What's the point of circumcision if I have to pull back the skin anyway

[~Megan~]

I sometimes babysit a friend's son. The poor boy was circumcized and still has an angry purple glans. When he poops I still have to pull back the remnant of his very loose foreskin. He looks like they only took half of the skin.
So he went through all of that to still have a half functioning foreskin? What is the purpose of that? Why are they doing circs that way?

[Quirky]

That baby is actually lucky as circed babies go. He might have his frenulum left (the most sensitive part), and he may have enough skin to provide for his erection without it being too tight.

Many men (like my dh) who got too tight circs because the doctors wanted a nice clean look and took off so much skin have a penis that bows sideways when erect and hair gets pulled up onto the shaft where it ain't supposed to be. Oh yeah, and it's shorter than it would have been if it had been left alone in its natural state. Thanks a lot, MIL and FIL and doctor.

Let's just hope this baby's parents don't get the idea that he needs to be recirced to look more circumcized. Sadly, it happens all the time.

(Not venting at you, venting at uninformed parents and @#$#% doctors)....

[~Megan~]

I read that about tight circs...that's why I ask dh to shave the hair that grows halfway up

[Frankly Speaking]

Megan:

He doesn't have a half functioning foreskin. All of the function of the foreskin has been destroyed. As Quirky said, it is done to prevent the too short foreskin that many circumcised men suffer from. About 18% of circumcised men were cut so tight that the hair from the pubic mound and scrotum is pulled up on the penile shaft where it is irritating to his lover. Hair on the shaft if almost unheard of in intact men. This is an example of the "easy to care for" penis that lazy mothers want so badly. It is actually much more difficult and this reason is a bill of goods sold to expectant mothers by the medical profession.

Quirky, you are right on all points except the frenulum. Infant circumcision always destroys the sexual sensitivity of the frenulum. While remnants of the frenulum may be physically present, infant circumcision always severs the nerve and the artery that supplies the frenulum so that it is non-functional regardless of whether it is there or not. The purpose of infant circumcision before the mid 20th century was always about doing the maximum damage to the sexual function without leaving the man unable to reproduce. All of the medical and hygiene issues only came about when it started becoming controversial. This was after female genital alteration in the US had become a "hot potato" in the early 1920's.





Frank





Frank

[Quirky]

[intensity_too]

Well, this explained to me why my DH's penis points to the right when he is erect. It also explains why he has that annoying hair on the shaft of his penis. He hates it because it always get caught up in the condom and pulls. UGH!

Jaime

[TigerTail]

i think 18% is a very lowball (no pun intended) estimate of the hair/shaft thing. i have seen it in a majority of circ'd men (and none at all in uncirc'd.) how many people think this is normal?

suse

[Frankly Speaking]

Suse:

You may be right. There are really no accurate numbers. I did a straw poll on another site and found 31% of the circumcised members there had shaft hair and 0.00% of the intact men had shaft hair. I suppose it would be more or less in various geographical areas depending on the local doctors. Since doctors learn circumcision on the job, the local practices would filter down from generation to generation and old doctors who did very tight circumcisions would teach the newbies to also do tight circumcisions. In these areas, almost all of the men would have shaft hair. Other areas with established doctors doing loose circumcisions would have fewer cases. However, old medical texts recommend that "enough skin be removed to put the remaining skin in a stretch when erect" would indicate that the goal, if attained, would leave many, if not most men with shaft hair.

The problem is that pubic hair is coarse and curly. On the immobile shaft skin of a circumcised man, it grates against the vaginal sphincter during intercourse and rubs it raw. This can be very distracting at the least for the woman and painful at worst. In any case, it distracts her from the full enjoyment of the sexual act sometimes even to the point of not being able to continue to the end. I doubt this is what most parents have in mind when they choose circumcision for their son.





Frank

[jazzymom1999]

I didn't see one of the reasons that I have heard of and that is that the parents don't like the appearance of the intact penis, but still feel like they are doing their sons a favor by only doing a 1/2 circ. They think that it looks more "normal" if some of the head shows.

Personally that made my so sad to hear my friend say that, considering she is the one that put me on my path to homebirths, not vaxing, etc. etc.

Sad very very sad.

Kimberly