I knew a guy who had it chopped at 18, for medical reasons.
The nurses fed him huge orange pills to prevent him getting excited
Personally I reckon that it is not a bad idea, I find smegma rather distasteful, my own of course - but I also reckon that females should be Brazilianed from birth, one hair can hurt a lot more than one grain of sand.
I would.
I’m 24, uncut, and straight. If it became known that there were significant medical benefits to being circumsized, I would get circumsized as a preventative measure. If I end up marrying a woman who would strongly prefer if I were cut, I’d get circumsized.
I’m glad that my parents didn’t have me circumsized when I was an infant. After all, it’s my body, and it should be my decision. I don’t see any non-religious reason* to routinely circumsize infants, as virtually all factors in favor of getting circumsized (especially the look/feels/tastes better argument) only apply to adults or adolescents, who are old enough to make that decision for themselves.
*I don’t approve any tradition mandating that infant boys be circumsized for religious reasons, but I tolerate them.
I was soliciting peoples’ views as to why circumcision is so widely-practiced in this society despite what seems to me its evident barbarism. The highly opinionated nature of my OP was destined to lead to debate and accusations of bigotry on my part, of course. But my main intention was to get insights into something that is so perplexing to me.
I think this is a key distinction (nicely worded to boot). I’ve received a lot of heat in this thread about butting into other peoples’ business. But I think it’s my prerogative to voice my approval or diapproval of someone’s choices, especially when they affect other people. It’s entirely different from being intolerant – something that is sometimes necessary (e.g., practitioners of ‘female circumcision’) but is very different than just stating my opinion.
Of course, there’s the question of when voicing my opinion becomes obnoxious…believe it or not I generally keep my views to myself. But circumcision exceeds my threshold for griping at someone, especially when they try to justify it with a (in my view) bogus claim of respecting religious tradition.
My opinion is that since it’s not a medical necessity, it’s a decision that should be left up to the one whose penis it is. I don’t think it’s right to cut off part of another person’s body without asking that person’s opinion unless it’s a matter of life or death.
This is a poor argument from beginning to end. It doesn’t become acceptable to maim another person because it’s popular to do it. Lots of things that are wrong used to be popular, and a lot of those things were harder to change than eliminating routine infant circumcision. If people stopped doing what there is no medical need for, all the boys would look the same in the shower. It’d take one generation for the ‘mine doesn’t look like dad’s.’ to go away.
Why should it be? It’s not your penis.
I don’t think that’s right either.
I think it’s just a case of poisoning the well in case someone like me showed up.
Why their decision and not the decision of the guy whose penis it is? If there’s no immediate medical need for it, why not leave it up to the owner of the penis?
The horror stories from circumcision include losing the penis entirely, and death. I don’t think anybody lost his penis in the first week of his life by not being circumcised.
I like the uncut variety a hell of a lot more. They’re really difficult to find in the US, because most parents have mutilated their kid.
Wouldn’t using condoms and sleeping around indiscriminately be better than not having a foreskin?
One of the given reasons was to prevent boys from masturbating.
I’m really surprised that it’s considered acceptable at all to cut off part of a boy’s body just because he’s too young to object.
You claim that you want the opinions of others, but you wish to retain the right to debate with those who disagree with you?
I am moving this circumcision debate from IMHO to Great Debates.
Yep. I’ve never been with a circumcised man. I’ve never even seen a circumcised penis. But it looks fine to me in its original form!
Well it seems that there are really two questions that you’ve asked: the general one of why it is so widely practiced in America; and the specific one of why your freind is opting for it out of a religious edict when she herself is so secular.
The first is merely out of a belief widely held around WW1 that circumcision would reduce the risk of veneral diseases to the extent that the military brass forced circumcision on the troops.
As that cite explains, insurance and OB/Gyne embrace of a compensated brief procedure no doubt also played a major role in making circumcision the default option in America. Inertia took it the rest of the way.
Now the specific of your friend is a whole different matter. I can tell you as a Jew that only a very few Jews, no matter how secular they are and no matter that the role of their cultural identity is small to themselves, would be willing to make a decision that would mark their child as other, as not of the culture, few would be that willing to make the decision of rejecting the heritage of their families on behalf of their child. The fact is that she married a man who is Jewish and that both of them self-identify as Jews shows that her cultural/religious identity/heritage is not something that she so firmly rejects as to be among those few.
Hope that helps.
BTW, when asked (I am a pediatrician) I tell parents to be that it is a procedure to be done for sociocultural reasons only and that if was not for religious reasons my boys would not have been circ’ed. (We had them done at home.) The medical arguments for circ are unimpressive. Kids are not made fun of based on circ status if only because then another boy would have to admit that they were looking at another boy’s penis. No special initial care is needed. No gunk to clean. After five teach to wash behind the foreskin just like you teach to wash behind the ears. Just do not think that you can always decide to do it later. It is a bigger deal to do later.
Elaine: It had no face, no personality.
It was also considered acceptable in extreme cases to castrate boys to stop them from masturbating. We don’t do that anymore.
There is such a thing as a foreskin fetish just like there is such a thing as a circumcision fetish. How can it be right for parents to permanently alter their child’s body for the sake of their own sexual fetishes?
I’m not saying that Type 3 female genital mutilation is equivalent to male circumcision. Type 1 FMG is.
Did anybody her who had their son circumcised consider that he might become upset or anrgy at them for it when he gets older? What do you plan on telling him if he conronts you? I understant that the most men cut as badies don’t view themselves as damaged or mutilated, but some do. I do. For as long as circumcision’s been practicted there’s been men who’ve felt the same way for one reason or another. A perfectly health part of my body was cut off me without anybody bothering to ask me what I though about it. Everytime I urinate, shower, have sex, etc there’s a permanent reminder that somelse once had complete control over my body and showed a complete disregard for my feelings about it.
One thing I’ve become aware of after reading these debates online is that boys in the US seem to look at each other penises an awful lot :dubious: 
Not as much as in the olden days. Nude swim classes are a thing of the past and communal showers are headed the same way.
Does such a creature exist at all?
Wait, are you actually saying that parents base their decision on whether or not to circumcise their son based on whether they find it arousing? 'Cause that’s all kinds of messed up. I doubt that anything like that occurs in virtually any cases; I don’t have a cite for that, but somehow I doubt you have a cite for what you said either.
No offense intended here, but as a parent I’d conclude that a hypothetical child of mine who grew up to think that way had problems that had little to do with my wife’s and my good faith decision to have him circumcised. I would conclude that there was anger at other issues about how we raised him or that he had some kind of psychiatric condition. Either way the circ issue would be a minor problem in comparison. In the case of the op’s freind, as Jewish parents I’d be worried what resentment he’d have to me for unilaterally making the decision to mark him as “other” if he did decide later on that being Jewish meant something to him, and most, even secular Jews, have some sense of wanting that identification to mean something to their children, even if they cannot well articulate what that desire is or why they have it.
But they never admit it! 
Actually what I’ve seen, and this is off-topic a little, is a lot of boys from early teen on, shaving their pubic areas. This includes boys who I am quite confident are not yet sexually active (as much as they wish they were). I think they are concerned with how they look and believe that shaved both makes them look bigger and convinces other boys that they must be sexually active without actually claiming to be so.
Any younger posters with information about this fad?
No, I was pointing out that while sexual lust for an intact can be considered a fetish so can lust for a cut penis. And yes it’s not unheard of for women for circumcise their sons because she doesn’t like the way an intact penis looks.
No to male circumcision.
No to female circumcision.
No to infantile piercing or any other cosmetic surgical procedure.
The only downside to being uncut is absent-mindedly going for a piss while it’s all wrapped up like a Hershey’s Kiss. The unfurling of your foreskin by the amber stream can cause a fountain display that rivals the Bellagio.
There’s nothing abnormal about being angry that someone chopped off a perfectly healthy bodypart without bothering to ask you. There’s nothing abnormal about wanting it back. I do not have a “psychiatric condition” condition. And the fact that my parents saw fit to cut off part of my dick without asking just 'cause my father had it done is my only major issue with how they raised me. Why is it that when complains that his parents didn’t circumcise him it’s suggest he go to a urologist, but when a guy complains that his parents did circumcise him it’s suggest he go to a psychiatrist?
If so, I’m not one of them. I prefer 'em as nature made 'em.
And yet several women here have said they would cut their sons because they like the way cut penises look.
What else would you call it when a woman says ‘I’d have my son’s cut because I like the cut ones better.’?
Firstly, I resent like hell that I was baptized. Secondly, I know a guy who was raised Jewish and hates his parents for having his penis cut. He believes that what they did to him was wrong because he had no chance to say anything about it. I agree with him. Last, I still think any religious practice that inflicts irreparable physical change to another, unconsenting person’s body should be illegal. I"ve been called an anti-semite for that, and I don’t give a damn. I don’t much care if the reason is religious, you still shouldn’t be allowed to do it to someone else without their consent.