Ditto here. I knew my penis was different than most of the other kids, but I guess there were enough of us that were uncircumcised that it wasn’t a big deal. Seems none of the off-the-boat Polish families here circumcised their boys.
I don’t see why not. Plenty of porn out there has uncircumcised men.
I think part of the disconnect is that there’s no way to experience both sides. You can’t go back and time and change whether you were circ’d or not.
People who are circumsized have no way of knowing what it’s like to be uncircumsized, and people who aren’t have no way of knowing what it’s like to always be circumsized.
I would say that an uncircumsized person who later decides to have it done has a much different experience than someone who had it done at birth.
The same say someone with no arms can never know what it’s like to have two arms, and someone with arms can never know what it’s like to never have arms. Someone with arms could choose to cut his arms off, but it still wouldn’t be the same.
If I were uncircumsized and I felt like I’d prefer that I had been, I’d probably just put up with it my whole life. It wouldn’t be worth the time, pain, and money to have it performed.
So, because nobody can ever really understand the other side, there’s really no way to resolve the dispute.
I guess it’s sort of the same as your first name. That’s something your parents decide on, and something you carry your entire life. Even if you don’t really like your name, most likely you’re not going to have it legally changed. It’s just something that’s part of who you are, and it’s impossible to know what it would have been like if your name was Eric or Tanya instead of Tim or Sally.
It’s an unwinnable argument.
I think it hurt a bit. My son cried for the 30 seconds it took to get him to my wife’s breast, at which point he calmed down immediately. He was asleep 5 minutes later.
I applied an anaesthetic cream a few hours before. It bled a little, but the mohel cleaned it and put some gauze on it, and there were no complications.
Whle I wouldn’t say it was easy, I don’t regret doing it.
Ever hear of this funny invention called a condom?
This just in…all women to get breast augmentation when they turn 18 to be more attractive to men
They don’t have soap and water in America? Or are you all just frustrated Jame Gumbs that are too scared of sex to retract the foreskin and wash underneath?
Why draw the line at breast augmentation? How about routinely snipping untidy-looking labia? It’s only nonfunctional skin when all’s said and done.
Of all the silly reasons for circumcision, pandering to an alleged fad among women for disliking the natural configuration of male genitals has to be the silliest, and “not wanting my kid to look different” is the second (and this would self-correct in one generation…). A shibboleth is a poor reason for surgery.
But before the less-silly health benefits are taken into consideration, let’s quantify them a little more. Don’t tell me “Oh, there’s a 10x less chance of circumcised boys developing UTIs that can lead to kidney problems in later life”. Tell me what the risk of those kidney problems is, so I can assess whether I need to take them into account. If my son’s chances of going kidney-problem free are already 99%, I’m not especially anxious to improve them to 99.9%. If he only has a 50% shot, I’ll happily consider improving it to 95%.
Then of course there are also risks associated with circumcision:
ouch1, ouch2, one from the past,
The rate of penile cancer in uncircumcised men is about 0.12% (or about 12 men in 10,000) while according to this site, which seems respectable the rate of complications stands at about 2%.
Note that penile cancer is pretty much unheard of in circumcised men. However the five year survival rate of penile cancer is 50%. So about 6 in 10,000 uncircumcised men die of penile cancer. I don’t find this particularly compelling compared to 2 in 100 suffering problems from the operation itself.
I for one do not for a second believe that the complication rate is 2%, particularly from a source that states outright that its purpose is to discourage the practice.
This 1999 study found that the rate was 0.2%.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/105/1/S2/246
To my mind, the trade-off is well worth it, since most “complications” are in fact relatively mild whereas penile cancer is not.
The discussion is difficult enought without using misleading statistics and scare-mongering pictures. Why not show some kids dying of penile cancer alongside them?
Slightly different perspective here: I grew up in the UK, where circumcision was *not *routinely performed on infants (at least, not in 1982; it may have caught on now).
However, my parents are physicians, and agreed on the procedure based on the health/hygiene benefits (which were well-known even then).
Having attended boarding school, I can assure you that it did get remarked on during communal showers. There’s a period between the ages of about 7 and 8 where it’s okay to look as long as you make fun of the person while you do it.
I don’t have a strong opinion on the underlying issue.
However, I will say that with respect to participation in this thread, the pro-circ people seem to be arguing with cites and the anti-folks are offering up fallacies and distractions. If I had to decide for a side based on this thread, I would pick the pro-circ side.
On the anti-circ side Canadian provincial health plans (except Manitoba’s) no longer pay for the procedure. And the Canadian Pediatric Society says that the procedure “should not be routinely performed” as of 1996. Source NRM: Canada cuts back on circumcision
So in the somewhat unlikely event that I have kids I don’t plan on having any boys snipped.
Over a meal of bratwursts, kielbasa, pickles, and bananas, with a side of geoduck clams, naturally.
A great dinner dialog, to be sure.
Yeah, one of those two. With some nice, warm baked potatoes on either side…not quite round, but slightly oblong. One of them slightly lower than the other.
“Well, son, now that we’re about to eat this dinner…is there anything you want to tell me?”
Yes, pretty much the only people who experience both are those that grew up uncircumcised but then have the procedure done for medical or religious purposes later in life. One of my friends had it done as a teenager for medical reasons. I never really did ask him what he prefers (I guess I have very little curiosity about such things).
I was circumcised at birth, and, what can I say - I like it. But then I don’t know any different. shrug. It’s never caused me the slightest problem and, to be honest, I feel kind of squicked out at the idea of having to retract some skin to clean the head of the penis. As it is now, I can just wash it like any other body part.
All in all, I’d almost certainly have my son circumcised.
The first fact isn’t really an argument either way - the fact many (but not all) provincial gov’ts won’t pay for the procedure says nothing about its value, merely that they govt’s will not pay.
The second fact is somewhat more persuasive, as it presumably represents some sort of consensus among professionals as to the value of the procedure. however, that argument (if you will excuse the expression! :D) cuts both ways, as the topic of the OP is the fact that a much larger group of professionals is seriously considering recommending the opposite as of 2009 …
What seems to me to be the case: the pendulum of expert opinion has swung back and forth over the years as to the comparative risk/benefit ratio for this procedure; currently, the pendulum is swinging strongly in favour of “benefit”. As always, parents should review whatever data is available and make up their own minds.
Females are used to having high maintenance genitals, so they should be disqualified from the debate.
Even that would not be a true test, because studies have demonstrated that having the procedure perfomed as a child does not in some respects have the same effect as having it perfomed later in life.
What you’d need is someone with two penises, and to circumcise one. 
Rule 34: If it exists, there is porn of it.
The actual finding of it is left as an exercise for the student. shudder
Um, lsamu is clearly a guy. And why do you think women have high maintenance genitals? They seem a lot less high maintenance than guy parts with the retracting and so forth.
I was with you when I quoted your previous post, but I’m not sure I’m with what you’re saying in this last one. I don’t think you can somehow ‘disqualify’ a mother from the debate over how to handle birthing and raising her son.
All I wanted to do was offer the benefit of my own experience. When it comes to the crunch time to make a decision, both my wife and I will talk it over and try to make the best decision based on the facts at hand.
