Husband is. If we have a son he will be too.
Yes. It was done when I was a baby. I don’t know if I’d want anything different.
Not, never, and no man cub of mine will go through the horror.
Reasons for:
A foreskin is no problem at all if one is hygienic about it. Plus it gives you a reason to play with it in the shower.
Your gal can also blow it up like a balloon when you both get bored.
You can fill it with urine to make it bulge for fun.
When masturbating, you can use it to catch your semen. VERY useful.
You can chase the prudes around with it.
Cons:
Gotta keep it clean.
Some brands of condoms give me a rash under my foreskin.
You are much more prone to blood xfered STDs (i.e. AIDS).
Kids will look at you funny in camp while taking a shower.
I was circumcised as a newborn and I’m DAMN GLAD I was. Thanks to my parents for this.
I had my son circumcised too when he was born. I know this is unfashionable nowadays, but what the heck. I’m fully convinced that it’s preferable. Weighing the unknown probability that someday he will thank me for it, versus the pain and difficulty of getting it done in later life if he would want it, all in all I decided it was better done than left undone.
No twinge feeling here. I don’t know what that dude was talking about.
One of the arguments I’ve heard against it is that it reduces sensitivity. That isn’t necessarily true, nor is it necessarily a drawback. My circumcised prick is remarkably sensitive. For a dude to last longer during sex he may not want heightened sensitivity. Some guys even use certain creams or specially treated condoms to numb out the dick. I tried those condoms once, didn’t like the weird numbed feeling.
The main reason I like circumcision is the great sense of cleanliness. Mrs. M is very, very glad I’m circumcised. If she’s happy, I’m happy.
I had my son circed, but really struggled with the decision. His father was and wanted junior to be the same, but I was stuck on the unnecessary surgery part.
Then I asked my Dad. He turned out to be one of the guys who’s foreskins just stopped stretching or sliding, or maybe it was shrinking or something, this is me asking Dad about his junk, I didn’t listen too well.
Dad also said his brother had the same condition, they both wound up getting circed in their 20s. The not-stretching or sliding or shrinking or whatever it was made life difficult for a while, then after he finally had the surgery, he was miserable for about a month.
He said he’d have definately had any of his kids done, had any of us came with the right equipment. So, I caved and we had our son cut.
This is not something you want to watch, btw. I have no idea why it seemed like a good idea to accompany the doctor when he invited us, fuzzy sleepdeprived hormones interfering with my head I guess, but it was singularly awful. I actually fainted, which caused the doctor to laugh which might have had disasterous consequences! Ugh.
Neither of my sons are cut. Fortunately it’s getting harder and harder to find doctors in Australia and NZ who will do routine infant circing.
Phimosis is fairly rare and circing just in case a kid gets it makes about much sense as removing any other body part just in case they get some uncomfortable condition.
I was because my foreskin had stopped growing. Went to a pediatrician and a pediatric urologist and they figured the route to go was circumcision (this came up in a GD with Jack Dean Tyler a while ago, FTR) since nothing else would work.
I have yet to father a child, and if I were to father a male one I see no reason to do so. Unless it is done for religious or medically necessary reasons, I see none pressing enough to pay someone to cut skin off one’s penis. YMMV:)
Yes, don’t care too much, yes.
Yes I am. I chastize my mother for it every time I remember to do so. I think the whole practice should be outlawed as no society should allow people to mutilate the private parts of infants who are not able to consent. Oh, and the fact that women have any say in the matter infuriates me infinately.
I didn’t know this. Are you saying the foreskin often gets ripped during sex?
I used to wish I was circumcised. Phimosis (foreskin too narrow to be retracted) seems to be a common problem in Japan, judging from all the ads for preventive products and clinics I see in men’s magazines. There’s a huge stigma attached to it, enough to make any boy with a longer-than-average foreskin self-conscious.
I’m not circumcised (it isn’t done in Sweden, just like most parts of the world (excluding those doing it for religious reasons)), and should I ever get a son, I see no reason to circumcise him.
**Drabble, ** we were typing our posts at the same time. No I wasn’t singling you out. Yes, I know there are a lot of ant-circ websites; before I posted on other boards about this I Googled and hit them all. Look, I know you wrote because you wanted a side fairly represented, but please understand: That’s why I wrote too.
As for the agenda, while I don’t know the reason behind it, from the venom on some of the websites I saw when my wife was pregnant, I know its there. That kind of Hate doesn’t just appear out of thin air.
And as for **t-bonham, ** My other sister is a Dr. (The GOOD one, Not the EBS mentioned on other threads). If she wanted money from me, I’d drive her to my bank and I’d never ask for a dime back. If you think she’d tell me that circumcision is a non-issue to gain $100, you’re out of your Mind.
But here’s the bottom line: I’m not a Dr. And those websites…it might take some IT training to put up a website, but it doesn’t take a medical license.
So Ask Your Doctor.
I don’t even care if I’m right or wrong because I know you’ll get the best medical advice once you ask your doctor.
I am circumcized and have always been glad that I was–plenty of sensitivity, thank you very much, and more women seem to prefer cut to uncut.
I have 3 sons and they are all circumcized, more because their mother felt strongly about it that that I had any strong feelings one way or another. I don’t seem much advantage, but there may be some reduction in likelihood of V.D. transmission, depending upon whom you talk to.
I asked the doctor if I could watch the procedure on one of my sons. It took about thirty seconds, most of the time spent was the nurse getting his legs in the right position and the doctor explaining it to me. He cried when the nurse held his legs still, but stopped after a few seconds and didn’t cry or grimace or react in any way during or after the snip. He used a little device with a circular shaped hole in the middle which slipped over the tip of the penis and then made the cut, much like a cutter for cigars.
The physician told me that when he had served in the army (in WWII?) he had circumcized many adults, with the idea back then that it would significantly reduce their chances of getting V.D. while they were over there playing in Europe. He said that grown men yell a lot louder when it happens to them. Supposedly, if you miss and get part of the actual penis (the tip of of the glans), then you would really know it from the yelling.
My feeling is that this issue is hardly worth any real strong feelings one way or the other–it’s just not a very big deal. My only advice would be that if you do decide to circumcize your child, ask the dr. to make it a ‘loose’ circumcision, so that there may still be a little loose skin to play with and there’s no risk of outgrowing the circumcision.
I am circ’d. My sons are too.
I have never felt “less than whole”, violated, mutilated or anything close to it.
I think people that blame all of their problems on their circumcision are just looking for a target for their problems. It affects my life not at all.
Like, babies don’t feel pain? Or, the bugger’s feelings aren’t important? As if you know what the boy wants too.
The gun’s in your hand.
I’m circumsized. I was ambivalent about the boys, but my wife wanted it, so we did it. You don’t even have to use surgery, it can be done with a little device that closes off the blood supply. If there was any pain, none of my three boys showed any. It did look a little sore for a few days, which bothered me, but they were always happy little buggers.
I seem to recall a study that demonstrated that there is no loss of sensitivity associated with circumcisions. Certainly if I’ve lost any it is a good thing, darn hard to control things as it is. The only medical reason I know for doing it is to reduce the infinitisimal chance of penile cancer. The only medical reason for not is because of the infinitisimal chance of something going wrong with any procedure. (Hey, Jews have been doing this for a long time. I do not recall hearing of any folk stories of problems. Ugh, no, I’m not Jewish.)
I suspect those that are bitter about it have other issues. Me, if some women find the foreskinned smelly, then I am glad I’m not. Never do anything that reduces your chance of seconds.
Two sons, neither circumcised.
Spouse, circumcised.
AAP does not recommend it as a routine procedure. I’d come to the same conclusion on my own review of the literature (their recommendation came out after my first was born).
My brother remembers being circumcised without pain meds. As I remember early infancy myself, this doesn’t shock me. My mom remembered pre-birth stuff, which was later proven to be accurate (by modern research). So we’ve got mightly long memories. I try to make the early ones nice ones.
Social-issues-wise, the only kid who had a social upset over his circ status was a boy whose circumcised friends thought his penis was so cool, he was afraid they’d try to take it from him. The other boys got to go home and ask their parents why they didn’t get to have cool penises with foreskins. So the social issues don’t stay the same from generation to generation.
And I figured that most of the time when we mess with things because ‘we know better’ we find out later we were wrong. Nature ‘made it that way’ for a reason.
No risk factors for UTI in the first year in our family. No other medical history indicating that circumcision would be an appropriate choice.
No reason to cause unnecessary pain. And check Medscape for the latest nurse’s advisory on how to provide pain measures for circumcision, so that the baby does not have to use dissociation as a coping strategy (looks like sleep, but causes neurological differences in their brains, and does impact bonding activities from the baby’s side). Ring block is actually very effective if you need it done, and proper pain relief prevents the neurological side-effects. (refer to that paper for specific research detailing the difference in child-mother dyad behavior with and without pain control.)
Not hard at all to explain the difference between father and sons.
Not hard to get them to take care of it - clean it the way you’d clean a girl. Easy on the soap (to prevent infections from flora imbalances), but don’t let stuff build up.
Human rights rulings indicate that a basic human right is the right to an intact body. This is invoked a lot for female genital excision, infibulation, and circumcision (the mildest form included), but not often for boys. I figure intact is intact, and if he wants it removed, he should be of an age to consent to it.
I am uncirc’d. I have been wondering about sexual pleasure. such as, does an uncut man provide more pleasure to a women because there is an extra “bump” that could stimulate something?
No I wouldnt do it to my kid, if I had to choose I would keep my penis in contact.
In an informal survey of the women I know who’ve tried both, it was a definite PLUS to have a foreskin, pleasure-wise. Big sensory difference. Besides, you’ve got the same bump, it is just disguised under the foreskin.
Other thoughts:
Phimosis and paraphimosis (constriction behind the glans) can be managed with preputial plasty - you don’t have to have a full circ to get it to stop being tight. Just a nip or two, and no more constriction - plastic surgery, not removal.
Old age issues are a concern in the US - it can become very tender and easily infected if not cleaned properly. But so can women’s parts. Proper care protocols are a better cure than circumcision, IMHO. But no guarantee that you’ll end up in a home that has people who know what they’re doing. We certainly don’t recommend removal of the labia despite the abysmal care many elderly women get in their declining years (having been in an ER room next to a woman who got insufficient care and her nether regions had rotted - it ain’t just the men!).
Per the AAP: http://www.aap.org/policy/re9850.html
Per the AAFP: http://www.aafp.org/x1462.xml
I go with the research on this one, really. Unless you’ve got a sound medical reason for it, then it isn’t necessary.
The smell factor - ask guys if women smell like anything. We just assume they will, sometimes - read any advice column on sex, and you’ll eventually find some guy asking how to tell his partner she smells funky. Bodies have odors. Foul ones indicate something wrong, more often than not. If he stinks, he may well have a bacterial infection he doesn’t recognize. Or you are just not used to the normal smell (most men I’ve been with smell pretty goaty, regardless, especially if they’ve sweated).
As for the whole loss of sensation thing, there is research supporting all sides - and anecdotes ranging from ‘no difference’ to ‘less sentitive in a good way’ to ‘less sensitive in a bad way’. You just don’t know which one your child will get.
All that aside, when it comes down to whether your child will be angry at you, it seems to me to be more a matter of how you chose whichever option you ended up with, and how you defend your choice. If you chose with the best medical knowledge available, with their very best interests in mind, then most guys don’t care. They accept you doing your best for them even if it doesn’t turn out the way you hoped. The vast majority of guys I know who are circ’d aren’t upset - not because ‘it is just okay’ but because their parents were doing their best for them, with the best medical knowledge available. The men I know who are upset are upset because the reasons given were thoughtless or selfish, or indicative of a pattern of disregard for their wellbeing for the sake of parental convenience or aesthetics. So yes, the rage is from something else, often as not - it is from a pattern of parental disregard or selfishness, of which their being circumcised is just one symptom.
I suspect that, given that we now have medical knowledge supporting NOT doing it routinely, the kids whose parents said ‘we did it just because, even though medicine didn’t think it was required’ will have far more to gripe about than those who said ‘we have a medical history that indicates it was a better idea to circumcise than not’. It is more of an homage to my husbands parents that we did not do what they did, in actual fact, but decided the way they DECIDED. Using our brains, our instincts, and our capacity to research and find ‘the straight dope’ on the subject. Their best info said do it, our best info says it is not necessary unless there is a specific medical indication for it. Different decision, same process. I’d rather be respected for the process, thanks.
If it turns out that we made the wrong choice, we will at least be able to stand by our knowledge that we made the best choice we could, at the time, with the available information. I’d hate to be in a position of having made the wrong choice and be unable to defend it with more than ‘I circ’d him because I liked the way it looked’ (one defense I’ve actually heard). That goes for both sides of the issue. Regardless of which way you choose, if you do not give yourself a leg to stand on should something go wrong, you will probably regret it. But if you do approach the decision with sound reasoning, rather than ‘all the doctors do it without it being an issue, therefore it must not be an issue’ ('and all the doctors used to tell many women not to breastfeed - their educations can be at fault, as well) - well, that doesn’t seem to me to be enough basis for feeling okay if something does go wrong. Anecdote in support of this approach: I know one woman who chose not to circ her first son, only to discover that he has a urinary malformation that makes being intact a major contributor to serious UTIs, had him circd at age 4, which helped dramatically. Her second son was already 2 and not circ’d also, but he inherited the same issue, she had HIM circ’d (which again helped), and then circ’d the third son at birth on the grounds that his chances of also inheriting the malformation were reasonable, and later circ is harder on them, as are all the UTIs - but she doesn’t beat herself up, nor are her sons angry with her, because she was doing her best with the best knowledge she could obtain, just it didn’t work out right for their case, due to their medical issues. If you have a defensible position, regardless of outcome, you at least have no reason to be ashamed. And circumcising for sound medical reasons stemming from your own family history is quite reasonable IMHO, it is just doing so without sound medical reasons - or at least seriously held religious ones - that seems odd to me.
Gesuntite 
Anyway back to the Op
- Yes I am
- No I would not
- Little Tigole will not be. He can choose to be if he wants but its his choice.