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Monday, July 29, 2013

'Circumcision is one of the oddities of the Royal Family'

The Telegraph: 'Circumcision is one of the oddities of the Royal Family' (myself, I have known about this "oddity" for a number of years)
It is one of the oddities of the Royal Family -- shared by the majority of the English upper classes -- that for many generations they have circumcised their male sons, invariably using a Mohel, the Jewish word for a circumcision practitioner. It was rarely done on medical grounds, nor on religious ones, but was a matter of class.

... Indeed by the time the Duke of Cambridge himself was born in 1982, it is understood that Diana, the Princess of Wales, refused to continue the tradition, in keeping with the then medical opinion that it was an unnecessary procedure whose risks outweighed any possible benefits.

The NHS now tries to guide parents away from the practice and the most recent figures suggest just 3.8 per cent of male babies are circumcised in the UK. This is down from a rate of 20 per cent in the 1950s, when there was a belief, especially among those who could afford to have it done privately, that it was more hygienic. ...
As someone who isn't -- my family haven't been Jewish for a number of generations -- I can assure you that it is. At any rate, I can assure you that it's reasonable to believe that it is.

When I was a little kid, one of my father's means of compelling/teaching me to develop the hygienic habits I'd need as an adult was to threaten to have me circumcised if I didn't develop those habits. Had I had sons, I'd not have circumcised them -- not because I'm one of those fools who call it a crime -- and I'd have used the same threat to teach them to learn to keep themselves clean.

5 comments:

Hugh said...

You could say that cutting parts of girls' genitals off is "more hygienic" too, on the same basis.

Threatening a small boy with circumcision is likely to give him severe castration anxiety.

Ilíon said...

Oh, give it a break.

I *said* I'm not one of those fools who shrieks about circumcisism ... that also means I'm not at all impressed by that shrieking.

Ilíon said...

To the general reader, looking at the profile of this 'Hugh', it's clear (*) that he's one of those anti-circumcision fascists. He apparently has a bot trolling the web, looking for new webpages mentioning circumcision, to which he jumps and makes stupid comments.

(*) it was clear to me from his comment.

TLC Tugger said...

Circumcision alters sex dramatically. It's everyone's business when a helpless boy or girl is denied the right to remain intact and make an autonomous rational informed adult choice about which healthy normal body parts to sacrifice.

Ilíon said...

Fool, go to Hell, and take your stupid obsession and dick-worship with you.