cut or not to cut?

[haven]

curious as i read a thread earlier. should a child be circumsized (spelling) or not.

i know some believe for health reason, yes, and other for religious beliefs say, no.

i started this because of another thread i read right before posting this. my son doesn't have a problem and i did have him circumsized before leaving the hospital. (i did however sit on it for quite some time, as he was in the NICU and i saw the doc.perform one on a baby while i was visiting my baby. it was quite disturbing. they strap them in a hold and cut...) while i was sort of for it and sort of against it. i remembered sister waiting until son was four. he stayed in pain for quite some time.. i did not want that to happen,

OOOOH! and i don't go away, time zone differences make it very hard to do a real time chat with the UK and over seas....like 8 hours or something.

i didn't quite really say why i asked. i was just curious if over the big blue if people were more against it. over here in the states, i would say that most or for it. although, growing up my two neighbors were not, as men though, they were going to go have it done (women they meet preferred it). so like i said, REALLY, JUST CURIOUS (AND i didn't realize that it was a BAD subject. everyone should be aloud to have their own opinion. as i could argue both sides myself.

think it's just really uncommon here Haven, apart from when it's done for religious reasons. So to a lot of British people it seems odd to do it for health reasons, because most men here seem to manage fine with a foreskin.

Presumably you did it for health reasons?

ds1 was circ'd when he was 2 and a half. His foreskin was so tight he peed at a 90 degree angle. He used to hit the bath when he tried to wee in the toilet. It was the most horrendous experience of his life; I am just glad that he was too young to be able to remember having it done. My nephew had a "loosening" performed for the same reason; if I had known about that, I would have insisted ds1 had that done instead.

just to clarify, I meant health reasons as defined by snafu earlier - general hygiene rather than a medical problem that needs correcting.

sorry to hear about your ds, QE.

Haven, are you American or just living there? I am American and live outside of London. Most of my friends in America would have their son's circumcized because they believe it is cleaner/healthier and also because they find an uncircumsized willy to be sort gross or icky. Now, not everyone feels this way. And I think it changing. But, most people will still go for circumcision.

Over here I find it is rather frowned upon as unnecesary cruelty.

I personally could pretty much go either way. I don't think it's horrible cruelty, but I also don't see anything wrong with an uncircumsized willy.

My ds had a condition called hypospadias when he was born - it's a deformity of the penis which meant that the hole he weed out of was underneath instead of at the end. At 13 months he had an operation to lengthen the tube (urethra??) that they wee out of and put the hole at the end so that as he gets older he will be able to wee standing up like any other bloke!!

They used some of the foreskin to make the tube, so now he is circumcised!! Wouldn't have been otherwise though!

I think the procedure should be filmed & broadcast on TV and then more people in the USA would be a lot more against it, haven...

I am from California. I grew up being neutral but am firmly in the "anti" camp now. Except in those medical cases, can't see it as anything but unnecessary & cruel cosmetic surgery. There are huge debates about this in the USA parenting circles, btw.

Weirdly enough, none of my American boyfriends had been "done", I didn't encounter a circ'd willy until I came to Britain, and I still think that circ'd looks really funny & the poor circ'd man must be losing out on a lot.

i am american, living in the states..i do agree with fqueenzebra...if it was televised i do believe more people would be against it. as they don't give anything for pain. it is just horrible. ds, i did it with him just out of fear of another infection.

the body hold they put them in is just like a mold, and they are strapped down, and given a noonie, or whatever to try to please them while there lil, body is being mutilated..but, the doctor says they don't feel it.

I used to think that all men/boys were circumcised as it just happened that my first boyfriend (or rather first one whose willy I saw, er, up close), plus I also went out with a couple of american men who were also done. As it happens, dh is also done for no reason beyond his granny thinking that it discouraged boys from fiddling with themselves (like THAT is ever going to happen ) and so when ds was on the way I quite innocently assumed that he would be done too. On reading up about it I then decided that it was a very poor idea and in fact dh was dead against it too, so that was fine. Ironically, after all that ds had a couple of willy infections as a baby caused by a tight foreskin and we are still waiting to se if it will all come good (he's 4.5 now). Hopefully it will, as I would hate him to have to have the op now.