The following
was sent to me, it does not necessarily reflect the opinions
of Coolnurse.com.
I would
like to make some comments about your circumcision article,
as it seems quite biased in favour of circumcision. Your entire
Cool Nurse web page is so well balanced, that I really would
like to see more balance in this article.
I would
particularly like to see the inclusion of some reasons AGAINST
circumcision to balance all the "other reasons" for. Some
reasons I would like to see AGAINST circumcision follow...
1) Give
the boy a choice! If a boy or man decides he wants to be circumcised,
then I'm not against it one little bit.This is part of the
privilege of living in a free society. But these poor boys
never get a choice in the matter. They have to wear it. They
never get to experience anything but having their foreskin
removed. I would hate to lose my foreskin, and I thank God
and my parents for not doing it to me. Thank
you mum and dad.
What if
boys were offered the choice at an age when they were cognizant
enough to decide for themselves, and without undue pressures
brought to bear on them. Would that be so bad, to give them
the choice?
It is
harder for a female to empathize with this - the idea is much
less personal and threatening to a female, who would not have
to go through it herself; but imagine living in a culture
where a baby girl's outer vaginal lips were removed as a matter
of course, because it "looked neater", had always been done
this way, and this is what everybody was used to. This would
be the norm, a lot of people would argue for it, and not see
the harm in it. (BTW - I do know about the practice of female
"circumcision" and find it abhorrent). Does the mere thought
of having something like that done to you not feel threatening
and invasive?
I wonder
how many men there are out there who were never given the
choice and who wish and perhaps agonize over the fact that
they are not completely intact. Have there ever been deaths
over circumcisions? Have any men ever committed suicide or
suffered depression over it? Even if only one percent of the
entire circumcised population who feel this way, (I do not
have the stats) that is a lot of needless people suffering.
And how
many men will simply never know what they're missing, because
their parents decided what to do to their bodies for them?
Please,
give the boys the choice.
2) Sexual
Pleasure.
I consider myself lucky not to have been born in a culture
where circumcision is automatically, almost unthinkingly accepted
as the normal thing to do. I would hate to lose my foreskin,
and I can FEEL how good it feels to have one in sex and in
masturbation. The feeling of the foreskin sliding up and down
his penis is one of the best feelings a man can have in sex,
and a completely natural part of it that circumcised men miss
out on.
3) Boys
are born with a foreskin. It is a natural part of the male
body.
One of
your reasons FOR circumcision is that it "makes it easy to
keep the end of the penis clean and easier for the parents
of infant boys to keep them clean ".
I cannot
emphasize enough that it is so easy to clean a penis in a
shower or bath, just like any other part of the body. Reports
of uncleanness of uncircumcised men come from a culture that
circumcises and are so completely distorted and exaggerated.
I find
this reason to be so tragic, as you truly do seem to be such
a “Cool Nurse”, and yet you are buying into this
argument that has been repeated so many times that it becomes
an ingrained and unchallenged belief.
It is
not so difficult to clean a penis with a foreskin. Peel it
back and wash it in the shower. Use soap and water like you
would with any other part of the body. So very easy to do,
and yet so many men have lost a sexual part of themselves
just because of this silly argument. It may have made sense
in older, less sanitary times, but not in this day and age
of clean piped water, showers, soap and baths.
How difficult
is it to clean the vagina? Would it make sense to mutilate
girls' vaginas just to make it easier to clean them? Or remove
the ear lobes to make it easier to clean behind the ears?
It seems ridiculous doesn't it?
IMHO,
the unspoken and tribal reasons I see FOR circumcision are...
1) "We already do it, it's our custom and it's what we've
always done. End of story."
2) "Our religion says so."
Then any
reason that can be found to justify or rationalize it are
used in place of these unspoken beliefs...
and by not being born with a penis, you really cannot understand
the tremendous emotional significance it has to a male human
being - in the same way that I could never truly understand
what it is like to give birth.
I do,
however, suspect that your educational input would probably
suggest that the sexual experience is better for the circumcised
man; based on the overall pro-circumcision tone of your article.
I truly believe that sometimes we just select the arguments
that suit our own prejudice or bias, in the same way that
a debating team or lawyer will only select arguments that
support their case, and reject evidence to the contrary. I
wonder if your educational input will indeed suggest that
circumcised men have a better sexual experience.
Of course
you may prove me wrong here, I am second guessing, well I'll
see. I have to say again that by having a foreskin I *know*
how it contributes to my sexual pleasure in the same way that
you know how your clitoris contributes to yours. And
a woman with no clitoris would only be able to guess.
It is
so common to circumcise little boys in the USA, that it is
a "culturally normal" thing to do to boys, and uncircumcised
boys/men are comparatively rare in the 'States'.
What tends
to happen in a society is that a custom becomes acceptable
simply because it is a custom - everybody does it, and people
tend to make arguments in favour of what they are used to.
This process is similar to justification of our mistakes,
and rationalization of our wrongs. As an extreme example of
this, slave holders used to claim that their black slaves
"didn't feel pain the same way we do". This rationalized what
they were doing (E.g. whipping them) and made it easier for
them to push away any guilt feelings they may have had. An
obviously fantastic and false claim, but it did the job!
I have
observed by reading literature, fictional or fantasy, written
by females from around the USA that an uncircumcised man is
not regarded as sexually desirable, and this is peculiar to
a culture where circumcision is the norm. It is probably difficult
to imagine a culture where the reverse were true, but there
are many countries where circumcision is not widely practiced,
and the girls are used to uncircumcised men. In fact to me
it seems really strange to refer to men as "uncircumcised"
- it only makes sense in a culture where the majority of men
are circumcised. To me calling somebody "uncircumcised" is
like saying that a person is "undecapitated" because they
still have their head on!
I am now
asking myself, “Why have I spent hours composing this
e-mail until 2:30 in the morning?”, and the answer has
just occurred to me. In my view your article encourages people
to circumcise their young boys, and you are more influential
than you may realize, and I wish that you wouldn't encourage
the circumcision of babies so that more boys could grow up
with the choice to keep and treasure their foreskin. It is
not a dirty organ.
Paul
- Sydney, Australia -
Thanks
Paul, I reviewed the article and updated it to be more balanced.
Thanks for your letter and your opinion, you make some very
good points!
Good Web Resource: ~