Advice Needed: Circumcised vs Uncircumcised

BOO!

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From the AAP: The only thing your son gets is a topical local! WTF that is horrible! I had no idea!Then to top that off I ran across a quote from a lactation consultant: Normally a random quote like this wouldn't register as much for me but a friend of mine recently had a son and had him circumcised. He would not eat after that and they could do nothing to keep him awake. They almost had to put the poor kid on a tube until a few days later and essentially having to force feed him he picked it back up. Althought it turned out alright the unfortunate consequence was that they essentially had to abandon breastfeeding which is very important to my wife and I.I think I have made up my mind and have the right kind of knowledge to make a firm case for NOT circumcising. For a moment there I was actually kind of pissed off at my parents but why worry about things you cannot change and that really don't matter for me.

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No smoking signs by gas stations. No religion in the public square. The government should keep us from being engulfed in flames on earth, and that is pretty much it. -- Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

I know. I'm just saying, it's an indicator of sexism in our society that a woman can just freely toss off a statement like that; a statement that is roughly equivalent to a man approving of female "circumcision" because he thinks vaginas look better without the clitoris, and the sensation of intercourse is improved because of the sutures they put in.I'm sure your girlfriend doesn't approve of child abuse. But the fact that the process is most commonly associated with infant genital mutiliation, and not as a voluntary cosmetic change done by adults, should give anyone pause before they casually assert how cosmetically pleasing it is.It's like approving of the asthetic qualities of land-mine victims; "I like 'em without legs cuz I can roll 'em all around." It's ghoulish, when you get right down to it; I don't blame your girlfriend or you because it's what we're culturally accustomed to. I'm very much accustomed to my own modified - I can't even bring myself to say "mutilated", which would be more accurate, really - penis, after all, and wouldn't want to be magically "restored". But I know that if I had not been circumcised, I would prefer it that way, too. Yeah. Not specifically directed at you. None of it really was, actually; more like I was using your post as a springboard to comment more generally on how society views the genital mutilation of infant men - that is to say, as no big deal at all.Shouldn't it be a bigger deal, though?

Again, I want to point out that this is not an argument for circumcision, just a correction on overstatements made about uncircumcized cleanliness issues.Yes, for most people it should just be a routine matter of cleaning. I was only talking about a small proportion that have issues of not being able to pull back the foreskin. However the point was that it does happen and so some can develop issues, even if it is just aesthetic and discomfort not majorly health effecting.I have no idea why they occur, but its hard for me to believe it is simply from lack of pulling it back while growing up, and certainly not because cut parents didn't know what to teach their kid. Me and my gf have run into these types here in the netherlands where uncut is normal and not in the US.In any case it is such instances where surgery is sometimes mandated, or just desired for personal satisfaction. That's why one cannot make patent statements that there is no REAL issues that uncircumcized guys face and that foreskins can simply be pulled back.The routine cleanliness issue is different than sweat under arms and breasts, the skin area is different and has different bacteria buildup.Is there a reason we can't admit that there is actually a difference?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

IF that. i'm fairly certain that by and large it is done without any anesthetic at all.and yes, it is quite a traumatic experience. they do go into shock. it's not quite the same as seeing it on video, but here are some extremely graphic photos of a circumcision.

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I can't view pictures until I get home but I only need to imagine. I mean here your baby is in its first day of life and the first thing we do is put it through what amounts to an amputation without any pain meds! I mean geesh do people think that babies are not people yet or that they don't get their pain nerves in until later or something. I am just shocked that so many parents let their children undergo this especially being able to feel the whole thing. How utterly horrifying.

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No smoking signs by gas stations. No religion in the public square. The government should keep us from being engulfed in flames on earth, and that is pretty much it. -- Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

a chance of a difference. something can always go wrong, with whatever you're given, or whatever medical procedure you go through. there's just as good of a chance (if not better) that there will be medical complications from the circumcision, too. well, that wasn't what i was trying to say. the foreskin should separate naturally from the base of the glans at puberty. if it does not, or something is abnormal, see a doctor. note the word "abnormal." but these things sometimes happen. and usually still very easy to clean.

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the common perception is that they don't remember it. do you remember before your 3rd birthday? i don't. but that doesn't really make it ok, either.slightly less common is the idea that they don't feel it. many mistake shock for sleep. i'm not sure how people can even think that.

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quote:

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strapping a baby down and cutting their genitals in my book is child abuse.

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If it's for the purpose of involving a child in a loving culture and tradition, I'm all for it.

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What if the baby is a girl and the procedure is to cut off her clitoris and sew up her vaginal opening?Or what about footbinding?The people who perform FGM and footbinding are "involving a child in a culture and tradition" that they believe is "loving", I am sure.

quoted from wiki the citation is here.HTTP 429
A stressful, painful event such as circumcision affects feeding patterns. Infants feed less frequently and are less available for interaction after circumcision. Observed deterioration of breastfeeding after circumcision may potentially contribute to breast-feeding failure and changes in mother-infant interaction.”Howard CR, Howard FM, Weitzman ML. Acetominophen Analgesia in Neonatal Circumcision: The Effect on Pain. Pediatrics, 1994; 93:641-646. [Full text]”Dixon S. Snyder J. Holve R. Bromberger P. Behavioral effects of circumcision with and without anesthesia. J Dev Behav Peds 1984; 5: 246-250. [Full Text]”Marshall RE, Porter FL, Rogers AG, et al. Circumcision: II effects upon mother-infant interaction. Early Hum Dev 1982; 7:367-374 [Full text]and the pain vaccination stuff. Effect of Neonatal Circumcision on Pain Responses During Vaccination in BoysUsing data from one of our randomised trials, we investigated post-hoc whether male neonatal circumcision is associated with a greater pain response to routine vaccination at 4 or 6 months. Pain response during routine vaccination with diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus (DPT) alone or DPT followed by Haemophilus influenzae type b conjugate was scored blind. 42 boys received DPT and 18 also received HIB. After DPT, median visual analogue scores by an observer were higher in the circumcised group (40) vs 26 mm, p=0.02) After HIB, circumcised infants had higher behavior pain scores. (8 vs 6, p=0.01) and cried longer 53 vs 19 s, p=0.020. Thus neonatal circumcision may affect pain response several months after the event.increased pain response is a symptom of memory.

yes, well, it's obviously wrong. i was just explaining that people seem to associate the gap in long-term memory with the infant brain "not counting."{devil's advocate argument: classical conditioning does not rely on memory}This message has been edited by arachnophilia, 01-16-2006 03:37 PM

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For my reference:
Foot binding - Wikipedia
Female genital mutilation - Wikipedia Then why would I consider it child abuse?It is up to the parents to figure out how they want thier kids to fit into a society / culture. That's the parents job. If it's an accepted social practice, then I don't see how it can be considered abuse.That would require me to use my own social values to judge someone else's situation. That's why I think JazzNs needs to examine his own situation, and his community. If uncircumcised kids would be rejected, I think it's worth considering. If not, and if there's no ideaological push, then I don't see any reason to go for it.Just as a note, I don't want to take away from Jazzns' thought... if we're going to talk more ideaologically about stuff like this, it might be useful to take it somewhere else. I found this thread which might be an appropriate home.

Hi Schraf,You are dead right. The UK and the US governments have brought in special laws regarding female circumcision. These laws rightly ban all forms of female circumcision including hacking off the clitoris and labia minor (80% of female circumcisions), hacking off the clitoris, labia minor and labia major (15% of female circumcisions), and the remaining 5% of ceremonial non-surgical practices involving "pricking, piercing ... and introduction of ... herbs into the vagina" (quote from British Medical Association guidelines).It strikes me as very strange that pricking and "introducing herbs" should be illegal on the basis of human rights and medical ethics, while chopping off the prepuce for absolutely no medical benefit (despite the claims of Holmes otherwise) is considered perfectly acceptable.We should bear in mind that there is no demonstrated benefit of circumcision. The recent suggestion that HIV is transmitted less when the male is circumcised have been taken to pieces in the medical literature; and other STDs (like gonnorhea) are actually more easily passed on from circumcised people.All circumcision is - for both males and females - is a prehistoric practice carried out by retrograde cultures based on religion and custom, and rooted in the patriarchal idea that parents can/should control the sexuality of their children.Sure, if somebody has a medical condition that requires circumcision then it's just bad luck and has to be done. But otherwise it is plain and simply UNNECESSARY SURGERY. Just the same as it's okay to pull the tooth of a child if the tooth is rotten, but it's not okay to do it just because the parent thinks it makes their kid look nice.It's typical of the way that parents view their children: my children are my property - I can do what I like to them. Fuck that!Mick

mick, do you happen to have any specific sources on this? i'd be really curious to read them. well, in the case that holmes is suggesting, it's like pulling the teeth just in case they get a cavity.This message has been edited by arachnophilia, 01-16-2006 04:23 PM

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OK, then how about sacrificing them in the big bonfire to Moloch? That is a way of involving the child in what the adherents no doubt believed was a loving culture and tradition. Yet we don't allow it anymore, anywhere. Why not? Is it because it kills the child? Is it better to mutilate the child for life or just send them straight to heaven?In short, do parents own their children? If not, who does? If children own themselves, why shouldn't the young lady who grows up in Egypt and receives their special brand of "circumcision" be entitled to beat her parents to death slowly over a period of many years for allowing such a thing when she couldn't speak for herself or prevent this terrible atrocity?She doesn't want to though, usually. Cultural influences are strong enough to make some women do it to themselves even. (The food you cook for your husband might be contaminated by your femaleness if you don't get it done.) Does that mean it's right? Cultural influences were strong enough to make everyone sacrifice their first-born to Moloch at one point.Where do you draw the line?