[QUOTE=sunacres]
And males, the same question. What (do you imagine) determines your medical directives?
[/QUOTE]
My eldest son is circumcised. At the time I was unaware of my unusual circumcision. It wasn’t until after he was circumcised that I discovered a “real” circumcision removes a lot more foreskin than I had removed when I was an infant. I watched his and was shocked when the midwife cut off more than just the tip. I asked her why she did that and she said “that’s a circumcision.”
Second son, not circumcised. I still think the “half cut” may be a good approach, facilitating both cleanliness and sensitivity/glans protection, but I don’t see the appeal of the full cut.
Further investigation with my mom revealed that of her three sons, the first was a full circ, the second was a half circ, and the third had no circ. She said she planned to have all three circumcised, but they botched mine and she didn’t want to put my brother through that.
Biblically, circumcisions are supposed to be performed on the eighth day after birth. I was raised as a fundamental Christian. We kept kosher and the Biblical holidays, pretty much Messianic Jewish. My father, who was wrong about a lot of things, said this was because “babies don’t bleed on the eighth day.” They had my elder brother’s performed on the eighth day and his went fine(he was born in a hospital). By the time they had me they had changed over to having homebirths. They called a Dr to have my circ appointment set for the 8th day, and he wasn’t open until the 9th day. They shrugged and said “God will understand.” So on the 9th day they took me in, and it seemed the Dr had either never done one or not enough.
TMI WarningAccording to my mother the implements were dull, rusty, and disused(this is almost certainly an exaggeration, even in the stone age of my birth they didn’t let Dr’s have dull, rusty scalpels). So the Dr attached the clamp which holds the foreskin away from the glans and started cutting. The clamp was supposed to restrict the bleeding, but it seems he hadn’t applied it correctly because I started bleeding like mad. He tried to open the clamp and re-adjust it and blood spurted. He couldn’t get the clamp re-attached correctly, mom says this was because it was rusty and malfunctioning, and I was screaming and covered with blood. So the Dr was hacking and chopping while I was screaming and bleeding like mad. Mom was so furious at the Dr’s ineptitude, conditions of his implements, and my obvious discomfort that she made him stop less than halfway through and “took her baby away from that butcher.” Thanks mom. I didn’t have ANY self esteem issues with my penis after hearing that story.
Enjoy,
Steven
