What's all the brouhaha about circumcision?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I just read the last few contributions to the recently closed thread on circumcision. I read enough to understand that it’s a hot button issue for some people, and I also recall seeing other threads on this subject.

My question is simple: is this an American thing? I mean in the same way that parenting issues, for example, can transcend mere opinions and become schools of thought, supported by mini industries of magazines, websites, pressure groups etc? I remember once reading about the merits of different cots (cribs) and people were really serious about pine versus oak versus redwood versa balsa (or whatever). We’d just put our firstborn in a white painted one handed down from friends and I remember reading this magazine (offering wooden cots from organic forests in Vermont) while the baby was chewing on her non-stripped down, non-repainted cot bars. And she wasn’t crying, wasn’t disturbing me, and hasn’t had a filling in her life. (Though, come to think of it, she does get gastric problems from time to time.)

Back to the subject. I was circumcised as a baby, so I do have a personal interest in this matter.

And yet that’s just the thing. I don’t have any interest in it at all. I’m a roundhead, others are cavaliers. The world still goes round.

People ask me “Don’t you think you could please your woman better with a bit more skin?” and I answer “That would be unfair on my woman, and on other men for that matter”.

So could I make a polite request that this be the last discussion on circumcision?

2

It’s a bris haha, not a brou haha. ;j

3

I am sorry you have guilt and anger but I hope you get over it in the future so you can be happy with yourself.

Well, somebody had to do it…

4

Just be glad you weren’t here for JDT:slight_smile:

5

You may request anything you like. Just be aware your chances of actually getting it are somewhere close to zero.

Dopers love the cock (talk).

6

So does Sarah.

7

:dies laughing:

8

Okay, since this subject is going to crop up again whether I like it or not, and since I’m not averse to a bit of cock talk myself, can we make this a discussion on circumcision with no further mention of guilt or anger, or denial for that matter - I seem to remember that came up as well.

What the heck does it matter if a guy has a flap of skin on the end of his love muscle or not?

Hygiene? Pah! You wash it, you don’t get any problems.

Sexual satisfaction for the man? Tuh! I get all the satisfaction I can handle and I’m a roundhead.

Sexual satisfaction for the woman? I’ve never had any complaints.

Psychological problems? Grow up or find a proper cause to espouse, not a flap of skin on someone’s woman pleaser.

9

I don’t think it really is much of an issue to most Americans. It’s certainly not in the same league as hotbutton subjects like abortion or the death penalty. Circumcized is pretty much the “default” state for American males, but it really isn’t a subject that rates highly in the public consciousness.

10

Some hospitals in Ireland refused to circumcise baby boys on non-medical grounds. The death of a baby boy of Nigerian parentage after a “back street” circumcision performed for cultural reasons caused some of those hospitals to re-consider their policies.

Basically, in Ireland, if you’re not Jewish or Muslim and have no pressing medical reason for your baby to be circumcised, he won’t be. In some places if you have a cultural reason you may be placed on a hospital waiting list, but it’s not guaranteed, and you could wait up to 18 months.

All circumcisions performed in Irish hospitals are done under general anaesthetic, in an operating theatre. It’s not considered a safe bedside procedure or something that can be carried out (even on newborns) without adequate pain relief.

In countries where circumcision is not the “default setting” we tend to have a different perspective.

11

About the only time it’s a “hot-button” issue is when you’re reading pregnancy magazines, reading/postng on pregnancy boards, or run into someone who thinks about his penis far too much.

Pregnancy mags and boards exist to scare people and sell stuff. They say they don’t, they claim to exist to “educate” people, but what they really do is tell you all the ways you’re going to screw up or kill your baby if you don’t buy this life-saving product right now!

And the thing is, they’re right. Sometimes, babies die. Sometimes, those deaths were preventable - if you had lots and lots of money, if you were completely up to date on every danger possible, if you were a complete neurotic parent. Until your baby dies of something creative that no one thought to make a fail-safe for. The thing is, most of these products are designed to make it easier to ignore your baby. Walkers with automatic edge-sensors that lock the wheels when your baby gets to the top of the stairs wouldn’t be needed if you just paid attention to your damn baby, now would they? pant, pant

Your cot? The two reasons that you’ll find people giving for not using a hand me down, chipped paint cot are: hand me downs were often made before the latest safety regulations re: slat spacing. Babies can stick their heads in between slats that are less than 2 3/8 inches apart and strangle themselves. Is this true? Yes. My sister-in-law died at 18 months in 1975 from this very thing. Is it common? No. Is it worth spending money you may need for groceries to buy a new cot? Maybe. IMHO, that’s something each parent needs to decide. The other reason is that the chipping paint (or even non-chipping paint, if you’re baby’s a gnawer) may contain lead. If the baby teethes on it, she could ingest lead, which is A Bad Thing[sup]TM[/sup]. New cots are not allowed to use lead-based paints, obviously.

Anyway, back to the topic. There’s good reason to believe that circumcision is very painful and traumatic to an infant and can cause sexual dysfunction later on in life. There’s also good reason to believe that circumcision reduces some sexually transmitted diseases, HPV and HIV in particular, as well as some cancers. Because there’s really good reasons on both sides of the debate, the debate continues.

And will continue, as long as humans remain bent on convincing others to agree with them.

12

As far as I understand it, the sticking point is that it is an unnecessary and irreversible surgical alteration, performed on an individual who cannot yet express consent. Of course there are other irreversible decisions that parents make for their children, but I’ve yet to find one that compares properly.

And of course it’s all about genitals, which makes it a touchy subject; I suspect there’s a tendency for cut males to feel threatened by suggestions that they may be impaired or missing out on something, as I suspect there’s a tendency for uncut males to feel a sort of visceral horror at the idea of losing that precious little flap of skin. Makes for an emotive debate in which objectivity is very very difficult to attain (although everyone will claim objectivity, naturally).

Being an emotive debate, people will go to great lengths to justify their point (in which they are considerably invested); pro-cut debaters will trawl up health and hygiene statistics, anti-cut debaters will search out horror stories about babies who suffered as a result of complications. Anti-cutters will scream “What right have you to mutilate your children?!?”, pro-cutters will wail “What right have you to tell me how to raise my kids!?!”. And so it goes on.

13

I’ve heard of arranged marriages, but…damn! :smiley:
As far as the fascination with circumcision in the thread (here) here) that the OP alluded, I think the answer is that the OP of that thread had a bizarre obsession with his penis that resulted in a borderline-incoherent Unibomber-style manifesto about the evils of circumcision, which quickly degenerated into a simple-minded troll once he figured out he could twist some tails.

What amused me is not that the OP (of that thread) was such a deliberate moron, but that so many people seemed dedicated to trying to educate him in the ways of debating methodology, statistical validation, and the difference between fact versus anecdote. His devotion to bullheaded ignorance was apperant from his first response, and yet people kept trying to correct him, like trying to teach a pig to sing. (Oh, and the guy who claimed he had his foreskin removed due to weight and the resulting back problems was a nice bit of deadpan humor, too.)

As far as general opinion on circumcision: I believe most males in the US are circumcised (though the practice seems to be falling out of favor) but I don’t think it’s really an issue for anyone except parents of newborns and the small minority of penis-obsessed posters who have clearly been snowed in for too long a stretch. I can’t say that I’ve ever seen it dicussed with anything like the detail and fevor of the previous thread. It struck me as amusing in a vaguely Python-esqe manner.

Oh, and I’m sorry you’re in deni…oh, never mind. :smiley:

Stranger

14

Yeah, I sort of struggled with how to phrase that, didn’t I? “The baby sister of my ex, who died long before I even met him” seemed too awkward. But now you made me say it anyway. Darn you! You’re obviously overcompensating for your lack of a foreskin! :smiley:

15

Well, I’m angry and in denial, but I’m hopeful than I can get over it and be happy with myself.

Stranger

16

I’m a roundhead, and to me it’s never been a big deal. There used to be some vague health reason for circumcision, but whether it was vaild or not is open for debate. As far as I can tell, I don’t think I ever missed anything as far as any sensations or functionality. It’s hard to miss what you (for all practical purposes) never had. It seems a pretty weird thing to be so hung up about.

17

You know, the rest of your post was excellent, but this came out of nowhere, and I believe that both of those statements are supported by no more than anecdotal ‘evidence’, usually presented by screaming anti-circ idiots. I haven’t seen any good, proven reasons to believe either one of those things.

18

You don’t disagree with this, I hope.

19

How about “pediatric orthodontia for cosmetic reasons”?

Way more painful and traumatic than circumcision on an infant, because you are old enough to remember it - the dreaded trips to the orthodontist. :frowning:

And the fact that, if your teeth are really crooked, you have to go again and again.

I ought to know, as I’ve had both done to me. My teeth were crooked enough to be unsightly, but not crooked enough to actually affect eating. Now, I’m happy my teeth are straight; but I sure wasn’t happy at the time - parents had to drag me to the orthodontist.

Why is everyone so upset about the surgical alteration by removing a tiny flap of skin from a newborn, which he won’t remember or care about - and yet no-one gives a shit about the years of torture orthodontists can put children through, without their consent, just to look pretty? :confused:

20

Hmm. Interesting to try to reply to both of these things in a thread where we’re asked by the OP not to debate circumcision, but to explain **why **it’s in debate. Let me think, here.

I have no opinion of the sexual dysfunction claim. Considering that people can suffer sexual disfunction over seeing a clown act in the circus, it’s certainly not up to me to tell them they’re wrong if they feel circumcision affected them negatively, whether physiologically or psychologically.

I **suspect **that circumcision is painful, knowing what I know of nerve endings and scalpels. I am female, so I can never know the pain level of circumcision first-hand, infant or otherwise. (Even if I could, I could only tell you the pain level of **my **circumcision. My labor and delivery wasn’t particularly painful, but that doesn’t mean I think other women are lying when they say labor and delivery hurts a whole lot.) I have a son who was circumcised at birth, and the tone of his crying and his reactions to being touched at or near his incision lead me to believe he was feeling pain, and quite a bit of it.

I do not, however, think that this is the end of the debate. Many things are painful, including many things we do to infants. Silver nitrate drops in the eyes burn terribly (I’ve had them as an adult, I know that for sure), early immunizations sting upon injection. We make our choices as parents not only to avoid pain in our infants, but also for valid medical reasons. Sometimes, medical neccesity trumps avoidance of pain.

Do I think that this is the case in infant circumcision? I am not willing to answer this question in this thread. I have carefully stayed away from posting what I think in circumcision debate threads because I simply haven’t decided for myself.

I will state that I don’t think my own personal decision for my own children has anything at all to do with what you decide for your own children, or your own penis. This, like so many other difficult decisions in parenthood, is not something I’m comfortable mandating for others.
Just a note: if this thread evolves into another debate, I will probably continue to read, but I have no interest in taking and defending a particular stance. I was and am more interested in the OP’s question about WHY there’s a debate at all.