Except for drinking someone's milk.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think that about covers it.
Apparently some of us need something with which to cover it!
*rimshot*
Thank you! I'll be here all week...
Oh yeah, who would want children or less infections?
Sorry sissyl, you're going on a limb with some of these counters. You are entitled to your opinion, of course, but I just don't share it.
Also, it can be next to impossible to determine who is going to develop/have phimosis and who won't.Regarding circumcision: It is a medical procedure, and should be done to consenting people, for medical reasons, i.e. phimosis. If you have a narrow foreskin opening, there may be problems with fertility due to this, and should be corrected. However: When that surgery is performed, only the tip of the foreskin is removed, only enough that the foreskin can be retracted over the glans penis. There may be other reasons, such as repeated infections of the glans, and circumcision can be done to improve ease of washing the glans.
Every surgery comes with risks. Most critically, about 10% of surgery leads to infections, and some fraction of that is serious. Thus, surgery should ONLY EVER be done on a correct medical indication. Performing surgery "because it is the way it's done" is truly reprehensible. Especially on someone who can't speak for himself about it. You don't need to include female genital mutilation into the deal for infant circumcision to be disgusting.
As for the sensitivity issue, all those who were circumcised as children have this as a frame w reference. Those who weren't have another. Like colours, it's pretty difficult to compare these two experiences, and to claim that sensitivity is not reduced is as bogus a claim as saying it is.
Phimosis does not need to be corrected unless there are repeated infections or the person in question wants to have children. Hopefully the person is an adult by that time.
I am sorry, I have a very difficult time trying to see what would make circumcision necessary in infanthood, unless there are infections... And most never get those. "Ewww" usually isn't a good reason to make a surgical procedure on someone who can't agree to it.
Except for drinking someone's milk.
let's not take things to such a serious a level!
As I stated before: Circumcision is a surgical procedure. As with all other such procedures, there should be a MEDICAL reason for doing one. For circumcision, there are two: Repeated infections of the penis, because this makes the risk for infection that comes with surgery reasonable, and for fertility, which means you do the circumcision far later than in infancy. All told, there has to be a very compelling reason FOR surgery to do it on someone who can't consent to it - and I just don't see it in this case. The reason that "that's the way it's done" is about as far as you can come from medically reasonable.
I guess we should just let people born with extra toes and tails keep them as well.
Personally, I find the argument that it does no harm and, eew, foreskin is disgusting, a pretty compelling one.
I guess we should just let people born with extra toes and tails keep them as well.
Personally, I find the argument that it does no harm and, eew, foreskin is disgusting, a pretty compelling one.
And appendixes can be safely removed and they might kill you. Tonsils can go as well.
And, why disgusting? I mean really. Just because you're not used to it?
No. Disgust is a very human reaction, and isn't something that can be controlled. There is no amount of "uncut" porn that can make me think that looks normal.
As for your other stuff: I would have appreciated a tonsilectomy! I had chronic tonsilitis in my adulthood that, while uninsured, was untreatable.
Do you feel getting young girls' ears pierced is barbaric and disgusting? Why isn't that forced surgery in your eyes?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I guess we should just let people born with extra toes and tails keep them as well.
Terrible analogy. A better one would be to stop arbitrarily cutting off everyone's left pinkie toe (which thankfully, we don't do).
Do you feel getting young girls' ears pierced is barbaric and disgusting? Why isn't that forced surgery in your eyes?
Better, but still not that strong, as circumcision is irreversible.
Don't get me wrong -- I'm not up in arms about it either way -- but I'm personally glad that my parents refrained from cutting off a part of my penis when I was an infant, and don't particularly care if you think my junk looks funny. YMMV. ;-)
Don't get me wrong -- I'm not up in arms about it either way -- but I'm personally glad that my parents refrained from cutting off a part of my penis when I was an infant, and don't particularly care if you think my junk looks funny. YMMV. ;-)
Right, and I'm on the other side of it. I don't really care either way, but I'm grateful my penis doesn't have a flesh turtleneck.
I just resent this idea that, oh it's barbaric, oh I can't believe you traumatize a child, yadda yadda. I'm fine. I don't have flashbacks about it. It functions properly (just ask my girlfriend). Like, seriously, it's not a big deal either way.
FWIW, I could probably live without my pinky toes as well.
At any rate, I think we've clarified the reason that male v. female circumcision is an odious comparison.
The issues with male circumcision above are valid concerns to individuals, but it isn't anything like an attempt to subjugate the sexual identity of the male in question.
Yes, female circumcision could be taken to mean removal of the clitoral hood, but it is very difficult to find any organized instance of this (compared with the other). In reality, it means removal of the clitoris to aid in the sexual repression of women. Splitting hairs on that issue for the sake of argument is extremely myopic.
At any rate, I think we've clarified the reason that male v. female circumcision is an odious comparison.
The issues with male circumcision above are valid concerns, but it isn't anything like an attempt to subjugate the sexual identity of the male in question.
Absolutely.
What's wrong, don't you like hearing about my junk? :P
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
What's wrong, don't you like hearing about my junk? :P
Gah. This is one of those times when you should not imagine posters look like their avatars...
My mental image was something akin to your avatar's face...
Natural and normal are two different things, you should know that thejeff.
There are a lot of counterexamples I could use, but I'm dancing on a knife's edge here and trying not to be too pornographic for the boards...
So I'll use this one. There was a famous incident on reddit where someone posted a picture of a sikh woman who had a massive amount of facial and body hair. Does it go against western cultural norms? Yes. Is it perfectly natural? Yes, by any definition. Is it disgusting? A matter of opinion and culture, to be sure, but to me? Ugh.
I don't think I could ever be with, let alone kiss, a woman who had a goatee. If that makes me a bigot in your eyes, and an enemy in your goal of gender parity, so be it.
I think that about covers it.Apparently some of us need something with which to cover it!
*rimshot*
Thank you! I'll be here all week...
Gah!
That favorite should have been mine!
Really, Paizo?!? You need a frikkin' laugh track?!?
Natural and normal are two different things, you should know that thejeff.
There are a lot of counterexamples I could use, but I'm dancing on a knife's edge here and trying not to be too pornographic for the boards...
So I'll use this one. There was a famous incident on reddit where someone posted a picture of a sikh woman who had a massive amount of facial and body hair. Does it go against western cultural norms? Yes. Is it perfectly natural? Yes, by any definition. Is it disgusting? A matter of opinion and culture, to be sure, but to me? Ugh.
I don't think I could ever be with, let alone kiss, a woman who had a goatee. If that makes me a bigot in your eyes, and an enemy in your goal of gender parity, so be it.
I've always felt that Meatrace was a vicious anti-Grateful Dead bigot.
Gah!
That favorite should have been mine!
Really, Paizo?!? You need a frikkin' laugh track?!?
I'm not above taking credit for the work of others. ;-)
I've always felt that Meatrace was a vicious anti-Grateful Dead bigot.
What you call an anti-Dead bigot, I call a sober, hygienic person with decent musical taste.
Die, hippie scum!
No, you die, you rabid proponent of desensitizing male genitalia!
(I am not afraid to admit that I had a hard time in, shall we say, gallantly delaying, until my 20s. Imagine what a chump I would have been with a foreskin!)
Goblins do it in the street!
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
[southern accent] You might be a cultural marxist if...[/southern accent]
-You accept the mounting evidence from the overwhelming majority of scientists that global warming is real and man influenced.
-You think you have more neurons in your head than in your gut
-You dare to question the wisdom of bronze age desert dwellers that thought killing someone for doing yard work on a Saturday and marrying a victim to their rapist were good ideas.
-You will accept merely a long form birth certificate birth certificate, a long form certificate of live birth, multiple statements from family members and an announcement from a newspaper as evidence that a black man was actually born in Hawaii.
-You would rather see 15,000 in welfare go to a single mother than 15 million in tax breaks go to an exon CEO.
-You do not see a blastula with less human cells than you loose in a sneeze as a human being.
-you would rather end your own life on an opium induced high note than searing, bone wrenching agony drawn out over months while peeing into a bag in front of absolute strangers.
-You don't see the obvious fact that a happily married gay couple rasing a kid together will ruin your marriage.
I mean.. seriously. Does the right have ANYTHING to offer but name calling and relabeling boogiemen?
(I am not afraid to admit that I had a hard time in, shall we say, gallantly delaying, until my 20s. Imagine what a chump I would have been with a foreskin!)
And by this, of course, I mean 32.
Goblins do it in the street, and quickly!
[southern accent] You might be a cultural marxist if...[/southern accent]
-You accept the mounting evidence from the overwhelming majority of scientists that global warming is real and man influenced.
-You think you have more neurons in your head than in your gut
-You dare to question the wisdom of bronze age desert dwellers that thought killing someone for doing yard work on a Saturday and marrying a victim to their rapist were good ideas.
-You will accept merely a long form birth certificate birth certificate, a long form certificate of live birth, multiple statements from family members and an announcement from a newspaper as evidence that a black man was actually born in Hawaii.
-You would rather see 15,000 in welfare go to a single mother than 15 million in tax breaks go to an exon CEO.
-You do not see a blastula with less human cells than you loose in a sneeze as a human being.
-You don't see the obvious fact that a happily married gay couple rasing a kid together will ruin your marriage.
I mean.. seriously. Does the right have ANYTHING to offer but name calling and relabeling boogiemen?
Man...
I mean, yeah, I'm for all of that, but you make CM sound so boring.Vive le Galt!
|
Oh yeah, who would want children or less infections?
That is absurd, is that what they're selling over the pond?
Man, you guys are suckers. Serious suckers.
Do you have to pay for this operation?
Cleaning a penis with a foreskin is very easy, I've been doing it since I was a small child.
Of course, anecdotes are easy but there is no record of problems in the UK and I have never heard of a problem.
Honestly, it might have been hygienic in squalid, early cities but... blimey!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Cleaning a penis with a foreskin is very easy, I've been doing it since I was a small child.
Cleaning the kitchen floor with a foreskin is very difficult though.
I have wondered for some time how many men would volunteer for a circumcision as adults. I suspect you'd only get the religious crazies and hardcore body modification types.
I have wondered for some time how many men would volunteer for a circumcision as adults. I suspect you'd only get the religious crazies and hardcore body modification types.
Because the risks of either are very low and easily corrected when they arise. Often without surgery then.Oh yeah, who would want children or less infections?
Sorry sissyl, you're going on a limb with some of these counters. You are entitled to your opinion, of course, but I just don't share it.
Keep your smegma, then.
Oh yeah, who would want children or less infections?That is absurd, is that what they're selling over the pond?
Man, you guys are suckers. Serious suckers.
Do you have to pay for this operation?
Cleaning a penis with a foreskin is very easy, I've been doing it since I was a small child.
Of course, anecdotes are easy but there is no record of problems in the UK and I have never heard of a problem.
Honestly, it might have been hygienic in squalid, early cities but... blimey!
I don't think you have to pay for it, actually. I know in almost every school I've been in there's been an incident with the kid who wasn't cut being a bit..ah..ripe at certain times, but I think that's more to do with sloth than anything else. Also, my friend who grew up with phimosis would like to have a word with those who dismiss the condition. Double also, people are not often going to proclaim the issues they're having with their foreskin.
Ummmm... People actually do have more neurons in their guts than in their brains... The enteric nervous system is pretty massive...
Hmm, right. Old bromides are dangerous things. The ENS only encompasses 200-600 million neurons. Silly me.
Also, I don't think he meant it as a literal statement. He was merely saying that conservitives think with their guts, not their brains.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
[Walks through the thread without any pants on]
This thread has only improved with time.
This thread has only improved with time.
Like odious cheese.
|
This thread has only improved with time.
Is that seriousness or sarcasm? I'm honestly kind of frustrated trying to figure things out anymore. There've been some very good counterpoints on this thread to the arguments various YouTubers I've watched have made. While it IS good that I'm not blindly following one ideology or the other, I'm back at square one. What do I do? Who do I support? What can I do to deal with what people are saying is the coming collapse of Western society? I like Western society, I grew up in it. Am I a bad person for just wanting to help kids learn how to read part of the day, selling bread and soup for the other part of it, and maybe playing a few BioWare games or Pathfinder play-by-posts on my days off, while not paying more attention to the problems our society faces and doing my part to uplift humanity?
This thread has only improved with time.Is that seriousness or sarcasm? I'm honestly kind of frustrated trying to figure things out anymore. There've been some very good counterpoints on this thread to the arguments various YouTubers I've watched have made. While it IS good that I'm not blindly following one ideology or the other, I'm back at square one. What do I do? Who do I support? What can I do to deal with what people are saying is the coming collapse of Western society? I like Western society, I grew up in it. Am I a bad person for just wanting to help kids learn how to read part of the day, selling bread and soup for the other part of it, and maybe playing a few BioWare games or Pathfinder play-by-posts on my days off, while not paying more attention to the problems our society faces and doing my part to uplift humanity?
I always welcome new converts to the Church of Do Whatever Samnell Says and Send Money. We are a small movement but place few demands on members unless they're hot guys.
Seriously now, I'm guessing most of us took you for an insincere troll when you started because, well, that youtuber would not be out of place in a squirrel's diet. We get a lot of those. While I'm a snooty elitist type when it comes to ideology, I don't think the best place to get your politics is by reasoning from first principles. I think it's far more useful, and closer to how people actually behave even if they do claim they go from first principles, to ask yourself what kind of government you want and what kind of society you want to live in. Then figure out what you consider acceptable means to get to those outcomes. Start making connections between those things and you'll have an ideology. It might not be quite so axiomatic, but will probably be more durable in the real world than all the Platonisms knocking around.
For example, I'm a social democrat. But I didn't go to socialist school or learn socialism at home. I realized over time that the outcomes I preferred and the means I saw as acceptable to reach them fit pretty well with social democracy. Having that information I then read some about social democracy, specifically in the Nordic model, and picked up some new ideas from that which fit with what I already thought but probably would not have occurred otherwise.
It can be helpful to read the other guys who want the opposite things too (They always exist.) but the vast gulf of values and the like often makes it a pretty limited prospect for more than straight fact-checking. And that depends on the other guys not being 1) crazy or 2) liars. Neither of those is a great proposition in American politics.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
This thread has only improved with time.Is that seriousness or sarcasm? I'm honestly kind of frustrated trying to figure things out anymore. There've been some very good counterpoints on this thread to the arguments various YouTubers I've watched have made. While it IS good that I'm not blindly following one ideology or the other, I'm back at square one. What do I do? Who do I support? What can I do to deal with what people are saying is the coming collapse of Western society? I like Western society, I grew up in it. Am I a bad person for just wanting to help kids learn how to read part of the day, selling bread and soup for the other part of it, and maybe playing a few BioWare games or Pathfinder play-by-posts on my days off, while not paying more attention to the problems our society faces and doing my part to uplift humanity?
I've tried to stay out of this, but I really need to chime in here.
Since nearly the founding of the United States, there have been fearmongers saying that <insert threat here> are going to destroy our way of life. It's been said over and over again. Guess what? None of them have ever come to pass. Every wave of immigrants has been met with the same prophecies of doom, how <insert ethnic type here> will sully our great country and bring us to ruin. All that's ever happened is that we've become a more diverse culture.
When the civil rights movement was going on, a lot of the protests and arguments were similar to those today that come up as LGBT rights move forward. Recognition of the rights of non-whites didn't destroy the country. Neither will the recognition of anyone else's rights. They'll only make us stronger.
Fearmongers are good at what they do: instilling fear. Take a step back, take a deep breath, and realize that there is no Illuminati. There are no secret society of bad guys trying to destroy this country from within. There's just us, doing the best we can, in spite of the fear and the uncertainty.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
This thread has only improved with time.
Is that seriousness or sarcasm?
For serious. I like my Off-Topic Forums like the name says: off-topic.
I'm honestly kind of frustrated trying to figure things out anymore. There've been some very good counterpoints on this thread to the arguments various YouTubers I've watched have made. While it IS good that I'm not blindly following one ideology or the other, I'm back at square one.
Stop and think: one ideology over the other? Are there only two?
What do I do? Who do I support?
Do nothing. Support no one.
I mean, I vote, but I do it pretty cynically. There's not a lot of reason to believe complete strangers about anything.
In the first quote block you mention that you're not idealogical and you're back at square one. That's the finish line, bro. If you approach everything in life from a position of "no prior opinion" you will be a wise man indeed.
What can I do to deal with what people are saying is the coming collapse of Western society? I like Western society, I grew up in it. Am I a bad person for just wanting to help kids learn how to read part of the day, selling bread and soup for the other part of it, and maybe playing a few BioWare games or Pathfinder play-by-posts on my days off, while not paying more attention to the problems our society faces and doing my part to uplift humanity?
I'm not quite sure what the source of your crisis is, but I suggest you try mixing up the sources of media you consume. I'm reading some pretty strong apocalyptic narratives from your post, and (as Shadowborn mentions above) that is a favorite tool of manipulative jerks to control people. Your way of life is not at risk. You're going to be fine. If you're playing video games on a computer you own, you have it pretty damn good. Time to sit down and appreciate that for a while.