User talk:Dabljuh/My Circumcision

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[edit] Jake

Jake, I've been thinking about it. I cannot endorse it when the article conveys too much of a circumcision-opposed stance. Even though the medical consensus is fairly clear, and even though I think there is definite validity in the intactivist argument that circumcision constitutes a human rights violation.

Articles need to be useful. This is, in my opinion, the most supreme guideline / policy of wikipedia. This is why humanity needs wikipedia, because its articles are useful.

How many men are circumcised? 1 in 6 world wide? That makes 500 million circumcised men. 250 million of which may more or less speak english, and about 100 million of which have or soon will have internet access.

I cannot endorse telling 100 million men that they were sexually abused, mutilated. That they have almost nothing but disadvantages over uncircumcised males, even if this would be - in all objectivity - be the neutral and objective point of view. That would not only reduce the usefulness of the article, it would be, simply, cruel.

I suggest to the following compromise: The article should make very clear that there is no medical incentive for routine infant circumcision, that the risks are too large etc, and that it probably constitutes a human rights breach, according to intactivists.

But on the other hand, we must explain, in detail, the "advantages" of circumcision in the article, even when they are - more or less - miniscule. If we would not do that, we just make circumcised men feel bad. But we must be very careful, not to paint a picture that would endorse continued routine infant circumcision. Wikipedia's purpose is to inform, and if the article fails to provide the necessary sensitivity to convey the information even to both circ'd and uncirc'd guys, then we both have failed. This is an extremely sensitive topic, and so we must approach it with utmost care and respect to sensitivity to both sides.

That is why we will explain the various advantages that circumcision has, for people who *are* already circumcised, rather than to convey the image that the practice should continue because of the advantages. We must not do the latter, as that would definitely breach NPOV.

My suggestion is that we cooperate to rewrite the article, starting with my version. Not just because of POV issues, but also because of readability, organization, and relative lack of relevant information in the old article. Dabljuh 15:15, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate the fact that you're approaching the issue with such sensitivity, Dabljuh, but I think it's fundamentally the wrong approach. Wikipedia is not a vehicle for propaganda, remember, and propaganda literally means information intended to manipulate. We should not be concerned with the effects of information, only with honestly and fairly representing the current state of knowledge.

As I've explained previously, I consider this version to be inferior, and I don't see much point in working on it. Once again, I encourage you to make incremental changes to the main version, and highlight passages you have issues with on the discussion page. Jakew 15:43, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

But, the old version (Circumcision) is exactly that - a vehicle for pro circumcision propaganda, that does not remotely represent the current scientific consensus, overrepresents circumcision advocating arguments, and does not fairly represent the minority view of intactivists.

I can respect that the old article comforts circ'd guys reasonably well, but that must not be an excuse in distorting the medical consensus or otherwise violating NPOV policy. And of course, it endorses a possible routine genital mutilation on infant males.

I have started a fork because I felt harassed and filibustered editing the original article. If you visit the edit history of the old article, you'll see that almost every edit that I did - that wasn't an rv on a borderline vandalistic previous edit - was reverted by you, jayjg, benami or someone else. It is impossible to work like this and produce a good article in the long run, as the vision of an article in its entirety must not be lost. I suspect that the old article is exactly because of that mode of working such a poor read, all NPOV issues aside.

I have no doubt that if I would start doing incremental changes to the article now, even if you would abstain from it, someone else would filibuster me because he probably felt threatened in his sexual identity or whatever. I feel safer and more comfortable here, where I can edit the article until I am happy with it - as a whole.

I seek your support for a variety of reasons. If you would endorse a new version of the article, I am pretty sure, so would the others. I consider you the only one who is technically capable of writing about the subject. Additionally, and more importantly, you can help me keep the article sensitive to the issues of circ'd guys, which is so important for the reasons I have previously described. Dabljuh 15:58, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

You keep complaining about the main version, but you have yet to specify what is actually wrong with it. That makes it impossible to address your concerns. Jakew 16:19, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

• Lack of clear indications about the scientific consensus of circumcision
• Lack of intactivist arguments
• Overabundance (undue weight) of circumcision advocacy
• Lack of relevant information
• Lack of readability
• Lack of organization

Dabljuh 16:32, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, at least that's a start. To address each point in turn:

• There is no scientific consensus regarding circumcision. However, the article does note that: "The major medical societies in Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand do not support routine non-therapeutic infant circumcision. Major medical organizations in the United States state that parents should decide what is in their child's best interests, declining to make a recommendation one way or another."
  • There is a very clear consensus. While some of the major health organizations do not recommend either way. Of those that make a recommendation, all explicitely do "not recommend" it. The swedish and at least one australasian organization outright condemn it. The consensus, which is what all major institutes explicitely or implicitely agree to, is that the benefits do not outweight the risk, that the practice is purely cultural and not medically recommendable. This is underrepresented in the article.
  • I am aware that you don't like that and would best like it if everyone would circumcise like crazy. But then you have to lobby the medical organizations to change their recommendations, not Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a place for lobbying.
• NPOV prevents arguments from being made. However, there's no reason why arguments made by intactivistss in reliable sources should not be mentioned.
  • You might want to look up WP:NPOV then. A small excerpt: "Does the article fairly represent all significant viewpoints, in proportion to the prominence of each?" Chances are, if the answer is no, then your article might have a POV. I would like to add/explain: any POV other the scientific mainstream consensus must be gauged according to just that scientific mainstream consensus. Any other way would not be fairly representing it.
• The article doesn't advocate. It simply presents facts. These facts are evidently accepted enough for the AMA to observe that "The 1989 statement by the Academy reversed a long-standing opinion that medical indications for routine circumcision were lacking. It emerged primarily on the basis of data that suggested circumcision caused a large reduction in the risk of urinary tract infections, particularly within the first year of life." The facts are also discussed by the AAP, AMA, AAFP, RACP, and others.
  • Presented like that, it would be misleading. The current AMA statement is simply "We join the AAP in their assessment". And the AAP's assessment is that "The benefits do not outweight the risk" and that routine neonatal non-therapeutic circumcision is "not recommended". The UTI argument emerged only in the 80ies, and as the figures tell you, you'd have to do some 100-200 circumcisions to prevent one single case of UTI - UTIs are stressed that they are easily treated, while at the same time there are significant risks. Additionally, the CPS raises the very, very valid question if increased UTI rates are caused by premature retraction (and thus implies, that circumcision does not protect from UTI anyhow, it just protects from forcible retraction in infants). To sum it up, to imply that medical organizations, in fact, the scientific consensus, are totally rad for circumcision whatsoever, is utterly misrepresenting the facts.
• What relevant information is lacking?
  • Before I showed up, "What is circumcision" was lacking. "Risks of circumcision" is still lacking. "Sexual effects" are pretty much lacking. Holy fuck, the "General informations" links are 1 catholic and 2 jewish sites!
• Make it more readable then.
  • Sure. When every minute change is instantly reversed and filibustered. I prefer to work here until I have a complete, good (superior) article so I can instantly convince everyone that the changes are sensible. If you don't contribute and instead, just defend "your" article's version against any changes.
• Propose a scheme for reorganising it. Jakew 17:55, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
  • ... I ... no ... no, never! .... Dabljuh 06:53, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reordering of the article

I would recommend to reorder the article.

0.Overview (more or less as right now)

1. What is circumcision <- as before, maybe improve a bit
2. Risks of circumcision <- ditto
3. Cultural Reasons <- Cultural reasons, as right now
4. Ethical Issues <- Former "Emotional Impact", "Consent", "of minors" put together
5. Medical Aspects <- This will be a combination from former "Health effects" and "Medical reasons"
6. Sexual effects <- As of now, maybe improve a bit
7. History <- As right now
8. Prevalence <- ditto
9. Links, references etc <- ditto

How about that? Dabljuh 15:15, 15 January 2006 (UTC) Update: I think sexual effects could be provided its own section, as it is only partially a medical effect.

[edit] Penile Cancer

I thought there was a stronger correlation between smoking and penile cancer, if this is the case it should be mentioned. I also believe there was a relation between phimosis and penile cancer, as well as when comparing penile cancer rates between circumcising and non circumcising countries the non circumcising countries oftenly scored better. We'd have to find some good sources for this of course. Is anyone else familiar with these claims? --ZimZum 12:24, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Check out the proper article. Jakew 12:38, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I guess in that case it should be noted that circumcision lowers the chance of HPV. Otherwise you could as well state that being hideously ugly lowers the chance of penile cancer since you're less likely to have sex which in turn lowers the chance of getting infected with HPV. You could also state in that case that consistent condom usage lowers the occurance of penile cancer. How about we reword this so the relationship between circumcision and penile cancer is clearer? --ZimZum 12:57, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Probably too in-depth for the main circumcision article. I guess medical analysis of circumcision could go into it, but we need to be careful to avoid original research.

Incidentally, there is some evidence that circumcised men are more likely to use condoms - let me have a look. Jakew 13:16, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Here we are:

"Circumcised men were older and more likely to be Muslim. They were more likely to report a history of condom use" http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JID/journal/issues/v191n4/33047/33047.html

"Condom use in men was associated with being young, living in town, being born in Kagera Region, high education and high income, being circumcised, and having causal or steady (non- martial) partners." [1]

"Fewer uncircumcised men reported a history of condom use." [2]

There's an exception, though: "There were no statistically significant differences between circumcised men and uncircumcised men in marital status, lifetime number of sex partners, number of non-spousal partners in the past 12 months, one-off sexual contacts and contacts with sex workers in the past 12 months, alcohol consumption and condom use." [3]

For the sake of completeness, I also checked CIRP for the anti-circ side. They have find one study making no reference to circumcision, and another citing a non-peer reviewed article in an anti-circ book. Jakew 13:26, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

There are studies as well that show a higher condom usage in uncircumcised men. We're straying off topic though. Since we seem to agree that the argument could be misleading I'll look into rewording it. I personally don't think it's too in-depth. --ZimZum 14:22, 20 January 2006 (UTC)