{"id":13273,"date":"2023-06-02T19:28:06","date_gmt":"2023-06-02T09:28:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/?p=13273"},"modified":"2023-06-02T19:29:53","modified_gmt":"2023-06-02T09:29:53","slug":"readers-show-defensive-and-uninformed-perspectives-on-circumcision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/2023\/06\/02\/readers-show-defensive-and-uninformed-perspectives-on-circumcision\/","title":{"rendered":"Readers show \u2018defensive and uninformed perspectives\u2019 on circumcision"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mp_wrapper\">\n  <div class=\"mepr-unauthorized-excerpt\">\n    <p>Editor\u2019s note: If you would like to submit a letter for possible publication, please email it to editor@rationalist.com.au. See our\u00a0Publishing Guidelines.\nDear Editor,\nI am a supporter of the RSA and commend your ongoing campaign against genital mutilation. Recently, I read RSA president Meredith Doig\u2019s article on Rationale, titled Rationalists and circumcision (2 April 2023).\nMeredith shared some feedback she had received from readers of her RSA Daily email newsletter. Some of the quotes caused me a combination of astonishment and disgust, leaving me concerned that many of the commenters completely misunderstood the issue and were from a cohort of older men that were ignorant about foreskin.\u00a0\u00a0\nI appreciate that Meredith in her RSA Daily stated that, as a woman, she was seeking the experiences of circumcised men. But that seems to have been to the exclusion of both younger men and intact males.\u00a0\nThis is a broader problem with the issue \u2013 that is, the consistent and often deliberate avoidance by individuals and organisations to acknowledge or detail the function, benefit and experience of foreskin. The vast majority of circumcised men have no experience of foreskin and, therefore, no special perspective on it.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\nThis is a primary reason why circumcision is performed pre-memory \u2013 to avoid boys and men ever experiencing the function and feeling of foreskin and therefore truly knowing the loss. It is rare for adult men to request to be circumcised.\nDenying another human being th...<\/p>\n  <\/div>\n  <div class=\"mepr-unauthorized-message\">\n    <hr style=\"width: 100%;max-width: 1000px !important;height: 5px;border-width: 0;color: red;background-color: red\" \/>\n<div style=\"text-align: center\">\n<h3><em>You're part way through this article. Want to keep reading?<\/em><\/h3>\n<h4><em>Only members of the Rationalist Society of Australia can read our Premium articles.\u00a0<\/em><\/h4>\n<h3 style=\"height: 20px\"><span style=\"color: #c83200\"><em><a style=\"color: #c83200\" href=\"https:\/\/rationalist.com.au\/membership\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Become a member today.<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n<h4><em>Already a member? 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See our\u00a0Publishing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":444,"featured_media":13277,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[553,350,75],"coauthors":[114],"class_list":["post-13273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-letters","tag-circumcision","tag-military","tag-premium"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/444"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13273"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13278,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13273\/revisions\/13278"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13273"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=13273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}