Infant circumcision: a grotesque practice that needs to stop

This is my article that ran in the October 20th issue of The Advocate.

While female circumcision is rightly considered by Americans to be an inhumane practice, male circumcision, a practice performed on more than 1 million American infants each year, is usually shrugged off by the public as benign.

I’d like to suggest that it is actually far from benign, but in fact, is a rather awful thing someone would feel obligated to do to their child.

First, let’s identify what circumcision actually is. Circumcision is the removal, sometimes surgically, sometimes not, of the foreskin of (usually an infant’s) penis.  It’s mutilation. If you were forced to explain this to someone who had never heard of circumcision and revealed that you were part of a society that practiced that, I imagine they would run away from you as fast as possible.

The most common arguments put forward in favor of infant male circumcision include “It looks better that way” (aesthetic), “It’s more hygienic” (hygiene), “It’s better that a boy looks like his father/everyone else” (conformity), “It lowers your risk of STDs” (disease), and “It’s my religious freedom to circumcise my son” (religious).

None of these arguments hold up, and while the default position should be “leave children’s body parts alone unless medically necessary,” it evidently isn’t, so I’m going to hopefully show why these reasons simply aren’t persuasive.

Let’s look at the aesthetic and hygiene arguments. These are two that pretty much all men should find insulting. Think about this: what if you lived in a society that instead of circumcising newborn boys, gave all of the newborn girls breast implants? Most people who are attracted to women would probably find that more aesthetically appealing once the girl becomes mature, so it makes just as much sense, right? Most people should find that disturbing and feel insulted that someone would use that as an excuse to do something like that to an infant.

As far as the hygiene argument is concerned, if there is indeed a reason to think that foreskin makes it less sanitary, then ideally we should be reminding boys to be thorough when washing themselves. It’s offensive to me as a male for people to think that men are somehow incapable of sufficiently washing themselves so much that the proper course of action is to cut off a piece of their body.

If we applied this line of thinking consistently, we would almost certainly feel perfectly okay cutting off the tips of infants’ fingers because sometimes it’s hard to clean under their nails. Clearly, this is not ideal.
Next, there is the conformity argument, which has a component of parental sentimentality to it, which I find understandable, however misplaced it may presently be. Still, there is a much simpler solution to this problem than an uncalled-for surgical procedure.

What parents really should do if the subject comes up is communicate to their children that you cared enough about them to not unnecessarily remove a part of their body; they are fine just the way they are, and that there’s no reason to feel different or ashamed whatsoever. It needn’t be so drastic of a conversation that it needs to be pre-empted by surgery.

The disease argument is slightly more complicated in that there is some evidence that if you’re circumcised you have a reduced risk of contracting HIV. However, this is only true if you live in a country that is extremely high risk for AIDS, and you have no plans on using a condom.

Condoms are significantly more effective at preventing STDs than circumcision, and even if circumcision was better at preventing STDs, that doesn’t mean kids should be circumcised when they are infants and have no possible way of contributing to the decision.

Any potential benefits gained from the operation only mean something once a person is sexually active, which means there is plenty of time to wait so that whoever is potentially having part of their body removed can be asked if they want to do it first.

Even after all of those, the least defensible argument still, is the religious argument. As far as the United States goes, your freedom to practice your religion ends at your causing harm to other individuals.  This should include medically unnecessary (not to mention potentially dangerous) operations to highly sensitive organs, or medically unnecessary operations, period.  We don’t allow people to bring harm to their children due to practicing their religion in any other case, so why does circumcision get a free pass?

It’s 2011. When are we going to realize these kinds of effectively barbaric practices shouldn’t be defended anymore? We stopped letting people sacrifice each other, now it’s time to stop letting them maim each other as well.

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Why I'll Probably Never Vote for a Republican

There are many reasons why I will never vote for a member of the Republican party (as long as it stays in the state that it is now), but if you watch the entire video, you will see why this reason is by far the primary reason why I could never allow myself to vote for one. These are all the current Republican candidates for President, and frankly, I'm fucking disgusted.

Listening to People's Conversations

I'm taking 18th Century Philosophy this semester, which means even if I don't partake in pre-class conversations, just listening is usually mentally stimulating to some degree. While in many cases I don't agree with people have to say, it will get me thinking about what I would say if I was a part of the conversation. I actually pretty sure I listen more attentively when I disagree with people; I just find it more interesting.

Today was no exception. I was sitting waiting for class to start and I heard a girl mention how she hates it when people say they don't have the ability, resources, or money to be able to do things like go to college, get a job, or anything like that. She claims she got to college and is doing everything that college entails, including the financial stuff, all by herself. I find it entirely unlikely that this is the case.  People are not these beings in vacuums that can just do whatever as long as they have enough willpower.  My guess is it's unlikely she is doing everything it takes to get through college by herself. She seemed to be around my age so it's probable she enrolled in college immediately after finishing high school, meaning she probably isn't paying for it out of her own pocket.  Even if she got loans, she had to have gotten a co-signer with good credit, be it her parents or whoever.  This means she had to have had a guardian who could have done so.  Not everyone has access to these sorts of things. Unless you're going to take less than 12 credits in a semester, college is going to cost you about $6000/year, which isn't cheap, much less affordable, to someone who has just finished high school. If you attend college, paying for it completely out of pocket, and take less than 12 credits per semester it's going to take you forever to graduate.  There's nothing wrong with taking your time getting through college, but I'm sure most people don't want to remain in college forever.

My guess is the reason she believes in this sort of "ultimate responsibility" for the situation in which you find yourself comes down to a couple of things. One, is this major American capitalist ideal that you can make anything you want of your future with enough hard work (the other is the idea of the "soul", but I'm not going to get in to that in this post because I don't think it's as major of a contributor as the other) and due to the fact that I live in a highly conservative area, someone having this attitude here is not a surprise.  Yes, I believe in personal responsibility, but I think the majority of people, at least in this country, disregard environment as a strong contributing factor to one's ability to "make their dreams a reality".  An analogy that I think is fitting is an leg amputee who really wants to play football.  Sure they may be able to keep themselves in shape, even without legs, but they could never make their dreams a reality without money, which would allow them to get legs that may make it able for them to play football.  This is something that is an imposition upon their will that is not up to them.  One's environment can do exactly the same thing.  This is why people in poor areas of America tend not to be as educated.  Kids who grow up in these areas end up working more hours at earlier ages than people who can afford to go to college and have a nice standard of living.  They can't spend the time in order to better themselves or go to college, because they have to spend their time helping to feed and house their family.  They can't just make themselves able to educate themselves, go to college, and free themselves from the burden of poverty, just like the amputee can just give themselves legs or the money to get new legs; it's the same type of imposition on their freedom.

This attitude of responsibility for not just actions, but for your entire situation/environment, is one of the main reasons why the conservative element of our society is so against entitlement programs like welfare, social security, and even progressive taxation and public education.  Now it's universal health care.  Sure, we have to have people be responsible for contributing to society but I think people acknowledge that they don't just make who they are out of nothing, and they certainly don't do it without any help.

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First post

Hello!

I may see about changing the title of this blog, assuming I keep it, but I was watching 30 Rock while trying to think of a title, and that came up on the show.

Anyways, this will probably be used for me to talk about whatever, there won't be an official theme.  Potential topics will likely include: whatever the hell I decide to write about.  I will take this opportunity to let you know that I am majoring in Film Studies with an emphasis in Production and a minor in Philosophy. I am fortunate enough to be able to study two of the things I enjoy most in life. Over approximately the past 5 years the majority of my beliefs about life, reality, morality, politics, religion, etc. have changed.  Several of these things will probably become fodder for future posts, which is all I will say about that for now.

If only there was a publish button so people could read this...

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