Why so anti-circumcision? - Page 3

[Lizzardbits]

Originally Posted by Shiloh

sorry ignorant question maybe but really are babies are still circd without anesthetic or pain killers? (I know thats the way it was done with dh's generation, but no one I've known so far in the last 10 years who has has not had pain meds or anesthetics)

Yes it is still being done with out painkillers/anethesia. Or if the painful injections are given (the anesthesia burns when injected into usually 3 different places in and around the penis) circumcisers usually do not wait for it to go numb.

My son's doctor said, when we had the "do you want to circ?" conversation, was that he didn't use any painkillers/anesthesia when he circ'd because it caused swelling and made the circ harder to do. I about fell over from shock, and was one of the many many many deciding factors for me to not circ my son.

Then there is the factor of IF anesthesia was given, what happens when it wears off. Anyone who has had dental work with novocaine used can attest to this. Novocaine just delays the pain, and that is why the dentist usually gives a perscription for painkillers for when the pain hits you hard. What do babies get?--a little bit of tylenol and a sugar coated pacifier...

To the OP, most of the reasons why i chose not to circ my son have been mentioned here throughout the thread, but recently i have added a new reason why because of my intact fiance'. Now I am glad for my son's future partner(s) because his future partner(s) will also benefit in bedroom relations. Because all of my previous male partners were circ, relations were difficult at times because their penises worked like plungers and pulled moisture out of me and dry relations HURT! Relations with my fiance' can best be described as "silky"!

[Shiloh]

wow that is so sadistic...too much swelling so no pain relief?

In fact, it is such an accepted concept, that people do studies on babies to find out if a certain anaesthetic is effective. To do this, they have to have control groups. Do you see what that means? Half the babies don't get anaesthetic so they can compare their reactions.

wow do you have any articles on that?

WOW I am still in shock...
like who could really slice into a little baby knowing the agony it was causing? wow.

[pdx.mothernurture]

Originally Posted by Shiloh

wow that is so sadistic...too much swelling so no pain relief?

wow do you have any articles on that?

WOW I am still in shock...
like who could really slice into a little baby knowing the agony it was causing? wow.

“A substantial number of PEDs are performing circumcisions, and they are most likely to use anesthesia (71%), followed by FPs (56%), then OBs (25%). With recent recognition of the importance of pain reduction in neonatal procedures and the lack of substantiated contraindications to newborn anesthetic use, additional education of current practitioners, residents, and parents is required to increase the use of anesthesia for circumcision.”

Circumcision Practice Patterns in the United States:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.or.../full/101/6/e5

"Kumar reviewed 400 newborn medical records at a U.S. academic center where nearly 10,000 babies are delivered every year.

The examined records included medical charts for 191 newborn males, 107 of whom were circumcised.

Only eight babies were given an analgesic for circumcision pain while the obstetrician performed the procedure.

None of the babies received post-circumcision pain medications, and none of the medical charts mentioned discussing circumcision pain with parents.

"Use of analgesia during circumcision continues to be underutilized," says Kumar, presenting the findings at the American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference & Exhibition in San Francisco."

http://my.webmd.com/content/article/95/103212.htm

[kxsiven]

"My case against circumcision is more a moral thing, so I'm still trying to make heads and tails of the medical evidence for and against."

My home, Scandinavia, is 100% intact like over 80% of world is. I lived a year in USA 1999-2000 and I was absolutely horrified when I realised what was done to babyboys. Even more disgusted I was when I found out that it was done for 'medical' reasons.

Imagine for a moment if you visited country where they removed babies' fingernails routinelly because of medical reasons - you would be quite shocked and horrified - after all you would know that fingernails are healthy and normal bodypart.

When you take a look at the health statistics you will find out that health reasons go down the toilet. USA is leading western country when it comes to STDs/HIV. Penile cancer is even more common in USA than in for example intact Scandinavia. And so on. Here in Scandinavia doctors refuse to circumcise children unless it was a real medical reason and those are so rare that we don't even have statistics. Less than 0.006 %(6 out of 100 000)of men get circumcised here later in life - this figure includes medically needed circumcision+religious circumcisions - so foreskin really isn't a big thread to man's health.

As far as cleaning issues - boy parts are much easier to keep clean than girl parts and yet we don't cut girls.

Why I am so much against circumcision? IMO it is a human rights issue. To take a little helpless baby, hold it down and rip off part his genitals is IMO barbaric. Boys should have same basic human rights than everybody else.

[Sharlla]

Both my boys are intact and i have to say that I think it's incredibly sad to see a little baby that's been circumsized. Its so unnatural looking.

[phatchristy]

I will pretty much second what everyone else said, however I wanted to put something up with regards to masturbation. I remember during my initial research on circ that there had been studies showing that circumcised men actually have a higher frequency of masturbation and more risky sexual behavior (anal sex, etc). Ironic isn't it? It may be that since the actual pleasure experienced during sex and masturbation is lower due to circ, the mind forces a man to increase frequency as compensation.

NHSLS data indicate that circumcised men engage in a somewhat more elaborated set of sexual practices than do men who are not circumcised. For each of the practices examined, lifetime experience of various forms of oral and anal sex and masturbation frequency in the past year, circumcised men engaged in these behaviors at greater rates. The difference between circumcised men was greatest for masturbation - ironically, a practice that circumcision was once thought to limit.

http://www.cirp.org/library/general/laumann/

Anyhow, there are plenty of additional sources finding the same thing.

What personally makes me sad, as a wife of a circ'd man, is that DH needs way too much force to orgasm during sex. There is no way in hell that ANYONE could ever convince me that is a "normal thing." And, I know it isn't normal, and it makes me sad. My friends who have intact DH's or who have been with intact men will tell me they have never experienced rough sex. Because of his circ, we are "out of sync" at times...I have heard intact men describe the way they masturbate and it is so much more gentle...similar in speed to how I would do it myself! Being banged away at during sex isn't that much fun really (it can be a mixture of pleasure and pain at best, but the pain definitely takes stabs away at you mentally)...and I am a woman who is very responsive and I get my greatest pleasure from intercourse. So, after I have had my fun, I basically have to sit back and let him do the banging so that he can climax. Sad huh? They did that to him...an arrogant US culture who thought that "they knew better" than millions of years of evolution and a perfectly designed human body.

[MistyMM]

Originally Posted by phatchristy

What personally makes me sad, as a wife of a circ'd man, is that DH needs way too much force to orgasm during sex. There is no way in hell that ANYONE could ever convince me that is a "normal thing." And, I know it isn't normal, and it makes me sad.

You know, I never really put the two of these together. My dh had a very VERY tight circ as an infant. His penis points upwards completely, totally verticle, and presses against his stomach (no he is not fat, his FLAT stomach) when erect. He also requires quite a bit of force, almost to the point of pain for me, to orgasm, and he also seems to take FOREVER. Half the time, I'm wishing it was over already because I'm done, and tired, but I want him to get to "finish" to yk? How sad..

Misty

[phatchristy]

Originally Posted by MistyMM

You know, I never really put the two of these together. My dh had a very VERY tight circ as an infant. His penis points upwards completely, totally verticle, and presses against his stomach (no he is not fat, his FLAT stomach) when erect. He also requires quite a bit of force, almost to the point of pain for me, to orgasm, and he also seems to take FOREVER. Half the time, I'm wishing it was over already because I'm done, and tired, but I want him to get to "finish" to yk? How sad..

Misty

I don't think that the erect penis pointing up necessarily has to do with circumcision...however, I definitely believe that the lack of sensitivity with the keratinized glans and missing/destroyed frenulum is the main culprit in the "banging" that circ'd men have to do. DH here has actually a looser circ...so at least I don't get chafed and sore afterwards like I hear from a lot of women I know. BUT, mentally, it is very frustrating and I feel very disconnected from him when he has to pound away. It also makes me sad that he has to work so hard, just another reminder of what circ does. Of course, I always just accepted it as normal until I learned how/why this happened to him. I learned that from reading books like the previously mentioned , "Sex As Nature Intended" and talking to several friends who have been with cut and uncut partners. I have only been with DH so I have to live vicariously through my friends . A friend of mine, from the Netherlands, has told me that she had two relationships with cut men over here and she said with both of them she found "the way that they pounded away quite disturbing". And, from then on she stuck to uncut men, because being with a cut man is "too much work". I feel such pangs of sadness when I hear from them or read about how much easier it is for an intact man to receive stimulation and enjoy sex. My friend also wrote to me saying that American men didn't seem to be that into foreplay either as they just didn't get that much out of it (she told me that genital play with her intact DH focuses on the foreskin used to stimulate the penis).

I have heard that foreskin restoration helps all of this, we've been slowly starting it here. This weekend he promised to read through a few sites and try to decide on a method to keep his glans covered 24-7....which I hear makes a big difference for sensitivity! I don't know how much of a difference it will make yet (ask me in a year or two ).

Maybe at least I have saved my daughter-in-law and son some of the negative sexual issues that we have. The irony being that I would say our sex life is actually rather good (I credit most of my high responsiveness to genetics)....but it still is always affected by circ...and I know it could be even better!

[Galatea]

I see where you are coming from, Rolenta. When I was pregnant with my first son, I saw pictures of a circumcision and decided there and then not to do it. However, I tried to read all the arguments for and against so I could make an informed decision. For several days I got very bogged down in the medical reasons. Does it reduce or cause infection? What about sexual diseases? What about cancer? There seemed to be conflicting evidence for all of these. I became confused and very upset, but then one night I had an epiphany - he will be born with a foreskin, and that is normal. There would have to be rock-solid evidence to make me cut it off. And since the evidence was so conflicting, I would leave him the way he was born. If you could decide while the baby was still in the womb, do I want him to have a foreskin or not, then that would make the decision harder. But since they come out with a foreskin, they must be meant to have one.

I think the reason people can be so zealous here is that we hear so many stupid reasons to circumcise in real life. Things like, "It looks prettier," or "He won't wash it and it will get infected." We hear them so much and get so much flack for our decisions not to circumcise that we tend to get pretty vehement here where we are safe.

Basically, what you are looking at is that boys are born with foreskins, so god or nature put them there, and so boys must need them. We used to think that tonsils, appendices, and breastmilk were unnecessary and removed or didn't use them. But we were wrong and humans need all these things. Sure, you can get by without them, but you will not be as healthy. So we have to leave our children the way god/nature made them b/c to think we know better than god/nature is the most reprehensible hubris.

[Yoshua]

Read This.

I should just make a text doc and copy and paste an answer but my answer seems to get deeper every time I write it.

I am a man. Nearly 25 years old. I was circed as a baby because my mother was a child during one of the wars where my Uncle went to. My uncle was intact. They instituted the draft and when he was taken, they forced him to cut off his foreskin at the ripe age of 19.

Yeah, the government forced him to do it. And because my mother saw the affects on my uncle, great uncle actually, she decided it would be done as a baby so that the government couldnt ever force me to do it as an adult. Yes it is messed up, but the majority of people were circing then for various reasons and she jumped on the band wagon.

Fast forward to today.

I always said there was nothing wrong with circ'ing. I couldn't care less on either side of the fense. However I always felt cheated during sex. I knew my partner was getting more out of it than I was.

I could care less if you want to think about your son masterbating, or even having sex. Fact is it is human nature and they should not be made to feel guilty about either act.

When I started reading up on the difference between sex intact and mutilated I started to realize just what I was missing out on. The foreskin is there to protect the head of the penis. The head of the penis is naturally moist, somewhat similar to a vagina. When you remove the foreskin it causes the most sensitive part of a babie's/boy's/man's anatomy to constantly rub on foreign surfaces causing the head of the penis to become calloused and lose feeling. Therefore it causes a man to slam his waist into a girls waist to achieve an orgasm. This is not how it was intended and any man who is intact or restored can tell you the many ways they have to achieve orgasm and I, as an adult male, really only have one. Brute force.

What was done to 'protect' me as a baby has left me mutilated, feeling lacking, depressed, angry, and feeling like I am less of a man as an adult.

Most men who do not research circumcision do not know what they are missing out on sexually. We lose 3 major parts of the sensual organ. The ridged band, the frenulum which is known as the true male g-spot, and the protective and highly errogenous foreskin itself. Why should a grown person have the right to remove my body parts because it is on their whim? Why?

Thank God you didn't do this to your child.

The other facts you will read regarding the pro's to circing your son are regarding urinary track infections, and cleanliness.

Just so you know, the urinary track infections that afflict boys are usually in boys who are born pre maturely and girls have UTI's at a FAR higher rate than boys. There is a form of Female Circumcision that would give the girls the same, if not better improvements to a reduction in the rate of UTI's they receive, except we as a society deem it barbaric to mutilate a little girls genetalia. But we don't think twice about doing it to a boy.

Cleanliness.... This is funny to me.... Do you open up a girls vagina as a baby and spray water in there to clean it out? HELL NO! it is a self cleaning organ, just like the foreskin. You are NEVER supposed to retract a foreskin until it is retractible on its own. The boy should be the first, and only to do this until he becomes sexually active. Even if there is an infection the foreskin should not be retracted. If you retract a foreskin during an infection it causes minor tears and rips in the head of the penis because the foreskin is actually physically ATTATCHED to the head of the penis until the boy manages to retract naturally on his own. If you cause the tears the infection can get worse and could spread.

The penis should be washed like a finger. Water on the outside and maybe a lil soap ONLY, but soap really isnt necessary either.


I have had something taken from me. I am now going to start a process of getting it back. What they took in 10 minutes is going to take me 3 years to restore. I am going to have to tug the skin on the shaft of my penis for hours at a time to naturally regrow a foreskin. However even this will only restore the skin itself and help regrain sensation in the head. It will not regrow the frenulum, which was lost in the circ, nor will it regrow the ridged band, which helps in pressure on the head of the penis during intercourse and masturbation. 3 years for 10 minutes.... Depression. And scars.


People do not think about if the adult will ever think differently on this matter. and if your boy at 12 asks for a circ, I hope to god you have the brains to say 'Not until you are 18' would you let your child get a tatoo at 12 because they wanted it? No... because it is changing the body permanantly and so is Circumcision. No one should make that choice until they have been sexually active a few years to see if they really want to lose the functionality of a foreskin.... I wish I'd been given that right.


and to those of you who called me a troll? what do you think now?...

[Karry]

Originally Posted by Shiloh

sorry ignorant question maybe but really are babies are still circd without anesthetic or pain killers? (I know thats the way it was done with dh's generation, but no one I've known so far in the last 10 years who has has not had pain meds or anesthetics)

Some older docs still don't use anesthesia because they don't want to sit there and wait for it to take effect. Others think that the shot of lidocaine distorts the area and makes it harder to do a good circ.

I have a friend who witnessed her oldest son's circ and all that was used for pain relief was a glucose dipped pacifier. Eveytime I think of that poor baby I feel sick.

[Frankly Speaking]

Rolenta:

I'm going to address something that the others have not addressed or have not given much attention to. That's why you have found such wildly divergent information on this subject.

The side that is speaking for circumcision reminds me of the fable of the fox without a tail. (If anyone has the fable, please post it) It seems that the fox in the fable somehow lost his tail. Now, if you've ever seen a real live fox, you know that they have one of the most spectacular tails of all mammals. it is a thick bushy plume with vivid color markings and something that I am sure all foxes are proud of. But, in the story, the fox accidentally lost his spectacular tail. For a while, he hid so the other foxes would not see him but he eventually realized that he would have to come out where the other foxes could see him. But, he knew that the other foxes would instantly realize he was different and thus, he devised a plan. On rejoining the other foxes, he told them that he was glad he had lost his tail. That that tail was a liability and was a problem to groom. He pointed out the humans who had no tail and how successful they were. Little by little, he began being successful in convincing the other foxes to cut off their tails.

Unfortunately, in America, we have been listening to the tailless fox except our fox friend doesn't have a foreskin and that's what he is selling. He's been selling this story for more than 130 years. Those who circumcise their sons are tailless foxes or the wives of tailless foxes and have been listening to the story of the tailless fox.

On the other side, there have always been a few that were not taken in by the tailless foxes out there. We have been protecting our little fox cubs and letting them keep their spectacular tails. (foreskins) With the advent of the internet, we have been able to learn the benefits of the foreskin and the risks of circumcision. The tailless foxes out there have killed thousands of babies. They have damaged their sex lives and their genitals beyond just removing the foreskin. The tailless foxes have imposed themselves on the marital bedroom and have caused damage to women of foreskinless foxes in the form of female arousal dysorder. They have ended the sex lives of millions of men 7 - 10 years prematurely.

Many of us here have realized that circumcision is a violation of the most personal and private part of a man's body at the most vulnerable time in his life. It is a violation in the most violent and permanent way possible. We feel that it is an extreme human rights violation on par with female genital mutilation.

Maybe we do get extreme occasionally but the foxes also get extreme and a lukewarm response to the fox's lies will not counter them. The tailless fox's lies are well practiced. He has had his day and now we are having ours. Finally, everyone is begining to see the fox for what he is. A liar!



Frank

[zaftigmama]

http://www.elook.org/literature/aesop/fables/136.html

There's not much more to the fable than what you wrote, Frank, but here is a copy I found on the web. I actually found a ton, but they're all exactly the same.

Great analogy!

[MistyMM]

that was an awesome analogy frank thank you so much for pointing it out!!

Misty

[boingo82]

Originally Posted by Yoshua

I should just make a text doc and copy and paste an answer but my answer seems to get deeper every time I write it....

Yoshua,
It is a very good response.
My husband and I are very close in age to you - I just turned 24 and he 25 - he is not interested in restoration as he'd rather not think about what happened or what could have been. He was easily sold on leaving our son intact, though.

Best of luck restoring. It takes a very strong person to look objectively at something so personal and break the cycle in his own family.

[A&A]

My children are perfect (a girl and a boy). Why in the world would anyone even consider cutting the genitalia of a child. I just will never get it.

[alissakae]

Originally Posted by A&A

My children are perfect (a girl and a boy). Why in the world would anyone even consider cutting the genitalia of a child. I just will never get it.

I TOTALLY agree!

[AntoninBeGonin]

I didn't bother to read any post but the first.

I'm against routine infant circumcision because all people have the right to their complete, healthy bodies. That pretty much sums it up for me.

~Nay

[LadyMarmalade]

Originally Posted by Yoshua

and to those of you who called me a troll? what do you think now?...

I think you've made huge jumps in educating yourself about using pro-intact language! I also think you must have missed the apology I posted to you.

[Sharlla]

DH needs way too much force to orgasm during sex.

I don't really understand that. I've been with a lot of men and can honestly say that the majority of them had issues of orgasming too soon. The one man that I had been with that was intact couldn't ever climax during felatio and he had a lot of stamina. I always thought that the men that were cut were too sensitive, are you saying the opposite is true?