Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Norway's Progress Party calls for ban on circumcision for boys

jpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 207 posts

Re: Norway's Progress Party calls for ban on circumcision for boys

#141

Post by DanBC »

claar wrote: post #122
wyager wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> freedom of religion is a basic human right. Freedom of religion means the state can't tell you what to believe. It emphatically does not mean that you have carte-blanche authority to do whatever crazy stuff your religion asks you to do, including murdering infidels or performing cosmetic surgery on babies.

> does not mean that you have carte-blanche authority to do whatever crazy stuff your religion asks you to do And how shall we decide what constitutes "crazy stuff"? In Daniel 6:4-9, it was decided that it was unlawful to make a petition to any god or man except the king. In fact, this was done explicitly to provide an excuse to persecute Daniel. To help illuminate the issue, what if Hinduism required nose piercing a…

If a religion required nose piercing at 8 days that would be a mutilation, with some risks of additional harm, and no medical benefit (at the time it's done), and so it would be banned.

Re: Norway's Progress Party calls for ban on circumcision for boys

#142

Post by jquery »

Mithaldu wrote: post #126
RightMillennial wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did you get the idea that circumcision changes sexual function?

For one, it has erogenous nerves in it. Or more clearly put: Friction and pressure on certain parts of my foreskin feels really good, even if the entirety of it is held fixed and none of the friction is applied to the glans. The parts that feel good are fairly forwards, so it is unlikely that any of that would survive a circumcision. For the other, in penetration it both acts as liquid-less lubrication by allowing th…

Sounds great, but you might be overselling it considering adults who have undergone circumcision for non-health reasons largely don't report loss of sexual pleasure (some do, some report greater pleasure). And there's also the fact if you're circ'd as a baby the brain has decades to adapt, and that's where the pleasure actually is in the first place.

Re: Norway's Progress Party calls for ban on circumcision for boys

#143

Post by grandalf »

EGreg wrote: post #130
grandalf wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of those benefits go away if we wait until the person being cut is old enough to understand what is going to happen and to consent for it.

Yes they do. It's far harder to agree to do it later. And it is necessary for membership in the Israelite Nation, according to the Bible. Which means it will have huge ramifications for the person in terms of marriage, children and their whole life. Ask 1000 men born to Orthodox Jewish parents whether they regret being circumcized. And ask 1000 Orthodox Jewish men who were not circumcized whether they wish they had b…

Those are good points. I respect that some people have religious beliefs and affiliations.

Rights generally begin as a very individual thing... the right to vote, the right to free speech, etc. So the right not to have one's body mutilated without consent is pretty individual the way I look at it. It's hard (for me) to separate granting the right to mutilate a body that is not yours from the notion of the person being mutilated somehow being "chattle" of the person doing the mutilation.

But I'm not arguing that the same set of laws should apply to all groups and all cultures, but for an area where rights and protections are very minimal (such as infants) there is a lot of room for improvement.

My guess is that if circumcision were banned religious communities would not be harmed because the symbolism of circumcision would adapt to be more figurative in the same way that many other traditions are now done in a "lite" way that lacks strict historical accuracy but still holds great ceremonial significance.

But don't take my remarks as disrespectful of religion or of Judaism. I think that trying to figure out how to accomplish (broadly speaking) moral progress is very difficult, and I'd much rather improve the rights of prisoners than see circumcision ended, even though in principle I hold the view that circumcision should only occur when the person whose penis is being circumcised can consent. In the US there are much lower hanging fruit for humanitarian improvement. Not sure about Norway.

Re: Norway's Progress Party calls for ban on circumcision for boys

#144

Post by gotchange »

pugio wrote: post #131
gotchange wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a circumcised penis and I am not Jewish. Reducing the Jewish identity to having your penis circumcised is just flawed as it naturally excludes Jewish women. Jewish males can still have their private parts circumcised when they become adult as it was supposed to be the case, a rite of passage for getting into the adult world. Most of your rebuttal is centered around a "slippery-slope" argument and it is not con…

Jewish _male_ identity, obviously. "Supposed" is irrelevant (and highly debatable). What _is_ is that Jewish male identity views circumcision as one of its lynchpins. Kick away that support, and you create a powerful identity crisis. Slippery slope argument says that "we shouldn't do X (even though X is inherently okay) because it might lead yet another set of actions – Y – which is a negative". I'm not saying that a…

My supposed remark was a reference to how this ritual was practiced in other human cultures as Jews didn't invent male circumcision.

It was like "Hey boy, you've hit puberty and become a man now. Let's do this small rite of passage and cut that foreskin off your dick so you could join the rest of the tribe of grown up men"

Re: Norway's Progress Party calls for ban on circumcision for boys

#145

Post by relics443 »

The debate here seems to boil down to(from my Orthodox Jewish perspective at least):

1. There is a subjective morality that says a parent must not make decisions for a child that will affect it in a manner that could possibly be perceived as negative

2. There is a subjective morality that says to follow your religion, and one aspect of the religion is circumcising your son at 8 days old

The people ascribing to the first believe it to be an objective morality. The people ascribing to the second believe it to be an objective morality.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Norway's Progress Party calls for ban on circumcision for boys

#146

Post by Mithaldu »

jquery wrote: post #142
Mithaldu wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one, it has erogenous nerves in it. Or more clearly put: Friction and pressure on certain parts of my foreskin feels really good, even if the entirety of it is held fixed and none of the friction is applied to the glans. The parts that feel good are fairly forwards, so it is unlikely that any of that would survive a circumcision. For the other, in penetration it both acts as liquid-less lubrication by allowing th…

Sounds great, but you might be overselling it considering adults who have undergone circumcision for non-health reasons largely don't report loss of sexual pleasure (some do, some report greater pleasure). And there's also the fact if you're circ'd as a baby the brain has decades to adapt, and that's where the pleasure actually is in the first place.

I'm not overselling it since i did not attach a price tag. I said a change, not how much of a change.

And yeah, i can entirely see how different people might not give a damn about any of this. Some might even benefit. Men who're not very sensitive would have more fun without the foreskin and the direct stimulation and might not even notice the loss of the nerves in the foreskin, men with very active glands might not care about the difference in lubrication, women whose glands are naturally more productive might not care which type of penis their partner has.

Nevertheless, the sexual function is changed. There are things a circumcised penis can do better. There's also things an uncircumcised one can do better. I'm not saying either of them is better than someone else's, just different. Changed.

Re: Norway's Progress Party calls for ban on circumcision for boys

#147

Post by relics443 »

gotchange wrote: post #140
relics443 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entirely incorrect. As an orthodox Jew, I can tell you that failure to circumcize your son at 8 days old (outside of extenuating circumstances, e.g. medical issues) is one of the worst sins you could commit. Furthermore, you would be ostracized from the community, and your child will suffer socially, and emotionally. Once the child turns 13 he is responsible to ensure that he it's circumcised, and considering that he…

That's a theological critique, mine was sociological one from an outside observer. Still, the theological arguments don't work under a secular government which takes pride in separating the state from religion.

They do. It's called religious persecution.

And if a government would ban circumcision, I'd be willing to bet that all Orthodox Jews would leave. And if the government prevented that (which has certainly happened before), then it is well documented that many Jews are ready to give up their lives in order to circumcise their sons.

Update: only my first comment was theological; the rest were socio-physical

Re: Norway's Progress Party calls for ban on circumcision for boys

#148

Post by jquery »

quotemstr wrote: post #47

I love this particular controversy. It really highlights how most political opinions don't come from specific applications of universal principles, but from ingroup-outgroup signaling and status quo bias. A little part of my smiles whenever I see hypocrisy exposed.

There's a lot of yelling and very little dialogue. It doesn't make me smile at all.

Re: Norway's Progress Party calls for ban on circumcision for boys

#149

Post by sidlls »

EGreg wrote: post #65
grandalf wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, some reasonable people think that genital mutilation is OK, because being reasonable does not guarantee moral clarity. This is why many reasonable people supported slavery and other abhorrent things. I can't believe anyone would allow someone to knife off part of their child's genitals (even with anesthesia). Maybe if the procedure involved branding the Playboy logo into the genitalia (with anesthesia) it…

Nearly every Jewish male has underwent circumcision at 8 days old, and they have gone on to lead productive and very fulfilling sexual lives. Many Muslims do it as well. That is probably hundreds of millions of people right there. Plus we have hundreds of years over which to know if such a procedure had adverse effects and the incidence rates. I agree with you that if these people were all atheists then they should p…

Your argument seems to me to be that a society should permit religious groups within it to live by the rules of their religious texts. You don't support the argument with reasoning, however. As far as I can tell you're relying on some implicit notion that religious beliefs merit respect (in multiple facets) simply by virtue of their existence which is, at best, a controversial assertion.

The question of whether Jewish men proceed to success after the alteration may indicate something about the severity of the alteration, but it certainly isn't a reason supporting routine circumcision.

Your point regarding gender reassignment surgery is irrelevant and, as far as I can tell, a way to imply hypocrisy and substitute that as a counter argument for pro-abolotion positions.

Re: Norway's Progress Party calls for ban on circumcision for boys

#150

Post by jquery »

wcummings wrote: post #60
ythn wrote: post #19

This is one of those topics where people have extremely strong opinions, yet the vast majority of people affected by this practice (circumcised males) have no opinion or even a favorable opinion of their circumcision.

Yup, all these sorts of threads get brigaded by MRA weirdos. It's such a weird hill to die on, none of the "victims" seem to care.

It's dick measuring. Getting circumcision banned is a way for intact males to have the superiority of their penises enshrined into law. I'm a circ "victim" and the constant cries that I'm mutilated are barely veiled insults.
Post reply on HN