Thoughts on "looking like dad"

[K703]

A common reason for justifying circumcision is so that the son's penis can "look like" his father's (assuming that the latter is circed). When circ first became popular I'm wondering what it must've been like to be a cut boy growing up with an intact dad (probably not as good as someone like me whose father/son penis status was the other way around).

[BlessedMommy2006]

Oh, yes, exactly because what are they going to say then? "Son, circ is better than being intact, so I thought that I'd have it done to you, but not to me?"

[mntnmom]

I doubt it really was discussed much. Think about how most Americans feel about nudity. How often do most boys see their dad's penis? That's the big problem with the argument: before puberty, boys aren't going to look like their dads anyway. By that time, they're not going to be doing much comparing. Honestly, considering all the other ways a boy can look, act, and be like his dad, a foreskin that he might never even notice (and is easily explained) seems like a strange thing to get hung up on.

[Ruthla]

I wonder if there were a lot of adult circs being performed on the dads around the time infant circ became popular.

I remember my Grandpa telling me this story, about when he joined the Navy during WWII. All the non-Jewish men (who hadn't been circumcised in infancy) were literally doubled over in pain for 3 days after their circs. I don't know if the entire Navy did this, or just his unit, but as far as he knew, all men were circ'ed before being allowed out on US Navy boats at the time. I imagine it was similar in other brances of the Armed Forces.

Considering the sheer number of men of that generation who fought in The War, I imagine that a lot of them may have been circ'ed as adults. This then reinforces the idea that circ "needs to be done at some point anyway", increasing the likelyhood of people wanting to do it to babies.

[tennisdude23]

Originally Posted by Ruthla

I wonder if there were a lot of adult circs being performed on the dads around the time infant circ became popular.

I remember my Grandpa telling me this story, about when he joined the Navy during WWII. All the non-Jewish men (who hadn't been circumcised in infancy) were literally doubled over in pain for 3 days after their circs. I don't know if the entire Navy did this, or just his unit, but as far as he knew, all men were circ'ed before being allowed out on US Navy boats at the time. I imagine it was similar in other brances of the Armed Forces.

Considering the sheer number of men of that generation who fought in The War, I imagine that a lot of them may have been circ'ed as adults. This then reinforces the idea that circ "needs to be done at some point anyway", increasing the likelyhood of people wanting to do it to babies.

I obviously can't speak for your grandfather, but I think it's very important for historical accuracy to reinforce the point that no branch of the United States armed forces ever required circumcision. During World War II, when resources were scarce and men needed to be on the front lines, no military establishment would ever dream of performing mass surgery on soldiers. Such a policy wold make no sense. Naturally, the army was concerned about STDs, and obviously there might have been a few physicians who pushed such drastic measures as circumcision. In particular, there were some very racist policies orientated towards African-Americans because they were viewed as the primary carriers of STDs. However, no unit was ever ordered to get circumcised before going to the front lines. People have done research on this subject, and no record anywhere exits of mass circumcisions either in the desert or in the navy or anywhere else. Time and again, stories like these have been proven to be exaggerated myths.

[Ruthla]

Men may not have been "forced" to be circ'ed when joining the military, but some men may have been coerced into it, or at least told "it's safer and cleaner and we'll do it for free, so why not?"

For all I know, my grandfather might have only met 2 or 3 guys who were recently circ'ed and thought it was universal. But it does seem clear that the U.S. Navy was at least offering circs to new recruits.

Do you have stats about adult circ during the time when infant circ was being popularized? Because that may be a missing piece of the equation (or, it might not be.)

[Crunchy Frog]

Originally Posted by Ruthla

I wonder if there were a lot of adult circs being performed on the dads around the time infant circ became popular.

I remember my Grandpa telling me this story, about when he joined the Navy during WWII. All the non-Jewish men (who hadn't been circumcised in infancy) were literally doubled over in pain for 3 days after their circs. I don't know if the entire Navy did this, or just his unit, but as far as he knew, all men were circ'ed before being allowed out on US Navy boats at the time. I imagine it was similar in other brances of the Armed Forces.

Considering the sheer number of men of that generation who fought in The War, I imagine that a lot of them may have been circ'ed as adults. This then reinforces the idea that circ "needs to be done at some point anyway", increasing the likelyhood of people wanting to do it to babies.

I've had enough healthcare experience with men born in the teens, twenties and thirties to see that a very high percentage of them are still intact. This includes men who served in WWII. I'm guessing that what your Grandpa witnessed was one of a small number of isolated incidents, rather than a general policy applied accross the entire military.

As far as the main point of this thread, all of the formerly circing countries including the U.K., New Zealand, Australia, and now Canada have been through the phenomenon of circed fathers raising intact sons. It doesn't seem to have noticeably frayed the social fabric in any of those countries. I've never heard of there being any major problems in father-son relations either. Maybe those countries have endured social crises that we don't know about.

[Bm31]

I always think this is the dumbest excuse. I was born to a european-born father whose intact penis served him well through four wives, lol. Unfortunately, I was born in the automatic-circ days of the 60's. They just did it without asking according to my mother, with obviously no great concern about the tremendous mental anguish it would cause being "different" from my father. Funny how it's so important for boys to match their cut fathers now, but it wasn't any big deal then.

[tennisdude23]

I don't have any statistics off hand but here is a very interesting link to an article by independent historian, Robert Darby, on this urban myth of mass circumcisions during World War II. http://www.nzma.org.nz/journal/118-1218/1564/

I have not researched Darby's claims much further, but I do know a lot about World War II and in the countless books and articles that I have read on the subject, I had never encountered circumcision propagated as mass surgery for new recruits. To battle STDs, the army encouraged condoms and safe sex practices, both of which were obviously cheaper and more economical than mass surgery. It's also important to remember that the life span of a first lieutenant on the front line was just a few minutes. In battles, such as the Battle of the Bulge, where over a million men were committed to the fight, American casualties alone were close to 100,000. The high command would have never withdrawn men from battle to perform circumcisions, given the short lifespans of soldiers and the overwhelming need for manpower. So, yes, there may have been instances when soldiers got circumcised, but this was never institutional policy, and it occurred very rarely, usually done for personal reasons and outside of the scope of military needs.

[KaylaBeanie]

I know for a fact that one of my grandfathers is intact(mom's dad) and it is very likely that my other grandpa is intact(given the time, area and religion, it was very very unlikely he was circ'd). Both were in the military, Army and Navy, and neither have ever spoken a word about being coerced into circ. I think that whole concept is really crazy, how many adult men are going to willingly chop off part of their penis, no matter how much "better" a doctor says it might be? I'd guess that most of those military men had gotten the chance to use the equipment by then, and were plenty happy with how it worked, no "improvement" needed.

To go off of that, all of my uncles and male cousins are circumcised. There are no emotional scars from not "looking like dad." Plus, that never made sense to me anyhow. If a child asked why they look different from daddy, how on earth can they be anything but thrilled when you reply "Well, daddy had some skin on his penis cut off when he was a baby, but you didn't."

[eepster]

Originally Posted by Ruthla

Men may not have been "forced" to be circ'ed when joining the military, but some men may have been coerced into it, or at least told "it's safer and cleaner and we'll do it for free, so why not?"

When my dad joined the airforce during the Korean war, this was what went on. No one was ordered or forced to get circ'd but it was being offered as good hygiene. My dad said "no," but one of the other intact guys in his unit took them up on the offer. After having seen what the other guy went through, dad was really glad he'd turned down the offer.

[mntnmom]

It seems likely that WWII era circ propaganda might have been the first time a lot of people ever heard of the procedure. It was also a time period dominated by the idea that science and medicine would solve all of mankind's problems. From baby formula, to Gillette razors, if it was presented as clean and hygenic, it must be better. And many people, of that generation and later, would never DREAM of questioning a doctor, or superior officer. Trusting authority was a cultural assumption for most Americans. And knowing how the Army works, I don't doubt that there were units where a little bit of peer pressure went a long way to making guys feel like it might as well be mandatory. So I can easily see how this would plant the seeds, even in men who didn't get it done themselves, to go along with the doctor years later.

[brant31]

Originally Posted by tennisdude23

During World War II, when resources were scarce and men needed to be on the front lines, no military establishment would ever dream of performing mass surgery on soldiers. Such a policy wold make no sense.

I think the US military did a lot of circumcisions -- a whole lot. But as you correctly point out, as elective surgery in most cases it was not something that happened much during active battle. The stories I have heard have concerned circumcision in limited categories:

1) as easy practice for medics during slow times, almost like a CE course
2) because of a mania that a particular commanding officer had, probably himself circ'ed involuntarily as a child or adult
3) due to peer pressure

I have read 2 or 3 accounts of "King Neptune" parties in the Pacific, in which sailors on US Navy ships would keep lists of all the uncut guys and then have "circumcision parties" whenever they crossed the equator or the international date line. Every intact guy on the ship would have to undergo circumcision as a rite of passage to celebrate the event, to the whoops and cheers of all the other guys. Naturally, these were during slow -- very slow -- times, not en route to war.

Also during slow times, soldiers and sailors would take advantage of accommodating C.O.'s and get circumcised as a way to earn R&R time off. In Harry Maurer's book Strange Ground, he quotes a former Vietnam medic as saying, "Another thing we did was a lot of circumcisions. They guys would get a couple of weeks off from duty for that, so when we didn't have a lot of casualties we'd have a whole row of guys who'd just had circumcisions. They'd come in and say, 'I want a circumcision," and even if they didn't need it the surgeon would say, 'Oh yeah, you need a circumcision for sure," and put down whatever the technical name is for an inflamed foreskin. The surgeon didn't care, he knew what the score was. And then if the other guys in the combat unit noticed that Fred went and got a circumcision and he's been gone two weeks, they would say, 'I'll go, too." The only guys that didn't luck out were the ones that were already circumcised."

No question the US military circumcised way more men than it had to, certainly more than the Brits or Germans or any other defense force ever has, percentage-wise. Whether the system was abused by sicko officers, racism, enlisted men gaming the system, or just plain old peer pressure (it does cause some odd behavior once circ reaches a certain threshold in any group), it happened. And when these same guys came home and fathered boys and were asked whether they wanted newborn Soldier, Jr circumcised, most said, "Oh yeah, for sure," whether to make DS look like Dad, or because Dad remembered how much it hurt at age 20, or because Dad (intact or cut) saw what his buddies went through. It's all rather insidious. I'd venture that it was so expected that that's one main reason doctors didn't even bother asking for about 30 years.

But back to the OP's point, one has to wonder why a whole generation of American boys wasn't "traumatized" by missing a key part of their penis that their father, uncles and grandfather had. Yet we're expected to believe it would do exactly that if we go along with Mother Nature. In an age when there's less nudity and more information than ever. Yeah, right.

[georgia]

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[tennisdude23]

Brent, as I pointed out earlier, I'm very much skeptical of anecdotal accounts pertaining to this idea of "mass circumcision in the military," and I don't think it's a wise to add fuel to the fire, without practicing caution, at least for the sake of historical accuracy. Again, from my experience, I tend to find that such accounts are usually quite exaggerated. For example, this claim of a "Neptune party" I find very suspicious. First off, why would you do a mass circumcision on a ship? There is simply no logic in that. You can't have a sizable portion of the ship's crew out of commission for a cosmetic procedure. Secondly, the supplies on a ship are limited, whether that be war or peace, and there is simply no way that any military commander would ever allow precious medical inventory to be wasted on useless surgeries. Thirdly, on museum tours, I went on board on a number of World War II, Korean War, and Vietnam era ships, and let me tell you, the conditions were extremely primitive, and certainly not conducive to a mass surgery environment. This was by the way after the ships were cleaned up to make them fit for tourists. Lastly, getting a circumcision is wholly different than getting a tattoo. So, in lieu of all the discipline issues raised here, it's very unlikely that circumcision was used as some kind of hazing practice. Indeed, I don't see a bunch of sailors crossing the International Date Line and saying all of sudden, "oh boy, oh boy, we have entered a new hemisphere, let's get circumcised now."

With regards to Vietnam, I imagine that there were some instances with a few soldiers getting circumcisions here and there in order to gain sick leave. However, the most common way for a soldier to get out of the service for a limited period of time was to feign sickness or to purposefully injure himself. This is on record in all the wars we have mentioned, mass circumcisions, on the other hand, are not. I think it's also safe to say that in the vast majority of instances most men are happy with their equipment and don't stare at other guys' genitals. I would thus venture to say that soldiers getting circumcised because of peer pressure was probably not a very common occurrence, to say the least.

I think that these are all valid points to make because like many of the other claims pertaining to circumcision, "the mass circumcisions in the army" argument is very specious, and with a little historical research is quite easily debunked. This is why I in particular like Robert Darby's approach (linked above), where he illustrates how ludicrous a lot of these myths and anecdotal accounts really are. For instance, upon analyzing the "sand-balantis-mass circumcision in the army claim," he ironically writes in his thesis, "as a result, it maintains a furtive existence as a medical urban myth, popping up in surprising places with odd variations. A correspondent in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine reported that ‘a German surgeon’ had told him that, in the Second World War, German Africa Corps troops had ‘suffered in the same way’, and had similarly been circumcised. But the idea that a German would have submitted to such an operation is hard to credit." Darby here cleverly illustrates how preposterous some of these circumcision myths have really become because the fact of the matter remains that no German soldier would have ever undergone a circumcision at that time. Ergo, the only unfortunate place that circumcision holds during the Second World War is that it became a death sentence for countless men and boys. Those are the facts and the rest are urban legends, a classic example of why hearsay, minus other records, is not a good test of validity and reliability.

[eepster]

Dad crossed the international date line on a navy vessel (though he was in the airforce, he hitched a ride with the navy) and no one offered a circumcision at that time. The offer was only given on arrival at basic training. I don't think the guy who took them up on the offer got any time off.

[mamasgirls]

I know both of my grandfather's are intact, and all of their sons (2 each) were cut. My dad didn't know his father was intact until about 2 weeks ago when he was hospitalized and was telling everyone the nurses said it would be more difficult to cath him because of it This grandfather was also in the Navy in WWII and was not cut as a part of that.

I still find this such an odd argument, but it is one that just slips off people's tongues like it is very valid. I have 2 daughters now and have never once compared my genitals with them. Besides the fact that a little boy will never look like his adult father. But I hear "Well, my husband is the one with the penis so I let him decide" or "my husband wanted him circ'd to look like him" more often than ANY other excuse out there. Just so sad.

[Ann-Marita]

It really has nothing to do with looks. It has way more to do with the dad's inability to face that something important was taken from him while he was a defenseless baby.

[dinahx]

I agree. The argument is bizarre for 2 reasons:

1) a baby penis never looks like an adult penis ever.

2) if the dad is THAT committed to genital similarity, he is always able to restore!

[DJay]

Originally Posted by BlessedMommy2006

Oh, yes, exactly because what are they going to say then? "Son, circ is better than being intact, so I thought that I'd have it done to you, but not to me?"

This is essentially what my father told me!