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| Okay, I know I'm gonna get flamed here, but give me a chance. |
Somehow, from your subsequent posts, I think you are here honestly to learn and get your head sorted out about this and I’m going to honestly answer your questions as best I can. If I offend you, please trust me that it is not intentional.
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| I have no problem with ppl who are against circs...fine. I have a problem with drs that are out for their own agenda though...either way! |
I believe that may be a false accusation. I’ll give you information and let you be the final arbiter of that issue.
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| The dr that "circ'd" my oldest son (who made us wait till he was six months!) messed up big time. I found out from his associate that it was done on purpose! The dr was against circs and therefore decided (without telling us that he wasn't going to do a normal circ-ie full circ with the ring to prevent pain) to snip him just enough to cause pain (and plenty of infections!) |
Actually, it is now known that the old style “tight” circumcisions caused many problems for adult men as has been mentioned by other writers. Many doctors have adopted a looser style of circumcision in order to try to avoid these problems. The medical profession has a long way to go to learn that they can not improve on God’s or Nature’s perfect design and what they have actually done is to trade one set of problems and complications for another. In other words, the problems your son is having may just be a different set of problems he would have had should he have had a tight circumcision. The problem with a tight circumcision is that those problems are lifelong and most likely, the problems your son is having will be outgrown with time. The medical profession still has to learn that there is no right way to do a wrong thing.
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| and did not use ANYTHING to prevent pain. |
That is actually the normal standard of care for the medical profession. Less than 25% of babies get anything for the pain and less than 4% get what the AMA considers “adequate” pain relief. That does not make it OK. Any person should not have to suffer unnecessary pain, especially for an elective procedure that is done at the doctor’s leisure. In the emergency room, maybe, but not for a procedure like this. The problem is that doctors and other healthcare professionals are conditioned to pain and it doesn’t affect them they way it should. Because of this conditioning, they are almost unaware of the pain they are causing and blithely ignore the screams. After the procedure, they often don’t even remember the screams of pain.
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| My baby slept for two days, nursing only, screaming from nightmares (ever hear of a 6mos old having nightmares?!), |
The sleeping is a normal defense mechanism in response to extreme trauma. I suspect the “nightmares” were actually fear and that when he wakened, he was afraid he would be subjected to the same pain again. It is also possible that when he wakened, he was still in pain and that he was screaming from the post-op pain.
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| and refused his daddy during this time. |
That is also to be expected. The child was in fear. It is similar to boys having trouble nursing after the procedure. They are probably afraid of any human interaction at that point and have to have time to begin to trust other people.
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| Their reasoning, other than they didn't want to do it, is that is would be less likely he'd get an STD (my boy will learn to keep his pants on or he's on his own far as I'm concerned) and he will "have a better sexual experience" (my hubby is circ'd and let me tell you, there is NO problem there!). I so wanted to sue this guy!!! |
The jury is still out on whether there is any validity to the STD thing and there are arguments on both sides. At any rate, any difference would be insignificant. There is significant evidence that sex for an intact man is substantially better and better for his lover as well.
Since your husband doesn’t have a foreskin, he can not possibly evaluate whether sex could have been better or worse with one. It’s like a color blind man trying to comprehend red or blue. A color blind man once commented on how beautiful my azaleas were. Now, my azaleas are intense and vivid shades of purple, red, magenta, brilliant pink and white. There is no doubt he saw the white ones as they were but the other colors were most likely lost to him and at best, he saw them as pastels. There was no way he saw them in the same manner that I did but yet he thought they were beautiful! That’s the way it is for your husband. He is totally unaware of the sensations his foreskin would have provided and is just as unable to relate to them as you would be able to relate to what it feels like to have a penis. I’ve somewhat “been there and done that.” I have restored my foreskin and I have sensations I could not imagine before and I am missing some of the vital parts to experience the full range of sexual sensations. I have seen explanations by intact men and can understand what they are talking about but the ability to actually imagine them are well beyond my comprehension.
I suspect you can forget about a lawsuit. You were forewarned and decided to ignore the warnings. Few doctors would badly perform a procedure just to punish a parent. I suspect that you got caught up in some office politics by the associate that intimated that this was done on purpose.
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| My 2nd son was done appropriately and had no pain and no ensuing infections. My oldest to this day get infections due to the foreskin still being there. My oldest is considered uncirc'd by his ped. |
I doubt there was no pain during the procedure or during the post op recovery period. It may be that you just weren’t there to see it or during the recovery period, you associated crying from urine on the wound with discomfort from a wet diaper. I could be wrong but that’s what I suspect.
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| I'll be honest, I've never seen such aggression against circs as I've seen here, so if you want to add in you input, fine, but be kind...I like hardheaded ppl but not ones that bite your head off... |
Actually, this board is pretty mild. Some of the debate boards at other sites put those for and against head to head and it does get really nasty sometimes. In comparison, this is a very mild mannered board. I think I can speak for most members here that we do not intend to be aggressive but this is an issue that can get under your skin and once it does, it kind of takes command. Many members here will confess to being obsessed with this issue because they have had a “light bulb” moment where it all comes together and becomes a cohesive element. After that point, it can become an obsession. Somehow, I can almost see you coming to that point.
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| I am curious about your reasons-you may or may not convince me. |
We will not convince you, you will convince yourself. We merely provide the information and you come to your own conclusions. I call it “passing it through the filter of reason and logic.” You take a bit of information and you try to pass it through the filter. If it doesn’t pass through the filter, you toss it as wrongful information. Let me give you an example.
Just recently a mother-to-be wrote me privately with some questions. One, she was concerned about penile cancer, something that many think is a reasonable reason to circumcise a boy, but let’s see if we can force it through the filter of reason and logic.:
The figures most bandied about is that 1 in 110,000 intact men will get penile cancer and 1 in 300,000 circumcised men will get penile cancer. That makes penile cancer one of the most rare of all cancers. But! There are quite a few countries that have essentially a zero rate of circumcision and yet they also have a significantly lower rate of penile cancer than the predominately circumcised US. How is that possible? Well, logically, circumcision has little or nothing to do with it, so that doesn’t pass through the filter of reason and logic.
Let’s look at it another way. Any surgical procedure has risks up to and including death. The risk of death from penile cancer is in the order of more than one in a million and it is always in elderly men. The risk of death from circumcision is on the order of 1 in 7,000 procedures, so it is more risky to circumcise than it is to risk the possibility of death from penile cancer. You also have to consider that penile cancer is simply a skin cancer and if treated promptly, essentially has a mortality rate of zero. You also need to realize that a circumcision death is at the very beginning of life and a preventable penile cancer death is at the very end of the life cycle so that will not pass through the filter of reason and logic, not even if you try to pound it through with a sledge hammer.
There is also a new development in the penile (and cervical) cancer issue. It has long been known that these cancers are caused by the human papillomia virus. (HPV) Just last year, a safe, quick and cheap test for HPV was developed and introduced to the market and just this year, a very safe and effective vaccine was developed and put on the market that is even effective in those who are already infected. Now does it make more sense to use (maybe partially effective) surgery for protection against HPV when the possible outcome is complete amputation of part of all of the penis or even death? Right now, that filter is getting really clogged up and of course, that argument just doesn’t work any longer.
Should a man actually get penile cancer, it is just a skin cancer like people get on their faces and arms and it is treated the same way. They simply remove the cancer as an outpatient procedure in the doctor’s office. There is generally a small scar the size of a pencil eraser that is covered with a Band-Aid for a week or so after the procedure.
It really doesn’t matter what argument is given for circumcision, I have never found one that will pass through the filter of reason and logic and I’ve tried all of them at one time or another.
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| I am a Christian-some are required to still circ, others are not-I do believe there was a physical as well as spiritual reason for everything commanded. In this case, cleanliness...JMHO. |
I believe that anyone that reads The New Testament intensely and with comprehension will believe that the circumcision of an infant (or adult as well) is an extreme offense to Jesus. I’m not going to get into it here for obvious reasons but will send you a PM about it.
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| Go for it ladies, I AM curious and willing to listen. |
Somehow, I really believe you when you say that. Somehow, I also believe you have an open mind. Good for you!
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| (just remember I grew up with circs being the norm and un-circ'd as considered gross). |
Most of us Americans have that hurdle to clear.
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| Also, wanted to add on the ppl losing friends over the issue...I wouldn't give up a friendship over it, but if someone called me a child-abuser for it, yeah, I'd back off also. I also see typical boy circs as a totally separate issue than the drastic long-term issue of girl circs (which I don't consider a circ at all). |
Here are a couple of links that helped me realize that the issues are very much the same and they are both from one of the top leaders in the movement against female circumcision:
(Mine were the same links Quirky gave. Thanks for the help, Jane! I actually composed this earlier this afternoon off-line)
If you look at it with a totally unbiased mind, both are the non-consensual removal of genital parts and when those parts are removed, it inevitably changes the sexual experience regardless of the sex. While both sides claim there are sexual, hygiene and health benefits, in actuality, none really exist.
The reason you see a difference in male and female circumcision is because of the blinders our culture has put on us. On the other side of the fence, I’m sure that some that see female circumcision as appropriate and beneficial see male circumcision as an awful thing to do to a man. That’s their cultural blinders in place.
The truth is there isn’t nearly as much difference as the popular media and the movement against female circumcision would have you believe.
While the male penis and the female clitoris have a faint similarity and they both spring from the genital tubercle that is identical in male and female for the first 8 weeks of gestation, they are in fact, far different but with corresponding parts and functions elsewhere. For instance, the female clitoris is the tactile stimulation receptor and the frenulum is the male tactile stimulation stimulator. In female circumcision, the clitoris may or may not be removed but in male circumcision, the frenulum is always disabled so male circumcision is like removing a female’s clitoris. Male circumcision is also like removing the female’s clitoral hood and labia and somewhat the same as removing the mucosal skin lining from the labia so that the entire vaginal cleft is left gaping wide open to dry out. Male circumcision also removes the frenar band or the preputial sphincter which is the equivalent to the female’s vaginal sphincter. Just imagine what sex would be like without that! Circumcised men don’t have to imagine it. It’s their day to day reality. What both male and female circumcision victims are left with is their pressure receptors, the glans in the man and the G-Spot in the female and with these singular receptors, they are able to make do for a satisfying although abbreviated sexual experience. Is that what you would want for your self? Is that really what you want for your sons? I think probably not!
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| All ears for decent, rational comments. |
I hope I have given you that and haven’t offended. That was not my intent.
Frank
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