Circumcision

[muma19]

DP wants DS circumcised however I don't. I also have MIL getting involved and pressuring me. What do I do? I want to be fair to my partner but I really don't want him veg for circumcised. HELP!!!!

Yes webuiltthis in as much as anyone can have their bodies disfigured through unnecessary surgery. As pp mentioned there is a court case for such, where someone has helped others to systematically disfigure their bodies and is facing criminals charges for it.

If you have money you can buy what you want to a degree, but how many men put themselves forward to have their foreskins cut-off as adults. I can imagine the physical reaction any men reading such words would be having!!

I have a friend who is Muslim and both her sons are circumcised. I thought less of her once she told me. Their DF is a GP, yet is seems religion "won" over medical knowledge

Their DF is a GP, yet is seems religion "won" over medical knowledge

Medical knowledge hasn’t stopped 60 percent of American newborn boys getting circumcised though? It’s still pushed among some medical professionals

I've not read the full thread, but I will. Just don't. Please please please please don't.

True but we're in Britain where it's not a thing in the wider culture so I thought maybe medical knowledge would prevail.

The main risk is reduced sensation or a permanent change in the sensitivity of the head of your child's penis. This is one of the reasons why circumsion is only recommended for medical reasons

This ^ from the NHS website.

Also, the foreskin is part of the head of the penis until about age 5, so it means tearing the skin off the penis any earlier than that

Can take up to six weeks to heal.

A doctors duty is one of no harm
A surgeon doing any unnecessary procedure is doing harm

I can't see circumcision being outlawed in the UK any time soon, many of the religious communities who practice it are long established and integrated in society and it would be seen as an attack, I can't see it flying.

I also believe it is wrong to circumcise unless there is medical reason.

So on the basis that FGM and "MGM" which are completely 100% equivalent and should be treated the same, I suppose that means we need to legalise FGM.

AFAIK there have only been 2 prosecutions with 1 conviction in the 10+ years the law has been in place, so it might as well be legal anyway.

Then the playing field will be fair again, and there can be fresh efforts to get them both made illegal. As in the UK "MGM" is the harder sell, best start with that.

Sounds like a plan.

Fgm and mgm are not equivalents in any way, they both involve cutting and mutilating in terms of changing the look and sensations in the penis.

I personally wouldn’t recommend that you get it done for cultural reasons. My son has had it done for medical reasons and it was not pleasant watching him recover. It is not natural to want your child to suffer an operation for no reason. And despite the pain meds it was a week until he stopped feeling pain.

I do sometimes wonder if I made the right decision, but he was in so much pain and swelling from infections that the GPs and surgeon advised it was necessary. His uncle had to have one in his 40s and THAT was truly horrific as he got an infection.

My son had it done at primary age for severe medical issues. I used to be strongly against it. But it was very straightforward and he had very little pain. So I am less judgemental now it's a difficult one. I would not have had it done it it weren't the last resort.

Narrowing of the end of the urethra is also a fairly common complication of circumcision (5-10%) but can be under recognised because some boys may not recognise that their urinary stream isn’t normal.it happens because one of the jobs of the foreskin is to protect the end of the urethra, and with the foreskin gone it becomes abraded and scarred. It is managed with another operation and if not managed, after years of urinary difficulties, there can be back pressure on the kidneys and kidney damage.

www.monashchildrenshospital.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/meatal-stenosis.pdf

It never would have crossed my mind, as a British person, to circumcise my son, no less than performing FGM on my daughter.

On the religious point: God/Allah sent our children to us as a gift, and they came to us as God/Allah wanted them to be. Therefore, if God/Allah advocates circumcision, He's made a mistake? (Disclaimer: not religious myself)

On the cleanliness point: My husband knows well enough how to clean his willy properly, as do millions of males around the world. Parents need to teach males how to do it.

On medical reasons point: Of course, if the foreskin is too tight, or if there is any other medical reason for cutting the foreskin, that should be permitted, as long as it is backed up by evidence-based practice.

@user1480880826 I absolutely agree.

@Bookworm01
Of course Allah did not make a mistake. Allah created males with a foreskin and also decreed that they should remove it. Just like we are all created with fingernails that grow. The vast majority of people cut their fingernails. When you see people who don’t cut their nails regularly enough, they either go around with a constant grey line of dirt under their nails or they have to work really hard to keep them clean by using a nail brush and so on. It’s better to just cut your nails short from the beginning and it’s better to get circumcised as well.

Surely the equivalent would be permanently removing the finger nails rather than cutting them periodically? Do we do that? Of course we don't!

@NunoGoncalves
Well, I really don’t know which is why I’m asking. I was taking the word ‘pull’ literally and thinking that the underside would still be underneath but just scrunched for want of a better word. But now it seems like you’re saying that the foreskin would be folded back on itself so the underside would now be facing up? Is that right? I’m just curious as those of us whose sons are circumcised have no experience of teaching how to wash an uncircumcised penis.

I think I might be missing something. All this tallk of washing makes it sound like an uncircumcised penis is the dirtiest, hardest thing to clean in the world. It really isnt - it takes a matter of moments. If cleanliness is the excuse to subject your children to an necessary medical procedure then I'm sorry but it just doesn't stand up.

And as for it being the equivalent of trimming nails, the mind boggles. That suggests an astounding level of ignorance.

Breeze your posts are bizarre. We'd have have no body parts left if we just went around snipping them off instead of just washing like normal.
I've never given my sons instructions specific foreskin cleaning instructions, by the time it glides back they're of an age to figure out to clean it as with everything else under there. I think some people are sadly dogmatised to believe it really is filthy compared to everything else but it isn't. Most people don't give it a second thought.

No, the equivalent of permanently removing the fingernails would be removing the whole penis. The pink parts of the nails don’t get dirt underneath only the white parts do and there is no way of permanently removing the white parts. See how merciful Allah is to His creation. Cutting the nails, which is easy, has to be done repeatedly, but circumcision, which is more difficult, only has to be done once and then the benefits last a lifetime.

You say ‘washing like normal’ but what’s normal for you is cultural. If you lived in a culture where circumcision was the norm you would see pulling back the foreskin to wash as strange.

I think any religion that would suggest the entire removal of a penis would, by definition, die out pretty quick though wouldn't it?

Im not sure saying 'it's better than removing the entire organ'is any kind of argument.

Anyway. Your practise your religion, I'll practise mine. I wouldn't follow anything that told me doing that to my child was a good thing and now that my God was being merciful by not asking me to cut more off him.

If you read my post, you will see that was not the argument I was making, I only mentioned it to explain why the other poster was wrong to equate circumcision to removing entire fingernails.

I find it bizarre that anyone would want to remove a healthy body part.

As far as I am concerned circumcision should be illegal without consent of the owner of the penis - not before they are 18.

If needed medically of course it should happen though.

It’s worrying that we are giving a message that boys aren’t perfect as they are. No one needs a healthy piece of skin removed and foreskin helps protect the penis and give sensitivity during doc. It’s also easy to clean!

You sound really naive breeze but then again you've been taught to believe that that small bit of skin is alien and dirty and more of a bigger deal to clean than say, cleaning behind one's ear, which isn't your fault.
I agree with PPs who say it should be illegal.