Circumcision: A Social Status in the UK ?

[Amazonia]

Curiously in the UK, circumcision is now a matter of social class. While the "ordinary" folks rarely circumcise, circumcision is prevalent in the upper class as well as in the Royal family.

There are so many stories of botched circumcisions or men feeling traumatised by it, even though they don't remember it. Scary enough.
SO WHY FIX WHAT IS NOT BROKEN? Why not to remove appendix from babies so they don't risk a deadly appendicitis later in life?
As for religion part, we should remember that those religions come from lands where weather is hot and water is scarce.

Out of fashions now and probably for good reasons. I didn't even consider it for our boy, but I have to say I think it looks nicer and definitely feels a LOT nicer on a man, in my experience ;)

This is a bit irrelevant (I've already spent ages arguing on a circumcision thread and don't really want to repeat the same arguments), but did someone upthread say that men in their 30s have to manually stimulate themselves to achieve an erection? I don't think that's the case, is it?

*Assuming a man takes a shower or bath every 24 hours because the rest of him needs washing, and assuming there is a good deal of peeing, sweating and production of smegma in the course of those 24 hours, the part under the foreskin is actually going to need soap and water long before the rest of the body shows signs of needing to be washed.
You're making a lot of assumptions there math. I don't know what sort of men you have experienced, but those I have encountered have been been perfectly clean in the penis department. My DP of six years has never been less than fresh, even when he's not been expecting an intimate encounter.

I have just been reading a thread about teenage boys and Lynx. It is one of multitudes of threads here over the years about teen boys and their reluctance to wash. Just anecdotes of course. And so is your about your DP.

However, I think my assumptions are very reasonable. If the rest of your body, including parts that do not produce smegma, retain stale urine, and sweat need to be washed at most about every 24 hours I think it is more than reasonable to assume the parts that do all of that are not going to be squeaky clean for long after the previous wash.

Pedro, I am assuming you have some sort of current research in mind when you post about eternity and medical science?

math you use the word 'assume' a great deal.
Have you considered that men may not actually conform to your 'assumptions'?
Have you actually encountered a man with smegma and stale urine?

Both of my boys became obsessed with hygiene once they hit teenage years. They did use lynx but it certainly wasn't instead of washing.
Plus I always keep a packet of baby wipes in the bathroom as we don't have a bidet.I'm sure my son can use one after he urinates . In any case,I've never noticed any bad smell coming from him.

Math, I can't help wondering about women who only wash once in 24 hours. I suppose their stale urine, smegma and sweat must also cause concern. Maybe there is a surgical solution.

Or maybe people are not all as grimy as you assume.

Some men are hygienic, some are not. I've had unpleasant experiences with circumcised and uncircumcised men. if a man is lazy, being circumcised doesn't fix everything.

I'm dubious about the health and hygiene claims. To me it ought to be a matter of personal choice or medical need.

For what it's worth, most of the circumcised men I've had sex with seemed to have some differences climaxing compared to uncut men. I also know people who are very unhappy with the look and feel after circumcision.

Exactly Piglet and Four

Most adults shower or wash daily. Most of them probably include their armpits, bums and genitals in their ablutions. Ergo, most adults are reasonably fresh most of the time. I honestly think having a foreskin makes no difference to the smell of a penis.

Someone talked upthread about stale urine making the glans moist etc. I would have thought that much of the moisture on the glans actually comes from natural secretions which are there to keep the glans lubricated, in the same way that women's genitals have a self-lubricating mechanism.

The scurry to find medical justification for infant circumcision really seemed to have begun as people started to question the religious justification for it. For a long time "because God told me to" was considered a good enough reason. For more and more people it no longer is, so other justifications of verging degrees of credibility have to be found.

And no, this is not "religion bashing". It is "performing unnecessary permanent body changing surgery on someone unable to consent" bashing. Personally I would have far more respect for someone who said openly "This is a vital part of my faith- I don't know why a god says I have to do it, but he does, so I will" than for someone who weasels around giving spurious statistics and making things up about uncircumcised men having smelly, urine soaked penises.

An the people in this argument I have the least time for are those who talk about circumcision giving protection from STDs. As if a circumcised man need take less responsibility for his own sexual health and fertility, and doesn't need to use a condom. "It's all right, son, fill yer boots. You're circumcised, and all sexually active women are on the pill so that's nothing to do with you........."

I think it's strange how mathanxiety seems to think that an uncircumcised penis is a dirty diseased thing. Of course it isn't , no more than a female's unaltered genitalia is.Both of them are designed to do the job, as long as they are kept clean and protection is used where appropriate.

Piglet, I am going to assume you are familiar with the female anatomy to some degree and therefore hopefully even you will see how asinine your last remark was.

If a man is soap and water averse then being circumcised isn't going to make a huge difference to his overall smell, but not being circumcised is going to make a big difference to the smell of his genital area and also to his sexual health.

Fatlazymummy maybe learn to read?

As to the rest of your execrable post -- are we now so unprincipled that we are calling unmutilated female genitalia 'unaltered'?

I am gobsmacked.

"hopefully even you will see how asinine your last remark was."

no, do please explain.

Mathanxiety-even by your questionable statistics, the "benefits" of circumcision are minimal. But you are now saying that it makes a "big difference" to sexual health. Evidence please?

And you also seem to be saying that all of our uncircumcised partners and sons are smelly- is that what you think?

And you still haven't explained why a woman's "unaltered" (irony) genitalia did not reek of stale urine.......

Are you all so unfamiliar with the structure, layout and basic accessibility of the female genitalia then? Google it.

And are you seriously using the term 'unaltered' to describe female genitalia that have not been mutilated? What a huge insult to those women and their unfortunate babies who suffer horribly because of FGM.

www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2006/pr30/en/
'A new study published by the World Health Organization (WHO) has shown that women who have had Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) are significantly more likely to experience difficulties during childbirth and that their babies are more likely to die as a result of the practice.

Serious complications during childbirth include the need to have a caesarean section, dangerously heavy bleeding after the birth of the baby and prolonged hospitalization following the birth. The study showed that the degree of complications increased according to the extent and severity of the FGM.

In the case of caesarean section, women who have been subjected to the most serious form of FGM ("FGM III") will have on average 30 per cent more caesarean sections compared with those who have not had any FGM. Similarly there is a 70 per cent increase in numbers of women who suffer from postpartum haemorrhage in those with FGM III compared to those women without FGM.

"As a result of this study we have, for the first time, evidence that deliveries among women who have been subject to FGM are significantly more likely to be complicated and dangerous," said Joy Phumaphi, Assistant Director-General, Family and Community Health, WHO. " FGM is a practice steeped in culture and tradition but it should not be allowed to carry on. We must support communities in their efforts to abandon the practice and to improve care for those who have undergone FGM. We must also steadfastly resist the medicalization of FGM. WHO is totally opposed to FGM being carried out by medical personnel."

The study also found that FGM put the women's babies in substantial danger during childbirth. Researchers found there was an increased need to resuscitate babies whose mother had had FGM (66% higher in women with FGM III). The death rate among babies during and immediately after birth is also much higher for those born to mothers with FGM: 15% higher in those with FGM I, 32% higher in those with FGM II, and 55% higher in those with FGM III. It is estimated that in the African context an additional 10 to 20 babies die per 1000 deliveries as a result of the practice.

" This research was carried out in hospitals where the obstetric staff are used to dealing with women who have undergone FGM. The consequences for the countless women and babies who deliver at home without the help of experienced staff are likely to be even worse ," added WHO's Dr Paul Van Look, Director of the Special Programme for Human Reproduction Research (HRP) which organized the study.

The study involved 28,393 women at 28 obstetric centres in six countries, where FGM is common - Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan. The centres varied from relatively isolated rural hospitals to teaching hospitals in capital cities. They were chosen to provide appropriate diversity of types of FGM.'

You should be ashamed of yourselves.

math you are getting even further from the subject with every post. I suppose that's not surprising since you have totally lost the original argument. Perhaps it would be better if you just left quietly.

alas, math, you are unclear on what you consider to be the difference between an unwashed unmodified man who you say smells of stale urine, smegma, and sweat; and an unwashed, unmodified woman who smells of stale urine, smegma and sweat.

MathNxiety- why won't you address the points made? Focussing on a particular word is an classic avoidance technique, you know. As a point of interest and fine if you say. I but are you prepared to say what religion you are?

math I am perfectly capable of reading, thank you.I already know quite a lot about FGM as well. Thanks again.I am also familiar with female genitalia, not only am I female myself, I am also a trained nurse which included basic midwifery training.
Now,your posts seem to indicate that you regard uncircumcised penises as dirty and disease carrying -perhaps you could explain why?

Fucking hell. There's a word (several in fact) to describe people who want to mutilate healthy genitals because they perceive them to be dirty and unclean. The term I'm going to use though is sexist, hypocrite looney. It's beyond disturbing to suggest that we should chop bits of healthy body off in case someone might be 'soap-averse' (something which, as those with a brain have pointed out, is unpleasant in either sex).