I realise this is your own, personal decision and that you may well not wish to discuss it any further, but I would be intrigued to learn of the reasons behind it - if you ever wish to discuss them (probably in another thread) - not because I wish to argue with you, but simply because I don’t understand, but would like to.
If you lived in England, would you be called “the assless chap?”
By definition all chaps are assless. This is why clothing is sized different in the the UK and the USA, to accomodate the American Ass.
Both brothers were circumcised late… around 12 years old. My mom simply couldn’t bear the thought of putting her babies through that so she put it off. My sister and I didn’t get our ears pierced til our early teens either for the same reason.
Anyway, the circumcision issue arose when my brothers became self-conscious (we live in a predominantly Catholic country) and were being teased by their classmates.
So the older brother went first, and proceeded to taunt and scare the younger brother. He walked around with a diaper and thick padding around his penis for a week. Jokes about “it” being “in the crate” abounded. Younger brother went a month or so later. No drama, no trauma and both are happy campers.
In the end, it seems the teasing, buildup and anxiety before the procedure was more excruciating than the surgery or recovery.
Anecdote:
When I was a youngster (late 80s) in North Carolina, the majority of kids at boy scout camp were NOT circumsized and we made fun of the kids who were.
I think the teasing potential depends a lot on your location.
What’s with the title of the thread? Is the OP living in Africa? Why is the issue of HIV infection significant?
Just what is it about your son that makes you think that;
a.) He will be sexually active with HIV positive partners.
b.) He won’t understand or listen to any sexual education.
c.) He won’t know how to wash himself in a shower.
Are you so distrusting of him that you feel you have to surgically alter him in case he won’t take any other advice? Has he disappointed you so much you have to go this far?
Yeah, cut men don’t get much out of sex at all. Oh, but wait, they can reach orgasm almost any time, something a lot of women couldn’t without a clitoris.
As usual, the question of circumcision has opened a hot debate. Interestingly enough, I see few if any debates over other medical procedures. Where are the raging controversies over appendectomies or tensilectomies?
As an eminent psychiatrist once explained to me, circumscision is still around because “old rituals die hard”.
Another reason I suspect is that people who were circumcised as babies (and I am one of them) tend to want to justify the unnecessary surgery that was practised on their private parts. It is easier to defend and justify it with arguments of “cleanliness” or “hygiene” (or now tghe latest, AIDS protection) than to admit the horrible truth that your parents allowed doctors to mutilate your genitals. It is easier to find scientific excuses why it was done than to look at the matter clearly and call a spade a spade.
The difference is that I am willing to say that the Emperor has no clothes. I am willing to say that I was mutilated as an innocent baby, and that the pain (YES: studies have shown THEY DO FEEL THE PAIN) is probably still deep inside me.
First of all, if the circumcision link with AIDS is real, why does Europe, a continent where the vast majority of men are not circumcised, not have a rate of HIV/AIDS many times higher than say, New York, where there is a large Jewish population and where millions of non-Jews are, like me, part of the population that was automatically circumcised in past decades?
Why is the rate of HIV infection in say, Britain (where hardly anybody is cut), not many times higher than say, the US?
Regarding the loss of sexual pleasure and sensitivity due to removal of the foreskin, I have been asked how I can know this since I was circumcised as a baby.
In point of fact I have a unique perspective that few men, women or doctors have. I am gay and was fairly active sexually during all of the naughty seventies.
Remember the Seinfeld episode where Elaine tried to convert a gay guy but finally admitted she could not outperform other gay men because she did not have access to the equipment more than a half hour a week, making it impossible for her to compete people who actually own the equipment? 
This is something similar. If you read the Wikkipaedia article about the results of tests on males circumcised in adulthood, the one thing that strikes you is how on earth can one accurately measure something as nebulous and spiritual and sexual satisfaction in a clinical/scientific setting. No wonder the results are all over the page, with one study showing one thing and another study showing another. The results can probably change if the interviewer lifts an eyebrow while asking a question. :dubious: Since sex happens mainly in your brain, do you suppose having part of your genitals cut off will affect your pereception of and performance in sex and he way you answer questions in the follow-up interviews? Well, duuuuh!
On the other hand, when something CAN be scientifically measured, such as the number of nerve endings in the foreskin that is cut off during circumcision, as well a subsequent desentizing of the glans penis as it rubs against rough cotton underwear all day deprived of its protective sheath, the obvious conclusion is a loss of sensitivity.
I seriously doubt if many doctors, sex researchers, average females or even female protitutes have had as many occasions as I have to be touching both cut and uncut penises, fondling them and stimulating them and observing the reactions of the partners. Female prostitutes in fact are more likely to not even notice if the man is cut since he is often erect when he undresses and their sex is a strictly-for-money in-and-out affair (pardon the pun 
).
All I know is that after stimulating, rubbing and generally pleasuring up to 200 same-sex partners between, say, 1972 and 1980, I have consistently noted that uncircumscisd males get far more pleasure from oral play, frottage and other foreplay. The glans penis, protected from the tender mercies of fruit-of-the-loom by that lovely, delicate and natural veil of living chantilly lace that is the foreskin, is obviously far more senstitive and pleasue filled than my own poor, mutilated member.
In answer to another OP, OF COURSE I CAN ACHIEVE ORGASM. But the removal of my foreskin was a form of child genital mutilation that was done without my consent and that I am certain has deprived me of an important, natural part of my genitals.
I only compared circumcision to clitorectomies practised on female children in the sense that one of the motivating factors for both is that it makes the child less sensitive and less able to enjoy sex, and therfore more “goood” in the inhuman, twisted and anti-sexual moralities of many religions.
No , Florida! hee.
Shibby, I chose to leave my son intact at birth. Now that he is 18 he is thinking of getting circumsiced. I am glad that I waited until HE could decide what he wanted to do. My little two cents to you is: wait and let him make up his mind. 
And newcrasher: some welding chapsare not “assless”. (maybe not the best picture, but hubby has some complete with “ass”). FYI. 
Gay man checking in.
I am circumsized and personally think it simply looks better when it is. Sue me.
I am not the only one who thinks so. In the Gay community (where we talk about such things) it seems the majority agree with me. (If you don’t believe me, just glance through an average US Gay porn magazine and count the number of non-circumcised men you see…few and far between.) But there certainly are a few who disagree.
It is also generally cleaner, as you have no option in the shower and you can’t “forget” to pull back a foreskin and clean it.
Plus, I have known a few men whose foreskin got too tight during an erection and it ripped - causing them to painfully go for emergency surgery to have it cut.
That said, I think the ship has sailed for your son. It would be unfair, and kind of cruel to do it now. It is up to him to decide at a later date.
And despite what others have said, non-circumcised men are in the minority in the US, and yes - other guys do make fun of them when they are growing up and going to gym class.
Delete “non-” and it’s exactly the same way here in the UK.
Exactly!
I lived in Germany for 14 years and I was certainly in the minority over there.
I can’t begin to tell you how many German guys assumed I was Jewish (and that was not a problem if it had been true)…but I informed them it was common for all American guys. Then I mentioned American porno films and they all said, “Oh, THAT’s why!”
What on earth is all this stuff about kids making fun of other kids who are cut or not? I like Seinfeld, would not want to look even in the showers.
Please do not engage in any genital mutilation is my answer to the OP. Have you ever asked why Female Genital Mutilation is illegal in most places around the world but somehow male Genital Mutilation is not.
Also consider that in the USA the prevalance of male Genital Mutilation (circumcision) is about 50 % while in the UK it is about 2 %.
I suffered non-consensual genital mutilation as an infant. Seems that in the 50’s here in Detroit, my pediatrician was obligated by law to alter Nature’s design. My father (who opposed the idea) told me that the doctor assured him that it would reduce the risk of some type (penile?) of cancer.
Had I not been circumcised, I’m confident that as a responsible bather, I would be smegma-free today. As a sexually responsible adult, the presence or absence of a foreskin would be a moot point when considering sexual safety. Only in America would I expect anybody to proffer “visual aesthetics” as a valid reason to remove a piece of tissue Og & Nature saw perfectly fit to place there.
Please wait until the lad has enough wisdom for the final word in this matter. I’m not opposed to voluntary circumcision (I’m not opposed to voluntary anything). My consent-free mutilation has left me more than a little bit bitter, and if I can help prevent just one more incidence…
User name does NOT apply to this post.
I think 9 is definitely the wrong age.
I’m also not convinced by the HIV argument.
The hygiene side strikes me as quite a good idea.
Just to make people wince, when I turned 19 I realized that my configuration was not exactly normal, think tongue tied. So I spent some rather painful and unpleasant sessions in the bathroom with a razor blade. I’m astonished that it was not picked up in a routine medical examination - but my experiences of the medical profession are not good.
In the profoundly unlikely event that I had a son, then it would be 50% whether I had him snipped - although it is unusual in the UK - I personally think it is a bit cleaner.
These days it’s unlikely an uncut boy will get made fun of during gym class simply because boys as a rule no longer shower or otherwise get naked together.
You are not alone - when I was living in NYC, I met a guy who told me he also did the procedure himself. He studied up on it, somehow got a prescription for a local anesthesia, bought a surgical knife, tied off the tip and performed his own surgery.
I remember getting a case of the heebie-jeebie shivers as he described in detail how he did it - and he claims it was not painful nor was it difficult (after all of his studying up on the procedure), but still - I think this is a clear case where the expression, DO NOT DO THIS AT HOME is appropriate!
This argument doesn’t wash(pun intended) with me - normal shower routine for most males is to wash genitals, hair, genitals, armpits, genitals, face, genitals… and so on. I could well imagine chimneysweeps or mechanics absentmindedly exiting the shower with soot or grease on their faces, but males that shower and accidentally forget to wash their knobs - rarer than rocking horse shit, I reckon.
Haven’t waded through all the posts but the cosensus seems to be if you’re circumcised thats brilliant and thats the best option,but if you’have a foreskin then thats brilliant and thats the best option.
My 4pennorth ,as a circumcised from infanthood non jew/muslim,apparently no circumcised male has ever had penile cancer .
Yes you CAN keep your penis as clean as a circumcised penis if you work harder, in just the same way as a horse and cart will eventually get you to your destination as an automobile but with so much more wasted time and effort expended to achieve the same result .
Circumcised males DO go on for much ,much longer then their counterparts and never suffer from premature ejaculation .
I wont even bother dignifying with an answer the rather silly enquiry “how do you know?”
Human genitalia has been one of the most extensively researched subjects of Bio medecine in recent years ,BUT and its a big BUT circumcision does not make you a stud ,the lack of sensitivity means that when wearing a condom more then a few males cannot achieve an erection.
Another drawback (not a pun !this has got to be a freudian slip!) but one that wont affect most people is for servicemen serving in the M/E,if captured by arabs they will probably be treated as a hated Jew during interrogation(whether they really believe it or not ) and that will ensure a much more unpleasant time nearly always)
:rolleyes:
Got a decent cite for that?