Battle over San Francisco ballot measure to ban Circumcision

Bullshit, the reasoning goes that relationship and society function better when females are able to experience less pleasure during sex. You can disagree with this evaluation but you can not fairly say that there has been no cultural reasoning given...

I am advocating that people make up their own minds.

At how many bris do you think ANY anaesthetic is used?

How many men would have it done once the silly group pressure was gone?

David wrote:

Its healthier, to avoid infections.

hawkeye10 wrote:

to include AIDS according to some studies.

I had not considered that,
but (in that I 'm neither a homosexual nor a drug addict)
I consider myself effectively to be immune to AIDS.
I 'm more likely to get trampled by a herd of buffalos.





David

Your ignorance is astounding.

AIDS is as much a heterosexual disease as a homosexual one

whereas the predominant mode of sexual HIV transmission in the United States is by penile-anal sex among MSM.

African parents do not circumcise their girls because they want to hurt or oppress them,” said Miré. “They do it for many of the same reasons that American parents circumcise their sons – because they think it’s cleaner and healthier, because they think the child will be shunned or scorned if she is left intact, and because the mother is circumcised so the daughter should be, too. In other words, African parents go along with a cultural practice they never thought to question, just as many Americans do not think about the practice of circumcising their boys.”

D Lowan: No, despite the horribleness of female genital mutilation, it does not take away all sensitivity (except possibly through psychological trauma or the frequent terrible infections).....the clitoris is bigger than the penis and only the small portion of it that appears on the surface can be excised.

Green Witch: Are you asking if gouging out a little girl's clitoris so she will never experience sexual pleasure, and sewing up her labia so it fuses together in away that makes it difficult to urinate, and is guaranteed to be torn asunder during intercourse and childbirth, is the same as removing the foreskin of a penis?

David wrote:

Its healthier, to avoid infections.

hawkeye10 wrote:

to include AIDS according to some studies.

I had not considered that,
but (in that I 'm neither a homosexual nor a drug addict)
I consider myself effectively to be immune to AIDS.
I 'm more likely to get trampled by a herd of buffalos.





David

Your ignorance is astounding.

AIDS is as much a heterosexual disease as a homosexual one.

David, are you capable of dropping yourself as the universal reference
and thinking about something in the abstract?

Nobody is arguing against circumcision where there is a medical need.

Your sort of situation is not what is under discussion.

Estimated adult and adolescent new HIV diagnoses in 2009 by transmission route and gender

Transmission route.......................... Male ............................. Female
Male-to-male sexual contact ...... 24,132 - ...............
Injection drug use................. 2,652'............................ 1,520
Male-to-male sexual contact and injection drug use 1,157 -
Heterosexual contact............. 4,551 ............................ 8,706
Other ........ 47 ............. ..............................29
Total* ........... 32,538 .............................................10,255

HIV statistics

A cumulative total of 349,077 HIV infections had been diagnosed in Western Europe by the end of 2009. This considerably understates the true figure because not all HIV infections have been diagnosed or reported. This is partly because many people do not know that they are infected. In addition, the three countries with the most extensive epidemics either do not report from all regions (Italy and Spain) or started reporting only in 2003 (France and Spain). National HIV reporting started at different dates in different countries, without systematic retrospective reporting of infections diagnosed in previous years.

Of the reported 24,703 people diagnosed with HIV in Western Europe in 2009:

40% probably acquired HIV through heterosexual contact;
37% became infected through male-to-male sexual contact;
4% became infected through injecting drug use;
28% were female;
and 10% were 15 to 24 years old.
The number of reported HIV diagnoses has increased from 12,748 in 2000 to 24,703 in 2009. This is an increase from 5.5 cases per 100,000 population to 6.7. Countries with the highest rates in 2009 were the United Kingdom (10.7), Belgium (10.3) and Portugal (9.9).

Data on the original country in which infection occurred is available for 17 countries. According to these data, 39% of infections reported in 2009 originated from the country of report and 18% were acquired in sub-Saharan Africa. Latin America and the Caribbean accounted for almost 5% and other countries in Western Europe accounted for 4%. The origin was undetermined for over a quarter of cases.

Worldwide
Heterosexual transmission is the most common mode of infection.

Incidence in the U.S.
The number of new infections per year is estimated to be ~56,300.
This number has remained stable for at least 15 years.
Among adults and adolescents newly diagnosed with HIV infection (regardless of AIDS status) in the U.S. in 2009
~76% are men.
~75% were due to male-to-male sexual contact.
~14% to heterosexual contact
~8% to injection drug use
~4% to a combination of male-to-male sexual contact and injection drug use
~24% are women.
~85% were due to heterosexual contact.
~15% to injection drug use
New diagnoses of AIDS
Proportion of newly reported cases of AIDS among men who have sex with men declined from ~65% of cases diagnosed in 1985 to a low point of ~40% of diagnoses in 1999, rising in recent years to ~48% of cases diagnosed in 2009.
Proportion of new AIDS cases attributed to heterosexual contact has increased dramatically, from ~3% in 1985 to ~31% in 2009.
AIDS diagnoses due to injection drug use rose from ~20% to 31% from 1985–1994 and decreased to ~15% by 2009.
Women are increasingly affected; the proportion of AIDS cases among female adults and adolescents (age >13 years) increased from ~7% in 1985 to ~25% in 2009.
Distribution (U.S.)
Most cases of transmission by injection drug use and heterosexual transmission are reported from the Northeast and Southeast, particularly among minority groups.
HIV infection and AIDS have disproportionately affected minority groups in the U.S.
Among those diagnosed with HIV (regardless of AIDS status) in 2009
~52% were Blacks/African Americans (a group that comprises only 13% of the U.S. population)
Estimated 3% of black men and 1% of black women in their thirties are living with HIV infection.
In 2009, rates of HIV diagnoses (regardless of AIDS status) per 100,000 persons in the U.S. were:
66.6 for Blacks/African Americans
22.8 for Hispanics/Latinos
21.0 for Native Hawaiians/Other Pacific Islanders
9.8 for American Indians/Alaska Natives
7.2 for Whites
6.4 for Asians