Quoting AA7295 (Reply 236): You may. I think it looks aesthetically better.

It must suck to feel so insecure about something that an acceptable solution to it must be to cut part of it off...

But hey, its your body and your choice

Quoting PanHAM (Reply 233): But there are other, religious based mutilations, what if next ritual tribe marks are demanded to become legal? Or, tattoos for under aged?

Even more troubling, and the problem is already knocking at our doors: Beating children for educational purposes. In Germany, it's illegal at the time, but in comparison to circumcision, it does not lead to lasting physical injury and it is more closely related to the parental right to raise their children.

In many European countries, animals enjoy a better protection because it is illegal to amputate body parts from pets (i.e. docking dog tails or ears) for non-veterinary reasons.

I really have no idea how circumcision for underage children could be legally justified.


David

Quoting Acheron (Reply 250): It must suck to feel so insecure about something that an acceptable solution to it must be to cut part of it off...

The same could be said about applying make up, piercing ears, etc, all done to "look better." Not always to defeat insecurity. But can you really blame some of us? I have seen my cut penis all my life and didn't even know what an uncut one looked like until literally a few years ago. Of course I'm gonna think mine looks better. But again, gonna let my son choose for himself (if I ever have one)

Quoting DeltaMD90 (Reply 252): The same could be said about applying make up, piercing ears, etc, all done to "look better." Not always to defeat insecurity. But can you really blame some of us? I have seen my cut penis all my life and didn't even know what an uncut one looked like until literally a few years ago. Of course I'm gonna think mine looks better. But again, gonna let my son choose for himself (if I ever have one)

This is my point!! I was given the choice and I HATE that I was given this option. I wish I was cut at birth. In America where most males are circumcised, why put your son through the torture. We've already had men with uncut penises on here say they felt "less" than those with cut cocks during locker room encounters. Crikey.... Just go for the snip.

Alas, your son will still love you like I love my parents. I just wish that they had taken this ONE choice away from me and had of had me circumcised.

Some interesting (anti-cutting) quotes here:

http://www.whale.to/a/circumcision_q.html

"Pet owner: "What would you say if I wanted to get my dog circumcised?"

Vet (after a silence): I'd have to report you to the ASPCA for cruelty."

As always - each to their own. It is simply baffling to me that any parent would take such a radical - and personally intimate - decision without wondering what their child might eventually think/feel about it.

mariner

Definitely all for it. In my opinion - healthier, cleaner, and a few other reasons.

And comments about this being mutilation - the word does not fit - this is not mutiliation.

Also, those who say circumcised are less sensitive - very very wrong!

Cheers!

 

Quoting AA7295 (Reply 253): In America where most males are circumcised, why put your son through the torture.

It's not most, it's dropping, in 2010 it was 32.5% and has been dropping annually. see here

Quoting curtisman (Reply 255): Also, those who say circumcised are less sensitive - very very wrong!

You have no way of proving this unless you had it done after you were sexually active.

Quoting kiwirob (Reply 256): You have no way of proving this unless you had it done after you were sexually active.

good point - but then the same applies to the other side of the argument.

My comparison was based on discussion with mates on both sides of the equation.


I know a few guys (6 or 7) who have had it done at older ages due to complications and they have said they prefer it circumcised. I'm sure there are some who don't.

Quoting kiwirob (Reply 256): You have no way of proving this unless you had it done after you were sexually active.

I got it a few years ago in my teens as I posted above and was active before and after and wish I got it done sooner! Def prefer it now.

Quoting DeltaMD90 (Reply 252): The same could be said about applying make up, piercing ears, etc, all done to "look better." Not always to defeat insecurity.

But unlike your face and ears, which tend to be part of social interactions on a day to day basis, your penis is not usually visible to others except on certain occasions, unless you like to run around naked.

If someone feels a strong need to modify something that really has no effect on others' perception of you (and they do not see unless you are going to shag them or into nudist camps) does seem to suggest quite a bit of insecurity.
Specially if person who sees it the most is the owner, and how much it seems to bother him and the main reason for getting it done is just aesthetics.

Heck, I have a more "valid" reason for getting it done(frenulum breve) and I'm looking for solutions that don't involve circumcision.

But like I said, to each their own. It is his choice and his body.

As an uncircumcised person, I just don't understand the reasons e.g. aesthetics or old religious views people use to justify circumcision (a.k.a. baby genital mutilation). Seems like a bunch of BS.

This has nothing to do with Islam or Judaism specifically.

I mean an uncircumcised penis is natural! The way a boy is born... So how can you dislike it?

Most of these old religious views (which became beliefs and therefore societal norms) actually have to do with the lack of hygiene in the ANCIENT day. Circumcision in modern times is totally elective and is actually equivalent to cosmetic surgery, if it weren't for historic and old religious norms. It is unnecessary, and for most people in the USA...totally cosmetic.

Quoting einsteinboricua (Reply 249): -No benefit over uncut (other than reduced HIV transmission)

Really? Reduced HIV transmission? Never ehard that before.

Quoting curtisman (Reply 255): healthier, cleaner, and a few other reasons.

How is it healthier? Its only cleaner if you dont wash and even then I'm dubious. What are the other reasons?

Quoting 777way (Reply 247): ^ Could be, but I hate ugly looking things, so if I had bad teeth and a hooked nose and bats ears those would get fixed, so why not that ugly looking bit of skin?

So you would have your son or daughter have a nose job when they were born id they had a hooked nose?

Fred

Quoting flipdewaf (Reply 261): Quoting einsteinboricua (Reply 249): -No benefit over uncut (other than reduced HIV transmission) Really? Reduced HIV transmission? Never ehard that before.

There were a couple of highly publicized and extremely flawed studies that were released a few years ago that compared HIV transmission rates between uncircumcised and freshly-circumcised males in Africa. Here's a link that details the problems with the studies-
http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk...ience-kills-or-how-to-spread-aids/

Quoting Acheron (Reply 259): Heck, I have a more "valid" reason for getting it done(frenulum breve) and I'm looking for solutions that don't involve circumcision.

I have the same thing, albeit in a mild form. Doesn't bother me 99% of the time.

A possible answer is frenulotomy or frenulectomy. A German blogger said that many doctors were "proud" to remove foreskins, and are not likely to suggest anything else than circumcision.

I've sent you a PM with a link to his blog.



David

Quoting 777way (Reply 247): I had bad teeth

You would take yourself or your child to an orthodontist, you would not pull out all of your child's teeth.

Quoting 777way (Reply 247): hooked nose

You wouldn't give your infant child a nose job would you?

Quoting 777way (Reply 247): bats ears

You are comparing a possible disfigurement versus the normal look (for every single male on the planet) of a body part.

^ By getting circumcised one does not remove the entire penis.

I'm talking about it as an adult, my choice not enforcing it on a kid, religion asks for it specifically for hygiene, maybe shaving off pubic hair (must in Islam) is also irrelevant with all the hygiene products available now, trimming is an option too.

Disfigurement? I have yet to see a disfiigurred circumcised penis, one in a few thousands maybe, so rare.

Quoting 777way (Reply 265): Disfigurement?

That was going to the "bat ears", not circumcision. I do not consider it 'disfigurement' but I do consider it mutilation.

Quoting DeltaMD90 (Reply 244):

Quoting curtisman (Reply 255): And comments about this being mutilation - the word does not fit - this is not mutiliation.

It is a technical term that does not necessarily relate to a negative effect. As DocLightning explained upthread, an entirely successful cosmetic surgical procedure is mutilation. In the same light, circumcision IS mutilation.

Quoting GST (Reply 267): It is a technical term that does not necessarily relate to a negative effect. As DocLightning explained upthread, an entirely successful cosmetic surgical procedure is mutilation. In the same light, circumcision IS mutilation.

Because that is how it occurs to YOU! It does not occur as "mutilated" to someone who is circumcised. I even doubt a medical professional would refer to a cut penis as "mutilated". Talk about a way to dramatize your beliefs!

Personally, I view a cut penis as "optimized" in every way. Because that is how it occurs to me!

Quoting AA7295 (Reply 268): Because that is how it occurs to YOU! It does not occur as "mutilated" to someone who is circumcised. I even doubt a medical professional would refer to a cut penis as "mutilated". Talk about a way to dramatize your beliefs! Personally, I view a cut penis as "optimized" in every way. Because that is how it occurs to me!

Excellent comment - I agree 100%

It definitely is not mutilation.

And I'm with you on the 'optimized' comment - this is my personal take on it too.

Quoting curtisman (Reply 269): It definitely is not mutilation.

Oh. I think it is.

My puzzle for those who favor it for religious reasons is this - uncut is the way we are born, the way God (assuming you believe in God) intended us to be.

So why change what God intended - did He make a mistake?

Or is it like the Persian Flaw? Since only God - Allah - can create perfection, the carpet-makers deliberately weave a flaw into their work.

mariner

Quoting 777way (Reply 265): Disfigurement? I have yet to see a disfiigurred circumcised penis, one in a few thousands maybe, so rare.

Unless you're an active gay man I doubt you would have seen enough penis's to make that statement. Pretty sure gay men, Islam and Pakistan do not belong in the same sentence.

Quoting kiwirob (Reply 271): Unless you're an active gay man I doubt you would have seen enough penis's to make that statement. Pretty sure gay men, Islam and Pakistan do not belong in the same sentence.

Excuse me? There are plenty of gay Muslims, and plenty of gay men in Pakistan.

Quoting Pellegrine (Reply 272): Excuse me? There are plenty of gay Muslims, and plenty of gay men in Pakistan.

How many openly gay muslim men would you find in Pakistan?

Quoting Pellegrine (Reply 272): Excuse me? There are plenty of gay Muslims, and plenty of gay men in Pakistan.

Who cares how many gay men there are in Pakistan!

This thread is about circumcision. We've made progress, except for when someone calls a cut penis mutilated.

LOL, once in a car in Lahore, my hosts started laughing and I asked why. There was a "woman" walking on the side walk ahead and he/she was a transvestite. I even think, from what I understood, they have a place in this bizarre society. Could well be the same for gay males as well.

Quoting PanHAM (Reply 275): LOL, once in a car in Lahore, my hosts started laughing and I asked why. There was a "woman" walking on the side walk ahead and he/she was a transvestite. I even think, from what I understood, they have a place in this bizarre society. Could well be the same for gay males as well.

Aren't they employed by the government to embarrass people into paying their taxes?

Fred

Quoting flipdewaf (Reply 276): Aren't they employed by the government to embarrass people into paying their taxes

I would not be surprised, but really don't have a clue. The guys in the car made a couple of nasty remarks and I told them the Japanese translation of transvestite - which is KamushiKasaki (you need to understand German for that one) . Luckily the poor driver did not understand English.

Quoting AA7295 (Reply 274): We've made progress, except for when someone calls a cut penis mutilated.

Circumcision isn't progress it's a backwards thinking solution to a problem which doesn't exist, give it a decade or so and the only people being mutilated will be jews, muslims, people needing it for medical purposes, plus the odd person for cosmetic reasons.

Quoting AA7295 (Reply 274): We've made progress, except for when someone calls a cut penis mutilated.

Looking at definitions they all agree on the same thing:
Disfigurement or injury by removal or destruction of a conspicuous or essential part of the body.

So if you do not agree with that definition, I have to ask if cropping dog ears doesn't count as mutilation either. "Ears? if they're too flabby, crop them...they don't serve a purpose"...

For people who follow religion and believe that God created man to his image, this adds another contradiction: for if we were made in his image, then I assume he also has foreskin. I don't think he loves us enough for us to be born with something that many then cut off (because he says so)...then why are we born with it in the first place?

Quoting einsteinboricua (Reply 279): Disfigurement or injury by removal or destruction of a conspicuous or essential part of the body.

This is where the argument loses its steam. It is not an essential nor conspicuous part of the body. My life has not ended or been altered in a dramatic way since my foreskin was removed just over a year ago.

What irritates me about all of this is that so many people are screaming that its the child's choice and that the parents shouldn't make that decision but when AA7295 says that he wants to get circumcised the same people jump down his throat saying how stupid he is. Grow up! If you are all about letting people decide then let them decide and respect their opinion.

There shouldn't be a debate about this. Its a very simple solution - if you think that children should have a choice then don't circumcise your children when they are born, but that same freedom that lets you choose that is the freedom that allows others to circumcise their children when they are born.

If your parents decided to circumcise you then why harp on something that has been done and there is no way for you to go back and change. It's ridiculous. It makes no more sense than for me to be upset that my parents didn't fly to another country and give birth to me there so that I can be a dual citizen. No matter how much I want to be a dual citizen (and trust me, I do more than you know) my parents didn't birth me outside the US so there is nothing I can change about that.

Move on and make the change yourself rather than dwelling on the past.

Quoting ACJFLYER (Reply 281): What irritates me about all of this is that so many people are screaming that its the child's choice and that the parents shouldn't make that decision but when AA7295 says that he wants to get circumcised the same people jump down his throat saying how stupid he is.

Whilst I know some have rather taken the tack of saying he's stupid, I'm not shure that's the consistent perspective of those from this side of the debate. Speaking for myself I am quite happy for him to decide to do it for himself for whatever reasons he deems worthy. Though I do not understand the logic that brought him to his opinion it is his choice and I support that.

Quoting ACJFLYER (Reply 281): There shouldn't be a debate about this. Its a very simple solution - if you think that children should have a choice then don't circumcise your children when they are born, but that same freedom that lets you choose that is the freedom that allows others to circumcise their children when they are born.

So....it's a freedom to remove the freedom of the child when they're old enough to decide? See my problem with this?

Quoting ACJFLYER (Reply 281): If your parents decided to circumcise you then why harp on something that has been done and there is no way for you to go back and change. It's ridiculous.

It is perfectly reasonable for people to be annoyed that it was done to them, for example if they can't masturbate without lube or one of many frequent effects of circumcision. I'm not suggesting that it is enough of an issue to put a rift between one and their parents but it is still a legitimate grievance.

In western civilisation even the poorest (well maybe not the lowest 0.0001%) can afford to wash regularly enough that circumcision's hygiene benefits is as good as null. The STI protection data is so sketchy as to be irrelevant compared to a condom. We also have freedoms of religion, note that this is also freedom from religion so to be branded as one of faith before you are old enough to make a reasoned decision on your faith is to my mind just plain wrong. For these reasons I feel that it is a gross injustice to circumcise a child without a doctor's recommendation for immediate medical concerns.

Quoting ACJFLYER (Reply 281): but when AA7295 says that he wants to get circumcised the same people jump down his throat saying how stupid he is.

But his reasons for removal are trivial, he's not doing it for religious reasons, and it's not as if he has a medical need to have it chopped off like you did, removing it for aesthetics is for want of a better word stupid.

Quoting ACJFLYER (Reply 281): What irritates me about all of this is that so many people are screaming that its the child's choice and that the parents shouldn't make that decision but when AA7295 says that he wants to get circumcised the same people jump down his throat saying how stupid he is. Grow up! If you are all about letting people decide then let them decide and respect their opinion.

I've never said it should be the child's decision; I've said that it should be the decision of the individual to whom the foreskin is attached, and that said decision should not be made until the individual is an adult. Adhering to that logic, I think that AA7295 is well within his rights to decide to have himself circumcised now that he is an adult.

Quoting AA7295 (Thread starter): As an uncircumcised male, I am totally for it. I hate being uncircumcised and am seriously considering having the chop. I find it both aesthetically unattractive not to mention I got Ballanitis and a UTI (both in Thailand!) and the doctor said my chances of getting both would have been reduced had I been circumcised.

Quoting AA7295 (Reply 4): In my situation I wish my parents had circumcised me as a baby because now, if I do get a circumcision, I have to go to hospital and have surgery and that is at least 3 days out of action (not to mention the other type of action!).

Quoting AA7295 (Reply 8): I thought I was unclear. The point is the surgery is pretty intense and is ALOT easier when done as a baby. The very fact of waiting until they are an adult to decide if they want to be circumcised is going to cause a lot of people to remain uncircumcised purely for the fact that they don't want surgery. This is despite that SOME people may still want to be circumcised.

Quoting AA7295 (Reply 73): I asked because a circumcised penis looks aesthetically better (in my opinion). An uncut penis is just gross.... GROSS!

Quoting AA7295 (Reply 234): Well I'm getting a circumcision..... CUT PENISES ALL THE WAY!!! (And I wish I was cut at birth!!)

Quoting AA7295 (Reply 236): Quoting kiwirob (Reply 235): May I ask why? You may. I think it looks aesthetically better.

Quoting AA7295 (Reply 238): Quoting kiwirob (Reply 237): Probably one of the stupidest reasons for getting cut I've ever heard of. You're 100% correct. It is stupid that I am getting it done at my age. I wish my parents had made this decision when I was young.

Quoting AA7295 (Reply 238): I wish my parent's had my cut, alas, I am making that decision for myself.

Quoting AA7295 (Reply 238): I am just glad I live in a country where the government will pay for it and there is not stupid court dictating what I (or my parents could have done when I was a baby) can do to my body.

Quoting AA7295 (Reply 253): I was given the choice and I HATE that I was given this option. I wish I was cut at birth.

Quoting AA7295 (Reply 253): I just wish that they had taken this ONE choice away from me and had of had me circumcised.

Quoting AA7295 (Reply 268): Personally, I view a cut penis as "optimized" in every way.

I don't understand his main reason for getting circumcised which by his own admission is purely aesthetic, but then I don't have to understand because it's his penis, not mine, and people willingly, and sometimes at great expense, have cosmetic procedures performed on themselves every day that I would never in a million years have performed on myself. As I said, he's an adult, it's his choice, and I support his right to make that choice for himself.

I do, however, find it incomprehensible that he resents the very fact that it is his decision to make as an adult and that he wishes that his parents had taken that decision away from him as an infant. I simply can not relate to that attitude. The biggest responsibility and the most gratifying benefit of being an adult is weighing one's options, making one's own decisions, and dealing with the consequences, good or bad, afterwards.

Quoting GST (Reply 282): Speaking for myself I am quite happy for him to decide to do it for himself for whatever reasons he deems worthy.

  

If he wants to be cut, hey - go for it. The point being it is his choice.

It isn't something I think about every day or very often - I love my cock - but I'd like to have been able to make the choice, too.

mariner

Quoting kiwirob (Reply 283): But his reasons for removal are trivial, he's not doing it for religious reasons, and it's not as if he has a medical need to have it chopped off like you did, removing it for aesthetics is for want of a better word stupid.

What an ignorant thing to say. I personally don't like those ear gauges or spike attachments on people (or earrings for men for that matter,) all altering the body and whatnot, but I don't harp on those and say it's stupid they think it looks better. I personally think your uncut penis is ugly but I don't call you stupid for that. Your choice, you like it that way, bravo! He likes it cut, nothing "stupid" about it

This issue seems to have reached the world wide press during this silly season, and it reached Denmark yesterday.

The general consensus is:

Nobody cares about adult circumcising as long as it doesn't affect economics of the public health care system.

About children:

It is illegal.

It is a violation of the UN Human Rights Convention (not ratified by China, Saudi Arabia and few others).

It is a violation of the UN Children's' Convention (also not not ratified by all countries).

Anyway it has been "tolerated" when done for religious reasons. Nobody has been prosecuted so far. Some politicians are jumping over each other to change that. Others are saying, wait a minute, let us have a committee to look it over before we speak out loud.

On one TV channel there was an interview with a Jew (such a man who does it, don't remember his "title"). He was very angry and said that enforcing those rules would mean expelling all Jews from the country - with quite clear parallels to WW2 and nazi-Germany. He had "done" hundreds of penises and never had a problem.

Next interview was with a doctor at the Copenhagen University Hospital who had treated some of the "accidents" the former circumciser had produced during the past, and he showed some really horrifying pictures from his work.

An estimated 4% of all Danish baby boys get circumcised for religious reasons. That means between 1000 and 1500 per year (yes, it is a small country). In 2011 there were 55 incidents when baby boys had to be hospitalized for treatment of minor or severe accidental injuries after being circumcised.

There was an interview with another Jew. He said that forced circumcising is pure backward thinking. His God looked at entirely different qualities than the look of his penis. His opinion was that forced circumcising of Jewish baby boys would decline to a minor hard core in the years to come. He also said that if he - like Abraham - had lived in a dusty, dirty, hot environment without access to clean water and soap, then he would choose circumcising for practicality.

Quoting prebennorholm (Reply 288): On one TV channel there was an interview with a Jew (such a man who does it, don't remember his "title").

It's called "mohel", and the procedure is "brit mila".



Some people have yet to learn that freedom of belief is the freedom to believe, not the freedom to act in the name of one's belief.

David

Quoting GST (Reply 282): Though I do not understand the logic that brought him to his opinion it is his choice and I support that.

I think this was perfectly phrased. Though everyone has their different views there shouldn't be an attack on them for their choices.

Quoting GST (Reply 282): So....it's a freedom to remove the freedom of the child when they're old enough to decide? See my problem with this?

This is a slippery slope to head down because this argument can go so many directions. There are so many things parents do that take away the "rights" of a child that it would be very difficult to make a case here strong enough to get past high courts.

Quoting GST (Reply 282): It is perfectly reasonable for people to be annoyed that it was done to them, for example if they can't masturbate without lube or one of many frequent effects of circumcision.

Again, this is too general - there are those, including myself, that can still masturbate even without my foreskin. I naturally produce enough precum that foreskin or not I don't require lube. The generality of this can't serve as an absolute argument.

Quoting kiwirob (Reply 283): But his reasons for removal are trivial

The term "trivial" that you are referring to is way too general right now. What is trivial to you may not be trivial to him. Why do girls get their nipples sliced open to have silicon bags slid in behind them? Why do people get nose jobs, face lifts, tummy tucks, prince alberts, jacobs ladders, etc? They do it for aesthetic reasons. They think it will look better to them and so they have surgery to change it. His reasons for circumcision are no different. Calling it trivial is not a fair assessment in this case.

Quoting kiwirob (Reply 283): removing it for aesthetics is for want of a better word stupid.

Again, refer to above - there are a lot of people that makes changes to their bodies that includes removing skin, changing noses, adding silicon, etc and circumcision could easily be termed as an aesthetically driven procedure. Calling it stupid is far too generalized and one sided.

Must admit that my only personal connection with circumcision was noticing, at bath-time when we were both very small, that my older brother 'looked different.'   I just accepted it at the time; and later concluded that it must have been done because of some sort of infection, we weren't a Jewish family. However, I clearly remember that the result looked awful, like the mutilation it was; and (much later) I further concluded that the foreskin plays quite an important part in the sensations one enjoys when making love.

So I'm personally very pleased that compulsory circumcision of tiny children for religious reasons looks like being 'phased out.' It's pretty clear that it was originally done for reasons of hygiene rather than religion; and only later acquired its religious significance.

Quoting prebennorholm (Reply 288): Anyway it has been "tolerated" when done for religious reasons. Nobody has been prosecuted so far. Some politicians are jumping over each other to change that. Others are saying, wait a minute, let us have a committee to look it over before we speak out loud. On one TV channel there was an interview with a Jew (such a man who does it, don't remember his "title"). He was very angry and said that enforcing those rules would mean expelling all Jews from the country - with quite clear parallels to WW2 and nazi-Germany. He had "done" hundreds of penises and never had a problem.

Oddly enough, I don't think tinkering about with the law, in Germany or anywhere else, will 'solve the problem' for that circumciser - or his client parents - anyway. Unless there is a medical reason for it, like an incurable infection, there seems to me to be no way that an unnecessary surgical procedure can be defended in court. And, indeed, it is now already open to literally millions of circumcised men to sue their parents, and the doctors or 'circumcisers' concerned, in the civil courts if they so wish. Things like the Statute of Limitations customarily do not apply to 'minors,' whose right to sue remains available for at least seven years after they turn 18; and you can't get much more 'minor' than being only a month or two old!  

[Edited 2012-07-19 20:48:55]

I got circumcized at age 10 , and while the surgery was done in hospital under narcosis, the two or three weeks after were painful, complicted and most uncomfortable. Any positive advantage ? None except that the range of the penis had increase to some 5 meters ...............

It nevertheless should remain legal and possible, as it is "de rigueur" among Muslims and Jews, as it is supposed to make you from a small child into a young man ! more known as a "teenager"

I like my foreskin like I like my women - at the end of my cock and reasonably clean.

I'm so glad I'm uncut and unmolested.

How long until we see people suing their parents for having them circumcised?

Quoting JAGflyer (Reply 295): How long until we see people suing their parents for having them circumcised?

You won't see it happen in Canada because it's not mutilation as some on here have wrongly suggested.

Looks like parents won't be able to get unnecessary (i.e. 'non-medical') circumcisions done until the law is clarified. Not in hospitals, anyway:-

"BERLIN — Berlin's Jewish Hospital will suspend circumcisions after a German court ruled this week that performing the procedure on religious grounds is unlawful, a hospital spokesman said Friday.

"We are suspending circumcisions until the legal position is clear," Gerhard Nerlich told AFP, citing head of internal medicine Kirstof Graf.

"The hospital performs 300 circumcisions a year, a third of which are for religious reasons and the remainder due to medical concerns.

"We regularly performed circumcisions before this ruling but we don't have the legal freedom to do so any more," said Nerlich, adding that two procedures had already been cancelled."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...ee1deba3fa516585090e48a131e40f.601

"A GERMAN court ruling that branded circumcision as grievous bodily harm has created waves in Switzerland where a second hospital announced a possible halt to the procedure.

The announcement, by St Gall hospital in the country's northeast, follows a decision on Thursday by the Zurich children's hospital to temporarily suspend the operation, media reported.

"We are in the process of evaluating the legal and ethical stance in Switzerland," Marco Stuecheli, spokesman for the Zurich hospital, told AFP.

"There can be complicated cases where the mother of a child wants a circumcision but the father is opposed to it."

"The development is unlikely to affect the practice in Switzerland, where it can be carried out in any hospital for a fee, the spokesman added.

"Most Jewish patients go to specialist doctors known within their community," the spokesman said, adding that the hospital carried out "only one or two circumcisions for religious reasons per month".

"A senior executive at the St Gall teaching hospital said a decision would be taken after the summer holidays, Beobachter magazine reported."

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/bre...uling/story-e6frf7k6-1226431342020

I would expect increasing numbers of hospitals world-wide to follow suit. As things stand, there is a clear risk that they could end up being sued, or even prosecuted.

[Edited 2012-07-21 21:26:22]

Quoting ME AVN FAN (Reply 291): I got circumcized at age 10 , and while the surgery was done in hospital under narcosis, the two or three weeks after were painful, complicted and most uncomfortable. Any positive advantage ? None except that the range of the penis had increase to some 5 meters ............... It nevertheless should remain legal and possible, as it is "de rigueur" among Muslims and Jews, as it is supposed to make you from a small child into a young man ! more known as a "teenager"

Age 10 is quite late you are supposed to have it done right after birth.

Quoting kiwirob (Reply 271): Unless you're an active gay man I doubt you would have seen enough penis's to make that statement.

So only gay men bathe in university dorm or gym showers?

Quoting 777way (Reply 297): Age 10 is quite late you are supposed to have it done right after birth.

This is what bugs me about the whole circumcision business, 777way. It's quite obvious that 'you' - the subject - can't have it done in the first few days of your life. So what you mean is, I take it, that the parents should have it done straight away - no doubt pressured into doing it by the religious leaders, whether Muslim or Jewish?

I've said before that the practice seems to have arisen when both Jews and Arabs were mostly living in hot, dry, dusty places - purely for purposes of hygiene. With the advent of modern medicine, including antibiotics to cure infections - and soap, modern plumbing etc.   - there is now no need at all for such a custom. So would you or others kindly tell us exactly WHY universal male circumcision should still be insisted on by both religions?

Researching the question a bit, I discover that the whole controversy tended to 'go in waves.' At first non-Jewish/non-Muslim religions tended to frown on it. But in the late 19th. century, and on into the first half of the 20th. one, a lot of 'do-gooders' began promoting it for everyone - on the grounds that (believe it or not!  ) they hoped that the reduced sensitivity of the organ concerned would make masturbation more difficult (or even impossible). There was maybe some excuse for that, because masturbation was considered by many at the time to cause mental illness. In that connection, the fate of my own brother comes to mind - he was born in 1936, just possibly some 'do-gooder' came after our parents and recommended that they got him 'done'................

"Non-religious circumcision in English-speaking countries arose in a climate of negative attitudes towards sex, especially concerning masturbation. In her 1978 article The Ritual of Circumcision,[40] Karen Erickson Paige writes: "In the United States, the current medical rationale for circumcision developed after the operation was in wide practice. The original reason for the surgical removal of the foreskin, or prepuce, was to control 'masturbatory insanity' – the range of mental disorders that people believed were caused by the 'polluting' practice of 'self-abuse.'"

"Self-abuse" was a term commonly used to describe masturbation in the 19th century. According to Paige, "treatments ranged from diet, moral exhortations, hydrotherapy, and marriage, to such drastic measures as surgery, physical restraints, frights, and punishment. Some doctors recommended covering the penis with plaster of Paris, leather, or rubber; cauterization; making boys wear chastity belts or spiked rings; and in extreme cases, castration." Paige details how circumcision became popular as a masturbation remedy:"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History...rcumcision_to_prevent_masturbation

An excellent article here by a bloke who was brought up half-Jewish, and didn't get circumcised until he was eight; apparently he was out of action and in pain for many weeks afterwards. To his eternal credit, he later refused to put his own son though the same ordeal:-

"I can still recall the pain of the operation, which I underwent at the age of eight. I was off school for weeks, in a state of near-constant discomfort. I remember having to sleep with a tower of milk crates on either side of me to keep the sheets off the wound. Urinating was painful. Walking was painful. I couldn’t wear anything but a dressing gown. Thankfully, no lasting physical or psychological damage was done. Although some men are said to mourn the loss of their foreskin, it has never been of concern to me."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/ch...ain-of-circumcision-on-my-son.html

Terrific guy, in my opinion.

Another bloke to be much admired in this context is St. Paul. Fascinating guy altogether - he was the original religious 'super-salesman,' in the space of his own lifetime he travelled all over the Middle East, and changed Christianity from an obscure sect to a fast-growing new religion. Never researched him in this context before - but it certainly appears, from his Epistle to the Galatians in particular, that he made a big play of the fact that you DIDN'T have to get yourself circumcised to become a Christian. Reading this stuff again, it DOES make me think that (being the 'salesman' he undoubtedly was) he used the subject of circumcision as a 'Unique Selling Proposition' - "Join OUR religion and you won't have to get yourself or your kids 'cut about' the way both the other lots demand......" For all we know, that was the secret of his success in converting many thousands of people to the new Christian religion so quickly!  http://www.sentex.net/~tcc/gal.html

Hope all this is of some interest, anyway.

But perhaps I can ask one question in the interests of continuing this lively debate. Could you - or any other Muslim or Jewish contributor - please explain, in simple terms, WHY both those religions still insist on people getting their male kids circumcised, very early in life? There is no longer any medical justification for it - and, on the other hand, besides the needless pain it causes, there's quite a lot of evidence that it occasionally 'goes wrong'; and also that it reduces sensitivity and therefore also reduces 'the quality of life'?

So why not just 'phase it out' - for both religions? What possible harm could that do?

[Edited 2012-07-24 00:43:24]