1.19.2008

Speaking of circumcision...

It seems the day before I posted my thoughts on the similarities between male and female circumcision, Yahoo News ran a story on forced adult circumcision between warring tribes in Africa.

It is tragic, to say the least. Why on earth do people have to make such a big deal out of altering the genitalia we are born with? The parts we have are there for a reason! We may not always understand the reason, but often we discover we've been removing parts that people can actually use as in the case of the appendix.

In any case, how did it come to pass that circumcision is so important to one people that they would forcefully impose it on another? Just weird, IMHO.
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Not only the appendix, but also Jacobsen's Organ, a small group of cells inside the nose, that apparently detects pheromones, and was routinely removed in nose jobs - so when people were making themselves more attractive, they were also making themselves less attracted.

Not everything in the body has a purpose, some are historical/evolutionary accidents, such as toenails, but the foreskin is certainly not one of those. A small fraction of boys is born without a foreskin (aposthia) and if it conferred any advantage, they would have become the norm by now, certainly in the dry places where circumcision is supposed to have arisen for cause.

Slowly, slowly, the message is getting out. I think the strongest case is in the human rights area. Don't cut parts of his body off, he might want them.

1:35 PM

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