To be absolutely steaming about the fact that people think unnecessary genital mutilation is OK?

[Gunnerbean]

I've been having a debate about this on another site and am staggered by the amount of people who are quite blase about it and can't get worked up about it and seem to think it's perfectly OK, and even perfectly acceptable!!

FFS if you smack a child on the street you risk arrest for assault or abuse yet people are allowed to unnecssarily ritually circumscise male babies without anaesthetic? It beggars belief that this has a place in a so-called enlightened civilised society and can be legal.

I have literally got steam coming out of my ears, some of the exchanges I've had have made my heart literally pound with anger and I think my feelings on this issue might actually make me able to understand how strongly those animal activists feel!!!

I think I need to have a lie down...

memoo - I don't think Thunder was attacking you! I think she was talking about doctors and the choices they make / things they recommend to parents.

I'm not attacking you. I fully believe your ds needed the procedure. But some doctors do carry out circumcision when it isn't necessary,but that's mostly in the U.S where there is a circumcision culture.

Actually there are forms of female circumcision, the most common form actually, where the clitoral hood is removed, as close an equivalent to the foreskin as we can get.

Female circumcision doesn't always mean removal of all external genitalia, and the justifications for both are similar.

Calm down memoo, if that's the case then nobody is criticising you.

And Memoo. My cousin had the same done for the same reason when he was three, and like you he had a good doctor who tried various alternatives first, before resorting to the necessary.

I do apologise though for the badly worded post. An assurance that I wasn't talking of you and your circumstances would have been appropriate.

Thunderduck, I am probably being over sensitive, blame it on pregnancy hormones!

I have cried many times over this because I was absolutly gutted at the pain my son had to go through.

Even now 6 years later I am gutted that he had to have it done.

Maybe for some circumcised men its a non-issue and they don't have a problem with it. However there are plenty of circumcised men who do have a problem with it and even have plastic surgery to get some sort of foreskin reattached. There are online support groups for them.

It's ok. I should have worded it better.

And you did the right thing for him. I don't doubt that it was very hard on both of you, but you've prevented a lot of pain in the future. Sadly the right thing to do is often the hardest.

This was mooted a few months ago at great length on AIBU. I don't think the OP ever came back

OP, yanbu. I really struggle to understand how a mother can volunteer her baby for an unnecessary and painful procedure. My baby would always come before any sense of culture, duty or tradition.

DH was circumcised for medical reasons at 4 years old and the pain afterwards is his first real memory.

He would definitely rather not have been and would not want our sons to be circumcised unless it was a last resort.

Am very grateful i didn't marry into a culture where this is the norm as personally found the heel prick test traumatic enough on my newborn.

It's not a choice i'd make and the idea makes me cringe

However he GP of a local lady refused to support her religious desire for her baby to be circumcised so it was done by her 'religiously qualified' friend

Far better in a hospital with a trained Dr and sterile equipment IMVHO

Which is my main reason not to scream for for arrests and the like, I think it wouild go underground and there is a midway of providing the most hygienic and medically safe otion.

I am vehemently against it being done it poeples homes though.

well...here is my penneth worth....

foreskin is an important part of a mans genetalia...and removing it (especially wihtout anaetheic and for a good medical reason) seems just , well, stupid...

And this whole, oh anaestetic hurts more than the circumcision...it must be a myth, in my opinion...coming from those olden days where it was truely believed that newborns could NOT feel pain (which has been disproven big time, indeed ithas been proven that a fetus in the mothers womb can experience pain from after 20 week gestation (I think that is roughly right))...
They also used to think that people, and especially Kids wiht learning disabilities could not feel pain....that was, possibly around the same period of time...

Foreskin is actually quite important and certainly lack of foreskin can have an effect on the man when having sex....because sensation is very much reduced, etc...

quite simply, it is a barbaric thing to do, unless necessary....but people will do anything in order to obey their religion/culture....whihc is pretty sad...

DS2 was circumcised 2 days ago for health reasons. He is 7 and he had it under general anasthetic. He is OK but for the last two days he has been very quiet and suffering a lot of discomfort. There was no choice though as he was sufferng severe infections and could have ruined his future sex life as well as infected his partners and required constant antibiotics.

I believe about 80% of men in the USA have it done as a matter of course shortly after birth and about 20% in the UK.

I do not genrally regard male circumcision as mutiliation. If done for health/hygiene reasons and under anaesthetic in later life it is quite acceptable as a surgical procedure but not to be done lightly. I think it is done for religious reasons generally without anaesthtic shortly after birth so the baby has no memory of it but the pain is still real and severe at the time.

ABetaDad...I think that no one here talking against circumcision would consider circumcision for medical reasons the same way....this thread, I believe is about the cultural/relgious circumcision of young Boys done wihtout anaesthesia...

not even young Boys...it's newborn boys...

My vote is for it being barbaric and it should be illegal.

Strictly speaking it must be illegal now. I don't recall a law saying I can cut baby fingers or noses off if I happen to encounter (or start) a religion that requires it. It's just accepted because it's been going on a long time.

and yeah obviously none of this applies to medical needs.

circumcision drastically the chances of a woman getting Human Papilloma Virus and therefore cervical cancer. It is also a tradition practiced for thousands of years in the Jewish religion. It takes a few minutes and does not need anesthetic because the procedure is very quick.

Female cirumcision has also been practised for thousands of years, but because no rich shouty and influential Westerners do it, it's universally condemned by the self same people.

Hypocrites.

Also if you want to reduce the risk of cancer, why not perform masectomies on girl babies at birth as well?

It's still very painful for the baby Susia. A local should be used.

I don't really agree with ritual circumcision but I can understand why Jews and Muslims do it, and I'm converting to Judaism myself so this may become an issue for me in the future.

FairLady - personally, I do feel very uncomfortable with the idea of it being done without anaesthetic to older boys or even baby boys but to call the circumcision operation itself a mutiliation I think is wrong. The end result is the same and done for health/hygiene reasons whether religious or medically motivated.

Indeed, as discussed on another thread today. I discovered a few months ago my mother is Jewish and hence I have a Jewish heritage down the female line. The irony is that if I had been brought up in the Jewish tradition the likelihood is that I and DSs would have been circumcised shortly after birth and DS2 would not have suffered the infections and pain of having it done in later life.

I can see cultural/religious/health battle lines on both sides here and agree with shineoncrazydiamind that we are taking on centuries of tradition. To overcome that is a very tough ask. I just cannot see it being banned if it is part of a long standng tradition in a mainstream religion any time soon in the UK.

Personally, I do not think men are very bothered about the issue but interesting to see women being bothered about it on this thread - and fair enough and respect for that position. It does not bother me that I am not circumcised and it would not bother me now if I had been circumcised at birth.

That said, I just cannot support in any sense the idea of female circumcision which I do feel is barbaric. Even if it is traditional in some cultures.