Anyone else really actively oppose circumcision?

Hop I understand that you want your child to be able to make their own decisions but as a parent it is YOUR job to make the best decisions for them until they are old enough to make their own educated choices. You have to raise a child. You can't just have a child and let it do what it wants, when it wants. You have to do what is best.

If it is your choice to not circumcise your child then that is still YOUR choice. Your infant can't look up at you and say yes or no. Like someone else said, if for some reason your child would need to have surgery to fix something or save their life would you ask them if they wanted to do it? That would be cutting and "mutilating" them. No, if someone says "Your child needs to have this procedure done to save their life" you would do it.

I understand circumcision isn't life threatening but the fact is if it were just circumcision or a life saving surgery the child would still need to be cut. You just have to do what you think is best for your child. If you don't want to circumcise then by all means, don't do it. I'm just saying there will be times in a childs life that you will have to make a decision for them that will be hard but you can't leave it up to the child.

 

not all doctors use anesthesia and its been shown that even with anesthesia it doesn't completely block out the baby's pain.

You can watch videos on youtube if you don't believe it causes pain for the baby.

I don't really care what other people decide to do. I just think its pointless and archaic. I'm really happy with my decision.

As a side note, my boyfriend has a horrible circumcision scar. Not all doctors perform the circumcision perfectly.

 

You can tell, definitively, that they are in pain? How is this measured? Is it simply because they are crying? I have known people who said their newborn went through the procedure without making a sound.

Listen, I am not coming down on your decision at all. I think you made a perfectly valid one. All I am saying is that some people here are using evidence that is either impossible, or damn near, to measure.

 

I watched son #1 get circumcised. It was horrible and yes he cried and not because he wanted his binky. it was too traumatic to repeat, so we didn't do so on son # 2. Oddly enough, when he was 12, he decided on his own to have himself circumcised, I suppose because all his friends and his brother had been. So we allowed him to do so.

I'm glad I was circumcised---pulling a bunch of skin back with the attendant cleaning necessity is something I'm glad not to have to deal with.

 

Well, it seems the numbers are a bit closer to leveling out now, although I understand that the negative nature of the thread will attract more opposed people than supportive.

To be honest, I think the sheer fact that a significant number of men oppose it and that I can imagine a significant number of men believe they would be happier without being circumcised (I am very, very happy my parents did not do it to me) is reason enough not to force it on people, as well as the other reasons we have gone over.

An 18 year old can choose to have his penis circumcised, but he cannot choose to have it UN-circumcised, and for me the whole debate is over with points like that - it's just not fair to force a change of someone's body like that, particularly when it concerns sexual organs. I'm fairly sure the women here supporting circumcision might think differently if it involved cutting off parts of the vagina (I'm aware that there is such thing as female circumcision but from what I hear it is worse). However, imagine if someone said to a women "we're going to cut off the lips of your vagina. You have to say in this, but it won't impact your enjoyment of sex". Is that reasonable?

Now, I don't use the term "no-brainer" much... lol

Anyway erm, I mean there isn't much I can really say now that hasn't been said, but I'm just glad I'm not alone in my POV on this

 

*cue the restretchers to come and post about restorative tools*

 

Only if you come at me with a knife!

 

I am glad my parents made the decision to have it done to me when I was born! Thanks Mom and Dad. If it hurt I sure as hell can not remember. I have no problem with loss of feeling on my penis when it comes to sex. My lady is happy that I had it done and loves the way it looks and feels without the foreskin. In fact she pretty much told me she would not go down on me if I wasn't circumsized. That is her choice and preference so no need to crap on her for it. If my kids were boys I would have been that cruel parent that had it done to them, but I had girls so I didn`t need to. To each their own really, but I don`t know anyone that is tramatized by it and it was pretty common practice here when I was born so there are no shortage of cut guys that could complain about it I know.

 

I disagree with circumcision. I have known many male friends who were pissed off about the fact that they were circumcised. If I ever have a son he will not be circumcised, it just doesn't make any sense.

I also have not pierced my daughters' ears. They can decide when they are teenagers or so if they want to have them pierced. That is what I would say for a son too if I had one. When he's 12 or so he has the decision to make.

I had my ears pierced when I was born and wish I hadn't. I had my second set of ear piercings when I was 12 and it was my choice, but now I never wear earrings and my ears have not really ever healed completely. I find it to be very annoying and they irritate me at times. I was also forced to always wear earrings so that my holes wouldn't close and that really turned me off of jewelry altogether.

 

Yeah it's all bad. I also am not sure if it's right to allow a child to make these decisions at 12. I mean, I know 18 isn't some magical age... but I mean, surely a 12 year old can't make a decision about circumcision!!! That's a really big decision! I wouldn't feel comfortable even letting some 18 year olds make it, but of course I would as that's definitely old enough to let them if they want to.

Anyway erm, that's very interesting that you say you know males you are annoyed that they were circumcised! I would say that's good in that it goes one step further towards proving what we've all been saying on the against circumcision side, but on the flip side it's unfortunate that they are distressed/unhappy about it - I wouldn't wish that on anyone. I don't know how it feels so I can't say how bad it feels, but I would feel pretty robbed if someone did it to me

Different men do react differently, but I think even if only a small percentage disagree with the fact it was done to them (which evidently they do) then it's clearly wrong.

 

Yeah...sitting in a room of guys, (yes they were high but it wasn't the first time or last time they had the conversation) discussing their frustration with not having that choice was life-changing for me. I know some of these guys had issues that they thought may have had something to do with the fact of being circumcised but even those who maybe didn't know for sure just felt like they would never know and felt it was unfair to not have that choice.

As for being 12, I think in the U.S. that is the age where children are supposed to have consent of their own medical decisions.

Just wanna add: It's not like I'd sit him down and say hey son would you like to be circumcised now...but if he brought it up, I can see how it would be difficult to tell him he can't make that decision quite yet. I'd definitely arm him with a lot of information and if it's a self-esteem issue I would definitely want to address that. 12 really does seem young to want to do that, but it happens.

 

Most adults who have it done do not do so because they wish to, they have to because of medical issues. If you have ever spoken to someone who was an adult who had to be circumcised they were not impressed and wished they had of been done as a child/infant.

In the case of an infant, it is a decision that a family makes and that is where it should stay. If a gown man has an issue that they were circumcised as an infant I would think they have bigger emotional issues than they are admitting to. You can not miss what you do not recollect ever having and you can not compare sensations without having had both.

The adult I knew who had to be circumcised stated bluntly that he found no difference and that he did not miss having his foreskin intact.

It is a personal decision. I am not for or against it.

 

I'm very much against it! I've gone with out it for 68+ years and I damn sure don't need it now!

 

Yeah erm, if I had a 12 year old son and he wanted to be circumcised... I'd probably just be like "Ahahaha... ha... no. Not for a few years little man." xD

Personally, as a guy myself I know for a FACT I wouldn't have had a CLUE about that decision at 12! I barely knew at 18 lol

But... it's light years better than doing it while they're still a baby

Yeah it's interesting to hear about those guys. I have never spoken to someone that felt like that, it just felt clearly wrong to me. Plus I speak to anti-misandrists from time-to-time, so I hear the other side of this frequently and they believe it to be genital mutilation... they're pretty damn p*ssed about it too haha

The thing is as well... the human body is incredible. We have evolved over billions of years and the Homo genus alone is millions of years old. To think that we can improve on all of that evolutionary timespan of honing of the human form with one little snip is just... so stupid to me I can't understand how anyone ever thinks it's true. I think it's very arrogant.

No surprise that religions are the ones that push for it most of all

 

Well, one could say it's interesting that none of them wished for circumcision before they were pushed to do it for medical reasons.

It is true that you can get infections and problems under the foreskin (I myself have had an issue I've had to use castor oil on, some form of infection but it's clearing up very quickly). Thing is though, women get these infections as well, more frequently than men and to a greater extent inside the vagina.

I really don't think the risk of infection under the foreskin alone is enough to make circumcision a good practice. It really isn't hard to clear them up and if you take care of yourself down there you probably won't get them. It's part of being male, just like vaginal infections are part of being female.

 

If you remove foreskins how many are left?

 

Interestingly I was not circumcised at birth as was the custom of the US Naval hospitals of the time due to medical issues and have never suffered because of it.

 

It was not due to infections. More often than not circumcision in adults is done due to the penis becoming erect and the foreskin being lodged (stuck) and the erection will not even with medical intervention allow the foreskin to return to the natural position. It is usually emergency surgery.

Infections are uncomfortable, a stuck foreskin is far more than uncomfortable.

 

how odd... I've never heard of that before.

I mean hey like, lots of things can go wrong. You can have testicular torsion but they're not going to be fiddling with my balls snipping things off to make sure that doesn't ever happen haha

 

Perhaps more research is a good thing.