fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3321 ]

[ SECRET POST #3321 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3321 ⌋

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[Charley's Aunt, Some Like it Hot, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Victor Victoria, & Casanova's Big Night]

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[Pokémon Conquest]

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[Kat Blaque, V-Blogger]

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[Bleach]

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Notes:

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'm a former ancient Judeo-Christian theology major and I can shed some light on the practice and how it became so popular in the modern world if you're interested?

Edit: for clarification, I understand 100% why people react to it with such squickishness, I just also happen to know a lot about it. Not sure what THAT says about me.

Edited 2016-02-06 22:51 (UTC)

If you would like.

I mean, I get that back in the day people thought it was cleaner or would stop masturbation. That doesn't mean I think it should be considered normal. People also used to think lobotomies were an awesome thing to do.

And (probably most controversial) I think it should be made illegal for religious purposes as well.

Religiously it got its start a long-ass time ago, and since ancient Jewish understanding of anatomy considered the penis the seat of creation (and creation = good, like God), it made sense to make the mark of belonging to this chosen tribe penis-related. A lot of ancient Jewish and later Christian practices and anxieties (including problems with gay people!) can basically be traced to tribal differentiation, but this is a little bit more--it's a permanentness and non-disabling way to mark the most "godly" part of the human form, and say hey, I've understood, I'm choosing and Doing this God Thing, I'm in.

Obviously saying the penis is the mostly godly part of the human form is about as patriarchal and worrying a statement as one can make but it roughly lines up with the philosophy of the times.

It was also practiced in Australia, the Americas, and Polynesia by some indigenous peoples there, long before contact with Judaism is plausible. Christopher Columbus, everyone's favorite piece of shit, reported circumcision among the Native Americans he encountered, and the Incas, Aztecs, and Mayans occasionally circumcised too. In these cases it was likely related to sacrifice (especially in South America) and a test of bravery or manhood in Oz and Polynesia. But I digress.

Anyways, you're right that circumcision became more common in the west (Jewish families would have carried the tradition on obvs) as a sanitary measure or to prevent masturbation. The sanitary measure actually almost makes sense, as germ theory was coming into its own and there was a concentrated effort to remove things that gathered disease from one's life--like rusty surgical implements, or foreskin, which was thought to harbor germs. And in fairness, the foreskin contributed to the buildup of smegma and other ick that could resemble the effects of sexually transmitted diseases and other yuck. So it's not quite the capitalist measure that it might first appear. After the germs and anti-masturbatory panic died down it mostly continued because new fathers would think, "well, it's what mine looks like," and it thus became incredibly normal.

SOURCE: briefly but seriously considered getting a PhD in Judeo-Christian history, was going to maybe write a dissertation on circumcision.

Anyways, it can't be outlawed in legal circumstances for precedent-setting reasons. Also insofar as mutilations go it's pretty harmless (I know, I know, that's a REAL loaded sentence), especially as compared to female "circumcision," which serves no purpose EXCEPT to make sex less pleasurable. Male circumcision is elective to be sure but does not effect the pleasurability of sex or the functionality of the penis. Plus, IIRC it provides a marginal (very marginal, but hey!) benefit in STD prevention.

But if we outlaw the bris we outlaw an ultimately harmless religious tradition dating back thousands of years, and do so at the expense of one of the most prosecuted religious groups in history. I have no particularly strong feelings either way, but the hole that would need to be blasted open in the legal system to make circumcision illegal would be big enough to drive trucks through. Big, bigoted trucks. So I worry about that.

And it's not like it can be made illegal in non-religious setting either without reconfiguring the law in a big way (I'm speaking about the US here), only because then we've got things that are illegal for one religion but not for another. Plus, what's the test? Does a rabbi have to show up and say "these parents are Jewish enough, snip away"?

All of this aside I do agree with you it's a thorny issue and an outdated, unfair practice. I also understand why it hasn't gone away.

Apologies if this is long or unsolicited. As previously stated there was a time in my life I seriously considered a dissertation on this, and it's rare I get to talk about it. :P

See, I don't get why it matters if it religious. FGM is a religious process in some cultures. Should it be legalized?

The feelings of some people in a religion should not outweigh the fact that infants are being mutilated. If it is such an important aspect of their religion, they can wait until people are old enough to choose for themselves to get circumcised or nor.

The benefit about STD prevention is in regards to HIV. And honestly, if you are relying on your lack of foreskin to protect you from HIV, you got bigger problems to worry about.

And mostly harmless ignores the 100+ infants that die in the US every year from a completely unnecessary surgical procedure.

I'm gonna answer you point by point but I want to make one thing clear: I am no great advocate of circumcision! I'm just gleeful for the chance to talk about something I seriously considered studying for the next ten years of my life. :P

FGM can be banned despite its religious element for the same reason stoning an adulteress (to use an extreme example!) can be even though it, too, has religious elements in some cultures--it's actively harmful. Cutting off the foreskin, while I'm sure it stings like shit for awhile, is not. You're right, 100+ infants do die a year due to circumcision, but I'm guessing (and fully willing to admit I could be wrong!) that most of those deaths are due to infection and therefore preventable and also not intrinsically due to circumcision. I agree with you on principle, I really do, I'm just (cringe) playing devil's advocate.

FGM presents a lot of problems down the line, including the risk of complications during pregnancy and childbirth and many more. Circumcision, as I said, does not have any long term effects on physical or sexual function.

And honestly, if you are relying on your lack of foreskin to protect you from HIV, you got bigger problems to worry about. Oh, I couldn't agree more. But it is something people bring up so I thought I'd mention.

The reason parents don't wait is probably comparable to the reason most Christian parents christen or baptize their baby--it's spiritual salvation. It's not about making a choice on the infant's part, it's about the parents demonstrating to God that they know what's what. There's actually a scene in Exodus where God basically halts the action to be like "Moses ya dumbshit did you SERIOUSLY not circumcise your baby son?!"* So there's scriptural precedence for the importance of performing the bris when the child is still an infant. God is a verb in Judaism.

All of this being said I do want to emphasize that you are making incredibly valid points. I just happen to know a lot about the subject and can speak to why it's still so widely practiced and why trying to make people stop is incredibly thorny.

*Due diligence--He could also be saying "did you seriously not circumcise yourself?" People read it both ways.

So much religiously motivated bullshit. You are preforming unnecessary surgery on infants and running serious risks for very minor benefits outside of individuals with chronic urinary tract infections. You are depriving that individual of the right to make their own choices about their body, and the kind of attitude that this practice has engendered about the male body is just awful, how it is 'disgusting' and 'flawed' and we must fix it so we can stand to look at it. And if you allow this to go on, there is no good argument not to also allow certain kinds of female circumcision as well. The removal of the clitoral hood is no more harmful than the removal of the foreskin and equally justified by religious practice.

This was all really interesting! Thank you for sharing your knowledge on this topic. I certainly feel I know more about the history of it now, and understand the issue a bit better.

I thought it was because if you lived in a sandy place then circumcision made sense because sand got under the foreskin and caused infection. Then that got dressed up with some bullshit because people will believe a fictional beard in the sky over actual experience. From there on cultural inertia took over with the beardites taking issue with any proposed change because they were scared it would invalidate the belief in the skybeard, and then the priests would all have to get proper jobs and earn respect on their own merits.

Female circumcision started because of MRAs and Vox Dei-ers in ancient times waaaaaah-ing about how if men had to get their pee cut to prevent it going rotten and dropping off after foreskin infection from sand particles irritating it, then women had to suffer something too even if there were no damn reason for it. Because no matter the era MRAs are babies and just want to hurt women.

I do, too. I don't care *what* sky-god said, you don't get to mutilate your infant. When he's 18, he can choose to do it to himself if he wants (though i'm sure plenty of boys would feel peer-pressured into it), but stop cutting on infants.

Would be interested.

Can't speak to the accuracy but CollegeHumor's "Adam Ruins Everything" did an interesting circumcision segment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCSWbTv3hng

It talks about how the practice is useless and weirdly practiced in America but few other developed countries.

America's status as an Experimental Nation is probably relevant here, as the absence of really, really old institutions left a vacuum where ideas like circumcision--as an anti germ and masturbation thing, which Adam Ruins Everything touches on--could really take hold. But that's my conjecture.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #3321 ]

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