Help Please - Page 2

[tutucrazy]

You need the circumcision decision maker tool!
Go here: http://circumcisiondecisionmaker.com/
Click on the big red "Decide" button.

This site will give you so much valuable information.

Btw, my husband grew up intact in a time when the circumcision rate was MUCH higher (90%). He never got made fun of. He was on the swimming team and wrestling team and in the locker plenty, not that community showers exist in schools anymore. He was also the naked guy at the parties in college. No one has ever once made fun of his penis. If they did he wouldn't care, he LOVES his foreskin. Circed men don't know what they are missing!

[4chunut1]

Originally Posted by tutucrazy

...Btw, my husband grew up intact in a time when the circumcision rate was MUCH higher (90%). He never got made fun of. ...No one has ever once made fun of his penis. If they did he wouldn't care, he LOVES his foreskin. Circed men don't know what they are missing!

I grew up in very similar circumstances, and no one ever made fun of me either. I cannot understand why any parent would think that "being made fun of" is other than a very rare instance, and even so, why their son would care. HE knows what he has, and knows what the cut guys are missing.

Your husband is a lucky man in more ways than one...first, to have kept his foreskin, and second, to have a wife who also values it...

[GoodMomma]

Hi and welcome to the group! I'm not going to bother giving you any info because you've been given enough. I just want to say, my 16 year old brother is intact and I've asked him about this before and he says it's a non-issue. He said nobody looks at each other in the locker room. Besides....even if he did, an intact guy has a whole penis...why would a guy pick on someone for that? LOL

[lacysmommy]

My DH was concerned about this because there was some teasing going on in the locker room when he was on swim team with some of the uncut guys. I talked to my uncut brother who is just a few years younger than me (he was born in the early 80s, when circ rates were really high). He never had any teasing issues and is very happy with his uncut penis.

[lawmama1984]

Kudos to you for doing research and not just accepting the teasing argument as valid.

As PP have said, it is really not as common a procedure as it used to be, so there is a greater likelihood your son won't be in the minority if you leave him intact. I come from a circ'ing family (both my and DH's family), and I just assumed I would. I, too, used the teasing argument as justification until I got the true facts about this procedure.

Truth be told, your son will be teased about SO many things. As parents, we want to minimize the ammo (so to speak), but having unnecessary genital surgery performed on your son is not the way to do it. I just recently saw a Dr. Phil episode in which a mother was giving her short son HGH to make him taller. The audience was horrified and surprised that someone would do this, yet we think nothing of performing cosmetic surgery on our children's genitals for the same reasons this mother wanted her son to be taller.

I urge you to check into the links PP have posted and the links in the stickies. I, for one, am SO glad every time I change my son's diaper and know that I saved him from this procedure. I am sure you will raise your son to resist peer pressure in other arenas, and what better way to set an example than you resisting it yourself? Best of luck. I hope you find some answers with the resources provided!

[BaMo]

First, I'm so glad that you came to this forum, instead of just going with the flow (so to speak). Kuddos to you for making the first step!

Everyone else has provided some great information. I hope that you and your DH will be able to take the time to do the research. If you have any more questions or concerns, please let us know so that we can help you out.

[Storm Bride]

Anecdotal...

My 46 year old brother is intact. Obviously, he was born at a time when he was very much the exception to the rule (my mom was horrified by the very idea). He was never teased, and he's been very popular with the girls/women. (I know more about it than I want to, as one of his girlfriends used to give me graphic details.) He never once mentioned anyone picking on him or teasing him about his penis.

My 16 year old son is intact. He's never been teased or picked on, and is very thankful that I didn't have him circ'd. He finds the idea of having part of his penis cut off absolutely horrifying. I'm pretty sure he's not sexually active yet, so the question of how the girls will react hasn't come up.

I've only ever been with circ'd men (it's not like the culture here in 1968 gave me any choice!). Of the women I know irl who have been with both, there isn't one who doesn't say intact is better...not one. One woman once described a guy she was dating (and ended up marrying) to me as "perfect, except he's circumcised". So...yeah.

I would no more concern myself with whether some shallow woman will reject one of my sons for having a foreskin than I would with whether she'll reject him for having ears or lips.

[BlessedMommy2006]

Originally Posted by Storm Bride

I would no more concern myself with whether some shallow woman will reject one of my sons for having a foreskin than I would with whether she'll reject him for having ears or lips.

If a woman would reject my son for his foreskin, I wouldn't want to have her as a daughter-in-law anyway.

[laurelg]

My DH is circed, and once we started doing research on the topic, he got pretty miffed that his parents made the (wrong) choice for him! If he'd been left intact, he would have happily stayed that way.

I have a male friend who is intact, who is quite happy with his penis and was glad to hear we wouldn't be circing a boy.

DH knew a guy who chose to get cut as an adult. He was in the Marines with DH, and they all gave him a horrible time for getting circed - their mentality was "If you've made it to 18 with it, why in the hell would you want to cut it off now?!" But, hey, at least it was his choice.

I find it very strange that most adult men are horrified at the idea of cutting off part of an adult male's penis, but so many don't have a problem with doing it to their infant sons. You'd think they'd be a little more protective of the "family jewels."

[emnic77]

My dh is angry that it was done to him. You can always have it done - you can't undo it once it's done.

There's a LOT of information out there. For me, the crux of the issue is this:
It's wrong to remove part of someone else's healthy, normal genitals without their consent.

[pagodafish]

DH and I had all of these very same discussions about why DS might prefer to be cut. I won't go over all of them again because previous posts covered them.

For me it boiled down to this: It's genital mutilation. Circumcision is just a nicer way of saying it. (I could swamp you with info about female genital mutilation in other countries and how people in the US find it outrageous but then continue to cut our baby boys..... but I'll spare you that tirade)

For DH, what made up his mind not to cut (even though he is) was watching an actual circumcision. You can view some here if you are interested
http://www.mothersagainstcirc.org/video.htm

Congratulations on your baby boy. You're already a wonderful mom for asking these questions!

[proudmomof4]

Originally Posted by benj

(...)
I had been turned down by a girl for being intact, and although it was humiliating (and still bothers me), I'm kind of glad that I wasn't with someone that shallow...

Good point!