The Circumcision Discussion

I don't go around asking random strangers about it, but I have met several men who wished they had been allowed to make the choice for themselves rather than have the choice taken from them as newborns. (I work in OB, so this kind of stuff often comes up in conversation....and I work with a male secretary who is quite vocal about this.)

I think it comes down (in many cases, at least) to what someone is used to. If you've never had a foreskin that you remember, you might not know nor care about what you're missing....and if you've got one, you might or might not feel strongly about it being removed.

There are a lot of men who wish they were never circ'd. They go through great measures to attempt to restore their foreskin.

And men who are uncircumicized are usually horrified at the very idea and say they can't imagine what it would be like... I think I'm more impressed by what they say, then the circumcised. They have no idea what it's like to have a foreskin.

There are plenty of folks in the deaf community who also think hearing isn't such a big deal because they get around fine and lead full lives, and women who have been circumcised who also think it isn't such a big deal. All the same, I'll keep my cochleas and my clitoris.

I had to come back to this Elvish - today we hiked at a park with a waterfall and my husband and 2 sons had to pee while we were hiking . . they walked off the trail a bit and pee'd together.

My son's girlfriend and I were jealous . .. . it is a bit harder for us and the path was icy and snowy - hard to squat.

Regardless of circ'd or not - boys are lucky when it comes to peeing.

steph

I swear sometimes my son looks for excuses - like he'll wait til someone's in the bathroom so he can run outside just to pee. Doesn't matter that it's freezing outside. Oh yeah, and since we don't get much snow around here, when it finally did snow (Inauguration day, actually), it was the greatest thing for him to pee in the snow. We're not at the writing-your-name stage yet.....

Ok, back to the regularly scheduled thread.

As a man, I have to say, thank goodness mom had this done as a baby. Makes life so much easier. Got enough worries in life, I sure dont want to have to worry about the increased chance of penile cancer or having to worry about "exra hygiene" measures, or getting it done when I am old enough to remember, ouch!! Cant speak for anyone else, or give advice on the subject, but if your reading, again, "Thanx mom".

You could be one of my two adult sons.

When I tell them of the arguments between their dad and myself - they are glad dad won and say I'm a woman and should have no say in the matter.

Of course I realize this is mostly because they would stand out and be ridiculed since most boys are circ'd in this part of the country. There was only one boy at their school - that they know of anyway - who was not circ'd and he got teased a lot.

This is not a reason to circ though - and I'm against it. Just wanted to comment on your post - since you sound like my kids. (and both my ex-husband and my husband now).

steph

Your risk of getting penile cancer was extremely low to begin with.
And really, the 'extra hygiene' takes about 2 seconds per day. Not a huge deal.
Neither my 36yo husband (nor any of his brothers), nor my 4yo son have any issues w/ their intact penises.
My 4yo has been washing his own penis since he was about 2 1/2.
I'm glad you're happy the way you are.

Here are a few quotes from Firstyearstudent's post, about which I'd like to comment:
1.".....people who think circ with anesthetic is a-okay but think circ without is an evil. The baby will get over the pain and probably even any trauma caused by the experience.

2."The circumcision, however, is permanent. If I had to make a theoretical choice to have my son undergo the pain of a unanesthtetized circumcision and get to magically keep his foreskin, or have his foreskin magically disappear without any pain or even his knowledge, I'd pick the former!"

3.".....if I was a man, I don't think I would have wanted my parents to circumcise me. I'd rather make up my own mind about it based on facts and my own....."

4.".......think I would have wanted my parents to circumcise me. I'd rather make up my own mind about it based on facts and my own preferences, not theirs. Circ can be performed at any time in a person's life........"

5.".....men seem to enjoy sex as much as uncircumcized men, I suppose...."

4."........removing it can be painless and provide a small medical benefit or a cultural benefit, so why not do it on a baby......"
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I want to preface my comments with the wish that no one take the viewpoint that I'm diss'g the poster. It's the view/opinion that irks me (not to a considerably angry amount). Also, it seems to me that student nurses need to look at how they arrive at their opinions and whether that is an accurate way to look at reasons for their decisions.

In #1 quote, it is assumed that those in favor of circs explain that by thinking that pain is fleeting, memory of trauma can be lost, and anaesthesia makes anything a-okay. WOW! The saying that one should "walk a mile in {another's} shoes......" to know what they think/experience, and parental decisions/options are colored by the presence of pain. If that was true, splinters and or ticks might stay under kids' skin forever, rather than being pulled out, and they'd "never forgive" their parents for deciding to have anything done for them that caused pain or didn't (would that mean that bulging kiddie eardrums would be left alone, to burst - usually in the middle of the night?) I am in favor of using EMLA patches an hour before blood draws on children!

#2. I hope you meant the "latter". Incidently a pathologist once gifted me with a foreskin enclosed in acrylic (no idea whose it was), like a coin, when he found out that I'm Jewish (sigh/sob). That would be one way of keeping it as a momento.

#3 &4. It really is impossible to "second" guess anyone else's feelings/opinion correctly. That is why it's so important that we, as nurses never give our own sense of what we'd feel if we were in their situation. We're not, and it interferes with another person's ability to process their own experience, if we do that! Their experience is theirs, not ours and we can't ethically make a guess that could divert them from their own feelings.

#5. A middle aged man I knew (yes, carnally) who was uncircumcised let me know that he was sure that his arousal was quicker and sensation much more heightened than those men who'd been circ'd could possibly have. Interestingly, circ'd guys have never said anything about having less sensation than anyone else. Again, "walking in someone else's shoes" is inherently impossible. I sure didn't notice anything very different about my reaction or theirs, to the sex.

#5. If medical decisions are made on a "why not" basis, there is a strong possibility that they're wrong. The exception may be when appendectomy is done with other unrelated surgery, or my personal bias regarding prophylactic mastectomies and oophorectomies. Luckily I don't make or counsel anyone to have those. I do have to "bite my tongue", when attending a patient recovering from a mastectomy, about my opinion that prophylactic mastectmy of the other breast and bilat. oophorectomies are more curative. I made the latter decision after mine, and feel much safer - but at the time I had the surgeries (1978 & 1986), lumpectomies with radiation and or chemo wasn't an option.

Again, the above comments are being made in the spirit of sharing based on evidence, experience, and a keen desire to teach.

Just a quick quote (from pediatricians) about retracting foreskins to cleanse the accumulated smegma from under them. NOT for 2 1/2 year olds! I recall that 8-10 years of age is when physical trauma isn't an issue when retracting the foreskin (yet another issue in the argument for circs).