Religion

Circumcision update

alarm clock This won’t end the debate of course. Those on both sides who know the Truth will continue to argue no matter what studies come up.. er, are published.
Nevertheless, the largest study so far, from Johns Hopkins University, of 5,000 Ugandan men asserts that male circumcision does not reduce sexual satisfaction. Moreover what differences there were in satisfaction and ability to penetrate were just over 1%, well within the 3% margin of error. They also reported that “marginally more circumcised man reported that they had no pain during intercourse, compared with 98.8% of the other group,” but do not say whether that too, was under the 3% margin of error.

15 thoughts on “Circumcision update

  1. Right, you cut off healthy part of anatomy, and it has no effect. Please, this study will surely be responded to by Nocirc and Noharm shortly I am sure.
    Look, can we all agree that there is a problem with Jews disproportionately advocating for routine circumcision? We should recognize our cultural bias (especially secular and liberal Jews, who conflate their religios sensibilities with their culture and health issues all the time), and recuse ourselves from policy decisions on this matter.
    To reiterate, the idea that you cut off parts of an organ and that has no effect is nonsense. It diminishes. The very word in Hebrew means to oppress.

  2. “They also reported that they had no pain during intercourse”
    Oh, how wonderful! If you are circumcised, it no longer hurts to have sex, which is clearly a real problem with intact men, who are always complaining about how painful sex is.

  3. Is anyone else bored by this issue? Jews who care do it because they are commanded to do it. A fair reading of the health/sensory issues seems to leave the issue about 50/50. If you feel bound by at least some aspects of Jewish law, or want to conform to the US cultural (but not non US) norms, then do it if not, don’t. Otherwise, worry about global warming, islamic terrorism, whether UCLA can finally regain its glory days in basketball, and move on!

  4. “Jews who care do it because they are commanded to do it.”
    And Jews who don’t abide by the mitzvot, never mind rabbinic add ons, which made circ more and more severe kinda like kashrut, find all sorts of mental gymnastics and lies to continue doing so without examining there reasons carefully.
    I find liberal/secular Jewish dishonesty on this issue pretty interesting myself. It leads to a lot of strange behavior as well.

  5. Why, of course, Chorus of Apes! Now, thanks to circumcision, men are finally able to sexually penetrate their partner! Hurray! At long last!
    Big Brother reduces the chocolate rations from 4 grams a week to 3 grams; praised be Big Brother for raising the rations of chocolate to 3 grams!

  6. I tend not to debate the existence of G-d on high who delivered ‘The Word’. It is easy for me to draw a series of conclusions that tells me a heck of a lot The Law makes sense. This is how you run a society, this is how you keep yourself healthy, this is how you keep from ruining your farm lands, etc… Thusly, I don’t care if G-d told Abraham to snip or it was invented by some pervert in a tent all those years ago. What _IS_ interesting is maybe, just maybe, our forefathers knew something back then we are only figuring out now, because we make the mistake to think we know better.
    And BTW, some men who are not snipped do indeed have pain when erect because the skin is too tight.
    Oh, and the world has bigger problems than this. Jews, in fact, we have bigger problems than this.

  7. “And BTW, some men who are not snipped do indeed have pain when erect because the skin is too tight.”
    And some men have pain because they were cut too tightly. But that brings back the issue that there is no one way or amount to cut in a circumcision. That there is one of the most basic lies in our society, and rampant among Jews as well, of course.

  8. lies? hardly. i am sorry about painful penises, but that doesn’t make a fact a lie! it was in response to “marginally more circumcised man reported that they had no pain during intercourse, compared with 98.8% of the other group,” which seemed to confuse prior commenting readers. moreover, you logic is terrible! i will try to set you right. no-circ is a natural state and if you have pain in this state (skin too tight) you can take human intervention to correct it. if you are circ’ed and you have pain from too tight a cut, that is HUMAN ERROR and can be corrected by all kinds of means – better education, a repair, etc… Thusly, to compare them is logically incorrect.

  9. “compared with 98.8% of the other group”
    Wow, a 1.2 % universe to marginally improve on. 99.4%, WOW! Is that what the pro-circ camps has to offer now? By all means, run with it. The claimed “benefits” of the pro-circ camp get more and more impressive all the time.
    Don’t you miss the days when you get claim it prevents hysteria and penile cancer? Ahh, those were the days…

  10. “However, Mary Crewe, director of the Centre for the Study of Aids at the University of Pretoria, says: “Sexual satisfaction is a complex phenomenon, not easily measured through a brief questionnaire … and would more usefully be measured in a qualitative way.
    “In addition, it is likely that participants in the study, believing that their risk for HIV infection would be reduced, would experience sex as better because they would be less concerned about contracting HIV.”
    The National Organisation of Circumcision Information Resource Centres -South Africa, which opposes circumcision and promotes restoration, disputes the results.
    The organisation’s adviser, Shelton Kaye, says: “The men in this study had a surprisingly high satisfaction rate. Too high, in fact, when compared against better research.”
    http://www.thetimes.co.za/PrintEdition/News/Article.aspx?id=678427

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