BC Health Pays to Restore Man's Foreskin

[Esoterix]

Well, yes, you were lucky to not be abused - wouldn't you agree to that?

Of course. But I was questioning the obvious. Why are people abusive? Where does that come from? It's often pointed out that animals get along better.

I think Kelly was speaking in general terms about abuse, and I was responding in general terms about how those abused respond.

Shouldn't the focus be on the why of the thing, other than just declaring that people are rotten? Why are they rotten? Where's the foot that got in the door?

Does asking make me suspect as an abuser?

And?

Actually that exact question does make me suspicious.

And actually, I'm not surprised. Nor do I expect you'll ever seek an escape from what I see as a glass prison. Eventually you'll follow the others into the ether and your body will return to the Great Fertilizer System.

Really though, in a philosophical sense of the term (which is different from the legal sense of the term) we have all abused people and we have all been abused by people. People are abusive by nature, but they don't generally mean to be.

And the why of that? Have you pondered what might have gone haywire with the human psyche? Where will humanity be in the future, say another hundred years, if it all hangs together that long? What, a madhouse of clawing and scratching at each other's throats, everybody too insane to even use clubs to beat their own people to death?

At the rate it's going it doesn't look very promising.

[Esoterix]

I posted the above before I noticed your interests listed in your profile. I apologize; I did not mean to lead you on.

You didn't. No apology necessary.

But surely you're enlightened enough (astute enough) to understand that I despise romance. It's where all the other crap came from; it's where the others took their cues in human seduction.

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

I despise romance. It's where all the other crap came from; it's where the others took their cues in human seduction.

Okay, that follows better. The catch phrase is "sex sells" but the real sale is in getting the consumer to fall in love with the product. Sex is just rutting, but possessive love comes from romance. Good observation.
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[Nordicvs]

Esoterix, I think you're viewing circumcision as a natural thing humans have always done, like cutting the umbilical cords, a necessary act of birthing. Nothing could be further from the truth. In this thread, I got into a bit of where this originated. It's a series of residual cultural practices branching off far older castration practices (ritual male sacrifice for religions). Nothing natural about that. In fact, it's kind of sick...there's something quite ugly about this.

"Missing one's foreskin" isn't really the point---I don't miss mine, as far as I know...hell, I never even knew what the hell a foreskin was until age 15. The point is that (a) it's unnecessary surgery, (b) it's sexual mutilation of infant without its consent, and (c) it's now proven to be cruel and inordinately stressful for a baby. (The "do no harm" policy of physicians alone makes this obscenely unethical.)

To help in determining the degree of pain and stress caused by circumcision, infant response was compared to that resulting from other procedures. Levels of cortisol (a hormone released into the blood in response to stress) and behavioral responses were recorded for newborns undergoing circumcision, heel-stick blood sampling, weighing and measuring, and discharge examination. Circumcision resulted in significantly higher levels of behavioral distress and blood cortisol levels than did the other procedures. Since the infant is restrained during circumcision, the response to the use of restraint was similarly tested and was not found to be measurably distressing to newborns.

Circumcision is a surgical procedure that involves forcefully separating the foreskin from the glans and then cutting it off. It is typically accomplished with a special clamp device ( see Fig. 2 ). Over a dozen studies confirm the extreme pain of circumcision. It has been described as “among the most painful [procedures] performed in neonatal medicine.”( 2) In one study, researchers concluded that the pain was “severe and persistent.”( 3) Increases in heart rate of 55 beats per minute have been recorded, about a 50 percent increase over the baseline.( 4) After circumcision, the level of blood cortisol increased by a factor of three to four times the level prior to circumcision.( 5) Investigators reported, “This level of pain would not be tolerated by older patients.”( 6)

From.

Hey, I'm no goddamned bleeding heart, but this shit is barbaric...male and female sex organs should be left the fuck alone unless the child later, in its teens, expresses an interest in undergoing the procedure, whyever they would I'll never know.

(Oh, and Elizabeth: thanks for the link here---forgot to mention that.)

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

Everyone considering having their son circumcised should watch this video before deciding to have it done:
video of routine circumcision with anesthesia

I wonder how many guys recall their own circumcision? The more traumatic the event, the more firmly a memory is planted in someone's brain. I have some memories of being a baby, and the things I recall were not nearly so traumatic as what is on that video - therefore I imagine it is quite possible that someone does actually remember going through this.
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