For those of you considering circumcision... - Page 4

[QueenOfThePride]

PAX, I fully support you expressing all that you have shared here. Too many men have been too silent for too long on this subject. Circumcision is a heinous crime, and perpetrators need to be held accountable.

From the bottom of my heart, Thank You for speaking out.

---

And pooey on PPs who suggest you have other issues with your mom. :

[KBecks]

PAX,

I know that you are working through many strong emotions right now, but one point from your original post concerns me....

I would rather be dead than accept what you forced upon me as an acceptable part of this existence.

Please, if you ever consider ending your life, call a hotline. I feel this statement was an expression of raw emotion and you are probably now feeling better, but it would be irresponsible not to mention this.

Counseling to help you with the anger you feel may also give you some relief, and your mom may be willing to help with that if you desire it.

Best wishes.

[rambunctiouscurls]

Originally Posted by QueenOfThePride

PAX, I fully support you expressing all that you have shared here. Too many men have been too silent for too long on this subject. Circumcision is a heinous crime, and perpetrators need to be held accountable.

From the bottom of my heart, Thank You for speaking out.

---

And pooey on PPs who suggest you have other issues with your mom. :

:
No matter how hurtful it is to mothers who regret the decision to circ,it's perfectly valid for victims to express rage. After all is said and done, it is the survivor who has to live with the crimes perpretrated against them.

[mommymarliah]

I haven't read all the replies yet, but having read the first couple pages I just feel led to say this.

I think it is a good healthy thing to be honest about this, to get the anger out and to move on. I think the healthy way to deal with this is to talk about it, to be honest with your parents. How else can you hope to move on? you can't carry the anger inside you the rest of your life or it will destroy you. I think you are moving toward a better life and a happier life by getting this out in the open.

I think circ is a horrendous criminal act and people who do that to infants ought to serve prison time. Its simply common sense (at least in my mind) to NOT want to harm your own son.

I made the decision to be intactivist when I was 8 years old. 8 YEARS OLD! I saw my newborn nephew when his mom went to change him and his penis was a bleeding scabbed up mess. I asked why it was like that and I was told "well they have to cut part off a boys penis when he is born so he doesn't get infections" right then and there I said well there is no way I would ever do that to my kid. I would rather him have an infection than cut off part of his body.....

if an 8 year old can see the reality of that, then anyone who bothers to read about what circ is should realize what a barbaric and stupid practice it is.

Just thinking about someone strapping an infant to a table and cutting his penis makes me feel physically ill.

I think your anger is warranted. And I think she owes you an apology. At the very least she owes you an "I'm so sorry" for what she allowed to be done to you.

[PAXIMPERIA]

I am over my initial feelings of rage on the subject. That being said, I do feel like an 8 year old would be better off making judgements on many societal norms than most adults. Circumcision is but one (gruesome) example.

Baptism would be another. Hey honey, we're just going to take your brother and pretend to drown him for a little while. Don't worry, it'll be hilarious. When my parents tried to drown me as a baby, I couldn't stop laughing as soon as they pulled me out of the water.

Lastly, when I was a baby, my parents put me in a crib in my own room. Apparently, some crack-pot psychologist at the time supported leaving your baby in the crib crying. If they make it out of the crib, put them back. Some how I made it over the edge of the crib onto the floor, and crawled into their room (I was probably 18 months at the time). They picked me up again, and put me back again, because "that's what we're supposed to do".

Love your children. Hold them, sing to them, but more than anything, let them know that you love them. I tried to kill myself when I was 16. No one had ever told me that they love me. NO ONE. It wasn't until I was 16, lying on the floor after taking a whole bottle of Xanax, completely unable to move, staring at the ceiling and wishing I was dead, that my mom finally told me she loved me.

It wasn't until a couple days ago, when my dad was diagnosed with coronary heart disease that he finally told me he loved me. I know that it was just the way they were raised, that people don't show emotions, especially men, but it is wrong wrong wrong. Throw out backwards societal conventions and hug your children. Hug your parents. Even hug the mailman.

Forget convention and psychologists tell you, and just do what you know in your heart is right.

P.S. It is beyond me why people think Female Genital Mutilation is any different from MGM, but it just goes to show you how inconceivably ignorant people can be.

P.S.S. Both of my parents are doctors, they have both performed many circumcisions. Circumcision is considered to be a "minor surgery", and most interns perform them after leaving medical school. Neither of them are "circumcision doctors". One is a cardiologist, and the other is an ER doctor.

[PAXIMPERIA]

And by the way, I would like to thank everyone who has posted on here for helping me through this. Without being able to truly let out all of my feelings on the subject, I don't know what I would do.

Speaking of which, my dad basically blew him off. He "researched" circumcision on the net for all of ten minutes before deciding that there was no "firm medical literature" showing circ to be a bad thing. Clearly protecting himself from the pain of realizing his own circ.

My mom also cried hysterically, but still has not apologized to me. You have to understand that both of my parents performed this operation on other babies. To admit that this was not simply "cosmetic" surgery would be so unbelievably devastating emotionally, for both of them. I would not be suprised if this is part of the explanation for why circ is still so common. No doctor wants to admit to themselves what they have done.

[AntoninBeGonin]

Originally Posted by PAXIMPERIA

P.S.S. Both of my parents are doctors, they have both performed many circumcisions. Circumcision is considered to be a "minor surgery", and most interns perform them after leaving medical school. Neither of them are "circumcision doctors". One is a cardiologist, and the other is an ER doctor.

: Oh my gosh, I had no idea doctors other than OBs and Peds did circs. That is just insane.

You remind me of a quote my husband said, "That very first time my parents looked at me when I was still whole and perfect did they think to themselves, 'Oh he's going to be so happy in about 20 years when he finds out he's missing part of his penis?'" It just doesn't make any sense at all, does it? :

[Microsoap]

Originally Posted by PAXIMPERIA

If you want to know the truth, I decided to start using moisturizer on the Glans of my penis. After several weeks I noticed that I could not wear underwear without intense discomfort with every step I took. In the shower, the newly sensitive glans hurt even when beads of water hit the tip. However, the orgasms were amazing, like nothing I had ever experienced. This is what made me realize, A. I could never continue what I was doing because it was incredibly painful on a day to day basis (having a sensitized glans exposed), B. that when the glans wasn't exposed, it is extraordinarily sensitive, and C. that the glans and inner foreskin, which are both incredibly sensitive, are not as sesitive as the primary sexual skin in the intact penis, the frenar band. The frenar band is almost always removed during circumcision. The moisturized glans made me realize that there was something intensely special that I was missing, and the lack of all of the other sensitive structures of the penis made me regret and despise my parents decision. Even today, I need to decide between comparatively boring ejaculations to extraordinary ones but constant pain from the abraision with the underwear, all because my mother made this stupid decision 20 years ago. This dilemma will effect me for the remainder of my life-- that is a really, really, really long time for someone who doesn't beleive in the after-life. It's perminant, intensely sexual (as i have found) and if it's intensely sexual it's also invariably intensely painful to walk every step of every day, because the foreskin is not protecting the glans. Keep in mind the glans is only sensitive if it is kept moist using vaseline or another method for several weeks, but it is amazing and intensely stimulating. This has made me wonder what else has been missing all my life due to this surgical "procedure". At least from what I've read, the frenar band is the most sensitive part of a mans penis. It is gone forever, stolen from me at birth, and a distinct pleasure of this life that I will never be able to experience. That is what really bothers me.

By the way, the frenar band is only one of many many nerve endings that all add together to create an enriching (but usually not pre-ejaculatory) sensory extraordinary experience. Most of the sensitive portions of the male penis are lost to circumcisions, there are numerous studies showing that.

You might want to get one of those SenSlip to slip over your now re-sensitive glans for protection:

http://www.google.ca/search?sourceid...S215&q=senslip

http://search.ebay.com/circumcision_...mZR40QQfrtsZ50