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Well, increasingly many say it is. Most men around the world are uncircumcised...

The baby has no choice in the matter. I think that if it were banned I’d have no problem. I disagree that it being based off of religion or tradition is reason to keep it legal. Female genital mutilation is also based on that yet it is not legal here.

December 14, 2006
Circumcision Halves H.I.V. Risk, U.S. Agency Finds
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

Correction Appended

Circumcision appears to reduce a man’s risk of contracting AIDS from heterosexual sex by half, United States government health officials said yesterday, and the directors of the two largest funds for fighting the disease said they would consider paying for circumcisions in high-risk countries.

The announcement was made by officials of the National Institutes of Health as they halted two clinical trials, in Kenya and Uganda, on the ground that not offering circumcision to all the men taking part would be unethical. The success of the trials confirmed a study done last year in South Africa.

AIDS experts immediately hailed the finding. “This is very exciting news,” said Daniel Halperin, an H.I.V. specialist at the Harvard Center for Population and Development, who has argued that circumcision slows the spread of AIDS in the parts of Africa where it is common.

In an interview from Zimbabwe, he added, “I have no doubt that as word of this gets around, millions of African men will want to get circumcised, and that will save many lives.”

Uncircumcised men are thought to be more susceptible because the underside of the foreskin is rich in Langerhans cells, sentinel cells of the immune system, which attach easily to the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS. The foreskin also often suffers small tears during intercourse.

But experts also cautioned that circumcision is no cure-all. It only lessens the chances that a man will catch the virus; it is expensive compared to condoms, abstinence or other methods; and the surgery has serious risks if performed by folk healers using dirty blades, as often happens in rural Africa.

Circumcision is “not a magic bullet, but a potentially important intervention,” said Dr. Kevin M. De Cock, director of H.I.V./AIDS for the World Health Organization.

Sex education messages for young men need to make it clear that “this does not mean that you have an absolute protection,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, an AIDS researcher and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Circumcision should be used with other prevention methods, he said, and it does nothing to prevent spread by anal sex or drug injection, ways in which the virus commonly spreads in the United States.

The two trials, conducted by researchers from universities in Illinois, Maryland, Canada, Uganda and Kenya, involved nearly 3,000 heterosexual men in Kisumu, Kenya, and nearly 5,000 in Rakai, Uganda. None were infected with H.I.V. They were divided into circumcised and uncircumcised groups, given safe sex advice (although many presumably did not take it), and retested regularly.

The trials were stopped this week by the N.I.H. Data Safety and Monitoring Board after data showed that the Kenyan men had a 53 percent reduction in new H.I.V. infection. Twenty-two of the 1,393 circumcised men in that study caught the disease, compared with 47 of the 1,391 uncircumcised men.

In Uganda, the reduction was 48 percent.

Those results echo the finding of a trial completed last year in Orange Farm, a township in South Africa, financed by the French government, which demonstrated a reduction of 60 percent among circumcised men.

The two largest agencies dedicated to fighting AIDS said they would now be willing to pay for circumcisions, which they have not before because there was too little evidence that it worked.

Dr. Richard G. A. Feachem, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which has almost $5 billion in pledges, said in a television interview that if a country submitted plans to conduct sterile circumcisions, “I think it’s very likely that our technical panel would approve it.”

Dr. Mark Dybul, executive director of President Bush’s $15 billion Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, said in a statement that his agency “will support implementation of safe medical male circumcision for H.I.V./AIDS prevention” if world health agencies recommend it.

He also warned that it was only one new weapon in the fight, adding, “Prevention efforts must reinforce the A.B.C. approach — abstain, be faithful, and correct and consistent use of condoms.”

Researchers have long noted that parts of Africa where circumcision is common — particularly the Muslim countries of West Africa — have much lower AIDS rates, while those in southern Africa, where circumcision is rare, have the highest.

But drawing conclusions was always confounded by other regional factors, like strict Shariah law in some Muslim areas, rape and genocide in East Africa, polygamy, rites that require widows to have sex with a relative, patronage of prostitutes by miners, and men’s insistence on dangerous “dry sex” — with the woman’s vaginal walls robbed of secretions with desiccating herbs.

Outside Muslim regions, circumcision is spotty. In South Africa, for example, the Xhosa people circumcise teenage boys, while Zulus do not. AIDS is common in both tribes.

Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, “Long Walk to Freedom,” contains an unnerving but hilarious account of his own Xhosa circumcision, by spear blade, as a teenager. Although he was supposed to shout, “I am a man!” he grimaced in pain, he wrote.

But not all initiation ceremonies are laughing matters. Every year, some South African teenagers die from infections, and the use of one blade on many young men may help spread AIDS.

In recent years, as word has spread that circumcision might be protective, many southern African men have sought it out. A Zambian hospital offered $3 circumcisions last year, and Swaziland trained 60 doctors to do them for $40 after waiting lists at its national hospital grew.

“Private practitioners also do it,” Dr. Halperin said. “In some places, it’s $20; in others, much more. Lots of the wealthy elite have already done it. It prevents S.T.D.’s, it’s seen as cleaner, sex is better, women like it. I predict that a lot of men who can’t afford private clinics will start clamoring for it.” (S.T.D.’s are sexually transmitted diseases.)

Male circumcision also benefits women. For example, a study of the medical records of 300 Ugandan couples last year estimated that circumcised men infected with H.I.V. were about 30 percent less likely to transmit it to their female partners.

Earlier studies on Western men have shown that circumcision significantly reduces the rate at which men infect women with the virus that causes cervical cancer. A study published in 2002 in The New England Journal of Medicine found that uncircumcised men were about three times as likely as circumcised ones with a similar number of sexual partners to carry the human papillomavirus.

The suspected mechanism was the same — cells on the inside of the foreskin were also more susceptible to that virus, which is not closely related to H.I.V.

Correction: Dec. 18, 2006

Because of an editing error, a front-page article on Thursday about the effectiveness of circumcision in slowing the spread of AIDS misstated the source of a comment by Dr. Richard G. A. Feachem, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, who said that his organization would now be likely to approve countries’ plans for sterile circumcision. He spoke by telephone to The New York Times; the comment was not taken from a television interview.

And they have an even more effective sollution that circumcision...

OMG I KNOW LIKE TOTALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Its called a fucking condom!!!..................... USE ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hah they don't mention how often the circumcised men had sex or if they were outcasted from their groups do they?

and yeah it's MGM, especially the skin-stripping shit in arabia.

I support circumcision. If I wasn't cut already I would make an apt to be. IF I ever have any sons (IF) they will be.

I find it interesting that when defending circumcision people bring up silly non-sequitors like reduction in HIV transmission. So what? You know what can reduce your risk by more? Chopping your dick off entirely would work wonders and that of your partner. I'm sure with many diseases there are bits you could chop off or remove to reduce or eliminate the risk of getting a particular disease. It is entirely besides the point.

There is nothing wrong with getting circumcised, have at it. It is your body do whatever you want to it. Dont force anyone else to do it, especially babies. They can have it done when they are old enough to make the choice for themseleves.

I think that this is a pretty painful way to go about prevention of AIDs, when it is brought up.
If and when I have a kid, if it's a boy I'm not going to get him circumcised. I'm gonna tell him to be safe and know who he's having sex with. That's an easier method.

Without the AIDs arguement, the case for circumcision is pretty much on a case-by-case basis for the particular person's health.

No, I don't feel it is a human right's violation. First because there are procedures available through which foreskin can be re-grown( not that I want to, as a circumcised guy) and second because, under the law, that child is not responsible for himself and as long as it does not do the child DEBILITATING HARM, the parents have the right to do as they wish.

'As they wish' includes vaccinating the baby and cutting its hair but I'm sure those opposed to circumcision are not opposed to these.


Is that the game we're playing now? I don't think we're in a position to question the rights of other adults, especially when, circumcised or not, the child grows up just fine.

Clearly either way it's not going to increase your odds of death so who cares. Keep it; cut it off... Whatever. However if it is uncut the odds of me putting it in my mouth drop to pretty much zero. Just something to think about lol.

I will only speak for myself.

I have no doubt that my mom and dad were not violating my human rights when they made the decision to have me circumcised at birth. They made a decision they thought would be in my best interest based on the knowledge they had at the time.

I do not agree with blanketing circumcision as a human rights violation. But that is just my .02

I agree

samerphx saidWell, increasingly many say it is. Most men around the world are uncircumcised...

The baby has no choice in the matter. I think that if it were banned I’d have no problem. I disagree that it being based off of religion or tradition is reason to keep it legal. Female genital mutilation is also based on that yet it is not legal here.

I don't think it shouldn't be banned, but at least discouraged. I see no point to it unless you are an adult and you consent to it, esp for health purposes. Being a Jew, I'm also against everyone else who thinks it's essential. I was told I was circumcised in order to be closer to god. So I told everyone when I die, I will cut off part of gods penis and we'll see if it brings him closer to me.

jakebenson said

samerphx saidWell, increasingly many say it is. Most men around the world are uncircumcised...

The baby has no choice in the matter. I think that if it were banned I’d have no problem. I disagree that it being based off of religion or tradition is reason to keep it legal. Female genital mutilation is also based on that yet it is not legal here.

I don't think it shouldn't be banned, but at least discouraged. I see no point to it unless you are an adult and you consent to it, esp for health purposes. Being a Jew, I'm also against everyone else who thinks it's essential. I was told I was circumcised in order to be closer to god. So I told everyone when I die, I will cut off part of gods penis and we'll see if it brings him closer to me.

Ha ha, I'm pretty sure that God, as a spiritual being, has no use for penises.

RyanReBoRn said

jakebenson said

samerphx saidWell, increasingly many say it is. Most men around the world are uncircumcised...

The baby has no choice in the matter. I think that if it were banned I’d have no problem. I disagree that it being based off of religion or tradition is reason to keep it legal. Female genital mutilation is also based on that yet it is not legal here.

I don't think it shouldn't be banned, but at least discouraged. I see no point to it unless you are an adult and you consent to it, esp for health purposes. Being a Jew, I'm also against everyone else who thinks it's essential. I was told I was circumcised in order to be closer to god. So I told everyone when I die, I will cut off part of gods penis and we'll see if it brings him closer to me.

Ha ha, I'm pretty sure that God, as a spiritual being, has no use for penises.

Though he does seem to care a great deal about everyone else's penises and how they use them and with whom.

Delivis said

RyanReBoRn said

jakebenson said

samerphx saidWell, increasingly many say it is. Most men around the world are uncircumcised...

The baby has no choice in the matter. I think that if it were banned I’d have no problem. I disagree that it being based off of religion or tradition is reason to keep it legal. Female genital mutilation is also based on that yet it is not legal here.

I don't think it shouldn't be banned, but at least discouraged. I see no point to it unless you are an adult and you consent to it, esp for health purposes. Being a Jew, I'm also against everyone else who thinks it's essential. I was told I was circumcised in order to be closer to god. So I told everyone when I die, I will cut off part of gods penis and we'll see if it brings him closer to me.

Ha ha, I'm pretty sure that God, as a spiritual being, has no use for penises.

Though he does seem to care a great deal about everyone else's penises and how they use them and with whom.

I think you're thinking more about the Catholic sex police rather than God. It's a common mistake but the catholic church leaders actually don't speak for God. That's what the Bible is for. Full of useful guidelines with which to live your life, like not murdering people because murder is kind of painful, among other more subtle guidelines.

God really isn't the arbitrary, rules for the sake of rules God the catholic church makes him out to be. If you think about it, all (if not most) the rules in the Bible serve some secondary purpose based in health and general safety.

Grr, you made me turn this into a religious thing... rawr...

RyanReBoRn said

Delivis said

RyanReBoRn said

jakebenson said

samerphx saidWell, increasingly many say it is. Most men around the world are uncircumcised...

The baby has no choice in the matter. I think that if it were banned I’d have no problem. I disagree that it being based off of religion or tradition is reason to keep it legal. Female genital mutilation is also based on that yet it is not legal here.

I don't think it shouldn't be banned, but at least discouraged. I see no point to it unless you are an adult and you consent to it, esp for health purposes. Being a Jew, I'm also against everyone else who thinks it's essential. I was told I was circumcised in order to be closer to god. So I told everyone when I die, I will cut off part of gods penis and we'll see if it brings him closer to me.

Ha ha, I'm pretty sure that God, as a spiritual being, has no use for penises.

Though he does seem to care a great deal about everyone else's penises and how they use them and with whom.

I think you're thinking more about the Catholic sex police rather than God. It's a common mistake but the catholic church leaders actually don't speak for God. That's what the Bible is for. Full of useful guidelines with which to live your life, like not murdering people because murder is kind of painful, among other more subtle guidelines.

God really isn't the arbitrary, rules for the sake of rules God the catholic church makes him out to be. If you think about it, all (if not most) the rules in the Bible serve some secondary purpose based in health and general safety.

Grr, you made me turn this into a religious thing... rawr...

You can't possibly be talking about the Catholic Church, can you? The Pope, bishops, and priests do not claim to speak for for god? Someone should send them a memo, they have been under a very different impression for the past two millenia.

Even brushing that though, the Bible is chalk full of laws about who you can have sex with and how as well as various crazy marital laws.

And by the way i was not thinking of the roman catholic god in particular. The jewish and islamic gods as well as those of many other religions seem to have various ideas about how and when to use the penis. The sexual fixation has been a staple of most religions throughout history.

samerphx saidWell, increasingly many say it is. Most men around the world are uncircumcised...

The baby has no choice in the matter. I think that if it were banned I’d have no problem. I disagree that it being based off of religion or tradition is reason to keep it legal. Female genital mutilation is also based on that yet it is not legal here.

ugh... go find some support for your insecurity somewhere else. gawd... this is a stupid forum that sammer is using to help justify the fact that he's uncircumcised. yes... it's okay if you're not circumcised... feel better? good

You really think this topic is being brought up for no good reason? All just some petty insecurities?

God created Man in his own image.
















Except..... He screwed up on the penis. lol



Circumcision is supposed to be a sign of a covenant between man and God. Forget women though.... ever since Eve ate that apple, God has had a thing against women. This all makes perfect since to me.... I don't know why people are fighting. lol

Circumcision is NOT the same as female circumcision, which removes the clitoris. Does anyone know what that organ is for? It is NOT the same as a foreskin!

My Dad was uncircumcised. He called himself the 5 second wonder. He wanted to make sure us boys didn't go through the same. Many uncircumcised men don't have this problem, but Dad did.

Why circumcise babies? We have a friend who got circumcised at 30, because he was like my Dad in that respect and he said he wanted to do it for himself and his LTR. As an adult it was very very painful, as all those nerves had years to develop and the recovery quite long (no pun intended).

When I was single I dated and had a few relationships with uncut men. Some had foreskins that were just fine, others had foreskins that were so long (like Dad) that their penis, when erect, was still a good two inches shorter than the foreskin.

I dated a guy that had a botched circumcision, in that the shaft had scar tissue. That was long ago in the 80s and he went in for surgery to correct it.

Making circumcision a 'for all or for no-one' type topic is off the mark, and rather pointless.

Women have circumcision too. Horrible ones that are supposed to make them 'purer'. At puberty their clitoris and labia are cut off. CUT OFF!

That's like a man getting castrated! I mean WTF?!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_cutting

That's why I also think circumcision should be a choice. I do not support circumcising babies unless there are mitigating medical reasons for it. Cultural and religious circumcision are okay, as long as it's at least done with the consent of the one being circumcised.

Oh and there's this too:

`David arose and went, along with his men, and killed two hundred of the Philistines; and David brought their foreskins, which were given in full number to the king, that he might become the king's son-in-law.'
- 1 Sam 18:27

(And more, a LOT more where that came from) Just thought that might be interesting to share.

P.S. I am circumcised, and have chosen to be circumcised in my early teens.

Yeah circumcision is a human rights violation. It should really only be done with consent from an adult on their own body.

There really is no reason for parents to decide to have their sons circumcised. You don't do it to girls do you? And I'm not talking about removing the clitoris either.

Back in the day circumcising girls was the thing to do in the U.S. too, a lot of people dont know that. And they used the same arguments that they use today to support circumcision of males, all of which have been proven wrong in both males and females.

All the evidence that says circumcision is used for beneficial medical benefits has been debunked time and time again. The only stories that get into the news are the ones that support circumcision.

With the studies in Africa, they only mention the studies that say HIV infection is reduced in circumcised groups in three studies. What about the studies that show that being uncircumcised reduces the chance of infection? The media conveniently forgets about those studies.

And someone mentioned on here that there's no chance of putting an uncut dick in your mouth, why not? Why would you say something as stupid and shallow as that?

The foreskin produces enzymes that are antibacterial and antiviral. And those enzymes have been known to kill HIV cells. And there are more nevres in the foreskin than in the tips of your fingers.

So how is that not violating someones rights by cutting off the prepuce of the penis?

It wouldn't be acceptable to cut off breast tissue of girls without their consent would it? I don't believe so.

samerphx saidWell, increasingly many say it is. Most men around the world are uncircumcised...

The baby has no choice in the matter. I think that if it were banned I’d have no problem. I disagree that it being based off of religion or tradition is reason to keep it legal. Female genital mutilation is also based on that yet it is not legal here.

The same argument could be made about parents who pierce their children's ears. Body modification of someone who does not have the ability to say yes or no.

That aside, I have no issues with circumcision. Not for any reason other than freedom of religion, and a lack of any evidence that the removal of foreskin in any way detracts from the quality of life of the child.

Sedative said
......Oh and there's this too:

..."David arose and went, along with his men, and killed two hundred of the Philistines; and David brought their foreskins, which were given in full number to the king, that he might become the king's son-in-law.'
- 1 Sam 18:27

(And more, a LOT more where that came from) (my emphasis added)......"

That last sentence is ambiguous as to interpretation. Are you by any chance referring to the accounting on an ancient monument at Karnak when King Menephta of Egypt defeated the Libyans and their allies around 1300 B.C?:

Phalluses of Libyan generals.....................6
Libyan phalluses cut-off......................6,359
Siculian phalluses cut-off......................222
Etruscan phalluses cut-off.....................542
Greek phalluses presented to king.......6,111

(Ref: Sex - A Man's Guide. by: S Bechtel, L. Stains, ed. Men's Health Books. Rodale Press. 1996.