On Dec 12, 2007, at 10:18 PM, Mr. WD wrote:
> On Dec 12, 2007 10:10 PM, Miles Jackson <cqmv at pdx.edu> wrote:
>
>> How on earth could we possibly determine if uncircumcised men
>> experience
>> more pleasure from sex than circumcised men do? (--A serious
>> question.)
>
> Maybe conduct reliable surveys of men who had been circumcised in
> adulthood?
>
>I was going to suggest the same.
This approach seems to assume that the loss of sensitivity would be same for someone circumcised as an infant and as an adult, that seems like too big an assumption to be taken for granted. When a circumcised boy goes through sexual maturation and his physical sensations are integrated into a sense of sexual pleasure, it seems plausible his sense of pleasure could be calibrated to match the reduced sensitivity. So the end result of circumcision might be considerably different for someone who has already gone through sexual maturation.
A more recent study contradicts the findings that Hinckley cites about the uncircumcised men having greater sensitivity, http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/78059.php I doubt such studies are going to have much impact on this debate since a robust understanding of how sensitivity translates into pleasure seems quite a way off, along with the issue of the methods of assessing sensitivity (these two studies uses different approaches).
But on the same line of reasoning, with the so much unresolved about the sensitivity loss, what warrants the risk, even if only potential? The public-health angle seems like a real canard, at least in countries with good access to condoms, and I think Hinckley's response about then making the procedure a consent-based one illustrates that.