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Circumcision does not stop HIV infections

memymineown

November 29, 2011

37 upvotes

/r/MensRights

http://www.timeslive.co.za/ilive/2011/11/28/circumcision-does-not-stop-hiv-infections-hiv

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Post Information

Title	Circumcision does not stop HIV infections
Author	memymineown
Upvotes	37
Comments	48
Date	November 29, 2011 9:21 PM UTC (14 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/mtt0g/circumcision_does_not_stop_hiv_infections/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/circumcision-does-not-stop-hiv-infections.1031170 https://theredarchive.com/post/1031170

Comments

[–]Sarstan 15 points16 points17 points 14 years ago (22 children) | Copy Link

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[–]girlwriteswhat 5 points6 points7 points 14 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

We're conditioned socially to ignore male suffering, and not fully empathize with males. It's a traditional dynamic, and was necessary for a long time. You can't expect a man to trade his life for a woman's if you consider him just as human as she is. And men were expected to do this without complaint or whining, because if they were not stoic, some woman might feel sorry for him and give her seat in a lifeboat to him instead. We could never have sent a total of 10 million male soldiers to die in WWI, many of them underage and many of them shamed into enlisting, if we thought they were as human as women.

And honestly? I think if it was male babies' ears we were cutting off, we'd have deemed the practice barbaric long ago. But because it's his penis we're attacking, his suffering is transformed from a baby's suffering (which we'd care about) to a male's suffering (which we're socialized to not care about). We're okay inflicting this pain on a male baby's male part, and because he's male, he should just suck it up, right? A little circumcision can't REALLY hurt a sturdy boy.

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[–]girlwriteswhat5 points 14 years ago [recovered] | Copy Link

It's invisible because those in power--both traditionalists and feminists--and the kind of amorphous organism of society, want men held to their patriarchal obligations of self-sacrifice, putting women and children first and putting more into society than they take out.

Feminism costs. It really does, economically and socially. A lot of people believe, erroneously, that women's treatment in Afghanistan is the cause of their stagnation and poverty, when it's the result of extreme poverty and a culture of tribal warfare brought on by 30 years of proxy wars devastating the country. When wolves roam, you keep the women in cages and send the disposable men out to fight with the wolves for carrion. The men who do NOT die for long enough (or who were born into actual privilege) get power over women and other men. That's how it works.

Women's liberation isn't the cause of peace and prosperity, it's a result of peace, prosperity, and birth control. Society always had a vested interest in the wellbeing of women and children (not that they always got it right, mind you), but it is really the world that has changed in such a way that what is best for women changed.

The conundrum comes in the social and economic costs of women's liberation. Services for working mothers cost, big time. Women cost employers more than men do (which is why businesses with less than 5 employees don't have to hire women at all--there's not enough slush to cover the extra costs). Women cost government WAY more than men do. Women cost more to protect from harm now that this job lies in the hands of legal and government structures rather than in the social obligations of individual men (husbands, fathers, brothers, sons, even bystanders).

And keep in mind, too, that none of those power structures are a charity. They take a huge cut before what's left trickles down to women and children. The more protection and support women demand, the bigger those structures get, and the bigger cut they take, which means they actually need MORE productivity on the ground to feed them.

And who provides that? A woman who gets a largely government subsidized education and then only works full time for 4 years before she takes the mommy track? Her income taxes haven't even paid for her education at that point (not tuition, but the invisible share government hands directly to institutions, the share that everyone sees as either non-existent or "free money").

It's men who put in that productivity, especially economically, by generating economic transfer (purchasing power), paying more taxes, and being more productive for what they are paid (not just in wages, but in benefits and entitlements from employers). Welfare moms are no further ahead when a man is dinged for child support--the government deducts every dime he gives her off her monthly checks. It's "state support", not child support, because the child is no better off.

But this is what's necessary to feed the beast that provides for women. So all those power structures have a vested interest in keeping half of patriarchy alive, because if men walked away en masse, the entire thing would collapse. Not enough cogs to drive the machine anymore.

There are a lot of people who live in a dream world where one day men will be considered as valuable as women are now, but that's simply impossible. Society--even one as wealthy as ours--just can't afford it. So the only real solution is to expand what protections we can to men (such as protection from infant circumcision), and remove a lot of women's patriarchal entitlements (provision, protection and support).

In other words, a little less obligation for men, a little more for women, and a few more entitlements and protections for men, and way fewer for women.

In other words, it's complicated. And fixing it isn't going to be easy.

[–]memymineown[S] 1 point2 points3 points 14 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

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[–]girlwriteswhat 2 points3 points4 points 14 years ago (3 children) | Copy Link

I asked someone once what the difference is--specifically from a baby's point of view--between a doctor circumcising a baby, and a pervert doing it for sexual gratification. (Hint: the baby has no way to contextualize the motivations and justifications we project onto him or the act, therefore would experience them in exactly the same way.) Then I asked him why we lock up the pervert and hope someone shivs him on the first day in prison for violating a baby that way, but we pay the doctor and thank him for putting the baby through the exact same pain and harming him in the exact same way.

He said if I didn't understand the difference, then I "love rape". WTF?

We all understand the difference. The baby doesn't. The violation is the same, no matter who is doing it or why, and the damage is exactly the same.

I've also debated with someone who felt that because I don't oppose infant ear-piercing, I have no moral footing to oppose infant circumcision. Also, that there is only one "correct" reason to oppose it--the violation of a permanent modification to the body. The pain, danger, damage, loss of function, complications...none of those meant anything to him.

I've also asked several people how they believe legalized male circumcision and the FGM ban can coexist with the 14th Amendment, and pondered that it might take a well-funded lobby launching a legal challenge of the FGM ban on (entirely valid) constitutional grounds before anything is done about MGM. I'm told, repeatedly, that the two are not even close to the same.

There's no logic. And oddly, no empathy (for males) at the same time.

[–]TheRealPariah 1 point2 points3 points 14 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

We all understand the difference. The baby doesn't. The violation is the same, no matter who is doing it or why, and the damage is exactly the same.

Perhaps we ought to use the same analysis in most interactions. Motivation analysis always ends in the ends justifies the means approach to morality.

I've also debated with someone who felt that because I don't oppose infant ear-piercing, I have no moral footing to oppose infant circumcision

This is obviously a fallacious argument; however, why don't you oppose infant ear-piercing? I am not claiming the degrees on either side of the equation are lesser than circumcision, but that does not make it less of a non-consensual cutting of a child. Why not wait until a child is old enough to at least give input?

I've also asked several people how they believe legalized male circumcision and the FGM ban can coexist with the 14th Amendment, and pondered that it might take a well-funded lobby launching a legal challenge of the FGM ban on (entirely valid) constitutional grounds before anything is done about MGM.

A sad way to get them both banned : /.

And oddly, no empathy (for males) at the same time.

Unfortunately not odd at all. This is very common and your video on male disposability is an excellent watch discussing this issue.

[–]girlwriteswhat 2 points3 points4 points 14 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

Well, what I meant was that logical people are usually accused of lacking empathy, and emotional ones considered empathetic. Yet no logic AND no empathy, which is just...weird.

Why don't I oppose infant ear-piercing? I suppose I do, but at the same time I'm not going to kick up a fuss about it. I find it hilarious, actually, that on the one hand I'm debating people who insist circumcision is NOTHING like FGM because OMG you MONSTER! and other people who insist it's the equivalent of ear-piercing.

I can't even say that it's a genital thing versus a truly non-functional piece of tissue thing, because I would feel about the same wrt the "ritual pinprick" for girls to satisfy some people's cultural beliefs. I had my ears pierced when I was 14, and stopped wearing earrings when I (very quickly) realized I was allergic to most metals. The holes are still there, but I couldn't get a pin through them. It hasn't changed the function of my ears, or their appearance to anyone who isn't really looking, and I really don't see it as that big a thing.

Would I do it to my daughter? No. Do I think it's a good idea? No. Do I think it's seriously harmful? Not especially.

I guess I see it as spanking versus serious abuse. A lot of people will claim that spanking isn't necessary, and it's probably not. But a swat on the behind has worked for me as a parent to stop a behavior and "clear the air" when one of my kids was persistently misbehaving. A lot of people swear by "time outs", but my oldest--when I put him in even a brief time out as a toddler, he'd cry himself into virtual convulsions and he'd be miserable for an hour after, while a smacked bum stopped his behavior and in minutes he'd be fine.

So no, I don't see spanking as an evil the way I see beating a child with a baseball bat as evil, especially the fifth or sixth time he's pushed a chair up to the counter to get at the knife-block, or thrown hot wheels cars at his siblings.

I mean, when you think about it, you're violating your child's autonomy by picking him up and removing him from a restaurant when he's having a tantrum.

And that's kind of how I feel about ear piercing and circumcision. They're both totally unnecessary and arguably harmful, but I'm not going to waste any breath trying to convince parents to stop piercing their babies' ears when there are bigger fish to fry. It's a violation, but well, it's pretty minor.

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