Welcome to the Manchine

“And Wood have mercy upon you if your kinks at all intersect with something abusive that happened to you.”

And by “at all” we should perhaps clarify that that includes any sort of physical abuse and masochism AT ALL.

“That said, while I don’t much favour circumcision generally, the idea of banning Jewish circumcision in particular has all sorts of reallllly nasty implications of its own”

Yeah, pretty much that. I mean, I’m me, it will surprise exactly no one that I want a well controlled proper study comparing the complication rates of doing it versus not (that is, as a preventative measure, is it more or less effective than the risks?) Cuz without any hard numbers I’m wary to strictly say how things must be — it may well not be worth the risks, but to just say it cannot possibly be, do it when it becomes medically needed…I need science to agree or disagree.

RE: Argenti

And by “at all” we should perhaps clarify that that includes any sort of physical abuse and masochism AT ALL.

Naturally.

I’ll have to tell Mum her Michael Schumacher tattoo was done for negative emotional reasons! 😀

Was it to cope with him losing the record for consecutive finishes in the points?

Mild negative reinforcement (or positive punishment)

Pet peeve – negative reinforcement is when something unpleasant is happening that will stop when you do the desired action. It’s most common form is torture. It is very rarely used in psychology because it’s kind of the definition of the cure being worse than the disease. A behavior being followed by an unpleasant stimulus is just called punishment, and I’m not a huge fan.

I’m a positive reinforcement girl, myself, with a healthy dose of open communication of feelings. I have worked with people who self-harm and what seems to work over the long run to address the root of self-harm is a combination of a non-shaming environment, open discussion of self-harm and what precedence it, and discussion of alternatives with healthy doses of praise when the alternatives are used.

Over the short term, you can extinguish visible signs of self-harm, but in my opinion the root is not dealt with and often what happens is the self-harm becomes even more covert, making creating a non-shaming environment and open discussion even more difficult.

I have been friends with masochists, but never worked with one, and I have nothing useful to say about the relationship between self-harm and masochism other than People Are More Complicated Than That (Yes, That, Too). Part of the release of self-harm is the endorphin rush, and there is no reason why that can’t also be a positive part of someone’s life.

Thanks David. I figured the links might have been the issue.

One day, LBT, I hope you’re in a position to write your autobiography, if you ever wanted to – paraphrasing what Wordsworth said about poetry being emotion recalled in tranquillity. Because you have one hell of a life story, which I know I’d want to read. Plus you’re one hell of a writer.

(Was that inappropriate?)

Ok, I was trying not to get involved in this thread, but dammit… circumcision is something I actually know a lot about. So here goes (TW for information on circumcision, both male and female):

Female genital cutting, also known as female circumcision or genital mutilation, is a culturally determined practice, predominantly performed in parts of Africa and Asia and affecting more than 125 million women and girls worldwide.

Types of FGM:

Type I consists of excision of the prepuce, with or without excision of part or all of the clitoris. (IE: Removal of the clitoral hood, with or without removal of the clitoris.) This is the most common type performed worldwide.

Type II involves clitoridectomy and partial or total excision of the labia minora. (Second most common)

Type III, or infibulation, includes removing part or all of the external genitalia and reapproximation of the remnant labia majora, leaving a small neointroitus. (Third most common)

Type IV involves other forms of injuries to the genital region including pricking, piercing, stretching, burning, scraping or any other manipulation of external genitalia. (Most rare)

Many women who have undergone female genital cutting do not consider themselves to be mutilated. They do not believe that they are being selectively tortured because the majority of women in their community have gone through this ritual. Women who have undergone female genital cutting have voiced concern that health care providers are not sensitive when broaching this subject and sometimes must be educated about this practice by the patient herself.

I’m going to avoid the description of how it’s typically done and substitute in a kitty instead because nope nope nope.

The infertility rate is higher in circumcised women compared to the general population (25 to 30 versus 8 to 14 percent). The frequency of infertility appears to correlate with the anatomical extent of female genital cutting

Male circumcision:

Problems from the surgery are usually minor. Although serious complications are rare, they do occur. Newborn circumcision has been associated with surgical mistakes, such as having too much skin removed.

Of every 1,000 boys who are circumcised:

* 20 to 30 will have a surgical complication, such as too much bleeding or infection in the area.
* 2 to 3 will have a more serious complication that needs more treatment. Examples include having too much skin removed or more serious bleeding.
* 2 will be admitted to hospital for a urinary tract infection (UTI) before they are one year old.
* About 10 babies may need to have the circumcision done again because of a poor result.
In rare cases, pain relief methods and medicines can cause side effects and complications. You should talk to your baby’s doctor about the possible risks.

Of every 1,000 boys who *are not* circumcised:

* 7 will be admitted to hospital for a UTI before they are one year old.
* 10 will have a circumcision later in life for medical reasons, such as a condition called phimosis. Phimosis is when the opening of the foreskin is scarred and narrow because of infections in the area that keep coming back. Older children who are circumcised may need a general anesthetic, and may have more complications than newborns.
* Circumcision slightly lowers the risk of developing cancer of the penis in later life. However, this form of cancer is very rare. One of every one million men who are circumcised will develop cancer of the penis each year. By comparison, 3 of every one million men who are not circumcised will develop penile cancer each year.

So, in conclusion:

FGM is more serious because it often involves other procedures than just removal of the clitoral hood. As has been discussed in thread, it’s also often done under unsanitary and terrible conditions, with instruments not sharp or intended to cut through effectively, which can cause all sorts of other issues. Type 1 is the most common, infibulation isn’t – of the types that are traditionally understood as FGM it’s the least common. Even though that’s true, it’s also kind of irrelevant since uh, it’s horrible and awful and inhumane and doing it to even one person is too many. Information from uptodate.com medical resources (it’s pay to access and for medical professionals otherwise I’d link it).

MC is mostly cosmetic, it’s an aesthetic thing for most people. The stats clearly show that very occasionally people will require it later in life, but prophylactically it’s unnecessary and can result in more complications than leaving it. On a personal note, I also think this is not right unless it’s medically necessary or someone has chosen it later in life, and I advocate against it heavily when people ask me about it – which is pretty frequently actually. I have an information sheet that I pulled all that information from: http://www.caringforkids.cps.ca/handouts/circumcision

ugh, long comment, SORRY!

Oh, also, frenulum cutting is very common – it’s called releasing a tongue-tie. Releasing it primarily helps with feeding and is really only necessary if a) it’s impeding feeds or b) they can’t stick their tongues out of their mouths, which can inform later speech ability/patterns. It’s got almost no nerves, and generally they care more about being held still than they do about the little nick.

Forgot to add, other writers like to claim cutting the frenulum caused him to have a “dangling tongue” and contributed to his stammer. Surely they’d have had to half cut his tongue out for such a result, and if they’d done that, wouldn’t he have bled to death?

Helenn: The claim isn’t that getting a circumcision when older is more painful, per se. Rather, it’s that getting it done as an infant is “less traumatic”, because trauma is generally judged by after-effects. Since you generally don’t retain memories from that period of life, the operating assumption is that the procedure doesn’t cause trauma as such.

As our understanding of brain-function and mapping increases, I think it’d be worthwhile to do a serious study of this, in terms of how the brain itself responds to infant MC.

LBT – I’m not surprised at either not being the first to ask, or you not being ready. I didn’t think you would be, or be anywhere near that stage of life yet. It’s all still happening, or really recent. I was thinking years away, from a safe distance, and when you’re settled. There’s way too much going on right now.

kitteh, I don’t think that “flooding the system” makes much sense… currently we have the gateway theory of pain which kind of works the opposite way, where if you overload the senses by a lot of pain in a super short amount of time your pain sensation is lowered significantly. It does work, I’m not sure if it works in the way they theorize but it does work.

And afaik stuttering is mostly psychological? And I think (I’d have to double-check) that tongue-ties cause more stuttering than releasing them does. But I do agree that for it to affect him in a speech impediment they’d have to mangle the tongue, not just clip the frenulum…

And neonates pretty much experience pain just like everyone else. The reason why people don’t get too concerned is because they can’t remember it later because their short/long term memories and conceptualization is very limited. But they do feel pain, on the same essential scale as adults do and (going back to MC) much of MC is done without anaesthesia (because extra needle/cost/chance of doing things wrong/fucking up because neonates are very small). So yeah, think about how much it would hurt to get your foreskin removed as an adult without any anaesthetic and it’s pretty much similar for a baby…