I feel like this as a sensitive area (no pun intended) where the choice of language is important.
There is a risk of causing shame to men who are circumcised with statements like "Male circumcision leads to a bad sex life".
It is great that there seems to be an emerging dialogue where we question whether we should be circumcising without medical necessity, and challenge long-held assumptions with science. But it is still a highly personal issue, and a degree of sensitivity in the language would go a long way.
It's funny that you mention that actually, the study mentions that they don't have many (or any?) men who were circumcised for religious reasons, they were all circumcised at a "doctor's estimate" which imo is weird language but I assume means it was for medical reasons.
Looks like they try to control for a lot of other factors, but I feel a bit weird about an article studying circumcision but not featuring those circumcised for the predominant reason that men are circumcised worldwide.
A different way to frame this would be "men who were circumcised specifically for medical reasons tend to have bad sex lives" which imo is a lot less surprising?
In some countries, non-religious "cultural" circumcision is very common (eg 75% of males in the US [0]). Relatively few cases will be for a medical reason (something like phimosis). Parents in most "secular circumcision" cultures base their circumcision decision primarily on social concerns, rather than medical concerns; the strongest predictor for the decision a couple will make is whether the father is circumcised or not[1]. So your point about religious circumcision being the most common is true worldwide (2/3 of circumcisions are for Muslim men[2]), but there are countries where this is significantly less of a factor.
I think some religious beliefs or bans may have a certain contemporaneous reason for them, but the original reason might have been lost after a few generations. For example, maybe at the time of birth of Islam, pigs spread disease(say like swine flu) in that region and to make people stop growing and eating them, perhaps a ban was codified into the religion that persists to this day.
Cows being worshipped and protected from being killed for meat in Hinduism might have been a reaction to famines where cows could eat grass, weeds, plants that humans cannot eat and provide valuable protein to people in the form of milk for a long time vs. being instantly killed for meat. Which also explains why a significant fraction of Hindus are non-vegetarians but only eat chicken, fish and some goat/lamb, since those are not normal sources of milk.
On similar lines, I wonder if circumcision was thought to have some utility in those times before it turned into a religious edict. May be to reduce pleasure to decrease teen pregnancies which put a strain on families to raise a baby, or maybe slow down the spread of some widespread venereal disease.
I live in Sweden and have learned not to trust science produced by institutions coming from Nordic countries. They tend to be heavily pushed and skewed by politics. Just put a little skeptic hat on for this one.
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[ 2.0 ms ] story [ 17.8 ms ] threadThere is a risk of causing shame to men who are circumcised with statements like "Male circumcision leads to a bad sex life".
It is great that there seems to be an emerging dialogue where we question whether we should be circumcising without medical necessity, and challenge long-held assumptions with science. But it is still a highly personal issue, and a degree of sensitivity in the language would go a long way.
I don't know, am I overreacting here?
Someone loved dropping that line in a study about circumcision.
Looks like they try to control for a lot of other factors, but I feel a bit weird about an article studying circumcision but not featuring those circumcised for the predominant reason that men are circumcised worldwide.
A different way to frame this would be "men who were circumcised specifically for medical reasons tend to have bad sex lives" which imo is a lot less surprising?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevalence_of_circumcision
[1] https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/80/2/215
[2] See page 1: https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/43749/97892...
Cows being worshipped and protected from being killed for meat in Hinduism might have been a reaction to famines where cows could eat grass, weeds, plants that humans cannot eat and provide valuable protein to people in the form of milk for a long time vs. being instantly killed for meat. Which also explains why a significant fraction of Hindus are non-vegetarians but only eat chicken, fish and some goat/lamb, since those are not normal sources of milk.
On similar lines, I wonder if circumcision was thought to have some utility in those times before it turned into a religious edict. May be to reduce pleasure to decrease teen pregnancies which put a strain on families to raise a baby, or maybe slow down the spread of some widespread venereal disease.