Today I watched the little special they put together about that species that was recently discovered that everyone is calling hobbits because everyone is a dork for Tolkien these days. The special featured some pretty crude CGI to show both homo erectus and the hobbits running around and general showing off scale.
And they decided that they would go ahead and give them genitals since neither wore clothes. I generally applaud this move, previous specials with Ken dolls running around weirded me out.
But they decided to show them as circumcised. Mind = blown.
When we were trying to decide if circumcision was something we wanted for our male child, I mentioned what we were thinking about to my mother. Her response: He’ll be eternally damned if you don’t.
It was quite popular and seen as a preventative treatment for several kinds of infection. Never on the scale of societies that do so based on religion, but it was state-supported in most western European countries.
I’ve never seen a circumcized Swedish male ever, nor seen any indication that the procedure has ever been common here. But Europe is a big place, there might well be countries where it has been common.
It was quite popular and seen as a preventative treatment for several kinds of infection. Never on the scale of societies that do so based on religion, but it was state-supported in most western European countries.[/quote]
Preventative treatment for infections was the excuse; 19th century obsessions with masturbating children (and the oddities of early scientific thought, insisting it would cure damn near everything) were the reason. I enter as evidence Foucault’s History of Sexuality and Wikipedia:
“You really do not want to read anything by Michel Foucault, unless your idea of a grand time is wading through yet more swampy French prose by a chap who has very little to say and takes whole days out of your life to mumble through it. Think of Sartre at his most tendentious, or of Derrida in any conext, only without the crisp, breath-taking pace.”
Britain and France, and perhaps Germany, definitely had state-sponsored programs. The government would subsidize or outright pay for circumcision.
are you sure? “the Government” will pay in the UK as I believe it will be done more at less at birth if you ask for it and I’m pretty sure you can drop sprogs on the NHS. It was an oddity to be circumcised when I was a kid and doesn’t appear to have changed that much now.
I don’t know if it is actively discouraged, but it doesn’t seem to encouraged either.
I dunno Bull, think of the moral freedom that goes along with that. I mean, if I was already damned because of my penis before even making my first poopy, what’s a few thousand deaths by genocide from my own government hit squad going to matter?
AFAIK, the stats for infection protection aren’t dramatic or usually at all substantiated, at least in any developed country. And believe me, the Old Boy Network still kicking around in the medical field has looked into it. There has been some talk about whether or not the foreskin helps reduce sensitivity, since the most sensitive spot on the penis is the bottom of the head, where it cleaves. Touch it by itself and see! The foreskin is believed to reduce sensitivity there, specifically. But since all dudes are horny hair-triggered sex monkeys, the time-delay benefits we’re projecting are in the seconds. Also, others believe it provides more sensation, an added localized rubbing or some perverted nonsense. I think everyone it just making excuses.
Me personally, I think the foreskin was totally awesome back in the days when primitive man ran around nekkid or nearly so, for protection not otherwise afforded. Nowawadays, it’s essentially a vestigal piece of tissue, sort of like an appendix hanging off the end of your penis.
“You really do not want to read anything by Michel Foucault, unless your idea of a grand time is wading through yet more swampy French prose by a chap who has very little to say and takes whole days out of your life to mumble through it. Think of Sartre at his most tendentious, or of Derrida in any conext, only without the crisp, breath-taking pace.”[/quote]
He’s a pretentious fuck, yes, but I thought he had a point.
“You really do not want to read anything by Michel Foucault, unless your idea of a grand time is wading through yet more swampy French prose by a chap who has very little to say and takes whole days out of your life to mumble through it. Think of Sartre at his most tendentious, or of Derrida in any conext, only without the crisp, breath-taking pace.”[/quote]
He’s a pretentious fuck, yes, but I thought he had a point.[/quote]
