I read a lot of blogs that really touches me like this one for example, and they inspire me to write these long and awesome posts about things like the perfectness of W's wrists or the way his hair falls. But I also read a lot about other things like circumcision or natural birth advocates and the whole breast vs. formula debate, which inspires me to write about these issues. Unfortunately it turns out I am not only inspired but also lazy so all these posts I write in my head tend to stay in my head and never see the light of day.
In order to better myself and be less lazy and more motivated and proactive I have now decided to do at least one proper post a week, every Friday about something inspiring with the appropriate links to the person who inspired me of course.
Today's topic will be circumcision.
I read a few days or weeks ago (who keeps track of time anyway) about this doctor in the USA who is specialized in circumcisions and who has taken it as his personal quest to ensure that all little boys in the US gets circumcised. He points to all these benefits of circumcision as better hygiene, reduced risk of STD:s, reduced risk of penile cancer and so on and so forth. I have read about these benefits before and maybe it's true but I think that the marginal difference it makes is redundant in comparison to the fact that you are in fact surgically removing a fully functional piece of your son's body. (Now you know where I stand) I understand the benefits of circumcision if you live somewhere where there is no access to condoms or clean water to clean yourself, but on the other hand if you have no clean water to clean yourself with then you probably won't have any better hygiene down there than an uncut fella.
Circumcision is still somewhat the norm for little boys in the US which is strange since it's the only place in the world who uses the procedure for non-religious reasons. In Europe where I'm from the norm is the opposite, and in all honesty I don't think that European men are stinky, disease ridden people just because they still possess their foreskin.
When my son was born we did not even have a conversation about it because it was never an option for us. I think my reasons and opinions are stronger and more emotional than J's but he never considered it either. For me the thought of cutting a piece of my newborns penis off just seemed barbaric. And besides who am I to chose for him weather he keeps his foreskin or not. At least like this he can chose to cut if off himself in the future, the other way around is way harder.
I watched this thing on TLC a while back about a boy who was turned into a girl after a doctor botched his circumcision and subsequently burned most of his penis off. It didn't turn out great and he eventually reassigned himself back into a boy and later in 2004 killed himself. Watching that reinforced my belief that we should not cut fully functional pieces off our bodies because you just never know if there are going to be complications. The fact that circumcision for the longest time took place without any anaesthetic, mind you that still happens today, is just scary. Did you know that before the 1970's surgery was performed on infants without anaesthetic because it was believed that they could feel no pain. Crazy!
Well that's all for me on this subject, feel free to post your own beliefs on the subject.
Friday, May 22, 2009
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4 comments:
Did you know that before the 1970's surgery was performed on infants without anaesthetic because it was believed that they could feel no pain. Crazy!It was only in 1971 or 1972 when the AAP called for using local anesthesia.
Nevertheless, it's only been in the early 2000s that doctors actually started using it on these poor new borns. In fact, ritutal circumcisions as performed by Jews still don't and I imagine that many doctors still don't (especially given that mohels can often be circumcising doctors).
If you are an American male and were born anytime before the 2000, it's very likely you endured excruciating torture as an infant---and there is evidence that it may cause psychological trauma (read: a kind of brain damage) on top of the physical trauma
I live in the US and I didn't circumcise my son. This was before all of the HIV research came out. Now they say being circumcised reduces the HIV risk. Would I circumcise now knowing all of that? No, probably not. Because I know first hand that circumcised men still get HIV and like you said, a condom is needed to prevent std/disease. I never bought the hygiene issue. I've been with a few uncut men and they didn't have bad odors. So since I'm not Jewish, I don't think circumcision is a good idea. I actually think it's a human rights violation. I mean, can you imagine our government ever allowing a parent to cut off an arm or leg in the name of hygiene? To me, that would be absurd, so why let them cut off other healthy body parts?
But here in the US this issue is really controversial. Many people still circumcise and feel good about their decision. I suspect you'll get parents who will weigh in on both sides of this topic. Thanks for letting me share my opinion.
Most of the US men who have died of AIDS were circumcised at birth. In fact, the mostly-cut US has three times the AIDS rate that mostly-intact Europe has. So toss out STDs.
Pain is forgtotten it's true, but early pain experiences have been proven to correlate with lower pain tolerance later (they double-blind studied kids getting their school vaccines). IF my kid NEEDED something painful, I'd have to let it happen, but no national medical association endorses routine circumcision, so forget about pain.
The reason to oppose circumcision is that foreskin feels REALLY good. The foreskin includes about half a male's specialized pleasure-receptive nerve endings (20,000 of them) and grows to be about 15 square inches of sexual interface in the adult.
The normal slack skin also gives a frictionless rolling/gliding lubricating action for a man's partner and with each withdrawal the doubled-sleeve of skin makes him girthier by 4 skin thicknesses.
HOW DARE WE impose cosmetic penis reduction on infants? Both infant and adult circs heal in about 2 weeks. The only reason they say adult circs are more complicated to do is because they're done properly. No adult would stand for the sloppy infant procedure, and adults can tolerate better pain blockers and manage their own pain during recovery (and not in a soiled diaper).
Only about 2 out of 1000 intact adult men choose to be circumcised. Let them make that informed decision. Protect infants - pass a law.
HIS body, HIS decision.
Thank you very much for sharing your opinions and information with me!
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