Comment by glitchc | Hacker News Reader

Comment by glitchc | Hacker News Reader

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Not sure I follow. A person will not know the difference between before and after unless the circumcision happened as an adult. And if after is pleasurable, what is missing? Is anything missing? I can certainly take you at face value that your experience is more pleasurable than mine. I won't know otherwise. But I'm quite happy with my experience, so I don't really miss it. If anything, I might be trading off pleasure for endurance, which could be a net positive if that enhances the overall pleasure for both parties.

Reduced sensitivity is not necessarily bad is what I'm trying to get at. Complete lack of sensitivity is a real problem, a botched circumcision will do that. But a botched circumcision is just like any other botched surgery: a cock-up. Surgeons make mistakes and cut nerves they weren't supposed to in other kinds of surgeries too. To put more stringent labels on an accident, such as a crime on humanity, feels a little extreme.

That is a very practical viewpoint, thats its not worth worrying about, and I agree. I was circumsiced and I dont really think about it and I dont care. But its not really a great justification, its like telling someone born with bad knees that theyve never ran before so dont know what theyre missing out on so theres no point being upset. I dont reallt see the logic in saying no sensation is a awful mistake but reduced sensation is not a mistake at all, its a scale, if no sensation is bad reduced sensation is at least half bad.

If a child is blinded as an infant, they won't know the difference as an adult -- until they learn that their eyes were once full of sensitive nerves. How does this inform the ethics of blinding infants?

Circumcision is a form of genital mutilation. Societies have done it in the past and present. Many societies have outlawed or otherwise restricted female gential mutilation, why can the same not be done for males in the same Developed world?

Those are decisions for you to make for yourself when you're an adult instead of having it forced upon you as an infant.

> I might be trading off pleasure for endurance ...

An intriguing speculation. Might possibly be tested by a survey for correlation between circumcision status and premature ejaculation, though screening out confounders could pose a challenge.

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