Overall, not a bad review, although (like the reviews of other books of this type) the review focuses on what the book doesn’t say, rather than what it does say. The same treatment Dicky Dawkins got for “The God Delusion”, where a reviewer thought the best way to lambast the book was it’s failure to ponder why religion persists: hardly a fair point, as that’s not what the book set out to do—would a book on Calculus be nonsense for not covering algebra?

The review does lose credibility in some areas:

He is also a fallible one. After rightly railing against female genital mutilation in Africa, which is an indigenous cultural practice with no very firm ties to any particular religion

“No very firm ties to any particular religion”—think about that for a moment. No very firm ties—so ties do exist; “to any particular religion”—so yes, it is a religious practice, just not one tied to a specific religion. The follow-up is gonna be obvious and I’m going to rail against it again (feel free to skip if you like):

“Hitchens lunges at male circumcision. He claims that it is a medically dangerous procedure that has made countless lives miserable. This will come as news to the Jewish community, where male circumcision is universal, and where doctors, hypochondria, and overprotective mothers are not exactly unknown.

Male circumcision is a medically unnecessary procedure, all operations have risks, and every study of males circumcised as adults has shown decreased pleasure from and interest in sex. The borderline anti-Semite comment is barely worth a response (not all Jews are circumcised though, let’s keep that in mind.)

Jews, Muslims, and others among the nearly one-third of the world’s male population who have been circumcised may be reassured by the World Health Organization’s recent announcement that it recommends male circumcision as a means of preventing the spread of AIDS.

Actually, I doubt it gives them any succor at all the investigations in Africa were not completed, and the results are specific to males in that area who have multiple partners and where birth control basically means backdoor action. Circumcision makes sex less fun, if it’s less fun, you don’t have so much of it, hence AIDS goes down, woo hoo! If you are a male in the developed world and practice sensible sex being circumcised or uncircumcised has no, zero, nil, zilch importance.

And that’s a nice lead in to a little point about Intelligent Design: if God is great, and the master of the jigsaw of life, why did he give boys a foreskin and girls a clitoris? Why did he make us so imperfect that we need to start hacking parts of ourselves off?

“Jesus loves me this I know,
He hacked my genitals just for show.”

Circumcision makes sex less fun, if it’s less fun, you don’t have so much of it, hence AIDS goes down

But you know this extrapolation of yours is crap, don’t you? Everyone, circumcised or not, enjoys sex just plenty. Maybe the circumcised feel a little less, but they don’t know it, and they go at it like little bunnies anyway. If they can.

Don’t mistake this as an argument pro-circumcision, just that you have no data to support who has more sex, and no means to realistically acquire that data. And your reasoning strikes me as bafflingly false.

Actually, there have been a number of studies that did take that into account (how many partners, how often, what form of sex)—I’ll try to find a couple of them. Trust me, I have no ideas of my own!

As I remember it, the difference was tangible (around 15% difference?) but you are correct—sex, even if circumcised, is great! The biggest delta was in men cut as adults (year one needs to be discounted as it takes around that time for the nerve endings to desensitise—but after that time, their shagging rates did fall off.

There are a lot of things in any study that can cause problems: if circumcision takes place (in an adult) for religious reasons, the cut may feel that sex is somehow dirty, and that their prior sex life is a source of guilt. If circumcision is required for medical reasons, there’s a high probability the problem may well impact future sex simply as a result of whatever the medical issue was. Cultural issues also come into play. Add to that, guys tend to be a little mendacious when asked about sexual activity, as you may have noticed.

And your reasoning strikes me as bafflingly false.

S’alright, your a girl, just look pretty, have dinner on the table when I get home, wash the skidmarks out of my briefs and when the wee man gets angry be ready to sooth him.

(For any casual reader, the above is of course a joke.)

The biggest delta was in men cut as adults

Such men, do we want them to procreate? An ex boyfriend offered to have himself circumcised if I would just stay with him. Tempting offer, but it was the missing chromosome--not the extra bit of willie--that bothered.

S’alright, your a girl, just look pretty, have dinner on the table when I get home, wash the skidmarks out of my briefs and when the wee man gets angry be ready to sooth him.

I just read this. You bastard. VASES! NOW!