Circumcised Armenian Men

[Stormig]

Continuation from THIS THREAD -- Nairi

 

I do have to tell you that when things like so happened to me and I call customer support and get the answer that the system is down or something I start laughing.  I tell them that they are most likely not telling the truth to me as systems nowadays do not go down that much, but that it is a common answer that they all practice.  If it does happen often(once every 2-3 months i do take my business elsewhere.)

 

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Edit -- my bad I accidentally deleted the message you are replying to below! --Sip

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You know what Hagarag.  You are one boring dude.

 

I think we should create a forum thread and pin it to the homepage so that it is visible all the time.  it will have all your answers in it.

 

1. I am bi-curious sexual whatever...

2. My Armenian wife left me...

3. My Armenian wife aborted my 2 children...

4. Those Republican so and sos...

5. My conservative relatives...

6. I look 20 years old...

7. I can pick up much younger women...

8.  The Turks slaughtered by relatives...

9. blah blah blah

 

And that way everyone will see all your answers and you do not have to post off topic comments

N. And I am circumcised.

[America-Hye]

Stromy,

 

How did you know

[Stormig]

Why is that so funny? I have yet to meet a Parska-Hay who is not circumcised... You're not alone Hagarag!

 

On-topic: I agree with Vava. For quite some time we were able to hide behind "Armenian". Nobody knew us and nobody prejudged us. We were neither Turks nor Moroccans. That was enough reason to be respected among Dutch people. But ever since the great migration wave from the Soviet Union in the last decade, our rep has turned from unknown and harmless, to known and harmful.

 

As for helping newcomers: if they want help, they'll get it. Sadly most are too arrogant to ask for help, and when you try to give it to them because you notice that they are doing something unacceptable, they diss you as they would do in their own country. I don't want to generalize though. I have also met some very decent Hayastancis who learned very quickly. But sadly, they are not the ones that stand out...

It's not because it's funny. Simply because Azat forgot to add it to his list of "Hagarag knowns"...

Then again, I don't know of too many Parskahays that would talk about it like it were a common conversation.

[Sip]

OH How can I possibly restrain myself from making some sort of reply here!!!!

 

But in any case, I think it's important not to deviate this threads too much in directions far away from the subject at hand.

[vava]

Should we open a new thread? Parskahyes and circumcision - how about it Sip? Azat? (IMO I think, actually, I know that TFC is wrong on this one.)

[TimeForChange]

I reiterate what I said above: you guys are weird, really. Let's just hope that few people will read this thread, or people will think we're all weirdos like you.

[TimeForChange]

Vava, I don't get it, I'm wrong about what? You guys can go ahead and start a new thread - why should I care? You're all grow-ups (though I'm starting to doubt that).

[vava]

TFC jan, you're right - this thread has taken a weird twist, and I DID try to bring it back on topic. I'm sorry, I was mistaken when I said you were wrong (I was actually referring to Nairi's quote when she said this:

 

I have yet to meet a Parska-Hay who is not circumcised... You're not alone Hagarag!

 

As it so happens, I am parskahye, and ....

[nairi]

Why is it so difficult to talk about for you guys? I think we should start a new thread: Armenian men and circumcision. Go ahead if you've got the balls

[America-Hye]

You take my comment out of context. There were no sexual connotations to it. Some were attacking my Judophilia, claiming that I could NEVER be a Jew UNLESS I went to some Rabbi and had a briss at my relatively older age (OUCH!!). That is when stated that all I had to do was, as my brother did, go to Jewish religious classes since I was already circumcized. By the way, my brother is now on his second marriage to a Methodist. I do not think he still pratices the Judaism that his first wife and son practice.

 

For your information, after World War II almost all American babies were cricumcized. It was standard practice in hospitals especially in the larger cities and especially in the more affluent areas. There are thousands pf Armenian-American men born in the US until approximately 1980 who are circumcized.

[Stormig]

Infant Circumcision: Crime Against Humanity

 

 

 

It's time someone said it, loud and clear: that infant circumcision -- including so-called "religious" infant circumcision -- is an atrocity and a fraud; that it's a brutal, perverse, outrageous violation of a helpless human being's right to his own body; that it's child sexual abuse in its most vicious, most destructive, most cunningly disguised form; that it literally censors a child's life -- kills part of the child -- even if he never realizes it, because it severs him from a uniquely specialized, uniquely sensitive means of perceiving, experiencing, sharing and enjoying his existence; that the reasons given to justify it are myths and lies; that it's the ugliest, saddest, most sickening scandal in the history of medicine and an infamy to societies that tolerate it and to institutions that sanctify it; and that anyone involved even remotely with cutting, tearing, crushing or burning off the foreskins of babies -- or anyone else by force, coercion or deceit -- is as guilty of causing human suffering as the monsters of Auschwitz and in the name of humanity should be exposed, confronted, stopped, brought to trial, and imprisoned.

Regardless of anyone's "reason" for circumcising a baby, the fact remains that infant circumcision is foreskin amputation by force -- the deliberate, irreversible destruction of a normal, natural, functional part of someone else's body -- living, protective, erogenous tissue that is rightfully his and that he instinctively wants to keep intact -- at a time in his life when he can't understand what is being done to him -- or why -- and can't speak for or protect himself.

 

Infant circumcision is, in other words, human vivisection -- legalized, institutionalized, sanctified human vivisection.

 

Reason and attempts at persuasion will not deter those who, driven by the compulsion to destroy what they secretly envy but can never have, and desperate to make their own tortured partial penises seem normal -- and for who knows what other god-awful reasons -- persist so relentlessly in defending, promoting, misrepresenting and performing this crippling, disfiguring mutilation.

 

The birthright of males -- all males -- to keep all of the penis they are born with must therefore be secured by law.

 

John A. Erickson

Biloxi, Mississippi

March 1998

 

 

 

http://www.sexuallymutilatedchild.org/iccah.htm

[Harut]

i ain't giving up any bit of my ......

[vava]

i ain't giving up any bit of my ......

Atta boy Harut!

[gamavor]

Tell me that this is a joke. The only circumsized Armenian I know is circumsized for medical reasons (very bad infection). I thougth that only Muslims and Jews are circumsized but here in US many so-called "Christians" also circumsize their kids. I even met a Roman Catholic who said he is circumsized. Edited November 11, 2003 by gamavor

[Stormig]

A while ago someone had asked, "Why is there not a men's issues forum?" Getting a bit too caught up in diatribes, I think I had thought to myself something down the line of - "Because we women deserve more care." Actually, this is not true and I don't really believe it - however it is true in medicine, which is why you have gynecologists but not andrologists - or would that be anthropologists?

So I kinda find it weird that "Circumcised Armenian men" has ended up in the "Women" forum.

[America-Hye]

This topic is TRULY clarifying the issues of the great diaspora. Armenian-American men in their prime career years are almost ALL circumcized, while few of the foreign born are. This is just one indication of the great divide between the two groups. Now multiply this by each of the Armenian diasporas around the globe and you can see how difficult it is to have all work as a group. The Turks killed 2/3 of us and insured that the remainder would be so very disperate.

[gamavor]

Amerika-Hye I'm afraid you are wrong. None of mine American-Armenian friends is circumsized. The one that I mentioned above is an Armenian guy from France, who had to go through this because of serious infection.

 

Please tell me again that you are Armenian

[vava]

For the record: I don't think circumcision is an Armenian issue.

[-=VAHE=-]

How would you know hagarag?? Did you check? lol hahaha Edited November 11, 2003 by Vahe G.

[vava]

So I kinda find it weird that "Circumcised Armenian men" has ended up in the "Women" forum.

I think this is someone's way of telling us that she's impatient with the proposed name change to 'Gender Issues' as opposed to 'Women'.

[gamavor]

There are those myths that circumsized men are better in the bed, which is total b/s!

But I'm curious to hear from ladies. What they think. Who are better lovers? Wasn't this topic in the Womens section for purpose?

[America-Hye]

Gamavor,

 

Were your American Armenian friends BORN in the US? And if so when? The practice was discarded by the American doctors about 1975-1980.

 

And to ask you the same question that Vahe G.asked me to me, " How would you know Gams, did you check????"

[gamavor]

No Moshe I don't check! Have more important things to do. So, whenever i address certain people as 'circumsized idiots' I'm right

[Stormig]

There are those myths that circumsized men are better in the bed, which is total b/s!

But I'm curious to hear from ladies. What they think. Who are better lovers? Wasn't this topic in the Womens section for purpose?

I think it depends more on effort. I also don't buy the "who lasts longer" bull - though circumcised probably just a bit more because obviously they're missing something.

But I prefer the whole package. A bit more resistance and anchorage.

[Stormig]

http://my.webmd.com/content/article/14/360...C-9531713CA348}

 

 

Little Evidence of Circumcision's Benefit, Says Pediatric Group

 

Little Evidence

 

By Katrina Woznicki

WebMD Feature Archive

 

 

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The United States' largest group of pediatricians is calling for an end to the routine circumcision of newborn boys, saying the procedure offers minimal medical benefits.

 

The American Academy of Pediatricians' announcement reverses a nearly century-old practice. For decades, American physicians have claimed removing the foreskin from the head of the penis reduced the risk of infections.

 

More recent research, however, has questioned the benefit of the procedure. Uncircumcised boys, the research shows, have only a slightly higher rate of infection and disease than circumcised boys. Now the AAP has declared in its March issue of the journal Pediatrics, "What medical benefits [circumcision] does have do not warrant the AAP to recommend routine newborn circumcision."

 

"It appears most people can lead a healthy life without having to have it done," Dr. Jack Swanson, a member of the AAP's Task Force on Circumcision, tells WebMD. "All the studies did show a benefit to having circumcision, but the benefits were not great."

 

According to the AAP, circumcision has been around since the Egyptian dynasties as a method to maintain penile hygiene. In the United States, about 1.2 million newborn boys are circumcised each year. In analyzing numerous studies from around the world, the AAP found that even though circumcision has been touted to lower the risk of urinary tract infections, the chances of an uncircumcised boy developing such an infection was low.

 

The AAP found only one in 100 uncircumcised boys was likely to develop a urinary tract infection compared with one in 1,000 circumcised boys. In a study appearing in the Dec. 5 issue of The Lancet, a team of Canadian researchers found after analyzing about 30,000 boys, uncircumcised boys were only 3.7 times more likely to develop a urinary tract infection. Earlier research suggested that boys were 39 times more likely to get such an infection.

 

Uncircumcised males also were three times more likely to develop cancer in the penis compared with a circumcised man, but fewer than 10 men in 1 million develop this extremely rare cancer, the AAP says. Circumcision did not appear to influence the risk of developing sexually transmitted diseases. The AAP says sexual behavior is more likely to determine if a man contracts a STD than circumcision status.

 

"The medical debate is over; there are no medical reasons to justify it," says Dr. George Denniston, president of the international organization Doctors Opposing Circumcision and a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. Dr. Denniston says removing the foreskin to prevent infection is like "cutting off the ear to reduce ear infections. It's just absurd."

 

Should parents decide to have their son undergo circumcision, the AAP says that the child should receive topical painkillers. The pediatric group's analysis found newborns circumcised without anesthesia experience pain and stress during the procedure. This was determined by measuring their heart rate, blood pressure and increased oxygen intake.

 

Parents also are being advised to consider cultural, religious and ethnic traditions when deciding whether or not to circumcise. Dr. Swanson says parents should "know all the facts about possible medical reasons and risks, and try to make a decisions based on all the facts."

 

 

 

 

http://my.webmd.com/content/article/26/172...C-9531713CA348}

 

Male Circumcision as the Answer to the African AIDS Epidemic?

 

By ED Sussman

WebMD Medical News Archive Reviewed By Pamela Yoder, MD, PhD, FACOG

 

 

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July 10, 2000 (Durban, South Africa) -- Male circumcision -- for generations a standard operation for the vast majority of men in America -- is now being considered as a way to combat AIDS in Africa, the epicenter of the worldwide epidemic.

 

About 25 million Africans have AIDS or are infected with the HIV virus, which causes AIDS, and many of those men with the disease live in areas of Africa where circumcision is not performed regularly.

 

"Circumcision was once very common in Botswana," said Daniel Halperin, PhD. But missionaries discredited the practice, he said, and now few men in Botswana are circumcised -- and more than 30% of the adult population in that country has AIDS or is infected with HIV. Halperin is assistant professor of medical anthropology and HIV/STD Prevention at the University of California, San Francisco's AIDS Research Insitute.

 

During a symposium at the 13th International AIDS Conference here, researchers examined new research on male circumcision in Africa. Halperin asked during the session: "If you had a one-time intervention that could reduce the risk of becoming infected by more than 50%, wouldn't it be worth using that as an intervention?"

 

Other researchers said that dozens of studies on male circumcision indicated that the procedure, in which the foreskin of the penis is surgically removed, might be capable of reducing the risk of contracting the disease by as much as 57%. Robert Bailey, PhD, of the University of Illinois School of Public Health in Chicago, found that interestingly, circumcision was generally well accepted by men as well as women -- even in areas of Africa where it wasn't practiced.

 

However, there also were reports that raised the question of whether circumcision provided a biological safety net against HIV infection or if the reduced rate of infection among circumcised men was due to their cultural and religious activities.

 

Halperin said it could be argued that male circumcision -- especially in Western Africa -- already had protected more than eight million men from contracting the disease. "And if men aren't infected then woman are not infected by those men either," he added.

 

He said that circumcision is rare in the "AIDS Belt" of southern Africa, but common in West Africa, where AIDS rates are considerably lower.

 

"The evidence is strong enough, at least in my mind, to start trying to use circumcision as an intervention in AIDS," said Anne Buve, MD, of the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium. "Male circumcision should be seriously considered as a preventive strategy."

 

In her study, Buve reported that in two cities in West Africa -- Yaoundé, Cameroon, and Cotonou, Benin -- the prevalence of HIV among sexually active adult men was less than 4.5%. Almost all men in those cities are circumcised. In contrast, circumcision was less common in Kisumu, Kenya, and in Ndola, Tanzania. Only about 10 to 25% of men are circumcised in those cities, but up to 25 % of the men have contracted HIV.

 

Eugene McCray, MD, tells WebMD, "The question of using circumcision as an intervention against HIV infection is very community-specific. You have to demonstrate that the operation will be accepted in the community before it can be attempted." McCray is the head of the CDC's global initiative to fight AIDS based in Atlanta.

 

Addressing that concern, Bailey said he and his colleagues conducted a series of interviews about circumcision with Kenyan men and women. More than 90% of those interviewed were uncircumcised.

 

Bailey said the focus group discussions determined that those interviewed were interested in circumcision because they believed it made it easier for men to maintain sexual cleanliness; because uncircumcised men were perceived as being more likely to contract a sexually transmitted disease; and uncircumcised men were believed to enjoy sex less and give women less sexual satisfaction.

 

"Given a choice, 60% of uncircumcised men would prefer to be circumcised, and 62% of women would prefer a circumcised partner," Bailey said. He was surprised at the results because few, if any, of the 110 women interviewed had ever had sex with an uncircumcised man.

 

McCray says, "The CDC is willing to support pilot projects to look at circumcision as a way to combat AIDS." He said such studies might be difficult to establish due to ethical concerns.

 

However, McCray said communities exist in Africa, particularly in Zimbabwe, where cultural norms and rituals circumcision would make controlled studies possible and medically ethical.

 

At the symposium, however, Ronald Gray, PhD, professor of population and family health sciences at Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health in Baltimore, suggested that the differences seen between circumcised and uncircumcised men might have more to do with cultural and religious practices than a biological advantage to circumcision.

 

Almost all the circumcised men studied in a southwestern Uganda district by Gray and colleagues were Muslim. He suggested that Muslim religious prohibitions against alcohol and risky sexual behavior and religious mandates requiring cleansing of the genitals before prayer might play a role for lower risks of HIV infection.

 

McCray said researchers also need to study whether having a circumcision with its widely believed lower risk for suffering infection might lead to riskier sexual behavior that could wipe out gains of having the procedure performed. Controlled studies, he said, could also tease out questions of whether earlier circumcision -- before puberty or first sexual experience -- can have an effect on protection against HIV infection.