There's a lot to swallow, but the deft reporting hands at US News & World Report do a good job of pulling back the outer layers of controversy and concentrating on the most sensitive areas that are the thrust of the debate that's coming to a head around infant circumcision. The article titled, "Circumcision Debate Cuts Deep," takes a long, hard look at the ins and outs of recent scientific studies which are rubbing some people in the circumcision community the wrong way. [Oy, how long do I have to keep this up?]:
Controversy over the foreskin's role in sexuality recently flared anew. A study published last week in the Journal of Sexual Medicine suggests that circumcision, contrary to popular belief, does not reduce the sensitivity of the penis. It follows on the heels of another study, sponsored by critics of circumcision and published in the urology journal BJU International in April, that reached the opposite conclusion.BJU? Is that an accredited program?
Contrary to the press office's pumped up, self-pleasing claims of "debunking", parents facing the cut-or-not decision will find the details of the JSM study, which was conducted at McGill University, slightly informative, but ultimately too narrowly focused to be definitive. McGill students with a penis for rent, meanwhile, will find them a great source of beer money; and parents of clinical psych TA's will find themselves trying to steer the conversation back to hockey as quickly as possible.
The BJU survey focused on men in Korea who were circumcised as adults. Neither study addressed the real question about circumcision: "Will it hurt or help his chances of getting laid?" One thing's for sure, though: we must all use the term, "intactivist" as frequently as possible. I think I need a tissue.
Circumcision Debate Cuts Deep [usnews.com via tmn, cut banahna cut banahna image:sydney star observer]
McGill researchers use videos, high-tech sensors to measure arousal
The Effect of Male Circumcision on Sexuality [urotoday.com]
Previously: Re: Your Son's Penis
You really do crack me up.
As a man circumcized at birth and who's perfectly satisfied with how his member looks and feels currently, I still think its barbaric to perform cosmetic surgery on an infant with no ability to consent. That includes circumcision, ear piercing, or Asian eye surgery.
[do they do eye surgery on babies?? -ed.]
Yeah, they do do that surgery on newborn infants. From Salon.com:
For Soo-Young Chin, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Southern California, having the eyelid surgery done at birth, as some parents choose to do to their children, is no different than circumcision or a clitorectomy. "When I was studying in Korea, I saw a lot of women with double lids. I asked one woman why, and she said it was because her whole generation was born that way. Obviously her mother had had it done to her at birth, and never told her. Well, she'll figure it out when she has kids of her own."
Here in SF there's a huge Asian population and I see 1 and 2 year olds with double lids all the time.