[ ARC forum 2 ]
Written by Paul B. at 14 Apr 2002 13:42:41: Ducks and Drakes, Ducks and Drakes
As an answer to: Re: Ducks and Drakes written by rjk at 13 Apr 2002 21:02:01:
> I may well be confused, but not on this: you state this is not a factual comparison,
Your literary quotes and clever polemics aside, this was in fact nothing more nor less than a survey of men's opinions. It proves that certain opinions were held by men insofar as they were asked to respond to certain questions.
> thus casting doubt on what is actually a careful study with supporting statistics.
The critical nub of my comments is that what was demonstrated or what may be concluded from it depends wholly on the crafting of the questions posed and the manner in which they were posed. I offer no contest that when those men were asked those questions, the tabulation and statistics were as duly reported.
> The 1410 samples, subjected to statistical analysis, contrast favorably with the six (6) anecdotal stories on the evils of circumcision I found upon visiting www.norm.org at the suggestion of another visitor to this site.
Do they indeed? I think not. The difference is that barring outright lying (and it is very topical that this is not unknown within "research"), the anecdotal stories are a direct and full representation of each person's observations, whilst the Laumann/ Masi/ Zuckerman study is but an interpretation imposed on constrained responses to anecdotal questions.
> It more than suggests, it REPORTS that differences exist between circumcised and uncircumcised American men
Between the responses of those men to the questions asked, and to those questions only.
> almost every dysfunction is slightly more common among men who have not been circumcised.
But only in regard to the "dysfunctions" asked about in the manner constrained by the actual questions asked.
> You might suggest the authors remedy this deficiency in their next study.
One might, but it is such a glaring oversight, and so critical to interpretation that one might better ask why (or indeed whether) it was deliberately omitted from the current.
> I find nothing whatever in the study to support your speculation about this.
Simple, pure common sense. I have explained the sequence of events clearly.
> you give readers no way to access O'Hara's report;
Try looking in this message then.
> just as well, given that your speculation serves as a diversion from the message of the Laumann report,
On the contrary, the Laumann report appears to be a deliberate diversion from the simple and otherwise self-evident truth of Kristen O'Hara's observations (and that, quite irrespective of which was published first).
> The paper doesn't finish the work needed, as the authors themselves note in the conclusion where they suggest the need for continued research,
What is thoroughly repulsive is that they speak of "the need for continued research that should further aid parents in weighing the benefits and risks of circumcising their sons". That they should even mention such a connection illuminates their true agenda. It is entirely repugnant that they could view infant circumcision as something other than a human rights violation, and this alone implies that their study is in fact addressed not to any concern for men's welfare at all, but to trawl for possible justifications for a thoroughly perverse practice.
> I was impelled to cite the Laumann report when I saw the comment that 'thousands of guys' had lost sensitivity of the glans by age 40.
I cannot see why.
> It simply ISN'T SO, as Laumann et al. amply demonstrate, whatever else you may find in picking their paper apart.
How do you make that out? The Laumann report makes no mention, direct or tangential, on such sensitivity.
> It was indeed studied extensively in research conducted by Masters and Johnson (Human Sexual Response [1966]).
Rubbish! They did a few experiments, daring indeed in their day to be sure, and found out a few things. They even apparently performed some quite straightforward experiments on the glans of circumcised and uncircumcised men and concluded that there was no difference in two-point discrimination. And nor would anyone expect there to be any because that is not markedly altered by keratinisation. That they entirely ignored the sensitivity of the foreskin demonstrates just how fixated they were on the glans to the exclusion of all else, and how objective the study was not.
And even then, they did not appear to study by their accounts, sensory thresholds and quantitative responses. Of course, I very much doubt they could have had the equipment to do this which was I venture to say, still relatively ground-breaking when I worked with and on such some fourteen years later.
> As I pointed out ... the orgasm takes place in the brain, and there I'm happily functional.
Well, I suppose as long as you get an erection and get an orgasm, you are satisfied, along with your ninety-million American friends and Baron Philippe Rothschild. That speaks volumes.