Originally Posted by
IsItAllOverMyFace?
The people pushing circumcision in Africa are only interested in promoting male circumcision for its own sake or anything-but-condoms/safer sex, rather than in fighting HIV/AIDS.
There are seven African countries where men are more likely to be HIV+ if they’ve been circumcised: Rwanda, Cameroon, Ghana, Lesotho, Malawi, Swaziland, and Tanzania. Eg in Malawi, the HIV rate is 13.2% among circumcised men, but only 9.5% among intact men. In Cameroon, the HIV rate is 4.1% among circumcised men, but only 1.1% among intact men. If circumcision really worked against AIDS, this just wouldn’t happen. We now have people calling circumcision a “vaccine” or “invisible condom”, and viewing circumcision as an alternative to condoms and thinking that because a man is circumcised that he does not need to use any condoms at all.
ABC (Abstinence, Being faithful, Condoms) is the way forward. Promoting genital surgery will cost African lives, not save them.
It’s not like we’ve actually tried the things that do work. In Malawi for instance, only 57% know that condoms protect against HIV/AIDS, and only 68% know that limiting sexual partners protects against HIV/AIDS. There are people who haven’t even heard of condoms. It just seems really misguided to be hailing male circumcision as the way forward. It would help if some of the aid donors didn’t refuse to fund condom education, or work that involves talking to prostitutes. There are African prostitutes that sleep with 20-50 men a day, and some of them say that hardly any of the men use a condom. If anyone really cares about men, women, and children dying in Africa, surely they’d be focusing on education about safe sex rather than surgery that offers limited protection at best, and runs a high risk of risk compensatory behavior.
People also need to keep in mind that the U.S., a country where a large majority of sexually active men ARE circumcised, DOES NOT have a low HIV rate because of it. In fact, the U.S.’s HIV rate shows that all the African studies have been outright falsified.
Safe sexual practices and using condoms are the only way to be protected from HIV and other STDs, not mutilating the genitals.
The studies supporting circumcision are either outdated or were poorly done and have major methodological flaws. Newer studies have either totally refuted the old studies, or have shown that their findings are not as severe as stated. Plus, NO MEDICAL ORGANIZATION IN THE WORLD supports or recommends routine circumcision for newborn boys. In fact, an overwhelming majority of males in this world are INTACT – approximately 85% – and remain intact for life.
According to Canadaian doctor John Taylor, who did extensive studying of the erogenous nerve endings cut off by male circumcision, male circumcisions cut off at least around 10,000 erogenous nerve endings. So I think that male circumcisions cut off a lot more erogenous nerve endings than typical female circumcisions. So I think that the male foreskin is as valuable as the clitoral hood, and I think that male circumcisions do at least close to as much sexual damage as typical female circumcisions.
Many of the justifications for female circumcisions are the same as for male circumcisions, female circumcisions make things easier to clean, it's healthier, it prevents diseases, etc. Most people in the U.S. seem to think that male and female circumcisions are 2 totally different things, and that typical female circumcisions do severe sexual damage and no good while male circumcisions aren't sexually damaging and that male circumcisions have significant health benefits. I think though that both male and typical female circumcisions give little health benefit, and I think that male and typical female circumcisions are quite similar with how much sexual damage they do.
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