I doubt it. But I doubt there are many who were circumcised who care either, unless they’re completely self-absorbed and have nothing else in life to complain about.
I think that’s probably true too. I think most people are just happy with whatever they’re used to. But there’s only one direction you can switch in later on if you want to. But, whatever. Like I said, I don’t really care that much, so I suppose I don’t really have much to contribute to this thread.
I think so too.
I’m sincerely sorry for using words like “disgusting,” by the way. I didn’t mean to insult anyone. I get carried away sometimes.
Thanks, I appreciate that.
I think that maybe DtC is a little homophobic here and just can’t bear to even see his (hypothetical) son’s dick unless somebody thinks he gets turned on by it.
And just to nitpick - I think the foreskin retracts well before puberty, isn’t it around 5 or 6? I remember mine retracting long before I got even fuzz on the cojones.
Its one of the biggest misconceptions that parents have to retract a foreskin to clean it - nothing more is required when cleaning your baby boy than a swipe of the area with a soapy cloth - in comparison to changing dressings etc for the circumcised baby for the first few days.
I thought that comment of DtC’s was silly, as I remarked upon above, but I don’t think your accusation is fair or helpful to the discussion.
As for foreskin retraction, I suppose it must vary from person to person, but the sites I looked at before making that post seemed to back up what I was saying. But I’ll grant that I could be underinformed on that point (in my own now hazy memories, I could partially retract long before I could fully retract, so perhaps that also clouds the discussion). At any rate, the main point was that, as you say, it’s not something that’s done while still a baby; indeed, doing it prematurely can apparently be harmful.
Here’s a weird thought puzzler:
If there were a way to quickly (under a minute), completely, safely remove the appendix from the body with a 100% success rate and with no chance of major complications, and it healed in under a day, but could ONLY be done within the first week after birth, would you have it done for your kid? Lets say at least 70% of people in the US are already doing this and have been for years.
Lets also assume that the common conjecture is proven correct, that the appendix is completely vestigial and serves no function. The only thing the appendix can ever do is become infected later in life and/or burst, causing lots of pain, requiring an invasive surgery, and potentially be life-threatening.
So do you have it removed, removing the chance of problem later, or leave him be?
I don’t have a dog in the fight, so if I have boys it’ll be their father’s decision.
The answer is none. The umbilical cord doesn’t have any nerves that contain pain receptors.
This is asinine.
Yeah, I’d probably go the removal route (but your 100% success rate is unrealistic, so if it was anything less that 100% I might have a different answer).
In any case, I don’t think there’s any value in making analogies for the topic debate of this thread. People are prone to bring up female genital mutilation or similar examples to use as analogies - which just don’t work in the subject issue. Better to stick to the exact issue at hand and discuss the pros and cons of male circumcision.
For my two cents I agree with the majority that it’s a terrible idea to make circumcision mandatory. Although I think parents should be free to choose what they believe is best.
And this is a well reasoned, mature and well thought through comment?
“we’re cutting that shit off. I ain’t retracting no foreskins to clean no dicks. Not even for my own kid” :rolleyes:
One preview I see you have apologised for the “foreskins are disgusting” comment, so I guess that an olive branch is in order.
Seriously speaking though I do wonder just how much of the “anti foreskin” brigade comes from some sort of fear of the penis, sex or the myth that snipping it reduces masturbation. Somebody that’s too scared to touch the penis is of course going to have many more problems with cheese, phimosis and other problems.
This is really dumb. Mutilating sexual organs for some very vague very slight potential benefit that is much more easily and effectively gotten by wearing condoms is an insane twisted logic that rails against the Hippocratic Oath.
I’m a male and against it. Aside from Jews and Muslims who do it for religious reasons, America is the only culture in the world that doesn’t see it as bizarre. We only see it as normal because of being used to it, and few are aware that it was originally promoted as a way to discourage masturbation and help certain psychological problems.
I think that’s a fairly reasonable thing to be upset about, and find your generalization extremely dubious.
I’m circumcised and my stepdad is not. I spent plenty of time in locker rooms and the bathtub with him growing up and never noticed we had different ‘dingles’. I wasn’t even aware of the whole circumcision thing until high school. I think it’s more likely that someone pointing out the difference would be teased for checking out other guys dicks than the guy who was ‘different’.
And of course perpetuating atrocities merely out of tradition is ridiculous. I suppose you feel that victims of abuse should beat up their wives and children so they don’t seem different than their parents… :rolleyes:
There are situations later in life where it becomes medically needed to remove breasts, but none where it is medically needed to have breasts attached. I suppose we should remove the breast nubs from all baby girls so they don’t get breast cancer later in life.
I just realized that I have no idea how the cut is done or what exactly is removed. So I looked up some illustration, and it seems worse than I had guessed.
Topologically speaking, it seems like cutting off a ring of bark around a tree. The skin is folded while the cut is made, but if you then imagine pulling it back it would leave a ring around the penis with no skin. Doesn’t that mean you have to pull the remaining skin up and stitch it together? Ok, the tree analogy breaks down :). Or do I get it wrong? Please enlighten me.
Man, just imagine if there was a way where we could eliminate the risk of breast cancer in women via a minor neonatal surgery that wouldn’t remove the entire breast but rather remove a small portion which wouldn’t affect the function, development or even really the significant look of it later on. That’d be pretty great, huh?
Also, it’d make a lot more sense than comparing complete mastectomies to circumcision.
Sites on circumcision vary wildly in their approach to the topic. On the other side:
Personally, I “trust” neither. I am however persuaded by the weight of scientific evidence that circumcision has, overall, health benefits that outweigh the risks, though both benefits and risks are relatively minor (as is the procedure, which I’ve seen performed). I also see that the anti-circ side is more likely to be both passionate on the subject and less than accurate with the science and statistics, often offering misleading distortions (note the cite of a 2% complication rate when the actual rate is less than a tenth of that), ugly and emotive pics of botched procedures, claims of abuse, etc.
That’s nothing, my father had his wisdom teeth, tonsils and appendix forcefully removed against his will. Still, he managed to pull through.
Well, I don’t see evidence that anti-circ (we need a positive term here :-D) are less accurate or more passionate. The debate is probably much larger over there than it is here, since over here it’s pretty universally not done except for Jews and Muslims, and a majority of doctors refuse to perform the operation for ethical reasons. You’ve probably seen much more debate than me, so you may be right about that.
Regarding the facts, both sides seem to have a piles and piles of papers to support their arguments, and I must say that I there’s no chance in hell for me to go through and verify the validity of their arguments nor methods. This leads me to take a neutral stance with respect to the health factors.
About hygiene the pro-circ people seem to overestimate the difficulty of proper hygiene for an uncircumcised man. It’s just like washing any other part of the body, very very easy. As long as you maintain your hygiene by showering regularly, there won’t be any nasty smell or anything, and if you don’t, you’ll smell anyway.
I’m not arguing much about the complication rates, as it is probably very low in the industrialized world (though not zero I believe), where proper hygiene is maintained. It might however be different for example in Africa. I think that can be left out of the debate for now.
I think the comparison with tattoos is pretty good, and I hold the same opinion there. What do you think? Or are you convinced enough of the medical advantages? I’m not. Oppositely, I think the comparisons with appendices and tonsils and so on are worse, as those are legitimate medical concerns that can be very dangerous if they go untreated.
What about loss of sensitivity? I would never trade that away. Just like condoms reduce sensitivity, so does the loss of a significant part of your foreskin and subsequent hardening. I think sex feels better without condoms, but there are good reasons for using them anyway, but any further reduction in sensitivity would be highly unwelcome for me.
To me it seems like a wholly unnecessary and pretty much irreversible operation for no other reason that it’s a cultural habit whose adherents get defensive about because you don’t want to feel that you have been violated or something (weakly supported hypothesis:)).
The belief that the natural state is somehow unclean or disgusting is very alien to me, and the alleged advantages are not convincing at this point.
I apologize if I appear rabid, but I think the pro-circ people’s claims that there are strong undisputed advantages are weak at best, and misleading or hurtful at worst. Beliefs in those claims are probably self reinforcing as well. Other than that, I don’t have any strong agenda here. I mostly joined the fray because of some unsupported statements upthread.
The difference in approach seems to be mostly cultural, and as with all other such differences, we are right. So, stop slicing the foreskin off your boys, adopt the metric system, forget about Jesus, and get fix universal health care already. 
The reasoning is the same. Follow your own reasons to their logical conclusions. People think of circumcision as normal simply because it’s common here. If you compare it to any other analogous situation it becomes quickly apparent how bizarre it really is.
With regard to your “not analogous” comment,
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Circumcision does affect the function, development, and significant look of the penis. Your imaginary scenario would be more like breasts which can still breast feed but have no nipples and tend to chafe more often.
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True, not nearly to the extent of the mastectomy, but given that breast cancer is so much more likely and so much more deadly than anything circumcision supposedly benefits, and unlike circumcision there is no simple safe and nearly 100% effective alternative with no side effects, it actually seems like the mastectomy is more reasonable, doesn’t it?
Canadian here - we have the universal health care already.
Opinions may certainly vary on the relative passion of “advocates” of each side, but I will simply point out that the facts appear to be that there are many, many “anti” websites and “anti” folks are much more likely to go around questioning “pro” people about their choices, claim that they are engaged in child abuse, use loaded terms like “mutilation”, etc.
While one I suppose has to be a physician to decisively evaluate the competing medical claims, in my opinion at least a good, arguable scientific case has been made that the procedure has benefits that outweigh the risks. Others may of course come to a different conclusion. The decision has nothing to do with the asethetic considerations.
The “defensiveness” you assert has more to do with the wild accusations of “child abuse” that the more radical anti types tend to fling. Who doesn’t get somewhat defensive when they are accused of abusing their own children?
I would ask (not just you but everyone) whether, when evaluating risks vs. benefits, do you factor in the baby’s experience? Someone mentioned earlier that the child experiences “pain that they won’t remember”. I took this to mean this person assumes that painful events children don’t remember must therefore have no long-term effect? Because I’m not so sure about that, so I would factor in the child’s experience in making my decision (if I had a son, which I don’t).
This is an excellent point, and is one of my frustrations with debates here and IRL. It is human nature to get defensive when people throw emotionally-laden arguments around. I suppose this is fine if your intention is to make people feel bad (not that I’m saying anyone here wants to do that), but I don’t think that’s a productive way to “fight ignorance”. Accusing someone of abusing their child for fun and profit is hardly the way to get someone to consider your argument.
I’m just sayin’.