penises? You would think that they would simply be taken away and get incinerated along with all the other medical waste, and usually that is indeed the case. But some foreskins end up being sold by healthcare providers to biomedical research companies, tissue engineering firms, and most shocking of all, to cosmetics companies. And it is the healthcare insurance providers that pick up a tidy sum for each foreskin they sell. Ever wondered what they test new cosmetics products on since testing on animals was deemed to be too un-ethical? Yup, it seems that it is ok to slice off parts of baby boys sexual organs so that cute little bunny rabbits dont have cosmetics corporations testing their latest lipstick on them. And ask yourself this ladies - would you purchase a mascara or foundation or eye shadow if you knew that it had been tested on a baby boys' foreskin? Would you use the latest anti-ageing serum if you knew that it contained cells cultured from baby boys' foreskins?

While there is a financial incentive for harvesting boys' forskins, the practice of routine infant circumcision will prevail. Remove the financial incentive and RIC as a practice disappears...

Here in the UK, the pracice of routine infant circumcision has been all but eradicated. The main reason for this was the creation of the National Health Service (NHS) in 1948. The creation of the NHS meant that the cost of healthcare and surgery was spread out and paid for by the taxpayers under a national insurance scheme. It basically means that to visit your doctor will not cost you a penny and neither will having open-heart surgery. It therefore is unsurprising that surgical procedures that are deemed to be unnecessary are not likey to be seen as a good use of taxpayers money. The end result is that the vast majority of boys over here grow up totally intact and unmutilated. And does this mean that doctors surgeries are overwhelmed by cases of boys with infections, tight foreskins and all the other complications of simply having a foreskin can allegedly cause according to pro-circumcision activists?

No.

I grew up intact, my brother grew up intact, all my friends grew up intact, my nephews are growing up intact, as are my friends' sons and have any of us ever had any problems with our foreskins?

No.

The simple fact is that to have a foreskin is natural, pleasurable and completely normal. To be circumcised is unnatural - end of.

Yes, I agree that female circumcision is an abhorration, a truly disgusting abuse of the female body which is a wonderful thing and the very knowledge that there are some in the world that would consider mutilating it for the purpose of religion is something that chills me to my bones. Virtually every nation in the world feels the same way and FGM is outlawed just about every where, and rightly so. So why is it ok to mutilate little boys? The male body is a wonderful thing too and to see it mutilated in this way is just as sickening to me.

I'm not a religious person - I believe in God but I do not believe in religion - but I do believe that God knew what He/She/It was doing when He/She/It (delete as appropriate) created the human body and that the foreskin has a definite prupose and who are we to question God's wisdom??

[jns]

The real reason why RIC is so prevalent in the US? as with almost everything in America it all boils down to one thing - money.
Ever wondered exactly what happens to all those poor baby boys' foreskins after they are sliced off from their penises? You would think that they would simply be taken away and get incinerated along with all the other medical waste, and usually that is indeed the case. But some foreskins end up being sold by healthcare providers to biomedical research companies, tissue engineering firms, and most shocking of all, to cosmetics companies. And it is the healthcare insurance providers that pick up a tidy sum for each foreskin they sell. Ever wondered what they test new cosmetics products on since testing on animals was deemed to be too un-ethical? Yup, it seems that it is ok to slice off parts of baby boys sexual organs so that cute little bunny rabbits dont have cosmetics corporations testing their latest lipstick on them. And ask yourself this ladies - would you purchase a mascara or foundation or eye shadow if you knew that it had been tested on a baby boys' foreskin? Would you use the latest anti-ageing serum if you knew that it contained cells cultured from baby boys' foreskins?

While there is a financial incentive for harvesting boys' forskins, the practice of routine infant circumcision will prevail. Remove the financial incentive and RIC as a practice disappears...

Please provide a proper citation for this claim. A proper citation is not a hyperlink. It gives the author, the name of the article or book, the publication if it is an article, the publication date and the page if necessary.

[ItsASecret]

Please provide a proper citation for this claim. A proper citation is not a hyperlink. It gives the author, the name of the article or book, the publication if it is an article, the publication date and the page if necessary.

I second that, my journal hub is PubMed so if it is there just let me know the title to the paper I am quite interested in reading such an article.

[TVlover]

Hey TVlover, there are lots of people on WH who belong to the religions you are talking about there. We are not here to be mean to them, devalue their beliefs, or laugh at them. Those kinds of comments and the attitude they convey are completely inappropriate, and if you continue to make those kind of comments, you'll be banned.

Could you highlight exactly what was wrong with my comment? Who could have been offended by me pointing out what religious people believe?