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Locker room

3662 Views 24 Replies 20 Participants Last post by  4chunut1
I live in Canada where the rate of RIC is around 30%. When circ was popular and "everyone was circed" 30 or so years ago, people justified it by saying they wanted to spare their sons embarassment in the locker room.

Now that the majority of kids being born are being left intact, the parents who choose to circ don't seem to care about the potential of their sons being embarassed anymore. Even at at 50% rate, like in the states, don't you think that a kid who is missing half his penis would be more likely to be teased than one who still has a whole one?

I was just thinking about this this morning and it really helps reinforce what a selfish decision circumcision really is.

What are your thoughts?
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The locker room argument has never really held water for me. I mean, kids get teased for so many other things that something inside their pants that people rarely see isn't even on my radar. My own kids have absolutely no athletic ability. I figure if my kids are being teased in the locker room, it'll be for something like dropping the ball, passing to the wrong team, etc.

And do kids really even get nude in the locker room anymore? My friends w/ older teens all say no.
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Ahh, the proverbial Locker Room. When kids are growing up, they're shy about their whole bodies in general. I DREADED getting undressed in the locker rooms and never took my underwear off -- not because I was uncut, but because I didn't want to get THAT personal with my classmates. Plus, when boys get changed, they do their best to look away from other boys. The stigma of being called "gay" when you were straight was the worst thing that a boy could be teased about in school. You wouldn't dare get caught staring at another boy's penis or making fun it. That would earn you a quick ticket into being labelled gay.

You are correct. When the tides turn and the majority of the population is uncut, you can start using the locker room excuse *against* pro-circers.
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In Canada there never was a time when everyone was circed. Even at it's peak in the 70's the countries average never went over 50% though some provinces had higher averages (Ontario 60%) some provinces like Newfoundland never went over 6%.

http://www.courtchallenge.com/refs/yr99p-e.html
I do find it funny that those who circumcise don't think of the 'locker room' in the situation that you describe, where those circumcised are clearly in the minority. Suddenly, the 'locker room' isn't a problem.
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Quote:

Originally Posted by MyBoysBlue View Post
In Canada there never was a time when everyone was circed. Even at it's peak in the 70's the countries average never went over 50% though some provinces had higher averages (Ontario 60%) some provinces like Newfoundland never went over 6%.

http://www.courtchallenge.com/refs/yr99p-e.html
I know, I was referring to my experience in this part of Canada, not Canada in general. In this area of Ontario(Niagara) when I was born, 1970's, circumcision was pretty much just done. There may have been the odd boy spared but, unfortunately most were cut. My MIL doesn't even remember being asked(DH and BIL are cut).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fellow Traveler View Post
I do find it funny that those who circumcise don't think of the 'locker room' in the situation that you describe, where those circumcised are clearly in the minority. Suddenly, the 'locker room' isn't a problem.

This is exactly what I was referring to. Why is it so very important when used to condone circ, but when used to condone leaving a baby intact, all of a sudden it isn't as critical.

Take care,
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Originally Posted by calngavinsmom View Post
This is exactly what I was referring to. Why is it so very important when used to condone circ, but when used to condone leaving a baby intact, all of a sudden it isn't as critical.

Take care,
The same reason that 'look like daddy' isn't considered a factor when they started to circumcise.
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Quote:

Originally Posted by calngavinsmom View Post
Why is it so very important when used to condone circ, but when used to condone leaving a baby intact, all of a sudden it isn't as critical.
Because it's one of those excuses that defy logic. I think it was an empty excuse contrived by men to convince women that circ is the way to go. Afterall, how many women have firsthand experience of what it's like in a men's locker room? Thus any arguments women have against it become moot.
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I also have considered that. I'm in Australia where circumcision is probably done to about 10% of boys. Of course I've never heard anybody say locker room as an excuse (we don't even have them here anyway, we never changed fully or showered at school, even when doing extra-curricular sports), but some people do mention fitting in if their partner and past partners and family are circumcised.

I think it's doubly awful because it's not only circumcising a child but also putting them in a minority. While I don't think conforming is a good reason to circumcise or not, I do think it should be considered by the parents that because of the fitting in issue, the child is likely to realise what they are missing, maybe be teased (heard of it happening), AND can't change their status unlike a circumcised guy...
According to DH-

No one gets made fun of in the locker room because no one will admit to looking at someone else's penis.
From a recent post I did on this very topic:

Cutting part of a child's sexual organ off so that he will "fit in" is ridiculous. We don't encourage our children to dress the same as their peers, get the same haircuts, listen to the same music, watch the same shows and movies, drive the same cars, etc. The argument is the same logic as a line my mother used to give me:

"If your child's peer group all jumped off of a bridge, would you drive him to the edge and wave good-bye?"

I didn't think so.
My boyfriend said that he remembers one of the first times in a locker room in middle school wondering "Why is everyone Jewish?" and that was it. Growing up in an extremely conservative, pro-circ area it was never even brought up.
It's a completely emotional argument. There might be that rare boy who was actually teased, and I can imagine this would leave an impression on all the kids around him. the fear of their child being socially ostracized is a large part of *many* parental decisions. For some reason, this argument makes sense to a lot of people, right along with the idea that their son might be traumatized by not "looking like daddy". Apparently some folks really believe that non- matching genitalia is damaging to children.
Sadly this is why my brothers are circ'd at my fathers insistence and they NEVER EVER had to shower in school.

I live where it is very common to let LOs go naked at the beach I wonder all the time how I will explain WHY his some of his friends parents cut off part of their penis.

And I always feel bad for that little boy who will be the last one cut.
My wife's friend/coworker has a 13yo son who has actually gotten teased about it recently. I thought it a bit strange that boys would bring up the topic of other penises without someone playing the "gay" card. Well, apparently, the 13yo wants to get circ'd now and I believe his mother supports his decision.

First of all, I think he's too young to make a decision like that simply based on being teased. Second of all, even if he does get it done, it won't stop the teasing. They'll tease him for getting it done, during the healing process when it hurts, and when they get tired of teasing him about his penis, they'll move on to some other body part. If they start teasing him about his ears, will he look into surgery for that as well?

Adolescence is an awkward time in everyone's life where we just don't feel comfortable in our own skin. I don't believe hacking pieces off or doing any type of body modification to quell teasing will ultimately work. It would probably make things worse considering that the teasers have "won" by making you adjust yourself to their likings. It will make you more vulnerable and open up the flood gates for more teasers to unleash their wrath.

IMHO, the best way for him to end the teasing situation is to give them the one finger salute and make the comment that their moms actually prefer him intact.
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Originally Posted by KGB View Post
My wife's friend/coworker has a 13yo son who has actually gotten teased about it recently. I thought it a bit strange that boys would bring up the topic of other penises without someone playing the "gay" card. Well, apparently, the 13yo wants to get circ'd now and I believe his mother supports his decision.

First of all, I think he's too young to make a decision like that simply based on being teased. Second of all, even if he does get it done, it won't stop the teasing. They'll tease him for getting it done, during the healing process when it hurts, and when they get tired of teasing him about his penis, they'll move on to some other body part. If they start teasing him about his ears, will he look into surgery for that as well?

Adolescence is an awkward time in everyone's life where we just don't feel comfortable in our own skin. I don't believe hacking pieces off or doing any type of body modification to quell teasing will ultimately work. It would probably make things worse considering that the teasers have "won" by making you adjust yourself to their likings. It will make you more vulnerable and open up the flood gates for more teasers to unleash their wrath.

IMHO, the best way for him to end the teasing situation is to give them the one finger salute and make the comment that their moms actually prefer him intact.

Totally why would a mom allow her son to make a "grown up decision' like that when he just hit teen years ?

What will be next when he ends up having things teased like KGB the stuff he won't be able to get changed .

Instead of surgery empower his image because if he's running for surgery then allowing surgery will make his self image feel as if he was born with a "wrong part ' and who knows maybe he will start wondering what other part he was born wrong with ?

Plus, the mom allowing that to happen shows she doesn't know much about foreskin either .

After all he has to do is say Let me get this "straight your laughing at me because you had part of your d*ck cut off and I didn't ?

The teasers would be the ones getting laughed at then the teasing would end
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What I find so ridiculous about the whole locker room thing was I remember in high school a bunch of jocks (who were usually the teasers) going on about how they weren't circumcised because they honestly, genuinely thought circumcision was removing the entire glans. They had no clue about the foreskin, which is sad, and obviously weren't looking that closely since there were at least a few intact guys in the locker room, including my DH.
I think the locker room argument argument is one of those things that people repeat without hardly realizing what they are saying.

I went to an all boys school where boys were teased for all sorts of things, but being teased in the locker room was not one of them (most boys were circed).

All the arguments like 'a boy should look like his father', 'women prefer circumcised' and the other social reasons make no sense.

Ultimately the real reason is just to conform, which is not really a reason. Hence the habit can continue forever for no reason.
Quote:

Originally Posted by MyBoysBlue View Post
In Canada there never was a time when everyone was circed. Even at it's peak in the 70's the countries average never went over 50% though some provinces had higher averages (Ontario 60%) some provinces like Newfoundland never went over 6%.

http://www.courtchallenge.com/refs/yr99p-e.html
Seriously? Wow - I really must have had a knack. Until I had ds1, and left him intact, I'd never seen an intact penis. (My brother is intact - mom was the only one on the ward who didn't circ - but, I never saw him naked, even though we were very casual about nudity growing up, because he's over 5 years older than I am.) I have a few female friends who have had many more partners than I am, and it's commonly agreed that guys our age were almost all circ'd. Very few of the women I'm talking about have ever seen a guy our age with an intact penis. I wonder what the rate in Vancouver in the late 60s was...
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My DH was born in New Brunswick in '77 at the time it was 31.8 percent. They did forcibly retract him as a newborn in the hospital. They called it dilating. They made a small cut and pulled the foreskin back. Luckily his Mom knew to leave him alone once they got home and he wasn't permanently damaged from it. She says they presented it as an option circ or this dilation thing. They didn't give them an option to just leave him alone so they took the one they figured was less damaging. I've actually never heard of this from anyone else or in any research I've come across.
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