Guys are a tribal lot; be patient with us

[brant31]

We guys are a tribal lot. Competitive and loyal. We love professional sports teams, we loved being in Boy Scout troops, we loved high school and intramural sports, and we naturally gravitate to fraternities and men’s clubs.

I was thinking about this the other day when I was (yet again) trying to get my head around the resistance so many circumcised dads have to keeping their sons intact. I know all the traditional myths and arguments about teasing, cleaning, etc., and yet I still felt that something more basic was at work. Something tribal. Something fraternal. Something Team Edward vs Team Jacob.

Last year my godson pledged a fraternity at college, and it was not the frat that his dad and I were in together. A profound sadness came over my friend, even though he knew times had changed, fraternity reputations had changed (though the same university for all 3 of us) and of course he wanted whatever was best for his son. Still, I could tell it was hard for him to accept that his son would not be sharing this additional lifelong brotherhood with him and with me.

Then it dawned on me… maybe some men feel that their intact son would be pledging Phi Iota Beta (Fraternity of Intact Boys) instead of Kappa Gamma Phi (Cut Guys Fraternity). It sets up an inherent rivalry at the same time that it means father and son won’t be sharing the same initiation and rituals.

I have heard men say to other men after their circumcision, “Welcome to the team!” It sort of revolts me, but maybe a lot of American guys do see the circumcision world as Us vs. Them. It helps explain why fathers would be very reluctant to see their son "join the other team", even if they don't articulate it.

All of this is meaningless to the boy. He takes his cues from his parents. Perhaps one way to address this perceived split is to gently emphasize to DH that the family unit will still be a team, and a stronger team for acknowledging the latest progress in medical knowledge and ethics. No looking back, just looking forward.

[UK Dad]

Guys are a tribal lot; be patient with us

In my schooldays, the behaviour you describe was prevalent - the "teams" being referred to in the school playground as "cavaliers" and "roundheads". Today,here in the UK there wouldn't be enough roundhead (circumcised) boys to form a team, but in my day (birth year 1942) the rate was about 40% circumcised.

At the start of High School friendships were formed on this basis (sad, I know) but as we grew older and more mature I think we realised that there were more important aspects to friendships etc. than whether or not one's friend had a foreskin.

And to be honest I was just a little saddened to discover, aged about 7, that my father was circumcised, although it was from the perspective of realising, in later years, just what he was missing! We both shared an enornous passion for all things mechanical - steam engines, model gadgets of all kinds, making things etc. As you say, the major fact that we were blood related bound us together and as time went by such differences seemed trivial in comparison to what we had in common.

[Dave2GA]

I think there is a great deal of truth in what Brant says. In addition you need to add in the component that Vincent Bach discusses in The Vulnerability of Men.

[jenP]

This is interesting. Thank you for posting. I'm looking forward to reading more from the male perspective on the subject.
See, I've always rather dismissed out of hand when a man set on circumcising his son says it is because of "tradition" or "culture." (Meaning American culture; nothing to do with religion.) I've always thought, "Tradition? Really? When you're only the second ever in your family to have had it done, and suddenly it's this wonderful hallowed family tradition?" In other words, I figure it's one more of those self-delusions guys cling to in order to make themselves feel better about having been circumcised. They block out any creeping ideas that they may have lost some sexual function, or that their parents didn't protect them from harm, and instead focus on this (rather silly, to me) idea that because of their surgery they are part of some grand and noble tradition, tying them together in brotherhood throughout generations of their family...

I dunno. Despite what you've said above I still think it is a load of BS. I think it all boils down to, if he doesn't circumcise his son, he has to face the idea that it is not a grand old tradition connecting him to his ancestors and his future progeny and binding them together in this wonderful brotherhood.... and that in fact it was just a matter of some doctor taking him from his mother and cutting a large portion of his penis away for no real reason.
Who wants to face that?? The brotherhood thing is so much more reassuring...

Still, I'm eager to read more men's thoughts.

Jen

[PuppyFluffer]

I think you are very accurate that this thinking is at play in the decision process for a lot of men.

[brant31]

My thinking is that if a husband can get to where he sees himself as a "free agent" instead of a lifelong part of the "cut team", he can more easily make a maverick decision for his son. (Not that I think there is anything even remotely radical about keeping your child away from unnecessary scalpels.)

The other issue I see is that some dads fear they won't be able to "relate" as well with DS because they worry about showing him the right way to pee and clean. Of course it's not that hard, but it looms like a great unknown; especially if DW is making a big deal of circumcision, which reinforces the idea that the two styles of penis must be very different. This may be where it's helpful to point out that there really are not 2 styles of penis; circumcision is so variable that there is literally unlimited variation. It is safer and saner to stick with the natural model (which also requires less maintenance, a fact which might come as a surprise to DH).

[AFWife]

I know that for my DH a lot of it was also that he's never had an issue with his circ. Neither have his brothers (his mom told us such)

Also, when I tried to point out that circ'd men can be less sensitive DH scoffed because, frankly, that's not an issue for him.


So, there were a lot of arguments that just didn't work with him. *shrugs*

[hakunangovi]

Originally Posted by AFWife

Also, when I tried to point out that circ'd men can be less sensitive DH scoffed because, frankly, that's not an issue for him.

Maybe, not yet, because he can not imagine what he is missing. But wait for a couple more decades and ask him how much feeling he has left.

[hakunangovi]

Originally Posted by jenP

This is interesting. Thank you for posting. I'm looking forward to reading more from the male perspective on the subject.

I dunno. Despite what you've said above I still think it is a load of BS. I think it all boils down to, if he doesn't circumcise his son, he has to face the idea that it is not a grand old tradition connecting him to his ancestors and his future progeny and binding them together in this wonderful brotherhood.... and that in fact it was just a matter of some doctor taking him from his mother and cutting a large portion of his penis away for no real reason.
Who wants to face that?? The brotherhood thing is so much more reassuring...

Still, I'm eager to read more men's thoughts.

Jen

As irrational as that sounds, I have to agree with you. It has always amazed me how the majority of circumcised men refuse to admit that anything is wrong with what was done to them.

I still vividly remember my very first night in the communal shower room of boarding school, when I noticed that many of the boys possessed a penis different from my own, and it dawned on me that I was missing a part of MY penis. I was six years old and was horrified that someone would have done this to me - even though there were plenty of other circumcised boys there.

The next school I was at went through a period of segregation much like UKDAD described where we would form "armies" of "Cavaliers" and "Roundheads". For a very brief time I felt O.K. being a "Roundhead" simply because we were in the majority ( Roughly 2/3 vs 1/3) , however my best friends were intact, and I have to admit that I envied them, even then, and a whole lot more now !!

So, this male's perspective would appear to be at odds with the majority. I hate that I was circumcised and I hate that parents are still doing it to their little boys. Which is mostly why I participate on this board - I find it quite therapeutic to actively promote that intact is normal and desirable, and to try and dispell the myths that some people still cling to in their desire to circumcise their own sons.

[brant31]

Is there one model we can use to explain why a couple of generations of intact dads seemed perfectly comfortable handing over their newborn sons to be circumcised -- presumably with no argument from DW -- knowing that father and son would have "completely different" penises (to use the scare language from today)?

Now, I know some of these fathers were circumcised in the military or had good buddies who were. And maybe some of the thinking was to spare the little fella much pain and recovery time later. But c'mon... it wasn't a whole generation or two of guys circumcised in the service.

Did the sons suffer psychological trauma because dad had a foreskin and they didn't? Did the sons even notice? Did the first batch of circumcised boys suffer awfully when nude among the majority of intact peers? (And there were lots more opportunities for that then than today: YMCA nude swims, skinnydipping, jr high and high school showers, etc.)

One theory I can understand is that for a limited time infant circumcision looked like a real medical advancement. It was almost too radical a suggestion to not work! So parents, being told that their sons would be freed from a lifetime of potential foreskin problems while still enjoying great hygiene and great sex, figured it was a win-win situation.

But here we have definitive proof that the father-son and locker room arguments hold no water. Clearly circumcision wasn't a wonder solution, or all the dads would have gotten circumcised along with their sons; the medical profession would have found a way to make it easy.

So I wonder... is there a model that explains both the behavior of intact -> cut as well as cut -> intact? One that highlights why earlier dads surrendered their sons' foreskins with little hesitation vs. the pouting, hurt feelings and recalcitrance of many of today's dads?

Where was the "grand old tradition" of being intact (that jenP alluded to) when we needed it?

[Cyllya]

Is this tribal thing also behind many husbands being pro-spanking, anti-homeschool, anti-nursing-past-age-two, pro-being-bullied, etc?

Well, this is helpful information, so thanks for posting it. (Though it makes all those times I've heard misogynist men refer to women as "herd animals" that much more frustrating. )

But a man wouldn't want his child to join the "arm amputated at the age of 7" or "sexually abused by his uncle" clubs just because he was in them, right? So the main thing is too get circ'd men to accept that being circ'd is bad.