Will Saletan wades into the growing controversy over circumcision, HIV and the intactivist movement. If non-Jews don't want to circumcise their children, it's perfectly alright with me, but the intactivists do tend to be nuts.
A: It won't be long now.
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There are medical benefits, and medical drawbacks. There aren't any net benefits in advanced societies, except that women like the look of circumsized penises better, as established by polls. (Which might be a big benefit, but it's not medical).
The only reason that there are any medical benfits in Africa is because apparently they don't have access to soap, are not in the habit of washing themselves anyway, and lack correct information about avoiding STDs.
My wife and I disagreed about this. No surprise, but SWIPIAW won, and my son was circumcised.
Unfortunately, it very nearly turned out to be genital mutilation, requiring a second trip to the doc, with no assurances things would be OK.
Absent the HIV argument, it really is an unnecessary procedure whose risks swamp the scarce benefits.
To the extent the HIV argument is true, then that changes things. Just like fundamentalists everywhere, though, the anti-circumcisionists aren't going to let a little thing like evidence cloud the issue.
You've haven't lived until you invite over your family and closest friends to watch an old man you've never met before into your house to perform surgery on your eight-day old son's penis.
This also gives me the chance to retell one of my favorite stories. Donna is a convert and I happened to attend her conversion class the night the were talking about the rituals of conversion. Women have to have a ritual bath. Men have to be circumcised.
One of the men in the group asked what they do if the man is already circumcised. The teacher, a very nice woman, said that if the man is circumcised, they just take a small symbolic drop of blood. The man, with all the hope in the world in his voice, said, "You mean, like from a finger?"
"No. Not from a finger."
Ali: Eight days.
Four years old strikes me as being the worst possible age: old enough to understand, too young to be philosophical.
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