New here, pregnant, have some questions - Page 3

[Fyrestorm]

Originally Posted by chinaKat

Hah! That's a great way of putting it... I may need to rephrase slightly for DH, though.

There is a great article you might want to read that discusses this from a circumcised man's perspective, before you talk to your DH.

The Vulnerability of Men

ETA:Nevermind...I just finished the thread and somebody already gave it to you.

[DocsNemesis]

Ok, here's the thing-he has never had a foreskin that he can remember. He has no clue what its like. He cannot CANNOT say that he would want to be circumcised because he just plain doesnt know. The vast majority of intact men are very happy with their penises as is and many say they feel bad for circ'd men who have never known the joy of having a foreskin. And yes, many men feel like there is nothing wrong with being circ'd, BUT many of those same men have no clue what was lost to them. Many men have impotence problems, they might "finish" too quickly or take a very long time, they might get sore down there after sex, many women get sore down there after as well, and about 10% of circ'd men had meatal stenosis as a child which was directly a result of circumcision. Some men also have too tight of a circ, some have problems with adhesions, some have wierd looking scars, skin tags, skin bridges....I could go on and on. The problem is that most men do not associate any of these problems with being circumcised.
Also, it is very much not true that all men are happy with being cut. We personally know several men who are unhappy about it. There are also a huge number of men on the net seeking info on restoring, or going through restoration as we speak. They dont like being circ'd and want their foreskin back. Unfortunately, they can never get back their foreskin; a man who is intact can easily have it cut off later if he so desires. My dh happens to be one man who hates the fact that he was circ'd and is a very big intactivist.
Had your dh been left intact, he could have decided later to be circumcised, under general anesthesia or with a full block. He could have asked for exactly the look he desired. He would have had vicoden or percocet to help with any pain and discomfort. And he wouldnt have been sitting in urine/feces in a diaper while it was healing. Babies dont have these luxeries. No medication that can be used on a baby is 100% effective at eliminating the pain of circumcision. Shoot, most doctors dont use anything at all or they use something but dont wait the 30 minutes to an hour for it to start working properly. The result is that this brand new to the world, tiny baby has to endure the pain of having his foreskin ripped away from the head (glans) of his penis, much like ripping a fingernail back, he has to feel a clamp crushing his foreskin (to prevent bleeding) and then finally, feel his foreskin (which, by the way, has more nerves than any other part of the body) being cut away. After that, all he gets is Tylenol for the pain and has to spend weeks healing in a diaper. And on top of that, he has no clue WHY. You also risk being able to breastfeed-circ'd babies tend to have problems with nursing. And you risk infection, excessive bleeding, meatal stenosis....etc.
Bottom line-it should be your sons choice-not yours or your dh's.

[Blarg]

Originally Posted by chinaKat

I'm not asking for snark.

If people are going to just jump all over me with snotty comments, I guess I'll just leave this board and go along with my husband's wishes. It will certainly be easier for me to do that.

I don't see how her comment was snotty. It was absolutely accurate. Almost every woman in the countries that do female genital mutilation are fine with it. The ones who run to other countries and are pissed about having bits of them cut off are the rare exceptions.
Just because most are okay with it doesn't make it okay to do. And the same is true of male circumcision.

And not all guys are okay with being circed. Here's my first post on this forum, for instance: http://www.mothering.com/discussions...d.php?t=543066

[Fyrestorm]

There is also a new epidemic of MSRA that is going around in hospitals and it's effecting circumcised baby boys, I just don't know why anyone would want to preform cosmetic surgery that could result in a deadly infection.

Here is s link to an artlicle about it (WARNING.....REALLY GRAPHIC PICTURES)

It might be a good article to show DH

[MCatLvrMom2A&X]

Some dont even equate female circ with male circ but here is a link that lines them up side by side to compair. MGM & FGM In case you want to bring that up with your dh as well.

[KMK_Mama]

My DH had NO problems with his circ either......

UNTIL he found out about WHAT it was MISSING.


Now we know that a lot of our sex problems are because of his circ. A decision that his mother made when he was 4. He was born at 26 weeks or else he would have been done at birth, but he was too small so they told her to wait. She got the $$ when he was 4 and had it done.

He is in the process of restoring what was taken from him without his permission.


I personally don't think it is appropriate to compare circumcision to being deaf, because people are BORN DEAF. Little boys are BORN WITH FORESKINS.

My DH had no problem leaving our son intact. I asked him what he thought about it, he said why, I said it's not necessary, he said OK, if you don't think it's necessary we won't do it. End of story. BUT if he wanted him to be circ'd, I would have refused and never consented. Either way I would win. I am the MOM.

[Yoshua]

Originally Posted by chinaKat

I hear what you are saying.

But on the flip side of your analogy, how about the deaf community? Many deaf people hope for deaf children, and opt not to have cochleal implants or whathaveyou to restore hearing. If they are *fine* with the way that they are, who am I (as a member of the hearing community) to tell them that they are "missing out"?

Just being devil's advocate here, not trying to troll.

Analogy doesn't work.

It would take a society where the MAJORITY of people are deaf.






Your husband will be fine with it unless he researches what he is missing.


A person born with impediments do not know they are impeded. An infant with its foreskin removed is the same thing.





I am a man who is circumcized. I have issues with mine. I can not have all of my foreskin back no matter what. The default is to leave it alone and if ur child wants to remove hit when he becomes an adult, that is his perogitive.

But you can not garuntee that your son won't have issues. It is cutting off a fully functional piece of the body in hopes that nothing goes wrong, instead of leaving it alone and knowing that your son won't have meatal stenosis or death due to his circumcision, knowing that he wont have TRAPPED penis, which trust me, is nothing to laugh at, and knowing that he won't be brought into this world and one of his first experiances would be a piece of his body being cut off.


Even if they use pain killers to cut it off, your kid has to deal with an open wound for 4-6 weeks with piss and poop going into it.



No snark here, just the facts. And the facts are that the forskin has uses for a baby, and an adult. And removing it should be your sons decision.

[Microsoap]

Just this intact Canuck's opinion/story

I'm a 31-year-old happily (...deliriously!!!) intact male with no problems what-so-ever, and myself and my two younger brothers were all left intact because my parents thought circumcision was a stupid thing to force on to a child with the thought that it's my own body, and if I wanted to get circumcised, I could decide for myself when I was older (18+). Plus they had a doctor who didn't recommend it all... and this was in 1975 in Canada!

I wouldn't want to be any other way!!!

Here's a quick history lesson on "reasons" why Americans circumcised newborn males throughout the past 2 centuries. Watch the U.S. rate compared to the world rate. For some reasons, Americans jump into a frizzy and play "hack 'em off" with newborn boys' foreskins right away when these theories are announced, where the rest of the world played a wait-and-see attitude. In the end all these "reasons" (stops masturbation, cures epilepsy, etc.) turn out to be very ridiculously false, yet the cultural brainwashing remains ingrained in the American psyche.

I'll also state Canada use to closely follow the U.S. circ rate (overall as a country; Quebec and Newfoundland exempt), although slightly lower up until the past 2.5 decades, when wisely realized our mistakes and began phasing it out.

http://www.icgi.org/medicalization_o...ion.htm#Page_1

P.S. I enthusiastically commend you on wanting to learn more about the issue and actually doing it.

[Yoshua]

Originally Posted by chinaKat

This is the biggest argument my husband won't buy.

I don't have a PENIS, so my foreskin experience doesn't count!

Your husband doesn't have a foreskin so his penis does't count?

[Nathan1097]

Originally Posted by Bm31

I know a lot of circ'd men think it's "fine", but they really wouldn't know any different. I had a botched circ and re-circ; I know it's not "fine." True, we are probably the exception rather than the rule, but what would a parent say to their child if they're one of the unlucky ones? That they rolled the dice with their genitals for something that was completely unnecessary?

All circs are different - leaving less or more of any number of parts of the skin system of the penis. This depends on the boy's original, natural anatomy, the type of tool(s) used for circ, AND a LOT depends on the operator's preference for how a circ should "look". His or her aesthetics. Some say you must remove all the inner foreskin for a proper circ; some say you must make the skin immobile (I have a quote to this effect from the early 1900's)... it just really depends. The Gomco clamp gives a straighter cut, but tends to cut off more skin; the plastibell gives a more jagged cut and depending on how it helas as the bell falls off, the skin can be twisted or not heal correctly; and all can have skin bridges and pits and etc. etc.

In the end.... NO circ is "fine"! They all radically change how the penis works. Some leave the frenulum in part, and some leave nothing but a bare, ccrevace where there once was a very sensitive underside of the penis; all of them make (ALL OF) the skin on the penis partially or completely immobile. And no circ can EVER "match" another.

[MCatLvrMom2A&X]

Originally Posted by chinaKat
This is the biggest argument my husband won't buy.

I don't have a PENIS, so my foreskin experience doesn't count!

Actually you have the female equivalent of the penis it is called the clitoris and the cover over the clitoris is the same thing as the male foreskin just shaped different. They both serve to protect the sensitive nerve bundle and glans That's right the glans is supposed to be a internal organ just like the nerve bundle in the clit.


One thing that really is a big :Puke factor for me is the fact that some stranger you dont know is not only "shaping" the boys penis into what they think it should look like. : but does so by actually stimulating a erection on a infant to better see were to cut!!!! : Does that bother anyone else as bad as it is me right now?!?!?!?!

[Nathan1097]

Originally Posted by MCatLvrMoMof2

Actually you have the female equivalent of the penis it is called the clitoris and the cover over the clitoris is the same thing as the male foreskin just shaped different. They both serve to protect the sensitive nerve bundle and glans That's right the glans is supposed to be a internal organ just like the nerve bundle in the clit.

Also don't forget that the clitoris is a wish-bone shape- going down into the labia, as well as the part that is analogus to the penis. So unless this part is cut out too, even those who have their clitoris carved out in during FGM, still have SOME sensation left. I would think it would be about the same as being circumcised as a male.

[Paper-Bag-Princess]

Originally Posted by MCatLvrMoMof2

Actually you have the female equivalent of the penis it is called the clitoris and the cover over the clitoris is the same thing as the male foreskin just shaped different. They both serve to protect the sensitive nerve bundle and glans That's right the glans is supposed to be a internal organ just like the nerve bundle in the clit.


One thing that really is a big :Puke factor for me is the fact that some stranger you dont know is not only "shaping" the boys penis into what they think it should look like. : but does so by actually stimulating a erection on a infant to better see were to cut!!!! : Does that bother anyone else as bad as it is me right now?!?!?!?!

Yes, it bothers me too. Very creepy and twisted: .

[dnr3301]

Originally Posted by chinaKat

I'm not asking for snark.

I don't think TigerTail meant it to be snarky. She's telling you the truth. In places where they cut girls' genitals, the women are the ones pushing for it, the ones holding down their daughters, and the ones doing the cutting. And they do it because they honestly think it's better, it was done to them, and they are just fine.

Originally Posted by chinaKat

But on the flip side of your analogy, how about the deaf community? Many deaf people hope for deaf children, and opt not to have cochleal implants or whathaveyou to restore hearing. If they are *fine* with the way that they are, who am I (as a member of the hearing community) to tell them that they are "missing out"?

you know, this is interesting. Being born deaf, regardless of the amazing way that they ahve formed a culture around it, is a birth defect. Something went wrong. So is being born without a foreskin. If a baby is born without skin covering his glans, it gets recorded as a birth defect, called aposthia. If a child of deaf parents is born hearing, do they have surgery to "correct" that so the child will fit in in their culture? Would you have surgery to remove your child's hearing? Can you think of any other surgery designed to make a child look like he has a birth defect?

[SammyJr]

Originally Posted by chinaKat

I guess my question is, why is this issue such a big deal to us women at MDC, if men who have actually been circumcised seem to be okay with it?

There are men who aren't ok with it. For example, me. I absolutely hate being circumcised. It was a violation of my most basic rights to have my whole body. There was nothing wrong with me; no medical condition to speak of. My parents just decided that their son needed the traditional American genital mutilation.

Men circumcised as babies have no idea what they have lost. They really have no idea if they really are better off circumcised, but their ego forces them to believe they are. That's the only way to explain why a man would want less penis and be totally ok with it.

The bottom line is that it isn't your penis to have cut. It isn't your DH's penis to cut, either. The penis belongs to your son. If he wants to have less penis, he can choose it for himself, later. Don't expect your doctor to be supportive. He's in it for the money and circumcision makes a hell of a lot of money for a efficient "doctor."

[ThomasL]

I am a circumcised male and I always wonder what sex would be like with a foreskin.I was born during the time when circ was automatic so I do not really hold my parents accountable but I would have been somewhat upset if I was circed in this day and age where it is on a mainstream level considered cosmetic surgery.Anyway hopefully your DH will open up his mind.It is always hard when spouses don't agree.

[SammyJr]

Originally Posted by chinaKat

I hear what you are saying.

But on the flip side of your analogy, how about the deaf community? Many deaf people hope for deaf children, and opt not to have cochleal implants or whathaveyou to restore hearing. If they are *fine* with the way that they are, who am I (as a member of the hearing community) to tell them that they are "missing out"?

Just being devil's advocate here, not trying to troll.

The difference here is that no one chooses to lose their hearing or forces someone else to lose their hearing. If someone is fine with their lack of hearing, good for them. Its no reason to wish it on someone else.

Maybe your son would want to experience normal sex like 80% of the world does. How could you make him miss out on that just because your husband is ok with it?

[carolhagan]

Originally Posted by SammyJr

The difference here is that no one chooses to lose their hearing or forces someone else to lose their hearing. If someone is fine with their lack of hearing, good for them. Its no reason to wish it on someone else.?

Exactly! It's more equivalent to a child that can hear being born to deaf parents, and the parents jab a pencil in the child's ears so that they can lose their hearing and be more like the parents.

[chinaKat]

Well, thanks for all the helpful information everybody, especially from the majority of you that took a helpful rather than judging tone.

I can tell that this is an issue near and dear to all of your hearts. Like I said, I'm coming here from a position where every single person I know is pro-circ, and almost nobody I know thinks it's much of a big deal at all. Hence my personal position of curiousity (rather than activism) on the issue.

It was interesting to read the responses from the men, I didn't realize so many men posted here.

I can't believe how many responses this thread got in just a few hours! Many of you are very eloquent in making the Case Against Circumcision.

[chinaKat]

Originally Posted by Yoshua

Analogy doesn't work.

It would take a society where the MAJORITY of people are deaf.

Just to clarify, my analogy was in response to a mythical society posed as:

Imagine, if you will, an entire society of colorblind people. They'd never believe it when a small handful of folks told them about the vivid colors they could see, and how much this majority was missing out on.

It doesn't really matter.

It was more rhetorical than anything else.

I do understand the difference between being born with a birth defect and altering a child's body. The original analogy that I was responding to was the former, rather than the latter.

It's off topic, nonetheless.