What exactly is the advantage of circumcision and why is their such insistence?

[FrigginRexManningDay]

I was watching 'What to expect when you're expecting' last night and one of the male characters was insisting on circumcision for his unborn son,which turned out to be a girl.

One of the reasons he agreed with was making the penis less sensitive. I don't understand the reasons behind it. AFAIK its not healthier or cleaner. I understand it being done for medical reasons of course,but it just seems unnecessary to be so routine in America.

Norma and Mary, sorry for your losses, I have had my own too, it's really tough isn't it.

My DS was circumcised when he was 6 for medical reasons. It was horrendous I wouldn't wish it on my worse enemy he was in agony how you could do that to a baby is beyond me. The nurse told me it was like pissing glass.

Namechangingnorma - I disagree. It is a pretty cheap procedure, it wouldn't take much of an advantage for it to be cost effective to roll out to the whole population. The cost-benefit analysis must indicate that the benefits are minimal in the UK where antibiotics are readily available as are condoms. We are bothering with the HPV vaccination for girls. If circumcision had even that much of an advantage, then I think it would likely be free on the NHS.

Thank you, prima! I can cope with the MCs better than I can with cope with what happened to my mother. I have a lot of unresolved feelings there.
Anyway, bed is calling so I will take this strange truce in the thread as my cue to leave as I've said my piece and even been deleted for a post that was no different from my others. Goodnight ladies.

Goodnight MK and if it helps I have no idea why your post was deleted, I wasn't offended by it!

Thanks Prima, it's the worst, this time particularly so as it has been two years if trying, wanted so much and physically the worst by a mile, I am sorry you have been through it too. I guess I brought it up because I started worrying about how I would feel when it came to circumsition from the minute I found out I was pregnant as was convinced I was having a boy

sam so what you are saying is that you are morally superior to me because you don't care about my children where as I do care about yours?

odd way of looking at it...

I think all children everywhere should have autonomy over their own bodies. What THEY chose to do to themselves once adult truly is no business of mine.

You certainly do have to make certain decision as parents on behalf of your children. You have to make decisions on acute health issues (like vaccination against childhood diseases) because the decision cannot be put off. But there is no timeliness element here and you actually can't decide on their religion...they will do that themselves...so mutilation for that reason is unquestionably wrong.

norma so sorry to hear of your miscarriages.

Sorry didn't mean to disrupt the truce...it was massive phone call interrupted x-post.

I will also leave it there and hide the thread.

1. It' cleaner and more hygienic. Most men don't clean under their foreskin so this does everyone a favor.

1. Helps prevent him getting cancer and various STDs and prevents a female partner getting cervical cancer

1. Prevents problems later on with the foreskin

1. Boys and men who are circumcized masturbate less

1. When it's done at birth, he will not remember it later in life.

I really don't know why it isn't compulsory.

Sam- I think that was actually meant for me.

Icbin - but there IS a timeliness element. As has been said. Repeatedly.

Style, I really doubt 4 is true :o

It is true. That was the main reason for circumcision decades ago. Hygiene is the main reason now apart from religion.

Style - is 4 meant to be an advantage?

Do you really believe in that list?

stylnadlife
Most of that is rubbish. But thanks for sending me off to bed.

"1. It' cleaner and more hygienic. Most men don't clean under their foreskin so this does everyone a favor."
An uncircumcised foreskin is not less hygienic than uncircumcised labia. Some women don't wash properly - do we cut their genitals too?

"2. Helps prevent him getting cancer and various STDs and prevents a female partner getting cervical cancer"
So if my DP gets circumcised, that will prevent me getting cervical cancer. Yeah right.

"3. Prevents problems later on with the foreskin"
Cut off the labia - prevent problems later on.

"4. Boys and men who are circumcized masturbate less"
Victorians may have believed this, but that doesn't make it true. Evidence?

"5. When it's done at birth, he will not remember it later in life."
If it's not done, he won't have anything to remember.

"I really don't know why it isn't compulsory."
Now I know you're not serious.

So imagine this scenario.

You give birth to a beautiful baby girl. Except she has a huge birth mark covering half her face. Doctors say no medical necessity to remove although some small medical benefits.

You can remove it with a relatively easy procedure as blood vessels haven't yet fully grown while she's a newborn or you can wait until she's a teenager and then she can decide to have a more painful operation with a lot mire complications.

What do you do?

Don't forget that feminine beauty is a cultural concept so the fact that she'll be considered ugly with a huge birth mark on half her face must not be a consideration.

Will you deprive your child of the right to a birth mark? Once gone, you can't get it back! And she can decide herself if she wants the birth mark when she's a teen. I'm sure she'll thank you for not having decided that she shouldn't have had the relatively painless, easy and straightforward procedure as a baby and now she can have a more risky, complicated and painful one.
Don't forget that nature gave us birthmarks for a reason.

But a foreskin is nothing like a birthmark - it's more liked an eyelid. Who the hell would have their kid's eyelids removed? It is utterly barbaric.

I haven't read the entire thread it's manic, but I will say this live and let live that's the attitude in this country, well it seems to be as long as we live like everyone else and agree with the masses.

So the masses are insisting its barbaric and has no benefit so I'm supposed to agree. Well I must be barbaric and the dr who carried it out on my son must be barbaric too. Millions of Christians Jews and Muslims do this as do other non religious groups, whom I can't speak for.

Not very long ago the NHS offered this for free, it's only in recent times has it stopped. now NHS guidelines say although there is benefit there's no great need for it. Ironic before the needs were extolled.

i don't know the situation in America but if its high over there perhaps it's because America likes to put itself out there as being a Christian country. Also a huge Jewish population over there and Muslims to a lesser extent, maybe that explains the figures.

But please cut the crap about it being insisted upon. Who insists you carry it out? No doc mentioned it to me in the uk, it's something I would naturally want for my son as a Muslim mother. My son had it done at 3 months he was awake and he peed on the doc whilst it was being carried out, and he was busy playing with the nurse, he was completely unaware . He did have a anesthetic and yes it did bring tears to my eyes but there was no harm done it was just a tiny bit kf foreskn removed. Doc said it would wear off after an hour. It did and he cried for an hour or less but as advised we sat him in a bath and that calmed him down. The next day his behaviour was normal no crying due to pain. We went on holiday the next day he gave us no problems he was fully healed in 1 week vacation.

Jewish followers circumcise immediately after birth . Muslims don't have a set time but soon after birth is encouraged.

Bottom line no one is forcing this upon you if you don't like it don't do it. If its so barbaric take it up with the government.

A foreskin is not analogous to an eyelid. Don't be silly.

I think the point is that even if you wouldn't remove a birth mark for non medical reasons, you wouldn't cry that parents who did exactly that were barbaric and depriving their child of her right to a birth mark. You'd respect the fact that even if it wasn't a medical necessity, we live in a culture where a child with a facial disfigurement would feel out of place. Exactly so for a non-circumcised boy in Jewish/Muslim culture. Yet Jewish/Muslims parents are barbarians

And I've said it before but I'll say it again, a reason for doing it as a newborn is not so the child can't fight back (because of course a 6 month old could overpower me!) but because up to 2 weeks old, the blood vessels and the central nervous system haven't developed in that area so you can do the procedure quickly, simply and with only topical/local anaesthetic.

So please do stop with the pearl clutching 'won't you think of the little newborn mites'!

It's a tradition, not medically necessary. My brothers don't seem to have suffered any long term psychological or physical damage from it. They understand why my parents had it done.

"And I've said it before but I'll say it again, a reason for doing it as a newborn is not so the child can't fight back (because of course a 6 month old could overpower me!) but because up to 2 weeks old, the blood vessels and the central nervous system haven't developed in that area so you can do the procedure quickly, simply and with only topical/local anaesthetic. "
Yes,this might be a reason for doing it to a newborn.....if there was thenremotest benefit to the newborn concerned. Which there isn't,

Well, actually, curlew, there is. As already discussed. My husband is VERY glad his parents chose to do it to him as a newborn.

You may not choose to do it to your child, others make the perfectly legitimate choice to do it to there's.