58 Replies to “O, Sweet Saint Of San Andreas”

  3. This is the most pressing issue of the day in S.F. ? everything else is taken care of, everyone’s working, just this one (tiny) thing to ban…
    When did municipal governors start telling people what they can or cannot do in hospitals? I missed that one.

  4. Why compulsory circumcision could never be successfully implemented in loony San Francisco, Queerifornia: There’s just no end to those pricks.

  5. HA! I wondered if you were going to mention that one Kate.
    Amazing isn’t it? The whole freakin’ state is circling the bowl, neighborhoods are hiring their own private security guards because there’s no cops or fire department, and SF thinks this is the thing they need to be doing.
    But beside all that, aren’t -parents- supposed to be the ones to decide stuff like this?

  8. And Peter had a dream, and the Lord said to let down his net … etc., neither here nor there, unless a religious matter, who cares! There is the question of cleanliness and sensitivity, neither are anything but preference. Mostly legend.

  9. The Guardian:

    Bill Clinton called for the world to prepare to tackle the cultural taboos surrounding circumcision yesterday if, as many expect, trials show that it protects men and the women they sleep with from Aids.
    In a speech to the International Aids conference in Toronto, Canada, Mr Clinton said that if the trials had good results, there would be a major job of persuasion ahead. “Should this be shown to be effective, we will have another means to prevent the spread of the disease and to save lives, and we will have a big job to do,” he said. “It is important that as we leave here we all be prepared for a green light that could have a staggering impact on the male population but that will be frankly a lot of trouble to get done.”

    Uh, yeah, good luck with that one.
    When I ran across the story at Dust My Broom I was immediately reminded of a very funny scene in a novel by Joseph (Catch-22) Heller, God Knows, an “autobiography” of the biblical King David. I only dimly recalled the punchline (it’s been years since I read it), so I googled around and found this pr�cis of it:

    Take the story of Michal’s dowry, for example. Saul sets Michal’s dowry at 100 Philistine foreskins. Heller spends pages (pages!) discussing David’s deliberations with Abner on how to go about this. First they figure on six men per Philistine; four to hold him, one to prop up the phallus, and one to perform the circumcism. Eventually they figure they can just kill each Philistine, and “bring back the whole dick.”

  10. Q If a parent had their infants earlobes cut off how fast would they have child services and police on their asses?
    Any benefits are pure myth and have more to do with personal hygiene than any real science.
    Barbarism, pure and simple.

  11. Oh dwright, if you want to keep yours, do so; my parents decided to keep mine in place, (way too much info) but others may think otherwise because of religious reasons or just tradition. I don’t think the child’s consent is necessary here. They got my tonsils, still don’t miss them.

  13. More insanity from the capital of the moonbats. Male circumcision should be a parental decision. There are advantages to circumcision such as decreased HIV transmission. I’m curious how SF doctors would handle the case of a child with a foreskin that is retracted and swollen and can’t go back in place. One of the treatments for this condition is circumcision; tough decision – face a $1000 fine or malpractice suit if the kid goes into renal failure as a result of not performing the circumcision. It’s a lot less traumatic to perform circumcisions in infants than to wait until later in life.
    There’s a world of difference between male circumcision and a clitorectomy. I suspect that SF probably has the largest variety of genital piercings on the continent and I’ve never quite figured out why some people want to have most of the jewelry they wear in that region of their anatomy. Perhaps the law is backed by piercing parlors as the foreskin gives one the option of many more penile piercings than when it is absent.
    Amazing how many of the problems in the US could be solved with just one earthquake.

  18. Circumcision is virtually unknown outside the english speaking cultures, and even there it is rapidly falling out of favor. The practice should end, not by paternalistic government, but by the dissemination of information showing it to be a completely unnecessary procedure.
    Fifteen years ago I refused to have my newborn son circumcised and was shocked by the blowback I received by the OB doctor. He appeared to me to be interested only in the $400 fee he would charge for the procedure.

  19. john writes, “Your parents had a decision on abortion.”
    Wrong, john: the choice is fully the mother’s, even if she’s married. Feminist imperialism is alive and well in Canada.

  20. Gee, look! We have a DIFFERENCE of opinion here. Some think its ok, some not. Imagine that.
    For subjects upon which opinions differ so radically, who is best equipped to decide for me? Me, or some bunch of semi-comatose ward heelers?
    I’m thinking -me-.

  21. “Only people over the age of 18 would be allowed to have their foreskins removed.”
    Whether the proposed law will allow boys to be circumcised between -9 months and 0 is not yet clear.

  22. “circumcision rituals play an important historical role for many Jews”…good joke fodder.
    A rabbi, priest and minister went to a Circumcision Conference. They each arrived with $10.00 and immediately started to cruise for hookers and trannies when they spotted Rush Limbaugh selling drugs… oh never mind……

  23. loki @ 4:12, well said, all your points. This should be a parental decision that is based on advice given by a health care professional.

  24. Mark – why is it fallacious? Mere assertion won’t do.
    John – love your argument. Very persuasive.

  25. Dysfunction? Tripe! Not here…..
    Reminds me of part of a documentary or interview I saw a couple years ago, where this fellow was having a breakdown because of his missing piece of skin. This guy was in his 50s. All I could think about was where the real problem lay.
    His problem was between his ears, not between his legs.
    And as Loki alluded to, we have friends whose 11 year old had to get the procedure done due to the constriction. What an awful thing to get done at that age. Do it to a newborn, its over and done with.

  26. Tenebris: Equating circumcision and clitorectomy is fallacious because neither the procedures nor the consequences nor the medical benefits are the same.

  28. Thank you, Mark. To equate circumcision and clitorectomy is like equating removal of the foreskin with amputation of the penis.

  30. Track down an online posting of Penn & Teller’s Bullshit! episode on circumcision and then see how you feel about it.
    If you are an adult or is truly medically neccessary that’s one thing but to do it just because it’s what everyone else does is wrong.
    Strapping a baby down with little to no anestetic and cut off part of his genitals is barbaric. I don’t see how it is a stretch to compare this to female circumcision.

  31. Yes, I agree that clitorectomies should be a parental decision.

    Clearly someone knows not of which they speak. A circumcision does not deny a man the ability to achieve sexual pleasure. Most times, it is one performed in infancy, when the child will not remember the procedure. It is done both for religious and non-religious reasons.
    Clitorectomy, on the other hand, is a religious procedure designed precisely and specifically to deny women (mostly from Muslim cultures) sexual pleasure. It is performed when the child is older, without anesthesia, and with things like broken glass by non-medical persons. It is often accompanied by the stitching of the vaginal opening to make it smaller. This serves a two-fold purpose: to keep women “pure” until marriage and make the evidence of losing one’s virginity clear (i.e. blood on the sheets after the wedding night).
    No such purpose exists behind male circumcision. None whatsoever.
    To attempt to equate the two is an intellectual epic fail.

  33. Clitoridectomy and non-religious circumcision do have similar motivations, it turns out:
    “Non-religious circumcision in English-speaking countries arose in a climate of negative attitudes towards sex, especially concerning masturbation.”
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_male_circumcision
    If you have to do something unnecessary to someone before they have the capacity to consent, it’s probably wrong, dontcha think? This post brings out the difference between “conservatives” who are just social reactionaries and those who believe in individual freedoms.
    Oh, look, from that wikipedia article:
    “At the same time circumcisions were advocated on men, clitoridectomies (removal of the clitoris) were also performed for the same reason (to treat female masturbators).”

  34. Oh, look, from that wikipedia article:

    Oh, wow, Wikipedia. Now there’s a reliable source for information because, you know, it’s not like the whole entire world can’t edit articles.
    Also from the article:
    At the same time circumcisions were advocated on men, clitoridectomies (removal of the clitoris) were also performed for the same reason (to treat female masturbators). The US “Orificial Surgery Society” for female “circumcision” operated until 1925, and clitoridectomies and infibulations would continue to be advocated by some through the 1930s. As late as 1936, L. E. Holt, an author of pediatric textbooks, advocated male and female circumcision as a treatment for masturbation.[34]
    This was a treatment up until the early half of the 20th century; 75 years ago it was going out of practice.
    What about the individual religious liberty of parents who are Jewish?

  35. Properly, San Andreas is an archaic variation of the Spanish language San Andrés (the Galilean fisherman Saint Andrew, the apostle, brother of St. Peter). So:
    “O, Sweet Saint San Andreas”

  36. Amy P – Did you know? Wikipedia articles have citations!
    http://www.noharmm.org/paige.htm
    No one debated a man’s ability to wash the foreskin and clean off the supposedly carcinogenic smegma, but some physicians recommended universal circumcision as a way to protect certain “unclean” minorities who could not be relied on to wash their penises.
    Awesome. Amy P, it’s reactionaries like you that keep me coming back. Keep it up.

  37. Funny stuff. Ever check the yellow pages under physicians? The large number of Jewish names has a lot to do with the recommendations for circumcisions.
    Prevents the spread of aids? How? Maybe in Africa, where the average penis never sees water. A lot of men in Africa walk around with sores under their foreskins most of the time. I suspect Nicola’s friend had an encounter with an African dude, and it scarred her for life. Either that, or she’s Jewish.

  38. I wonder if the good folks of SF have taken this all the way to the end.
    If this is the proper thing to do. Never mind piercings, surely the good folks of SF would have no problem outlawing sex-reassignment treatments of all kinds until the age of 18?

  40. The removal of that little flap of skin on a male baby’s penis, which is so underdeveloped that it scarcely has nerve endings, is suddenly a grave “human rights” violation according to the Gay community.
    Meanwhile, it is perfectly acceptable to the Gay community to grossly mutilate a fully developed adult male and lop off his entire Johnson and “tinker bells” to liberate him from being “a woman trapped in a man’s body”. I think it’s symptomatic of years of mass media propaganda convincing an entire generation that there is something intrinsically evil about belonging to the male gender. (Personally, I consider myself a man actually trapped in a man’s body! ;))
    It’s also an ingenious way to criminalize the Jewish religious practice of male circumcision. And the method is nothing new. For example when the former Soviets wanted to persecute religious people they always used Public Health issues as the pretext. They attempted to make Protestant baptisms illegal by repeatedly claiming that the baptismal water was “contaminated” and a danger to public health, or outlawed the use of Catholic Holy water by claiming that it carried infectious diseases.
    The Commie Lefty Pinkos of today are following the blueprint of Josef Stalin for taking absolute control over religious freedom, one step at a time, using the same methods of Stalin: the perversion of science in general, and the abuse of Public Health issues in particular.

  41. coach
    I think it’s been established that those with foreskin run a much higher risk of contracting HIV. Education makes circumcision more important in Africa as ‘safe sex’ is not practiced (with the same diligence)as it is in North America. The African angle, nor the foreskin angle has anything to do with cleanliness nor scabs. It has to do with the cellular structure of the foreskin, and the fact that if you have one the likelihood of contracting HIV is much increased if you are exposed to it.
    I’ve not got any links, I’m just reciting the various information I’ve gained on the subject over the last few years; so take it with a grain of salt.
    BTW, isn’t the saying “they never go back”?

  42. “Equating circumcision and clitorectomy is fallacious because neither the procedures nor the consequences nor the medical benefits are the same.”
    OK, so we are almost talking issues here. I had to channel my inner shaidle to stimulate even the semblence of thought on the issue.
    The procedures are of a kind (despite Kate’s assertion), differing (albeit widely) in degree. The consequences likewise are of a kind (decrease in sexual pleasure), again differing widely in degree. That leaves the last point – medical. It is extremely rare that circumcison is medically necessary. The prophalactic purpose (diminishing risk of STDs) can be achieved in an easier fashion. So, perhaps a weak difference in kind with clitorectomies.
    On balance, the two procedures belong in the same category (emphasis on gory).
    So, where is the elephant?
    How about banning clitorectomies?
    (Think, people! Getting all reactionary isn’t going to affect anything, especially convincing others that certain cultures are degraded, degenerate and contemptible in their practice.)

  43. Tenebris, have a gander at the differing nerve supply and brain structure dedicated to the two organs and I think you’ll find that puts the two procedures in different categories.
    Kinda like the difference between having your ears pierced or having your eardrums pierced. One is cosmetic, the other is catastrophic.
    The neural anatomy does not lie. Liberal agitators do.

  45. No, Mr. Binks, it’s properly “Sweet San Andreas”. Unless you want me to call you “Mr. Senor Binks”.
    This has been gone through on every one of the umpteen occasions when Kate has used this line, so I conclude that she knows perfectly well that she is not speaking properly and is attempting some literary effect. I ain’t sure what you call that.
    But since you never read those earlier posts, this will strike you as new and clever: they call it San Andreas Fault because X marks the spot!

  46. Rev
    LOL………
    Rest assured, T, there is NO loss of pleasure……
    Perhaps the homosexual community is trying to find some kind of (laughable) purity amongst themselves, really it’s a joke…..

  47. Do you lose some flavour if you cut the end off a “corndog”.. Something they may worry about in SF.

  48. Being circumcised, just makes you a cut above others. It means you care about Women.
    JMO
    Posted by: Revnant Dream at February 23, 2011 5:16 PM
    That is, quite possibly the stupidist, most ignorant, most bigoted, and most ridiculous statement I’ve ever read. How in the f**k does a decision my parents made when I was born indicate whether or not I care about women? I’ve noticed from your posts that you aren’t too bright, but I’m astounded by that outburst.
    BTW, it’s REVENANT DREAM. You can’t even spell your own nickname correctly.

  49. Nicola Timmerman: “I have a friend who will only sleep with men who are circumcised!”
    With good reason, NT: Jewish women, who sleep only with circumcised men, and nuns, who don’t sleep with me at all, have the lowest incidence of cervical cancer.
    If it was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me — at least, it’s good enough for any boys I might have had.

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