Circumcision: A Social Status in the UK ?

[Amazonia]

Curiously in the UK, circumcision is now a matter of social class. While the "ordinary" folks rarely circumcise, circumcision is prevalent in the upper class as well as in the Royal family.

Equating male circumcision with FGM to the point of calling it MGM

No-one here has equated MGM with FGM, or even mentioned FGM, except for you MGM enthusiasts.

This is an entirely separate issue to FGM.
It's nothing whatever to do with FGM.
We are talking about boys here, not girls.

But hey, I can understand your problem in justifying MGM without some sort of diversion.

Sallyingforth, if you want to "equate", then we are not talking avout the removal of te foreskin only, but rather the chopping off of the whole penis. Excision is not a joke: When the clitoris is removed, when the remaining vilva has been sewn....that woman cannot any more have a normal sex life.

Is that the case for circumcised men?

Not sure what to say really. I guess if for some reason i was away from a shower for 2-3 days then before i might have noticed something (being polite here!) but now there would be nothing at all. During normal life and showering once or twice a day as i do then there would not be any difference. I will say when i was a smelly teenager and didn't take as much care of my personal hygiene there may well have been a more marked difference.

brokenhearted55a said: "You remove the most sensitive parts with mgm."

Intactivist fiction. As the foreskin rubs inside your clothes you feel nothing, precisely because it isn't sensitive. The purpose of the foreskin is to protect the head! Stroke a foreskin and it is no different from stroking the shaft skin. No different at all.

"It diminishes sexual response and pleasure. That's a pretty massive draw back."

It is the head that is more sensitive, particularly the coronal ridge and the underside of the head, whether you are circumcised or not.
This is reality. If you want to claim that the head is less sensitive then you might have a point, however even this difference is so marginal that you need scientific tests to find it.

And since the head of the uncircumcised penis (and coronal ridge in particular) is exposed at all times when a circumcised man has sex (instead of poking out of the end of the folds of foreskin at the end of each "stroke) most men circumcised as adults find sex more satisfying, not less.

Add to this the fact that a slower build up to an orgasm, if it is marginally slower, leads to a bigger orgasm.

And most important of all the fact that the brain that is the biggest sex organ, not the penis.

The bottom line then is that there are far greater things that affect sexual pleasure than a foreskin or lack of it.

"I felt sorry for my last partner who was circumcised. He was much rougher as he felt very little."

I'm sure he appreciated your pity. Must have boosted his self esteem enormously.

How many more times Amazonia?
YOU are the one who keeps insisting on equating two different things.
They are apples and pears.
Two different subjects.
Not to be compared.
If you can't justify MGM, then don't bother trying to change the subject.

Sallyingforth said: "No-one here has equated MGM with FGM, or even mentioned FGM, except for you MGM enthusiasts."

Who do you think you are kidding, Sally? The term Male Genital Mutilation was coined as a deliberate attempt to equate circumcision with Female Genital Mutilation.

If you don't understand the meaning of the term perhaps you should refrain from using it until you have done a bit of research. Or if you agree with the meaning continue using it, but don't insult the intelligence of other posters by claiming it has a different meaning.

On part of the last post i did find the 'head' became lass sensitive as the skin had to thicken up quite a lot due to general day to day abrasion. This took about a year to fully settle down, initially the blisters ect were very uncomfortable. Again this is just me so might be different for other people.

Sallyingforth

For your information, a quote from the Intactivist website "Circumstitions":

Historically, FGC was known as "female circumcision" when it was regarded as a foreign custom of no particular interest. The change in name to "Female Genital Mutilation" has been one of the greatest levers in making people understand the full atrocity of it. Now Intactivists are attempting to do the same with Male Genital Mutilation.

www.circumstitions.com/FGMvsMGM.html

shouldkeepquiet said: "On part of the last post i did find the 'head' became lass sensitive as the skin had to thicken up quite a lot due to general day to day abrasion. This took about a year to fully settle down, initially the blisters ect were very uncomfortable. Again this is just me so might be different for other people."

Blisters?? What the hell were you doing to it?! I was circumcised at 29 and I am not sure if the head is less sensitive now. Sometimes I think it might be, but then at other times I am sure it isn't. After orgasm the head is too sensitive to touch.

Either way the difference is too small to be obvious to me and certainly doesn't make sex less pleasurable.

But blisters!! Maybe trade in the woollen underwear for cotton??

shouldkeepquiet said: "Not sure what to say really. I guess if for some reason i was away from a shower for 2-3 days then before i might have noticed something (being polite here!) but now there would be nothing at all. During normal life and showering once or twice a day as i do then there would not be any difference. I will say when i was a smelly teenager and didn't take as much care of my personal hygiene there may well have been a more marked difference."

When you have a foreskin the head of your penis is damp almost all the time. Did you notice this? Did you realise that it was urine that caused that dampness? Can you honestly say you could never smell it? I showered every day and retracted the skin but on warm days I often picked up a whiff and hoped nobody else noticed before I could get somewhere to wash it. You never noticed this yourself?

"Can you honestly say you could never smell it?"

Unless a guy is a contortionist, his nose never gets as close to his penis as his wife's nose would, right?

You do compare & equate Sallyingforth.

Otherwise the term MGM (as opposed to FGM) would not pop up.

Well it's taken me a long time baggins but I finally realised there is something else going on here.
I'm approaching this simply as a woman who shudders at the thought of cutting bits off a baby's penis.

You on the other hand keep wanting to bring in the non-relevant subject of FGM.

Then you seem to obsess over something called 'intactivist' which I'd never heard of and have no wish to investigate.

And now you are telling shouldkeepquiet how to look after his own penis!

Sorry, but this is not something I want to get sucked into. You go your way, and I'll go mine. Feel free to have the last words.

Sallyingforth

My only problem is that there are a number of people here on Mumsnet who take every opportunity to scream "mutilation!" at any parent who chooses to circumcision for their child.

So often these intactivists, for want of a better word, are left to spout their lies and exaggerations unchallenged. I am sure they actually believe what they say but that is because they get all their information from the intactivist websites.

The truth of circumcision is that there are small benefits (in terms of numbers saved, although the consequences of things like penile cancer are catastrophic for those few affected) and there are small drawbacks.

Whether you feel the benefits outweigh the drawbacks or not, circumcision most certainly isn't "mutilation" since the drawbacks are insignificant for the vast majority.

One last point: circumcision has become the "bogeyman", the scapegoat for all penile problems. Young men can get erect without touching themselves. By the time you are in your 30's you need physical stimulation, and in later life a man can be likened to an old car... you have to start it up by hand and jump on while it is still going! This is caused by various things but primarily because the valves in the veins start to leak.

Circumcised men who don't know any better blame their inability to stay hard on a lack of sensitivity. In truth it is an age problem (and weight problem in some cases) which is common to both circumcised and uncircumcised men. Give him some Viagra and his penis will become miraculously "sensitive" again!

I am sorry if you feel I have been bolshy, I am not normally, but I will not stand back while words like "mutilation" and MGM are bandied about as though they were fact by those who are, quite frankly, ignorant of the truth.

start it up by hand and jump on while it is still going!

Indeed, it is quite logical that as time goes by, the thing isn't going to work as on the early days. If an exposed glans es less sensitive, one can also extrapolate: active masturbation or an active sex life with all the "rubbing and chubbing" that this implies will also tend to get the thing less sensitive, right?

Amazonia said: "Indeed, it is quite logical that as time goes by, the thing isn't going to work as on the early days. If an exposed glans es less sensitive, one can also extrapolate: active masturbation or an active sex life with all the "rubbing and chubbing" that this implies will also tend to get the thing less sensitive, right?"

This less sensitive claim doesn't even make sense biologically. Sure, if there is more skin between the nerves and the surface there will be proportionally reduced sensitivity... but how thick do they think the skin gets on the glans??

There have been several scientific tests to find out if the glans really is less sensitive... and the results have varied from slightly less sensitive to no change. BUT the simple fact that you need to do a scientific test to find out is evidence itself that any difference is marginal!

you need to do a scientific test to find out

Masters & Johnson did that, and they did NOT find any difference in terms of sensitivity

Sallyingforth, it was you who used the term 'MGM', right? That is a direct comparison to FGM no matter how much you try to deny it.

why do you object to the use of the word "mutilation" to describe cutting off a non-faulty part of the human body?

Chopping of an arm, a leg, that is mutilation because that person will be thereon deprived of an essential part of his body.

A foreskin, what do you do with that? Tie a yellow ribbon around on Sundays?

It's no more mutilation than getting a haircut, plucking eyebrows, or clipping your nails.

It has no effect on any of the functions of the organ, unlike many forms of FGM (some forms of which can affect urination, risk of urinary tract infections, passage of menstrual blood, and can also negatively affect your chances of emerging alive from childbirth, and of course outside of forms that involve a symbolic snip, complete loss of sensation and elimination of any possibility of sexual pleasure).

I see you are both going for the "small things don't count" option.

So, for example, you would say that cutting off a toe was not mutilation, is that right?

Or cutting notches into the ears?

I wouldn't use the word "mutilation". But to compare to to cutting hair is just crazy. Hair and nails grow back. Circumcision is making a permanent surgical change to somebody else's body for no good medical reason and to which they cannot consent. Consent is the beginning and end of this. You cannot perform unnecessary surgery on somebody who cannot consent.

Cutting notches into the ears or piercing them and wearing earrings or just sporting a hole are not mutilation. Waxing body hair from any part of the body is similarly not mutilation.

The argument is not that it is 'small' btw.

Nor is consent an issue.
Men can and do consent to circumcision as competent adults.
Children do not consent to jabs or other medical procedures.

Whether you believe circumcision is medically appropriate or not makes no difference to the fact that it does reduce incidence of penile cancer and it does reduce rates of transmission of HIV.

"Cutting notches into the ears or piercing them and wearing earrings or just sporting a hole are not mutilation"
but is also a matter of consent and should not be performed on people unable to consent

Waxing body hair from any part of the body is similarly not mutilation. No, it isn't. I agree

Nor is consent an issue.
Men can and do consent to circumcision as competent adults.
*Yes- as you say, they are consenting adults. Not small children who can't consent.

Children do not consent to jabs or other medical procedures.
No, they don't. Because they are necessary medical procedures. Not surgical procedures that have no benefit to the baby at all.