Sunday, May 8, 2011

Circumsision in the News


Because I try to provide content of interest to the readers I felt a need to make this post for the one who is interested in circumsision. Apparently in the Phillipines boys generally get circumsised when school is in recess. The Phillipines are a poor nation and it is not always done by professionals. In order to help, some doctors gave free circumsisions to boys over 9 age at a circumsision party. One of the boys exclaimed that now he was a man.

Circumsision Party in the Phillipines

I have no idea how Phillipinoes view circumsision. I find it interesting that the boys had to all be over 9 years old, they knew what they were getting into. They apparently view it as a right of passage. Don't know how I feel about that, not really into social pressure for rights of passages.

On a side note, I decided to make tri-tip as my first oven cooked meal in my new apartment. I made a rub and a marinade from what I had lying around. My life continues to find it's new normal, I don't know if that is good or bad. I think for the moment it is good, I need to have my quiet time.

Oh, the picture. I searched for "beautiful" and it came up, the title is beautiful eyes, no idea who it is or who took the picture. Just thought I would post it.

Listening to a little Paul Simon, slip sliding away.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

i disagree with you on your statement that the 9 year old boys know what they are getting into. They are ignorant on the functions of the foreskin and what happens to the male genital when there is nothing to perform those functions. a majority of them probably never have had sex before or even masturbated, so when they do have sex it will be without a foreskin. Sex with a circumcised penis will be all they know and thus they will be ignorant on the fact that they could have had a penis that was more sensitive. i wonder how many of them would get circumcised if they had sex with their foreskin? i find it sad that people pressure others into mutilating their own body in order to become a "man." the same type of social pressure happens to young girls. i dont think they understand either what they are loosing . I do think the 9-year-old boys do understand the pain involved. They have my respect for that. They must have some idea from older men who have gone through it, but I highly doubt anyone sits them down and explains what exactly the foreskin is. How it has 20-40 K specialized nerve endings in it. Similar to the nerve endings found in the eyelids. how a callus forms over the tip of the penis because the foreskin is not there to perform it’s function of protecting the penis from abrasion and becoming dry. google what the tip of an uncircumcised penis looks like with the foreskin pulled back. And then compare it to a circumcised one.

i am not sure when someone should be allowed to give their consent to be circumcised. but my intuition tells me it should be consistent with other things in that society. what i mean by this is that if in a society a 9 year old boy is allowed to make adult decision such as consenting to sex or buying a house, drinking etc. then yes I do agree he should be allowed to make that decision of becoming circumcised but I don’t think in the Philippines’s 9 year olds can have sex or buy a house.
To be honest I am not sure ethically if a 9 year old should be allowed to cut off any part of his body. Obviously I am not including finger nails here so don’t even try going that route lol. But my point is where should it end? If a 9 year old walked up to you and said he wanted to cut off both of his eyelids because,”that would make him a man or God told him to “ should we allow that? I am ok more with a 16 year old, uncomfortable with 15, not really sure about 14, and definitely not ok with a 13 year old. This is just what I feel intuitively, I don’t know what the criteria should be for what age a person has the right to give their consent, in relation to mutilating of his or her own body.
Ethically I think it is wrong to teach children that by mutilating their body that some how this makes them an adult.