about SIL and DS1's Bris (circumcision) ?

[imlikeaironingboard]

I'm Jewish (Liberal) and DH counts himself as secular Jewish (as does all of his family).
His DBro (my BIL) married out - not a 'big' thing with them due to the whole non practicing/secular thing.

I'm due to give birth to DS1 (DC2) in a week.

They do not have children and it is only DH and BIL as siblings. our DC1 is a DD.

Both DH and BIL are circumcised.

She told us tonight that she would not be coming to DS1 Bris. The idea of doing that 'disgusts' her.

AIBU to be really upset and to think that she should have realised that marrying into a jewish family secular or not would mean that these sort of things would happen?

This has really really upset me - I have never got a hint of her feeling like this before.

I suppose that technically that makes non-believers who circumcise worse since they lack excuse (1) but then again they at least do it in a clinic with anaesthetic instead of with an audience.

Do you really think that Religion and medical environment are mutually exclusive? I have no idea how Bris/Brit is performed but every single child I know has been circumcised by a doctor in a clinic for Religious reasons. so was DH and the men of his generation he has talked to.

What do you imagine it is like? an Imam coming to the Friday prayer with a rusty pair of scissors and performing "chain circumsision" in front of the assembly?

Onagar it did not have anything to do with God for me. It is what pediatricians recommend in the US.

I am a health care professional. I trained in Australia in the 80's and During this time I had never seen an uncircumcised man either personally or professionally. I did my midwifery placement in my final year and had the misfortune to be involved in circumcision day. I had to help strap little babies to a board that had a sort of baby shap dip in it and then watch as they were cut without anaesthetic. 9 of them one after another, I can still hear the screaming. I decided there and then that if I ever had a little boy I would never subject him to it. And i didnt.
Oh and for Mr Bloom. I maintained my professional face when what I really wanted to do was sob at the horror of it. It remains the most distressing thing I have ever been involved in professionally.

therugratref

I would have found that very distressing as well TBH I suppose point of view vary according to the experience you have and what I have witnessed was not gruesome, there was local anestetic involved, no blood, no straping to a board and most definitely no crying or screaming. I do not know where the dirfference come from could be the era, place?

Posies, more children die after being vaccinated than being circumcised....

'Butchery'? Gallowee, my DS is alive and kicking, with no complaints. I was completely wide awake and sentient when I made the decision, with exH, to have DS circumcised. I do not think the doctors lied to me when they presented their case. They went on the best information available at the time, 18 years ago. In addition, as GothAnne says, adequate pain relief was used.

I did not want to put my DS through a more difficult operation and recovery at a later stage of his life should it ever become necessary. A post pubescent male undergoing circumcision for reasons of phimosis, paraphimosis, balanitis, balanoposthitis, disease of the foreskin including cancer, or frenulum breve (short frenulum that tears with intercourse) all fairly rare conditions admittedly would need sutures to prevent the wound from tearing and recovery can be complicated. The suturing of an organ that expands and contracts so much is no simple matter. With newborn circumcision, the procedure does not require any suturing. The vast majority of babies who are circumcised do not need luck of any sort to recover therefore.

In addition to medical reasons, many adult men choose to have circumcision done as an elective procedure for purely cosmetic reasons.

There is no comparison to fgm, first because there is absolutely no medical reason for fgm, whereas there is a reason for circumcision, albeit a small one, and fgm in all its forms has serious consequences for a woman's enjoyment of sex afterwards, whereas the effect on a man's is slim to none. If circumcision reduced male sexual pleasure significantly it would never be done.

'Can we stop with the pretending that the religious people who do it are doing it for health reasons. I asked if they would support a ban if it turned out that it had negative health effects and got a deafening silence. It would still be God's law if it killed 50% of babies and they'd have to do it.'

Fact is, Onagar and everyone else bleating about this, it does not kill babies, and it is not butchery. For the overwhelming majority of boys circumcised it does not have negative health effects -- compared to other routine procedures that are done for sound medical reasons, like vaccination, even those negative effects that have been reported are a drop in the ocean.

Math, circumcision does dramatically decrease the feeling of sensation in the penis as many of the receptors are removed with the foreskin so it does have that in common with FGM.

Would you remove tonsils as well for the just in case scenario? That is more painful when you have it done at a later stage in life?

What is the problem with babies being strapped to a board? It is a completely necessary restraint when any procedure is being done to a baby that involves sharp instruments. To not restrain (and it is not some rude plank we are talking about here) would be very poor practice.

A neighbour had to have her 18 month old child strapped to the restraint while the doctor poked around up his nose for a googly eye he had managed to shove up there one day. The alternative is a flailing and kicking patient.

Math, how can you say for certain that it does not kill babies? It is a medical procedure which carries risks and as with any medical procedures people die as a result of complications.

This baby died as a result of circumcision. www.cmaj.ca/content/167/7/789.2.full

It is butchery, it makes masturbation and penetrative less enjoyable, it looks awful.

Unlike vaccines there is no real upside to circumcision. A reduced risk of penile cancer still saw 32 circumcised men die of it last year in the USA. Other STDs are only preventable through condom wear.

If you could point out any research which links neo natal deaths to vaccinations only I can't find any.

Why anyone thinks they can defend this is beyond me? Especially feminists.

Dutchy, it leaves plenty of feeling, of that we can be assured. If it did not, the human race would not be ballooning at the rate it is. I cannot imagine men would willingly blight their lives to any significant extent, or the lives of their sons.

The issue with having it done later in life is not just pain. It is the difficulty of refraining from sexual activity or stimulation of any sort for four to six weeks after the op in order to keep the sutures from failing and having to be redone that is the problem, and there is also an issue with scarring from the sutures if the tension is not right or sutures being ineffective if too loose.

Tonsils (and adenoids) are removed from both children and adults for a variety of reasons. The aim is always prevention, and not to treat a current infection.
From this site:
"The following are T&A Guidelines from the American Academy of Otolaryngology:

seven sore throats in one year
five sore throats in each of two years
three sore throats in each of three years

The sore throats may be associated with the following:

fever above 101º F
discharge on the tonsils
positive strep throat culture

The following are additional reasons that are more controversial regarding the removal of the adenoids and tonsils:

bad snoring
recurrent infections or abscesses in the throat
recurrent ear infections
hearing loss
chronic sinusitis, or infection in the sinuses
constant mouth breathing
frequent colds
cough
bad breath"

I'm not sure where you're going with your tonsil analogy. Bad breath is a lot less severe a condition than penile cancer.

There is no single standard of sexual pleasure that men can measure themselves against, Posies, any more than there is one for women. When you say circumcised men experience less pleasure, you are therefore talking through your hat.

How it looks is in the eye of the beholder, just as women's genitalia may be considered attractive or not, depending on who is doing the looking. Same goes for body piercings or tattoos.

Take a look at the vaccination topic here if you're looking for some ripping bunfights as well as many links to sites on deaths and other side effects of vaccinations (some are a bit dodgy imo but even the US CDC site reveals negative associations with some vaccinations).

(I personally support vaccination, want to make that clear, don't like tattoos, shrug at piercings including ears of young children)

Math, tonsils are only taken out after a child has experienced problems ie 7 sore throats in a year so it is done as a medical procedure after a health issue has been diagnosed. It is completely different, a child is experiencing sore throat on a regular basis. Whilst in your case foreskins are removed before any problems are detected and any health problems for which circumcision could be a solution are diagnosed.

My questions was would you have tonsils removed too just in case there is a medical need to do so at a later stage in your child's life, just like you did with the circumcision.

Circumcision does dramatically decrease sensation, if you have a look there is plenty of medical literature confirming this. If you use common sense, you can draw the same conclusion. Let's say you can't feel less sensation in your breasts, would you still like to be stroked as much as before?

maths "There is no single standard of sexual pleasure that men can measure themselves against, Posies, any more than there is one for women. When you say circumcised men experience less pleasure, you are therefore talking through your hat."

You are suggesting that removing sensitive tissue does not remove sensation? What makes you think that?

I think posies has been going on about lack of sensitivity and a bad sex life after circumcision for the past 7 pages. Get some new material posies...

Actually math there is. It is known that the receptors are kerintinised (hardened) surely, if nothing else, common sense tells you that.

So math piercings of infant ears no, chop a bit of their penis off.....yessy doodle?

blooms: "I think posies has been going on about lack of sensitivity and a bad sex life after circumcision for the past 7 pages. Get some new material posies... "

Has her agrument been defeated, then?

Correct me if I am wrong, but I was under the impression that most of the nerve endings in the penis are at the head. The shaft, although it does have it's own sensory experience, cannot be compared to the tip.

All the men I've known who are circumcised do not complain about sex being unenjoyable. The one man I've known who went from uncircumcised to circumcised as an adult says that he prefers being circumcised.

No one gets their child circumcised "for no reason." That notion is just ridiculous. It may be a reason you don't agree with or can't comprehend, but to say that to not understand equates to nonexistence is ridiculous and smacks of arrogance.

"Correct me if I am wrong, but I was under the impression that most of the nerve endings in the penis are at the head."

You are wrong. The foreskin and corona(?) are exceptionally sensitive.

Incidentally the head of a circumcised penis is relatively tough and insensitive

PigletJohn - Her ARGUMENT is not even worthy of being an argument!! It is a ridiculously stupid comment to make. In essence, she is saying that all the circumcised men in the world (~30% of the world's population) have a bad sex life because of it. Just total ignorance.

Then for the comment that has been made about children dying from circumcisions is an absolutely vile thing to say on this type of forum, where there are countless mothers (like myself) who will have this procedure done, and not to mention the countless mothers who have lost their babies in-utero or at birth, or even after birth. All these mothers have made choices too. How dare you insinuate that mothers like me are pushing our children forward onto the "firing line" just because they are having a circumcision.

MrBloomsNursurey "all the circumcised men in the world (~30% of the world's population) have a bad sex life"

I didn'y notice here say that. Are you sure you didn't make it up yourself?

I did notice her assert that sensitivity is reduced, I haven't seen anyone disprove that.

I see you like to correct my poor typing, so:

MrBloomsNursery: "all the circumcised men in the world (~30% of the world's population) have a bad sex life"

I didn't notice her say that. Are you sure you didn't make it up yourself?

I did notice her assert that sensitivity is reduced, I haven't seen anyone disprove that.

Sorry - all these arguments and evidence bouncing back and forth on this thread still don't get me past the fact that this is completely unnecessary surgery done without the consent or knowledge of the child and as such is unethical.

Mrsblooms - children have died from circumcision. I have also heard of a child needing penis amputation following a circumcision which went wrong. These things are rare, but they have happened.

PigletJohn I am not suggesting anything of the sort. I am questioning the existence of some barometer of sexual pleasure that men can measure themselves against to come out with a definitive statement about the level of sexual pleasure they experience whether circumcised or not.

There is no such barometer. All reports about sexual pleasure from circumcised or uncircumcised men are purely subjective. No man can know if he has experienced the same sensations as the next or whether his have been better or worse than his neighbour's.

Where circumcised vs. uncircumcised men are concerned, the only men who are qualified to form an opinion are those who have been circumcised after reaching puberty.

The removal of a foreskin early in life is dramatically less risky than it would be later and recovery is straightforward and generally uncomplicated. As a preventive measure it carries some value, and the timing has a lot to recommend it. The difference between taking out tonsils as a child (and bear in mind that bad breath often caused by tonsiliths is one of the reasons it is done even in children) and as an adult is minimal. All of the problems associated with tonsils and adenoids can be treated with ABs or maybe even better dental hygiene.