Getting a little snippy
Study shows that circumcision reduces risk of contracting AIDS by 70 percent!
(Can’t wait to hear what Heshy thinks of that).
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Yeah, screw condoms, circumcision hurts a lot less.
According to Maimonides, the following is one of the reasons for circumcision : The foreskin in the most sensitive part of the organ. Its removal reduces sexual pleasure. God wanted His people to be refined, motivated by high ideals rather than base sexuality, and to not be so swayed by sexual desire.
You mean the goys are having a bigger blast?
Now that’s something to kvetch about…
Ari: can’t say i’m a fan of rubber either but without it one might well be screwed in more ways than one.
Well, I guess I am lucky that I was snipped!!!
“Although the apparent protective effect of circumcision has been noted for more than 20 years, doubts linger as to whether circumcision itself is protective, or whether the lower risk may be the result of cultural practices among those who circumcise. ”
This COULD be a spurrious correlation.
ezra writes:
“According to Maimonides, the following is one of the reasons for circumcision : The foreskin in the most sensitive part of the organ. Its removal reduces sexual pleasure. God wanted His people to be refined, motivated by high ideals rather than base sexuality, and to not be so swayed by sexual desire.”
Yes, we’re all so very refined thanks to circumcision. That’s why none of us suffer from sex addiction or cheat on our wives.
I heard that a significant percentage of Ashkenazi Jews are immune to HIV/AIDS (irrespective of circumcision).
Issac where did you hear that?
As a science writer, I keep up to date on this stuff:
1. As I recall from a report last year, (this isn’t the first study on this) most researchers agree it’s something about the tissue of the foreskin itself, not cultural practices correlated with circumcision. The study I’m thinking of was done in India. Even if it was related to cultural practices, I doubt they were north american/european cultural practices.
2. Ashkenazic immunity is a MYTH. However, there is a grain of truth: HIV uses the same techniques to infiltrate cells as Ebola, Marburg, and other hemorhaggic viruses do. A large proportion of Ashkenazi Jews, along with anyone whose recent ancestors lived in Poland, Hungarian, the Baltics or Russia and Ukraine (generally, north-eastern Europe), have a mutation which makes their cells more difficult to infiltrate by viruses that use this technique. Some infectious disease researchers have argued this is because the Black Death wasn’t bubonic plague, but actually a hemorhaggic virus. Outbreaks of the Black Death persisted in northeastern Europe until about 300 years ago, and pretty much killed off anyone there who wasn’t resistant.
The reason Ebola, etc doesn’t select for this mutation in SubSaharan africa is that the population is so spread out that outbreaks are pretty contained, unlike medieval europe.
Note that this is just a hypothesis, still controversial, and that people with this mutation are STILL VULNERABLE to HIV and hemorhaggic fevers. Just not quite as much as everybody else.
Cheers.
K,
I never said that circumcision actually worked to refine the Jews, or make us less sexually driven than anyone else! I’m just pointing out that Maimonides thought that that was a reason for it.
Ben Yamin,
I’m afraid to say, but I think the goyim ARE having a bigger blast. On the other hand though, the circumcised penis is – arguably – more attractive.
Maimonides was quoting Arab medical sources, and the quote appears in The Guide to the Perplexed – which was addressed to the court of the mufti in which Maimonides served as court physician.
In his 14 volume encyclopedia of Jewish law (Yad HaHazaka) this claim does not appear – because in that work he limited himself only to Jewish sources.
An Israeli doctor surveyed Soviet immigrants who underwent circumcision in adulthood. One third said sex is worse, 1/3 said it’s better, 1/3 said no change.
They found a correlation between the reason for circumcision and the responses. Most of the guys who got cut for “external” reasons – because their girlfriends wanted to, or because they were ashamed – were among those saying sex was worse. Those getting circumcised because they, themselves wanted to were mostly in the “no change” and “sex is better” groups.
So it seems the most important nerves are between the ears…