Why is circumcision of babies still legal in Ireland

Mad_maxx wrote: »

How come most men in America are circumcised if its predominantly a Jewish and Islamic practice?

Late 19th century medical quackery, which then became medically and socially fashionable and then just the Done Thing(tm). It was originally done as a way to reduce masturbation in the young as said practice was thought to cause all sorts of mental and medical ailments(young women sometimes suffered the removal of the clitoris for the same reason, or forced into early marriage and babies as having a kid was thought to cure "hysteria" in women).

It was also practiced as a medical thing in much of the West. Some European royal families got into it which filtered down the fashion to the rest of society. Even in Ireland if you were born before the 60/70's it was quite the "fashionable" thing.

I dunno why it stopped outside of the US though. I suspect the growth of national health services in the post war period might have something to do with it. Because it was public monies involved more procedures were reviewed and found to be not worth the effort medically or monetarily. Whereas in the US with its private healthcare system it was another box to tick that brought in a few quid for an already fashionable procedure. That's just my supposition mind you. The US fashion did spread to some places though. Good example is Korea. Before the Korean war and the influx and influence of American military to the place, along with their medical practices, it was an almost unknown thing to do, but since then it took off rapidly and now it's very widespread.

A mate of mine was married to an American and living over there in one of teh southern states and they had a boy over twenty years ago and according to my mate the pressure to chop a chunk of his willie off after he was born was pretty intense. The inferences of bad parenting, risk to the kids hygiene and health and how his son wouldn't be accepted and all that kinda thing. They brought the permission papers into them twice and cornered his wife with them when my mate wasn't around(luckily she agreed it was a stupid practice). My mate with the personality he has - the more you push the more he'll push back - put his foot down and had to do so pretty forcefully. Mad. It's probably less stupid now. I'd hope it was.

Zaph wrote: »

It used to be. Both my uncles were circumcised when they were born (around 1940), and when I was born in the late 60s my grandmother was adamant that my mother should have me circumcised. The old hygiene argument was the driving force behind her insistence, and the reason my uncles lost the tops of their willies. Thankfully my mother was having none of it and my grandmother, who was otherwise a very reasonable woman, knew better than to push it when my brother came along 6 years later.

Pretty much word for word that echoes what nearly happened to me Zed and what did happen to my maternal uncles and in the exact same timeline. My grandmother and like yours an otherwise reasonable person(quite a rebel for her age group actually) was hellbent on my mother doing the same to me. She was resistant to be fair, but the grandmother wasn't for turning. The dads family had a load of doctors in the mix and one of them told her she was being terribly old fashioned and out of touch and that calmed her down a bit, especially as the doc in question was another woman. In the end my dad just vetoed it outright.

eviltwin wrote: »

My brother and his wife live in the US and have a baby boy. He's uncut and this has been a source of surprise among their friends who have all had their sons circumcised. My sister in law has told me her female friends won't date men with a foreskin because it looks odd. Some think it's less hygienic.

Yeah they can have a hangup over it alright. And like American culture tends to do, go extreme on the yay/nay front. My only experience with an American lass gave me the strong impression that most of all they at least she didn't know what to do with a normally functioning one. Let's just say any notions that sensitivity wasn't really reduced by the practice were put to bed with her.

While FGM is way more intrusive and damaging, the two practices share a lot of cultural commonalities. It's more hygienic, it looks better, the opposite sex prefer even demand it, it's deeply traditional, it's a religious duty and it's usually mothers that are faced with agreeing and promoting the continuation of the practice.

When culture is in play the cognitive dissonance can be strong. EG Years back Oprah Winfrey was among those rightfully campaigning against FGM and yet on either the same show, or one a week later she featured some anti ageing skin cream or other that was made from or came from research into the discarded foreskins of circumcised boys and that was a little amusing for her and the audience. In fairness "I'm putting willies on my face" is amusing.

And TBH I don't really pillory her for that thinking. If she'd talked with a woman or man from a culture where FGM is "obviously correct" they'd have a very different view to her objections. When something is so obviously "correct" within a culture it can be a hard thing to shift and question. That blindness is writ large throughout human history across all cultures. This is one big reason why this stuff is hard to snuff out. I mean if you look at Jewish people, a people who hoover up nobel prizes on the regular and can hardly be described as a dumb group of folks, where endless internal argument is actually built into their faith, yet you will find pretty much every nobel recipient will have stood there, most likely proudly as they snip off a part of their newborn's anatomy in a bronze age blood rite.