Friday, July 27, 2007

BIG NEWS!

This story made it onto the front page of the CBC news website, and how important that information is to the medical community everywhere.

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2007/07/27/circumcision-sensation.html

Apparently, researchers at McGill say there is no difference between clipped and non-clipped as far as sensitivity or arousal goes. Who funded this research and what purpose will it serve? The only outcome I can see is that the dropping circumcision rates in Canada will now rebound as parents discover they don't need to worry about their dear male babies' plight growing up with a dud unit. Everyone rejoice! What a great day to be Jewish, I'm sure; I'm going to go get mine done right now. Think of the possibilities!

This is like an episode of Mythbusters except it is being done in an educational institution. I propose they next solve the mystery of why every other guy tells me his dong hangs to his feet, yet the average is so much less than that. I have a gut feeling they might be lying, but I'm not quite sure about it yet. Woe is me.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

But did you notice that they didn't test the sensitivity in... drumroll please... the FORESKIN?

Yeah, that's right. Believe it or not. Pretty incredible, huh?

How can this study measure sensitivity differences between circumcised and intact, if they ignore the foreskin itself?

The answer, of course, is that it can't, and it doesn't.

Here's a much bigger study which doesn't make that mistake:

http://www.nocirc.org/touch-test/touchtest.php

Sorry to disapoint anyone excited by these results (not really).

-ReadTheStudy

alex_ygd said...

Who did they get to do the touch-testing for that study? Sounds kinky.

The pride you take in your penis-au-naturel is astounding, good on you. You must win all sorts of arguments at "cock"tail parties.

I'd like to apologize for that pun.

Anonymous said...

Um, who said I have a "penis-au-naturel"?

I don't. I have a penis-mutile.

So in the real Mythbusters style study, they measured sensitivity in 19 points, including 5 on the foreskin. The finding that the 5 on the foreskin were generally somewhat more sensitive that other parts is of very little importance. What's important is that the circumcised counterparts had no sensitivity at all in those areas.

Read the study for yourself. It's available as a PDF.

Don't you feel a little, well, misled, now that you know how flawed methodology used by Payne was?

alex_ygd said...

No, to be honest, I think you are being misled by me into thinking that I'm taking this at all seriously.

I'm just amused that this is being studied and that it is news.

Anonymous said...

Well it's good not to take things too seriously, I guess.

I would probably share your amusement at what they actually did in this study, if the study conductor herself, along with many media outlets, didn't misconstrue the results to support the ongoing mutilation of boys.

Sorry to be a downer!

-ReadTheStudy

alex_ygd said...

this study did not discuss the mutilation of boys, but simply sexual stimulation of grown men.

I do not see an advocation or a hidden agenda to propagate the use of circumcision.

Why use sex as a cover for a pro-circumcisory agenda? Even more so, why use sex as a cover for an anti-circumcisory agenda?

Ie. if a person were concerned about the adverse affects (psychological, traumatic, etc.) of circumcision on infants, why should sexual stimulation as an adult be used as a proxy argument against it?

Anonymous said...

I can't comment directly on the agenda of Kimberley Payne, but her motives are clearly suspect since she is making overbroad statements.

Her study supposedly is comparing circumcised versus intact men, but then ignores the difference between them, which is a foreskin!

Now, regardless of her intentions, it is a pillar of most pro-circ advocates to deny the loss of sensation.

And certainly, if it were true that no loss of sensation is caused by circumcision, that would be one fewer argument against it.

Up there in Canada, with a circ. rate now in single digits, you may not be fully aware that here in the US of A males are mutilated at the rate of over 50%, and it's a tough fight to finally put the entrenched and shameful practice to rest.

Consider this: Why does this smaller, clearly less rigorous study get so much media play, when the Sorrells study got almost none when it came out, and still has gotten almost none?

There are some things people really don't want to hear, and one of them is that there manhood isn't all it could have been. It's a tough cycle to break.

The important point here, though, is about scientific honesty.

The very idea that one would compare sensitivity in circumcised versus intact males, yet ignore that circumcised males have lost all the sensory capacity from their once-possessed foreskins, is absurd, yet people eat it up.

-ReadTheStudy