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Original poster

How do you talk relatives out of ritual circumcision of a child?

329 replies

UrbanDad · 25/01/2009 14:28

A (non=-ewish) female friend of mine is married to a quite nice jewish DH. They have just had a baby boy and DH's parents and aunts/uncles are putting pressure on him to have their DS circumcised. DH is equivocal but my friend is dead set against it. I think it's barbaric - how would you react to a member of your family putting pressure on you to mutilate your child's genitalia? No apologies - it's child abuse pure and simple and should be criminalised. Religion is no excuse for this mediaeval, unenlightened superstitious crap.

Has anyone got any experience of talking moronic religious extremist relatives out of this stupidity? (Apologists for/proponents of/justificants of ritual circumcision please don't even bother responding to this post.)

OP posts:
memoo · 25/01/2009 19:45

I agree with Lulu, don't let OP's ignorant and ill informed comments get to you Lulu

Lulumama · 25/01/2009 19:51

thanks memoo i am going to find a nice , safe childbirth thread !

memoo · 25/01/2009 19:55

might join you Lulu

Claire236 · 25/01/2009 20:05

My ds had to have an op when he was about 18 months old which means it now looks as if he's been circumcised. Having seen the pain that caused my poor baby there's no way I will ever understand why people would do that to their children voluntarily. If someone came on here & said they'd deliberately caused a child that sort of pain everyone would call it abuse so why is it ok if it's for religious reasons.

MegBusset · 25/01/2009 20:07

"sexual function and pleasure are in no way impaired"

This is simply not true in all cases. I had a Jewish ex who found it almost impossible to ejaculate because of the desensitisation.

There are plenty of (very sad) stories of men who have gone through life with sexual problems because of this choice of their parents. Not something I could ever live with inflicting on my own child.

tumtumtetum · 25/01/2009 20:33

Yes and a baby died near where I live locally recently.
On the other hand for millions of people there are no problems.
Our society does things to children which carry risk for the sake of cosmetics.

I just don't think it's right to be so judgemetal about something which is, in the scheme of things, maybe not such a huge deal.

Incidentally I am an athiest and so actually have no truck any kind of religious tradition/ceremeny/belief, I just thought the tone of the OP was really nasty and after all there are much worse things done in the name of religion, in this country, for us to get het up about.

bloss · 25/01/2009 20:40

Message withdrawn

bloss · 25/01/2009 20:42

Message withdrawn

MegBusset · 25/01/2009 20:45

This is a heartbreaking article featuring several men who would certainly not have wished to be circumcised.

I don't give a toss what people do to themselves in the name of religion. I do care when it impacts on other people who have not consented.

tumtumtetum · 25/01/2009 20:46

ROFL @ "Improved appearance and sexual appeal"!

Sounded pretty convincing until it hit that rather random subjective note at the end

Monkeytrousers · 25/01/2009 21:07

The OP wasnt anti-jewish; just anti-circumcison and anti-relgious reasons for it. It just so happens that the person he was talking about was Jewish though. He said, "Religion is no excuse for this mediaeval, unenlightened superstitious crap.". He didn't say 'those jewish pigs are peddling mediaeval, unenlightened superstitious crap" That would have been antisemetic.

tumtumtetum · 25/01/2009 21:13

I don't know about that. He said that a Jewish person wanted to circumcise their child and that that was child abuse.

It was an unnecessarily inflammatory OP which many on MN could have been easily offended by.

There are better ways to have asked the question.

Monkeytrousers · 25/01/2009 21:17

Well circumcision on an infant might constitue abuse. The fact they were Jewish is by the by.

I really do not think people should monitor their language to such a degree. Anyone could easily get offended at anything. On MN they seem to too often.

This is mumsnet not netmums.

ilovemydogandMrObama · 25/01/2009 21:20

Agree with Lulu re: OP's intolerance to religion. Quite good at citing legislation re: female gentalia . Try looking at definition in legislation for religious hate crimes...

Has your friend actually asked you for advice?

I would think not for a number of reasons. First she is married to a man who is not opposed to his son going through a bris which is religious ceremony. This means that he is either a practicing Jew or at least is open to the idea (if nothing else, because he wishes to carry on the tradition)

Now, if I was married to such a man, I probably wouldn't ask someone so antagonstic to my husband's beliefs for advice...

Call social services and see how far you get if you genuinely think this is child abuse.

mamamila · 25/01/2009 21:28

i'm not jewish but dp is muslim and there's no doubt that if the next baby is a boy he must be circumcised. my only concern is that here in uk it's regarded as 'mutilation' and there isn't the choice for circumcision in the hospital soon after birth as in usa and many other countries. if we're directed to a mosque it's not going to happen! even if we were to go to a private clinic i still feel it's awful to delay.
definitely in the muslim culture the issue is about cleanliness and i totally agree

Sazlocks · 25/01/2009 21:30

very difficult issue, I am in a mixed faith marriage and faced this with my DS. We decided that he would not have a bris which antagonised my family and he would not be christened wwhich antagonised my DH family.A year one everyone has pretty much accepted it and they certainly shut up pretty quickly whenever they ask is he not going to be christened then and I say no and neither is he going to be circumcised and vice versa.......
I find it hard to imagine that the people the OP is talking about have not discussed this issue already.

mamamila · 25/01/2009 21:37

hadn't finished..totally agree with bloss post, there are many practical and hygenic reasons and i heard of the hiv study in Tanzania/Kenya that found significantly lower rates of transmission in circumcised men. agree on the aesthetics too

on re-reading the op i think his hysteria is quite bizarre and it's none of his business really. he'll obvioulsy just alienate his friends with his 'stance'. i think he should direct his abuse radar at detecting real abuse, drama queen!

Watoose · 26/01/2009 07:21

Bloss. Thanks, but the study you linked to was a telephone survey?

The referenced article was written by a man who provides circumcision and is paid for this service - he references his own website among various pubmed articles I cannot access.

I'm not utterly convinced that these prove anything or are in any way unbiased - sorry.

Watoose · 26/01/2009 07:27

I want to edit that - i am not certain if he performs circs, i haven't time to read it all - but he hosts a website which is wholly pro circ and very dismissive of anti circ 'fiction' and 'nonsense'

So I'm not prepared to see his article/letter as the full picture as he is obviously heavily biased.

Lulumama · 26/01/2009 09:44

i find it really bizarre that i personally object to the language of the OP and am basically told that my feelings are irrelevant and i should go to netmums???

what happened to respect? i found the OP offensive, and am not one for getting het up about lanuage on the whole, but the tone and the words used were offensive to me

mumsnet is a place for robust debate, but not for calling jewish people child abusers, IMO, but for finding the OP offensive I should leave MN

FFS

Watoose · 26/01/2009 09:57

I think some people see mN as somewhere they've license to be downright rude in the name of 'honesty'.

I don't agree, I think respectful language ought always to be adhered to where possible.

ilovemydogandMrObama · 26/01/2009 10:44

Lulu - there are a lot of people on this thread who agree with you...

onager · 26/01/2009 11:06

I think the poster who suggested they opt for some ceremony that would mark the day without cutting the child has the right idea.

Perhaps someone can find figures, but I gather a common way is to have a party and have a priest of some kind cut the baby in front of everyone in the living room. I'm talking about in the UK.

If I saw someone cutting a child in their home without anaesthetic I'd stop them and call the police/social services. As far as I'm concerned it's already illegal and such things are just ignored to placate the religious. Is there a specific law agaisnt cutting fingers off if I happened to start a religion which required it?

MarmadukeScarlet · 26/01/2009 11:10

'i heard of the hiv study in Tanzania/Kenya that found significantly lower rates of transmission in circumcised men'

Really? I'm sorry but that sounds like guff to me.

And Dragon is right, this child is not Jewish as this passes through the female line.

Monkeytrousers · 26/01/2009 11:10

Lulu, please. I did not tell you to go to Netmums.

And there is no mention in my post that your "feelings are irrelevant". If you are referring to someone else, it would be good if you would make that distinction in the sentence.

Yopu found the OP offensive. Me not finding it offensivce doesn't devalue your experience and feelings on it. We've both voiced our opinions. Thats good.

The OP said he thought circumsition was child abuse. He did not say 'jews are child abusers becasue they circumsise children'.

Mn is a robust place. If someone was being genuinely racisr you'd see that.

And I say this after all the palava on the Gaza threads saying Isreal are entitled to defend themselves. Now on this thread, I suppose I'm alingned with antisemitism for trying to explain why the OP wasn;t racist, imo. If theres one thing than MN isn't, its consistant. We seem to go bakc to year zero with every thread.

The OP was reactionalry and ill thought out - but it wasn't racist.