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The info is out there

post #1 of 21
Thread Starter 
I wonder what's going to happen in the future...Boys who's parents have chosen to have their genitals cut are going to have access to information. They are also going to know that their parents had access to the same information. I am really curious as to how this is going to play out when they figure out what was done to them and that their parents did it with access to the info about the harm it causes/caused them.

I know that if I were male, I would have been cut...I also know who incredibly furious I would be.
post #2 of 21
I agree. I would have also been cut if I had been male. I can sort of understand the situation with my mom and my grandmothers, who all chose to circumcise, because the internet didn't exist then, and nearly everyone really was doing it, and the doctors were recommending it. To find any other information would have been a lot harder. But in 20-30 years? Boys will know that information was easy to access, that the US nationwide circumcision rates were falling already. And they will have to face the idea that their parents chose to cut them anyway. It will be be just one more layer of hurt from circumcision.
post #3 of 21
The info is out there now but a lot of people still go by the old myths or they uniformed and don't put much thought into it. I hope more and more providers will start dropping coverage and the rates will continue to plummit and there will be good info out there.

We will actually see correct anatomy pictures in textbooks and we will know the functions. It is funny people are so worried about looking like dad and the locker room thing but I think as rates drop it will be the boys that are circumcised that will be upset over what happened and wish they were intact. I think there could be some anger over what happend being it causes issues with sex. Women will be exposed to intact being normal too and will probably see correct anatomy pictures and will probably hope they end up with a man who is intact. I am thankful every day that my ds will not go through what generations before him went through and he will not have any problems. I am so thankful I was informed beforehand because I could of been on the other side.

In our generation when the rates were 90% and the myths were floating around everyone just thought it was what you do and did not even realize the functions. Everyone they know was probably circumcised so it was never questioned. If they saw picutres in books it was a picture of a circumcised penis. This will no longer be the case 20-30 years down the line and I think we will see it for what it was and there could be some resentment. Change takes time though and to admit that it was wrong you have to admit that it did affect something that is so important.
post #4 of 21
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fyrestorm View Post
I wonder what's going to happen in the future...Boys who's parents have chosen to have their genitals cut are going to have access to information. They are also going to know that their parents had access to the same information. I am really curious as to how this is going to play out when they figure out what was done to them and that their parents did it with access to the info about the harm it causes/caused them.

I know that if I were male, I would have been cut...I also know who incredibly furious I would be.

I think that we are pretty much there. The internet was around when today's teenagers were born. You can bet that many of them are already somewhat aware of what was done to them. This is an argument that I often use when parents are on the fence about "the decision". It would be easy to answer the very unlikely question as to why they are intact - they have a choice. But what reply could one possibly come up with when asked why they whacked off the best part of junior's penis? I suspect that there are going to be some really uncomfortable conversations surrounding the topic of RIC very soon.

And there are many who were born and circumcised before the advent of the internet who ARE NOW absolutely furious with what they percieve as a totaly irrational decision by their parents, never mind the the extreme lack of ethics in the medical community.
post #5 of 21
I'm a younger member of the board with a younger brother (circ'd) and I know many of my and his peers still manage to only read up on false or half truth circ info and assume it is for the best. I've seen many comments around the web of liking the circ and being pleased with it and being sure it is best.

It'll definitely take a few more years before it starts to weight more heavily because right now, the guys with the info access are mostly still not caring much.
post #6 of 21
Also, with many parents who see info out there against circ they rather get a blind eye even though they want to be fully informed but they get so uneasy on talk of against talk so they rather be in the neutral zone as in it's just what's done in our family as in choosing to keeping circ a continued tradition in their family without really knowing truthfully what circ or foreskin is all about until they are really ready to see it .

For now us intactivist may end up having people think we are nuts you know .
post #7 of 21
The information has always been freely available to everyone.

You just need to listen to your heart.

But sadly, many people seem to lose that inherent ability and prefer to believe the chattering monkey.

In my heart of hearts, all people *know* deep now, that circumcision is no good.
post #8 of 21
This is one of the questions I posited to my sister when I attempted (unsuccessfully) for her to keep my poor nephew intact. I warned her that there may come a day when he will ask her why, and she damn well better have a good answer (not that there is one) for what she had done. Our kids are very close. Her DS is only two years younger than my (intact) DS. He will grow up knowing what an intact penis looks like and that his is different because of a CHOICE made by his parents. I sure as hell hope he never asks me about it because I'm not sure how I would react.
post #9 of 21
Unfortunately cognitive dissonance will cause most of them to think that everything is "just fine" with their choices.
post #10 of 21
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by A&A View Post
Unfortunately cognitive dissonance will cause most of them to think that everything is "just fine" with their choices.
But..the question is, will those who's choice was taken away from them be happy with the result of someone else's choice for their genitals?
post #11 of 21
I have a work friend who goes on and on about being super-organic mommy, but who still cut her son She claims she did her research and found it to be best. I figure she just looked at the biased pro-circ stuff and took it at its word, without looking at the real stats and such, that we all know. SIGH. But the vast majority of moms I know are total intactivists
post #12 of 21
yeah, i was fairly shocked at what i consider to be a very "crunchy" group of parents i know getting quite heated over someone bringing up circumcision. i thought that in this group, no one would be pro-circ, or at least on the fence about it, but surprisingly, a fair number were saying they'd circ'd their sons and were quite determined about it. this is mostly 20's and 30's with younger kids too!
post #13 of 21
I have a "friend" who is an LLL leader, super gentle, CLW, no longer vaccinates (because of researching and learning more), had a homebirtg with her newest. 2 Circd boys. Makes my head spin. And my guts quiver. You should have heard her complaining about the episiotomy from her first birth.

Quote:
Originally Posted by SilverFish View Post
yeah, i was fairly shocked at what i consider to be a very "crunchy" group of parents i know getting quite heated over someone bringing up circumcision. i thought that in this group, no one would be pro-circ, or at least on the fence about it, but surprisingly, a fair number were saying they'd circ'd their sons and were quite determined about it. this is mostly 20's and 30's with younger kids too!
post #14 of 21
This thread raises very interesting and important points.

Probably the majority of parents today who have one or more circumcised DS and then kept future DS intact will use some variant of "we did the best with what was available to us." Implicit in that is the idea that the disadvantages of circumcision are now out in the open, from books (like Dr. Sears and Penelope Leach) to the internet. It's no longer little-known that Europeans don't circumcise. It's no longer "presumed" all males are cut.

When my brother and I were born there were essentially 2 books available that discussed circumcision; the bestseller "Baby and Child Care" by Dr. Benjamin Spock (which patently advocated circumcision, as well as daily retraction for those weird enough to leave a child intact) and an obscure book by a writer named Joseph Lewis that denounced infant circumcision. My American mother, living thousands of miles from home in a strange land, did what most women would do in those days: she wrote to all her girlfriends back home and asked what they were doing.

Today, one needs neither a bookstore nor friends. There is a storm of discussion you can read right on your iPhone, along with videos. And more importantly, no excuse for saying you didn't know how to research the pros and cons of circumcision. If we consider that tens of thousands of pissed off men today have tempered their anger with the knowledge that their parents couldn't have known better or bucked the trend, it's going to be a whole 'nother ballgame in ten or twenty years.
post #15 of 21
Because of my interest in circumcision. I have become very aware of medical history. It's fascinating to me to see connections between cultural ideas, technology, and science of the time and see how those ideas manifest in medical practices. (the evolution of ethics as well as patient rights too!) I recently watched a documentary about the mental health care practices concerning schizophrenics and their families (and how mothers were blamed for the mental illness of their child!) and how a small group of parent patient advocates/activists had to work to change the system. ..their fight against the prevailing assumption that doctors were infallible and were not to be questioned. I saw another show about the federal drug addiction experiments carried out in a famous prison in Lexington KY called "the narcotic farm"... Amazing!

I think that a lot of people forget that medicine is a continuum that is always shifting ... and it's also interesting to think about what was going on at that time... for example- the amnesia drug that was used on laboring women, scopolamine, was used from the 1940's - 1960's... same time as the circumcision rate in the USA really took off...

When today's parents consider the "circumcision decision" they are being offered- and they factor in the "decisions" made in the past by their family (turns out back then circumcision was not offered as a "decision" to grandma and grandpa) ... today's parents imagine their grandparents in a parallel place- they don't imagine the grandmother tied in a bed on a mind altering drug and grandpa locked out of the delivery process all together pacing (and smoking) in the hospital waiting room.... they don't imagine that if grandpa walked down the street to get a cup of coffee- he might find himself at a diner where there was a separate section for "coloreds"... when grandma leaves the hospital with the new baby- she might need some pads to help with the postpartum lochia- if she goes in a drug store to buy the pads- she will find them (with pins and belts) wrapped in discreet unmarked brown packages with the only identifying feature of the package being either a tiny letter "K" or "M" for Kotex or Modess. She and grandpa will drive home in a car burning leaded gas fuel and they will not have a car seat. Once home, she would probably feed her baby a home made mix, her doctor's FORMULA, to make baby food- corn syrup, evaporated cow milk and water... once she is done with her postpartum healing and resumes sexual activity she may use a douche made of Lysol to try to prevent or delay her next pregnancy- in many states it is illegal to sell or to use contraception... the Lysol douche is marketed as a "hygienic product.

and then they say, "It's our culture... everyone in my family is circumcised!" ... but how many of the other elements of that birth story have we let go as a bizarre antiquated relic of a past time when we didn't know any better!?

Sometimes I think about those drinking age reminders you see at the store, "if you were born after ..."

I'd love to have a circumcision history blog timeline... "If you were circumcised in 1983..." etc ...one that would go year by year and highlight the prevailing circumcision reason, the circumcision rate, and some background tidbits of cultural/historic information to help ground that info into a big picture. (for example- in 2009 74% of Americans were connected to the internet) Then a man could look up his birth-year, or his father's or grandfather's- and see their circumcision in it's historic cultural context.
post #16 of 21
Quote:
Originally Posted by PlainandTall View Post

I'd love to have a circumcision history blog timeline... "If you were circumcised in 1983..." etc ...one that would go year by year and highlight the prevailing circumcision reason, the circumcision rate, and some background tidbits of cultural/historic information to help ground that info into a big picture. (for example- in 2009 74% of Americans were connected to the internet) Then a man could look up his birth-year, or his father's or grandfather's- and see their circumcision in it's historic cultural context.
you should do that!! and send me the link! sounds like a great idea.
post #17 of 21
Thread Starter 
Here's a slide presentation of some of the history:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4unKTMpBGA
post #18 of 21
My sister and I were born outside the US while my parents were posted overseas; I in a small clinic in a quaint village founded in the 1500s, and my sister in a suburban hospital of a major city. In both locations, it was customary for new moms to breastfeed and for no one to circumcise. There was lots of help with breastfeeding, and my mom remembers getting over her American modesty as she learned to breastfeed with all the women from the neighborhood. She loved it.

Once we returned to the US, my brother was born in Pittsburgh. My mom remembers being a lot less comfortable, despite being in a "modern" hospital setting. Instead of close interactions with all the staff, she was treated as if on an assembly line; people were constantly coming and going and no nurse would tell her what was going on. While my dad was present for my birth and my sister's, he was kept firmly out of the birth room in PA.

Mom remembers waking up the second day after birth feeling disoriented and horrible. She finally snagged a nurse long enough to ask what on earth was going on. "Oh honey, them's just the drugs." Mom remembered being offered pills "for the pain", but this was different. "Oh yeah, we give 'em to all the gals. One was to dry up all your breast milk, of course -- since everyone today uses formula, ya know, the gals don't want all that swelling -- and the other was to knock you out cold so we have time to take the baby to get his tests done and get circumcised."

"But I don't want him circumcised! And I plan to breastfeed, like I did with my other two!" Mom said the nurse looked at her like she'd said she wanted to have lunch on the moon. "Sweetie, I don't know what farm you were living on before, but this is how we do things now. It's the modern age!" and she walked away shaking her head and saying, "Sheesh, some crazy people..."

Mom said that the next time she saw the doctor, she reached over from her bed and pulled his tie as hard as she could until his nose was touching hers. "How DARE you knock me out without my permission! How DARE you give me pills to dry up MY breastmilk! I ought to sue you personally! Where is my son?"

After he was able to stand up straight, the doctor coolly told her that the pills were standard protocol for all and required no consent from her -- as was the circumcision. Mom was furious, and wrecked.

But my dad came by later and told her that he'd dropped by while she was out cold, and when he learned where they'd taken my brother he stopped them just in time. The doctor had joked to him that it was just as well... the first two he'd done that day, the Gomco didn't go on that well and they'd come out clearly lopsided, and he overcompensated with the third one and took off probably too much skin, "but that happens all the time with these things".

Looking back, Mom says that my "primitive" birth was the best of the 3.
post #19 of 21
Quote:
Originally Posted by PlainandTall View Post
... once she is done with her postpartum healing and resumes sexual activity she may use a douche made of Lysol to try to prevent or delay her next pregnancy- in many states it is illegal to sell or to use contraception... the Lysol douche is marketed as a "hygienic product.
My husband and I recently bought a small (750 square feet, one bedroom) cabin from a 96 year old man. The cabin was sold with all contents (read "junk and dirt") intact. He had been widowed several years ago.

There was an odd looking white & pink thing laying on the shower floor. I ignored it for a while...we weren't cleaning there--YET. I picked it up about a week ago, and examined it more closely, and it took me a couple of minutes to figure out what it was...and once I did, you had better believe I put it in the trash quickly--it was a re-useable douche! (you can see one just like it here: http://www.amazon.com/Cara-Douche-Sy...ef=pd_sim_bt_1)

It was such a common part of their culture, it lay in the bathroom for years after it had last been used, and no one, not the gentleman that we bought the house from, not his daughter, not the cleaning lady hired by his daughter, thought to put it "discretely" out of sight. And not only that, I later found in a drawer tubing that would attach to a faucet, and it had 3 different "ends" that could be put on it...yet another douching tool.
post #20 of 21
Quote:
Originally Posted by hakunangovi View Post
I think that we are pretty much there. The internet was around when today's teenagers were born.
Yeah, the Internet existed, but it wasn't something everyone had access to. My "baby" is 15, and we didn't have a home PC until he was three. That was 1998. Neither their dad nor I had Internet access at work.

My boys are intact, FWIW. I didn't need books or friends or persuading...I just figured a natural, healthy body part should be left alone.
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