Forsake The Forskin Vs Tolerate the Turtle-neck

[UselessForeskinHiddenSurgeon]

When our DC arrives (approx 4months) should we be blessed with a boy (we don't know/want to know) , my partner (Jewish) would like to perform Brit milah on DS. This ceremony must occur 8 days after birth. My folks (Muslim) would also appreciate possible future grandson being foreskin free for similar but slightly different religious purposes. I am not particularly religious and nor is my partner (hence marrying out)

I was circumcised at the age of twelve and have clear (though not painful) memories of the event (carried out by Muslim surgeon at home along with my two younger brothers) Do remember being a little scared and i suppose it might have been a bit of an ordeal... Do have at least one amusing anecdote from it so i can't be that scarred surely?

Despite my own experience I don't like the idea at all. my first instinct is to put it off until later in the hope that everyone will just forget... i mean how often do you think about someone else's foreskin? There are some health benifits, among them; significantly reduced risk of HIV, HPV and also reduced incidence of genital warts among circumcised men. These are not enough to swing my opinion. Now my folks may be cool with leaving it until later since they themselves left it until i was a little older, but she is adamant we have it performed after 8 days (as per Brit Milah tradition)

AIBU to want to make a fuss about this? perhaps i should just cross my fingers and hope for a girl. We shall call her Queenie and she defo won't need to go for a chop thanks. I'd like a girl anyhow and it would make it easier for sure... since this is the case we're bound to wind up with a boy. Comments, Opinions, and possible strategies please!

Cheers people.

Whilst I do sympathise useless - it sounds like you are doing your best to keep everyone as happy as you can - I can't let this line go unmentioned

"abuse is all about context."

You'll be telling us that Female genital mutilation is ok next, as long as its the context of a religious tradition.

Roll on the day when this ludicrous procedure is outlawed and it is no longer legal to snip bits off baby boys so they fit in better.

I haven't read the whole post,but I thought you summed it all up perfectly in your train of thought posting.I have daughters,but there is no way I would cut off a part of their bodies unless it was a medical neccessity. Babies die every year from circumcision,it is not a totally risk free operation,why would you do this for aesthetics? I think there is a jewish contingent of people against it now too,try googling. Maybe your wife will feel differently once the baby is born, all your instincts as a new mother are to protect your baby fiercely so maybe that will help. My DH has had the snip,and although he himself is fairly circumspect about it, I deeply resent his parents for doing it, I think it is barbaric,really. My girls are perfect in every way and every small part of them is just how it was meant to be ! Good luck.

"Roll on the day when this ludicrous procedure is outlawed and it is no longer legal to snip bits off baby boys so they fit in better."

Yes, I think that's the only way it will stop.

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b011zzh8/Womans_Hour_Nancy_DellOlio_Male_Circumcision_Pensions_Update/

Woman's hour did a very interesting piece on this not long ago.

www.savana.org.uk/NewsEvents

Interesting links here too!

Let's go Darwin for a mo': if foreskins were a bad idea, they would have evolved out, They haven't, so they are a good idea (or at least not a bad one).

This line of argument saved DS1's willy from the predations of secular Jewish ex-DH, though commie bitch Jewish-Mama-from-Hell MiL will never forgive me (for this or many, many other sins).

'She feels emotional pain and some level of guilt about what our getting married has done to her father and wants to do everything she can to make us work whilst trying to repair some of the damage caused.' -Totally agree with other posters if this is about her guilt, she should amputate a bit of her own body, not your baby's.

My parents are Christian, I do not consider myself Christian even though I was Christened, my DSs have not been Christened just to keep my parents happy. Although being Christened is painless and, as far as I am aware, risk free it would be hypocritical to put them through a ritual I do not believe in. If they choose to they can opt to be Christened. Your child can choose to be Jewish, Muslim or Agnostic when they are old enough to know their own mind.

'Future issues for us and our child if we don't go ahead are bound to come to the fore. though we may be adequately equipped to handle these, our DS will have little hope of defending himself against some random person or extended family member saying or doing something hurtful. she also thinks that issues from external (eg school kids etc) for being cut are likely to be easier for DS than internal one for not being cut.' - Random people and extended family members are still external issues, the most likely internal issue is going to be caused by being cut. I would never be able to understand or forgive my parents if they had mutilated my genitals to assuage their guilt towards my grandparents. Your child is going to be growing up in a century where people are growing steadily more horrified by the mutilation of babies, this is probably going to make it harder for him to come to terms with being cut when you are clearly aware it is an archaic practise.

'Our children will never have to worry about having to do this to their little-ones. Some ideas can be ditched quickly and without thinking, there are others that need to be phased out in order to maintain the peace.' - You don't have to do this to your little one, you're choosing to do it to make your and your DW's lives easier, at the expense of your child.

You seemed to be considering this in a reasonable way, like someone who cared about their unborn child above all else but the fact you've capitulated for such a lousy bunch of non-reasons is, quite frankly, pathetic.

hello again everybody! leeeetle bit tipsy so i'm gonna go straight in there and say the following...

We aren't doing this to appease are parents or as some bizarre form of restitution. We are trying to insure the best possible outcome for our DC. We want relationships with grandparents to be as untainted as possible. There are things about our respective families that we may never change. Nobody gets to choose their family. We choose our battles. We have fought and won many to date. Folks have insisted this and that and been rebuffed. Flak has been taken from all directions and multiple parties, things have been horribly grizzly.

animation i think it was who wrote i should grow a pair? have to say this did rile me briefly but it's cool. it takes a fair set of balls to stand up to ones folks. think you might have said as much yourself further up the thread. DW and I have done so often. Reckon DW has got a giant shiny titanium pair of her own :) and anyhow If growing a pair means standing up to my wife when she really needs support then i don't want a pair. perhaps i can sell on ebay! Pair of chocolate salty balls successfully deployed just once... And which textbook is that you're looking at?!? fairly sure they stop short of cutting that far down. :) blah blah rant rant... teehee...

another thing that riled me briefly was the idea that DW had "handled" me (cheek kiss/burden/guilt). Initial outrage gave way to grudging acceptance that this is indeed what occurred... But you know what? that's cool too. She gets to do that, it is her prerogative and sometimes a rather like it.

After the show tonight we stayed out and wound up at a friends party. she taught me how to dance the blues and now we do so whenever we can. How she got me to do so at a standard acceptable in public i cannot fathom. It's only a tiny bit awkward with a bump. It was there she revealed just how much the whole issue gets at her. she's capable of exceptional steeliness (is that even a word?) and i guess sometimes i fail to see past that. so it turns out that this is as much a compromise for her as it is for me. It's a big deal to her, or rather her father; so we're letting in slide.

Some may disagree with our choice. Many may think it shouldn't be our choice at all but that of our DC. I would remind them that we agree! We are both making this decision against our wishes, i would hope people appreciate that to do so is not easy for us. We are in the best position to judge the possible outcomes/future problems and we choose this. and we choose so despite our own wishes. bollocks repeated myself.

For those who shouted thin end of the wedge and where do you draw the line? well... this is the line. infact it's proabbly a little over the line and there shall be no more wedgery... thats definitely not a word. i duont knw. we'll take it as it comes. all at once takes the joy out of it and sucks all the romance out of life. err rambling... not even sure what i'm on about

Right now the battles past & present are drowning in the moat of whisky aaround my head. gonna bumble down the hallway to my magnificent wife who has just trumped rather loudly from our bed, bless her heart.

good night everybody..... we're having a baby wooooooo!!!!11

pelvicfloor heeeeey! our reasons are not lousy. it's neither easy nor desirable to lay it all out here on a forum when much of it is well, difficult, and hard even for us to understand. our reasons are good. good enough to make us choose a course we really dont want. so quit busting my balls! (did i mention they're for sale? would you like first refusal?) may or may not be able to live with myself later but i'll never regret backing my wife.

good night to you madam. pah!

cant sleep. think the whsiky in that bottle might be off. does whisky doesn't go off? jamjam will know! everybody is aslleeep goddammit. lets have a looksee. oh yes! we're going to lie to my folks. would only need to hide his little winky for 8 days. after that we'll just say he got it done shortly after birth by a surgeon which has the virtue of being the truth. there will be and has been a lot of lying. maternal and paternal granparents will be fed differing narratives of their grandchildrens status and progress. maternal granparents will believ that DC are only minimally muslim and paternal will think DC is only just a jew! haha! ot's not funny but it is funny but its not. even these actions are to save them hurt rather than us grief although they will deal with both effectively... trading in lies and deceit. don't like it. unavoidable. my background means i am adept at delivery and also at dealing with the emotional side of deception. apart from the odd binge drink sesh. ha! muslims are definatly not good at holding drink down... cheeky! if the inlaws knew how poor a muslim i was they'd be relieved. i think or maybe it would be worse...
still won't be showing her this thread mind.

partly to spare her some of the stuff that i've read and partly becasue i don't want her to have to think about just how much this is bothering me and put her under further pressure. we've discussed it and now barring her changing her mind after birth it's gonna happen. unless its a girl! ALL GIRLS! common! the lying it doesn't come naturally to her, which is suprising given her occupation. or perhaps it isn't i don't know. still bit tipsy. actually tipsyer thats not a word. it gets to her i think. lying. if it was just me and her. she and I? i dunno. perhaps we could have them bumped off before the birth. she knows enough dodgy geezers... we could make up fantastical tails to tell DC about the dearly departed grandparents and how amzing they were and how they never made us do anything we really didnt want to... more lies. that doesn't make any sense at all and i think i jsut suggested assisnating our parents... teehee. hold up. back! maybe she'll change her mind. maybe. i won't be pushin g it though.. argh! it bothers me. it really does. it bothers her too! she's not bad, she's not! just fucking awkward situation.

i don't need to justify myself here but something keeps making me do it.

sod this back to bed .we want all the things that they want for us just in a slightly different format that they find it hard to cope with. like sticking a blue ray in a dooovd or cd in a cassette deck. error eject. eject! ha look at all the crap i wrote! enjoy!

they will most certainly not deal effectivly with both! i take that back. we'll get grief despite our lies to save them hurt. itsa lose lose situation and now a new development~ aurguing with yourself on mumsnet of all places. in the words of animation grow a pair. who was it said farque owf? let's farque owf back to bed mister.

Hope you're asleep now, Useless! I think you may have partaken rather more whisky than you first thought... Hope you don't have an early start in the morning!

OP, stop beating yourself up over this (and also stop drinking, but that's another thread). Worldwide, one man in three is circumcised. In the UK it is fewer than 1 in a 100. The demographics of mumsnet are very Christian/white, therefore loads of posters are completely unfamiliar with it and you get all these references to child abuse and FGM. You would get a totally different response in the US, where it is still the norm (though rates are slowly going down there). Circumcision will be the biggest non event in your son's life, it is a very minor op (I suppose not unlike snipping a tongue tie?), takes a few minutes, heals within days. It will be over quickly and you will all be fine.

Some good agonising going on there Useless, and a lot of nonsense as well !

Your maternal and paternal parents may be hurt and upset if you DON'T cut off your baby's foreskin. If that's the case then maybe they NEED to get upset - but they're adults and they'll get over it. And yes, you could also not tell them, or lie, but do whatever it takes to NOT sacrifice your baby in this way for their pleasure.

Your parents are no longer the centre of your world now - your baby is.

Everything that primafacie said

You are getting a one sided view here. Both because of the demographic and because those that are on MN that have circumcised their boys for non medical reasons are not participating in this discussion because of the hysteria.

There are various groups in the Jewish community that support mix faith couples. Are you connected in to any? It my help for you to talk to others in your position who are several years down the line with this decision. PM me if you want contact details.

"not participating in this discussion because of the hysteria."

Those who disagree with you are hysterical?

Religious reasons for doing things to babies SHOULD be questioned.

Religion is man made after all - and not directly from God.

I don't have time to read all posts, so I apologise if this is something someone else has said, but I wanted to make sure you were aware, OP:

circumcised boys are more sensitive to pain for YEARS after circumcision. YEARS. If you want the reference PM me and I'll dig out my files to check.

Seriously, they may not fuss too much at the time but you're cutting through a whole load of nerve endings and it has some very long term effects on pain tolerance.

The foreskin is there to protect the glans and it also makes sex a bit nicer for the man (loads more nerve endings) and the woman (slides in and out easier). There's a great cross-cultural paper which argues that any form of genital mutilation is to reduce extra-pair paternity by making sex a bit less fun or a bit less easy so that only those with easy access to each other *(i.e. spouses) will get preggers!

What a load of shit LeggyBlondeNE.

i dont know if what leggy is saying is shit BUT circumcision is NOT always easy and its certainly NOT painless, there can be complications and problems that arrise as a result of it and WHY take that risk when its not necessary?

like animation said and i have said we do many things for religious and cultural reason that does NOT make them right or ok.

and i do find it very odd that we are all pretty much in agreement that female circumcision is NOT ok and yet we continue to do it to boys! and use religion/culture as a reason, they were the same reasons for girls but thankfully we wised up to that, lets hope we do the same regarding male circumcision!

I think the OP might be best placed to answer whether or not he experienced years of lasting pain after having all those nerve endings cut, hmm?

Hysteria

It is strange that people don't seem to question the reasons behind circumcision, I don't know what they are but then I am not religious. I think hygiene is just an excuse as we live in a country where water and soap is readily available, hiv infection is something recent so another excuse, looking like dad, well leave that one as it is... Earlier in the thread someone (sorry can't remember the posters name) said it originally was to reduce sexual pleasure which I think is far more likely to be a real reason. Religion and sex don't seem to mix :)

I would be interested to hear from people who live their life according to the Jewish/Muslim religion (not just pick and mix) what they think of people who go through with this ceremony without the intention of living their lives accordingly. To me it just seems meaningless if you just do it for your parents or for the party. (Same applies to Christenings imo)

Useless one more question, will the circumcision take place during a religious ceremony or will it be done independently in a private hospital?

I just realised I am assuming it will done the Jewish way but I might be completely wrong here.

Yes female circumcision 4madboys big, firm NO, never.
Unlike male circumcision which sometimes has very real genuine medical reasons to be performed, female it's pure vanity.
And yet it's enough to google it, and it seems the whole world is doing, sadly most of them women in the western world, seeking to have perfectly formed vagina.
Of course nowhere on those internet pages it is called "female circumcision", but rather swanky "labia minor-a and major-a modification"
Complete nonsense, but given the chance to hear these woman, I am sure they will probably be able to come up with million reasons for doing it, and justifying it along the way.