Wow; it's only circumcision..

[Chloejp91]

Before I get killed, I'm not suggesting it is only circumsion, that's just the title of this thread.

I'm due in less than 4 weeks and I'm having a boy. I'm definitely going to circumcise him. It's part of my culture and my partner's culture so it's going to be done. I just feel sad that it's seen as such a bad thing, where there are some benefits to it.

Anyone circumsised/circumsizing their sons?

Yes, you can hide the thread SVH78 but you can't hide the fact that soon after his birth you intend to harm your child and inflict unnecessary pain and discomfort on him for no reason whatsoever.

What a thought for a first time expectant mother to have...

SVH, I wonder how old your dp was when he was cut.

When I was 8 my grandfather died. After his death I was taken 150miles to the city he had lived in and I attended his funeral.

I can recall his voice, the feel of his bristley face when he cuddled me, I can remember visiting him in hospital just before he died and saying "goodbye grandad" as we left, but I cannot recall the funeral or spending 2 days in a city far from my home.

My Grandfathers funeral was far more traumatic for me aged 8 than anyone realised and as a coping mechanism I wiped it from my memory.

The theory that if something were that terrible it would have left a big impression, is often wrong.

You have repeatedly stated that circumcision is "equivocal" regarding medical benefits.

e·quiv·o·cal/iˈkwivəkəl/Adjective

1. Open to more than one interpretation; ambiguous.
2. Uncertain or questionable in nature.

"One of the BMA?s roles is to issue guidance to doctors on ethical and medico-legal issues. Accordingly, this guidance addresses the queries medical practitioners raise with the BMA about both therapeutic and non-therapeutic [Go to reference 1] male circumcision."

This is reference 1...

1.By ?therapeutic" we mean that the procedure is necessary to deal specifically with a medical problem. By non-therapeutic we mean that the procedure is for any other purpose than medical benefit.

Ergo if a circumcision is not being carried out to rectify a medical problem then it is not medically beneficial.

If something can be classed as not medically beneficial then how can it be equivocal and how can medical benefits ( std protection etc ) be attributed to it?

Your defense has repeatedly been "Equivocal" thats not what you own source suggests.

That is what I want you to respond to.

Aha! Maybe she thought it was UNequivocal!

Bingo! :o

Aha!!!! Unequivocally Unnecessary!!!!

Marvellous

For anyone suggesting an adult not remembering the pain of circumcision is a sign that it's not damaging, perhaps they could think about how a human suppresses memories that are very traumatic. Just thinking about the many abuse victims that can't recall abuse until a lightbulb moment in adulthood.

"For anyone suggesting an adult not remembering the pain of circumcision is a sign that it's not damaging, perhaps they could think about how a human suppresses memories that are very traumatic. Just thinking about the many abuse victims that can't recall abuse until a lightbulb moment in adulthood."

Crap. Babies of a few days lay down NO long term memories, either of a good or of a bad kind. They just do not have the neuronal connections to do so. That is not to say that a severe trauma has no effect, or a recommendation to beat one's baby, as stress may have an effect on brain chemistry. However, circumcision, carried out with anaesthesia is a relatively mild stress and it is a one off. It is thus incredibly unlikely to have any long term effect.

Horror videos of botched circumcisions without anaesthesia add nothing to the debate, as I have not seen one person in this thread who is advocating it or would put their own baby through it.

'Crap' is that part of your intelligent debate?

CAn you please cite the evidence which clearly explains the effect that pain has on a baby and the conclusive proof that babies have no memory? Relatively mild stress, in comparison to what? Sexual abuse? Cutting off an arm? Or is that relative to doing no harm to a baby?

And for the record a circumcised man looks horrid, unnatural imo.

please join this group

Foreskin contains

three to four feet of blood vessels
240 feet of nerves
10000-20000 specialised nerve endings

450000 of American men that have dies of Aids were circumcised at birth,.

"And for the record a circumcised man looks horrid, unnatural imo."

Then why did you have sex with these horrid looking men, as you claim to have?

As mentioned in the previous section, a simple, effective procedure has been described by Dr Terry Russell, OAM, in Brisbane, Australia [Russell & Chaseling, 1996] and is the subject of a teaching video. The technique involves applying EMLA cream thickly to the distal penis 2 hours prior to the procedure. The penis is wrapped in cling-wrap to keep the cream in contact with the penis, but with the end left open to allow for urination. The Plastibell device is then used. The baby does not cry. In those aged less than 7 months, 99% fed immediately afterwards, 96% settled rapidly, 97% had no disturbance of sleep pattern,93% had little or no apparent pain, and 96%had no pain or difficulty when urinating. None required stronger post-operative analgesia than paracetemol. In fact Russell claims that virtually no pain is experienced following the surgery, unlike other methods. He attributes this to the 2 hour duration of the EMLA cream prior to surgery, which means 5 hours of analgesia post-operatively, by which time the nerves where the ligature was tied have ceased to function, and says that most doctors do not leave the EMLA cream on long enough before commencing the procedure (Terry Russell, personal communication).

As for infant memory:

?Infants are capable of forming long-term memories, including the ability to recognize people, objects, even events. However, most people cannot remember these very early experiences and memories. This is referred to as infantile amnesia an occurrence that is attributed to a combination of encoding, storage and retrieval deficits. An infant lacks the mental maturity to properly process all information necessary to encode or label memories, which allows memories to be stored properly with relevant information and then retrieved.

Read more: Memory Development in Early Childhood | eHow.com www.ehow.com/facts_6132920_memory-development-early-childhood.html#ixzz1ALTL8r45

"450000 of American men that have dies of Aids were circumcised at birth,."

Completely random number. The only interesting comparison would be the % of circumcised men versus the % of uncircumcised men.

Not a random number, it shows that circumcision is not good at preventing AIDS. What difference does .5% make anyway? It's a nothing, an irrelevance, makes no difference. With or without circumcision if you have unprotected sex you are at risk of catching AIDS.

fine Larry cut off your child's foreskin, it's only them (and any person against child cruelty) that will hate you for it.

Larry - a person carrying out circumcisions WOULD say all that wound'nt they (where is the rolling eye smiley?) And wrapped in cling film for 2 hours? Jesus, this gets worse and worse.

If every single doctor and mohel spoke out against it (which they should do) then can you imagine the consequences??????? It simply isn't going to happen so they will keep toeing the line. And gullible souls like you will keep on spouting tripe.

How utterly shocking that you think a new born baby has no memory. I wont share my incredible birth story with you as I don't think you deserve to hear it but I can assure you that an instant connection was made with my boy that is almost indescribable. He is an old wise soul and I knew that from the moment he was put in my arms. I genuinely feel sorry for you that you will never connect with your children in the way I have.

Ladysoandso,

Why be so personal and insulting? To be honest I don't give a flying fuck about your birth story. I have two lovely little boys of my own, both of whom I held within seconds of my wife giving birth, and made my own connection with.

Babies remember people and places, what they do not remember is events. Fact. Why don't you ask your baby about his incredible birth in a few years (without prompting him) and see how much he remembers about it?

If every doctor spoke against it, it would cease, bar in the very orthodox communities. They do not, however.

Thefeministparent

www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/factsheets/circumcision.htm

Please see the above. If you look at the CDC summary of all the research, circumcised men are 40-60% less likely to get HIV than uncircumcised men, so I have no idea where you got your 0.5% from. And, if you are going to give me some emotive tripe about how children will hate their parents for it, you look your son who is dying of HIV (because his condom split) and tell him circumcision might have saved his life.

You sad sad man.

You judgmental narcissist.

lol - no, just a loving mum.

pick another insult.

The hilarious thing is that larrygrylls actually couldn't bring himself to do it to his two boys.

I'm so glad - for them - but then I am bemused as to why he then argues so strongly on here

He has already stated that his perception of the risk/pain/distress outweighed his perception of the benefits.

Devil's advocate, much?

YouCant,

You are someone whom I respect for the way you have put your case across. You have clearly summarised intelligent argument without hysteria and said why you are against it.

I explained clearly in a post why I did not get my own boys circumcised. I have agreed that the case to circumcise is not a slam dunk and that there are reasons both for and against it.

There is a degree of devil's advocacy in what I have written but also real anger that people can be so insulting as to call a reasonable choice that loving parents make (including my own and most of my friends') paedophilia, torture and sexual abuse. Believe it or not, not one circumcised person I know regrets being circumcised or holds any resentment towards their parents. They are both happy to be circumcised in that they regard it as cleaner and more hygienic, and also pleased to be the same as their fathers and other members of their own culture. I, for one, not having circumcised my sons will have no clue how to wash their foreskins or to tell them what to do with them as they get older. I am sure I will cope but has anyone thought about that in this thread?

I think it is a good debate to have but I really hate how rude, aggressive and personal those against it are. Surely, if you are passionately against child cruelty, you could focus on homes where children are continuously neglected, beaten or worse, not on one tiny procedure lasting minutes.

The procedure may only last minutes. The effects last a lifetime. Yet the owner of the penis in question is given no choice in the matter.

I say again - where does informed consent factor in all this for you?

(As for concerns about how circumcised men should advise their sons to care for foreskins, I consider that such a minor issue compared to that of consent and ritualised genital mutilation that I'm rather flabbergasted you brought it up. Read a book)

Snorbs,

It is that kind of aggressive, culturally insensitive and plain ignorant post that gets to me.

Informed consent is given by the parent. Parents have rights to choose all sorts of things that affect their children throughout their lives including, but not exhaustively, how they are schooled, whether they are vaccinated and what religion if any they are brought up in. That is our prerogative as parents. We also may have to allow our children to have medical procedures where we, as parents, have to weigh up the benefits against the risks.

Self image and how you see yourself compared to your parents is not as small a thing as you make it (well, trivialise it). Most women have their ears pierced for cultural reasons and most allow their children to have their ears pierced BELOW the age where they are entitled to consent to it. This is ritualised aural mutilation according to the way you think.

There seem to be a lot of women with an amazing ability to know what it is like to have a penis and how it feels with and without a foreskin. I may not know what having a foreskin is like but at least I am the owner of a penis. I rather suspect that more than a few on MN would take umbrage if I made detailed comments on how their vaginas might feel under different circumstances.

"Culturally insensitive"? Meh. I don't see that just because a particular culture may or may not regard a given procedure as acceptable that I am immediately disallowed from having an opinion on it. Just because a particular culture has always done something it doesn't make it right.

Ear-piercing has been covered in exhaustive depth earlier. A pierced ear, left to its own devices, will heal up such that the hole is invisible. I have never heard of a circumcised penis re-growing its foreskin. Have you? That being said, I'm no fan of babies having their ears pierced as, again, I'd rather the child is old enough to get a say in the matter.

Finally, I'm not a woman. I'm an uncircumcised man.

Ouch Larry :o

Agree Snorbs, why not wait until the child involved can make the choice himself.