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My wife just read an exerpt from her book she is studying on human sexuality

A child at some pint in the past was born and at his circumcision they messed up and his todger was irrepairable.. So they made him a woman.. they thought pyschologically he would grow into a woman thinking he was one from birth. But he had boyish tendencuies threwout lide and when h was 15 his parenst explained what happened as a newboen child. They made the hospital give a fake penis and ended up married and adopted children but has no sexual desire whatsoever.

Also in Africa.. a 'tradition' inone tribe was for the men to have their penises cut completely off..this was their circumcision and people withing the tribe would not sit down to eat or accept socially anyone that hadnt had their manhood cut off as a child.

And in China, women used to have their foot mangled and butchered as it made their asses stick out and they became 'the sexiest cripples' available. In an ironic way, women had this done to increase their chances to get married as only the wealthiest men could afford women who were so severly disabled..


Why oh why is my wife reading such nonsense!!??

The botched-circumcision boy was called Bruce Reimer. His penis was destroyed during the operation in the 60s. His parents took him to a pyschologist, John Money, who was acclaimed as an expert in gender (the correct word is actually sex, for the pedants amongst us). The psychologist believed that sexual indentity is something which is acquired over time. He argued that if David was brought up as a girl, he would simply believe that he was a girl. The parents were convinced and took the baby boy to a surgeon who removed the remaining testes. Bruce then became Brenda.

What was interesting for psychologists was that Bruce had an identical twin brother called Brian. Brenda was continually monitered by John Money, and was given hormones to make her grow breasts when she became a teenager and so on. Money, was especially interested in Brenda because Brian would act as a perfect control in the case study.

The story is a tradegy however. Brenda never felt like a girl. She didn't fit in at school and became increasingly disturbed by her visits with Money. At 13, she told her parents that she would kill herself if she continued seeing the psychologist. In the 90s, her parents told her about her past, and that she was born a boy. Brenda then started the process of 'becoming' a man. He had a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery on his penis. Brenda, became David.

David married a woman and became a stepfather. Brian, David's twin brother, took the news bady. He developed psychological problems and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. In 2002, he died as a result of taking a cocktail of antidepressants and alcohol. David Reimer, took his own life two years later in 2004.

I heard about the foot thing in China. Its horrible what they did! Sounds like an interesting read!

I.D wrote:Also in Africa.. a 'tradition' inone tribe was for the men to have their penises cut completely off..this was their circumcision and people withing the tribe would not sit down to eat or accept socially anyone that hadnt had their manhood cut off as a child.

Er.... If the males todgers are all cut off when they are children then surely they can't reproduce as adults.

No todgers = no babies.

So how does a society with a practice like this survive past a single generation?

Or am I missing something here?

I've always been against circumcision. It seems like mutilation in support of someone else's beliefs.

I honestly don't care either way - but the real problem comes when people begin suing the doctor who performed the circumcision. Unbelievably that has actually happened.

I also think mutilation is a bit of a stretch. But that's more a semantics argument.

you got to respect a religion that cuts 2" off before it develops

actualy I'm against all forms of genital mutilation, to have it done by your free choice is your own afair.

the foot binding exersise was to do with oriental male culture wanting there females to have small feet a cultural fetish thing at least thats what i remember of it i could be wrong.

a few cases of boys being made girls due to ambiguose sex organs in the early days were because it was easier to take away than it was to make up and boys all start out as girls in the womb.

Demitri wrote:I also think mutilation is a bit of a stretch. But that's more a semantics argument.

Well, to be fair, circumcision impacts on a certain ability. I think that's what I really object to, but as this is a family forum, let's leave it there.

Yes the foot binding was a oriental male fetish in that they believed the foot binding made the womans buttocks stand out more.. they were what they called 'high class cripples'. It was generally rich oriental males that had this fetish and by having a woman with sucha disability it 'proved' their social status!!

The african tribe thing.. they are jsut crazy! I assume that it would have ceased reproduction though I imagine the 'leaders' of the tribe were the only ones intact and did all the reproducing, thats the way it normally happens.. African tirbes scare me, thats why Id never go to Africa!

I find sexuality a very interesting topic, it's one of the major things that makes us who we are. What defines our sexuality? Is it psychological, physiological or cultural?

So much of what we see as wrong, so many other cultures don't think twice about. Ancient egyptian pharoes would sleep with their sisters, the idea of sex with anyone outside of their family was seen as dirty. The romans were worse and insest was very common among them.

Why do we find certain things attractive? Chinese had a thing for little feet, strange to us but that's why it's all so interesting. Why do we women shave our legs, is it some strange male fetish? I'm sure many cultures would find that very odd too.

The issue of Jewish circumcision is interesting, but then if that's someone elses culture and beliefs we have to respect that as we would like to think they do with ours.

The debate about male circumcision will remain a subjective one for a long time - although I'm sure the cases of secular parents requesting their boys be circumcised will increase now that it has apparently been shown to reduce the risk of HIV infection among straight men.

Female circumcision is another issue entirely. It is multilation - although I won't go into graphic details on this forum - and I don't think that anyone could effectively argue in its favour, even on cultural or religious grounds.

And in the cases of incest that Lady of Mystery mentions, I find it interesting that the roman aristocracy got jiggy with their siblings in order to ensure an untainted 'pedigree' of their offspring. It was an attempt to keep the family line pure - an early attempt at genetic control in some respects - but their reasons for inbreeding are exactly the reasons why they shouldn't have done it. Silly Romans!

But as for sexuality in its basic form - who attracts whom - I find it most amusing to look at the people with problems on the subject. Stop and ask yourself why they waste so much time and energy being angry about what other people do in bed! You could hypothesise for years about that one.

Oh, and am I the only one who thinks the Raven is overrated?

pcwells wrote:And in the cases of incest that Lady of Mystery mentions, I find it interesting that the roman aristocracy got jiggy with their siblings in order to ensure an untainted 'pedigree' of their offspring. It was an attempt to keep the family line pure - an early attempt at genetic control in some respects - but their reasons for inbreeding are exactly the reasons why they shouldn't have done it. Silly Romans!

Ok, I'd just like to clear this up... I am NOT incestuous in anyway In fact I only have a brother, who I don't really get on all that well with. maybe if I had a sister... *stops talking*

Anyway. Inbreeding only becomes a problem a long way donw the line with no new genes into the genepool unless there's already some kind of genetic disorder in the family. For example two cystic fibrosis sufferes having a child increases the chances of the child of having cystic fibrosis hugely.

Other than that, it's really not an issue until about 6 or 7 generations down the line with no new genes whatsoever.
So even half brothers/sisters would hold off the deformities for a while!

The onyl reason incest is "wrong" to us is a purely sociolagical thing. That is to say our incest prohibition says that immediate family fall under the incest prohibition.

Were it not for that, we'd probably all be doing it.

When I was in college I did a sociology study on sexuality and sexual attitudes. It's very interesting, the way different cultures view sex and their attitudes towards it.

In some areas of Africa for example (and this could be related to the comments about the african tribe above) sex is considered a very sacred thing and therefore only suitable for men in the higher ranks of society. It was also seen as a way of keeping their bloodlines pure, a kind of selective breeding really.

Even in europe attitudes differ hugely, look at the differences between scandanavia and britain.

Lady of Mystery wrote:Even in europe attitudes differ hugely, look at the differences between scandanavia and britain.

Indeed. when I was in Denmark they had soft porn mags on a shelf below kids' comics. Mind you, the border guard who came on to the bus to check our passports was roaring drunk. An odd place, at least based on my experience anyway.

Lady of Mystery wrote:In some areas of Africa for example... sex is considered a very sacred thing and therefore only suitable for men in the higher ranks of society

Mrs.Mandrake has the same idea and apparently I'm not worthy......