Metalogic42 wrote:I'm a bit late to the game here, but regarding circumcision:
I'm circumcised, and I've never felt upset about it at all, nor can I think of any ill effects I've suffered because of it. If anyone here is circumcised, and wishes they weren't, can you explain why?
I'm Jewish, circumcised, two kids, and I think that circumcision should end. I am also agnostic.
I also keep kosher, but I understand that any medical reasons for keeping kosher, ie fears of trichinosis, have long gone away. Still, I keep a version of kosher that for me, lets me honor a culture I have been a part of, mainly, due to the philosophical, (but religious) "Thou shalt not boil a kid in its mother's milk". That helps me think about the food I eat, and think about our relationship to animals and how we treat them.
So I am circumcised, here it looks a bit like this
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http://cigarsmokersland.com/files/how-t ... r-web2.jpg[/spoiler]
But I see no religious or medical need for it. The religious need can probably be performed with a ceremonial nick. The medical need seems to boil down to hygiene in most cases, and since this is not roughly 6000 years ago, the medical or hygiene issues in most cases can be taken care of through modern hygiene practices.
While I cannot tell you with a first person account that there is a loss of sensitivity through circumcision, there seems to be good anecdotal evidence there is, and a facially valid reason to believe there would be.
I find this page interesting, if not 1000% convincing:
http://www.jewsagainstcircumcision.org/jewish.htm especially where it states:
Moses Maimonides, the famed medieval Jewish rabbi, physician and philosopher ... Similarly with regard to circumcision, one of the reasons for it is, in my opinion, the wish to bring about a decrease in sexual intercourse and a weakening of the organ in question, so that this activity be diminished and the organ be in as quiet a state as possible. It has been thought that circumcision perfects what is defective congenitally. This gave the possibility to everyone to raise an objection and to say: How can natural things be defective so that they need to be perfected from outside, all the more because we know how useful the foreskin is for that member? In fact this commandment has not been prescribed with a view to perfecting what is defective congenitally, but to perfecting what is defective morally.
The bodily pain caused to that member is the real purpose of circumcision. None of the activities necessary for the preservation of the individual is harmed thereby, nor is procreation rendered impossible, but violent concupiscence and lust that goes beyond what is needed are diminished. The fact that circumcision weakens the faculty of sexual excitement and sometimes perhaps diminishes the pleasure is indubitable. For if at birth this member has been made to bleed and has had its covering taken away from it, it must indubitably be weakened. The Sages, may their memory be blessed, have explicitly stated: It is hard for a woman with whom an uncircumcised man has had sexual intercourse to separate from him. In my opinion this is the strongest of the reasons for circumcision.
All of that said, I also think that:
MRA groups that place male circumcision alongside Female Genital Mutilation need to learn how to a) prioritize, and b) pick their fights, and c) make a compelling argument because they are often wrong, annoying, and people are right to call them on it.
And I also think that while ending the practice of circumcision is best in the short, medium and long run, that fuck that shit, Germany is the last country on the planet to be taking the lead on this. If they want to support it fine, but they should out of some sense of history, let some other nations lead the way.
