To Snip or Not to Snip? That is the Question.

>My husband and I agreed to have the guy snipped. It took less than a few minutes and he only wailed once. I was told by our nurse that the anesthesia would be as painful as the prodecure. Something about nerve endings, etc. To be honest? Our kid screamed three times more loudly at having his heel pricked for jaundice testing than he did for the circumcision. And I don’t see all the mother hens clucking about anesthetizing a baby’s foot for this obviously painful procedure. Or for his two week shots. You’re right; in the South, it’s more cultural than anything else. In our large playgroup, all the boys were circumcised. And aside from an unpleasant experience at 12 hours old that I assure you my son at 15 months has forgotten about, I haven’t heard any solid, good reasons not to do it.

>Both of my boys were were snipped. The youngest did not even cry. He was too busy happily sucking on his pacifer to even notice. I personally think it is every individual parents choice to have it done.

>Recently it’s been discovered that circumcized men are 50% less likely to become infected with HIV. I don’t know if that applies to other STDs but if you need a health reason, there it is…

>I’m pretty sure you know I’m not a father (that I know of, heh) but, both of my boys are circumcised.Just thought I’d throw that in.

>When I asked my hubby for his opinion, it was like ya sure. So I’m guessing for men it’s not as big of a deal. I have seen an uncircumcised penis and I was actually really surprised! I went to change my new foster baby’s diaper and said to my mom, “What’s wrong with his penis?” Now that wasn’t meant in a mean way, it was more of a serious observation. A teenage boy in the locker room who is the only one who is uncircumcised isn’t going to be able to hide it. In my opinion, it’s more socially acceptable to do it then to not. If 50% of kids are uncircumcised by the time he’s older, then it shouldn’t be a big deal either way.My dad wasn’t circumcised (I ask for his opinion when I had my son and he told me lol) and had some medical complications as a teen and had to have it done later in life. He said it was the most awful experience he’s ever had.

>I agreed with both of my sons’ fathers to leave the decision up to them. Then I had trouble living with that agreement- I was against circumcision. Having worked in pediatrics, I have assisted in many newborn circs. I have seen older boys recovering from them done at later ages. I spoke with Urologists. There are VERY few medical indications for circumcision and wouldn’t you know, I somehow managed to end up with both the fathers of my sons having those medical conditions- both of them ended up circumcised in their 20s due to scarring of the foreskin that did not respond to other treatments. One had another son who ended up circumcised at 13 due to the same scarring. So I agreed using that rare medical condition as justification. That soothed my conscience a bit. In the future, I would wait to decide until birth, to review all the medical information for that child and not let social stigma be the deciding factor. But it’s still tough. Since I had a chance to know men who had lived both intact and circ’d, they were less influenced by the social aspects and more by the medical reasons.

>I let my husband decide. He wanted our son snipped. It was no big deal. They put this little ring on his penis, that fell off in about a week. It didn’t seem to bother him at all. He didn’t come back to the room screaming. I think there are medical benefits to being snipped, and it is a rather low risk procedure. Where I live almost all boys have it done.I don’t think it is a big deal either way. It’s a personal choice that shouldn’t be viewed as “good ” or “bad” either way you go.

>I’m glad to see that I’m not the only mom who avoided making this decision by leaving it up to my husband! I did do some research, and it seemed like there were risks and benefits either way. For my husband, it came down to believing that is was better for his son to look like him and the other males in the family.If you do it, prepared to temporarily regret your decision every time you open your son’s diaper for a week or so, and see the little wound. I felt terrible until he healed up. Now I’m fine with our decision.Of course, as a mommyblogger you already know that ANY decision you make as a parent will make some people think you are a completely incompetent and horrible parent (and the opposite decision would make a different group of people feel the same way!)

>Maybe I didn’t think this through enough, but shortly before my daughter’s birth, her doctor asked us what our plans were (in case the ultrasound was wrong). We both said “circumcise.” I must be out of step; I’ve always heard that it is healthier to be circumcised than not. Although it would break my heart to hear my hypothetical little boy cry; for that or for anything else.

>I’m a mother or two girls, but I’ve dated un-circ’d men.One who stood out attended a private, all-boys high school and went on to attend a private all-men’s college. He was never taunted about it and never had any medical problems (nor have any of the other un-circ’d men I’ve talked to – and yes, it’s come up in conversations when friends are having baby boys!).As far as any gross-out factor for me goes…..to be blunt…no. None. It looked a tiny bit different aroused, and it was “interesting” to see it soft (since I’d never seen one up until then), but honestly, his foreskin didn’t get in the way of sex or condom use. For every medical study that says circ-ing prevents this-and-that, there’s another one that says it makes no difference whatsoever. I’m against it for non-religious reasons, and if I had a boy I wouldn’t. Why do something just because “everyone else does”? Lots of replies so far that say circ-ing was needed late in life, but in every other “debate” I’ve read over this issue, that wasn’t the case. My advice would be to get information from the AAP (http://www.aap.org/) and the AMA (http://www.ama-assn.org/) and see if you can find studies from both sides of the debate before making your decision. Meg

>We had this debate seven-and-a-half years ago. I read the same sort of stuff you have read. I felt the same way you do.And when I went to Hubs with my conundrum, he said, “My son will be circumcised, and that’s final.” And I said, Okaaaaaay. Guess that settles that.I really don’t see how this is any more barbaric than the shots we give our children, and yes I’m well aware of that debate, you don’t EVEN wanna get me started with all that.Basically, my feelings about circumcision are, he will never remember it, and the chances that he will resent you FOR circumcising are much less than the chances of him resenting you for NOT circumcising. And really, in the end, it should be up to his father.But that’s just my opinion. And you know what they say about opinions! ;-)Great post!

>Although I’m not a soon to be dad, just a soon to be mommy (55 days!!! ;)) for my husband and I this was a no brainer decision. My husband immediately wanted a circumcision and I agreed. It is a cultural norm and something the baby will never remember. Unfortunately the day I went to the doctor and met with the first midwife (my hospital has a team of midwives to do the deliveries) I was berated for my decision. Now I have a backbone so nothing she said will sway me, but I was in shock at what this woman, A MIDWIFE, NOT A DOCTOR, was saying to me. Her first words to me were, “Don’t you know that this hurts the baby?” Then she went on to suggest that we wait until our son is 12 or 13 and could make his own decision. I practically laughed in her face. Besides the circimcision thing she was concerned that my husband was not at the doctor’s appointment with me and was worried that I would not have the support I needed as a new mother. She didn’t even listen to me when I explained that they had changed my appointment to two hours earlier in the day and my husband was working. That is why I chose to have a close friend who is a doula with me in the delivery room. I think circumcision is a decision you and your husband have to make on your own and with what you are comfortable with. Everyone else can just go fly a kite.

>My son was born in Canada so we had to pay for his circumcision. We were all homebirth, no intervention, do nothing that isn’t neccessary, and I asked why would we circumcize then? But my husband’s mom is Jewish, all six of her sons were snipped. He told me he thinks that it does something at the core of his maleness that reminds him always that he belongs to God. That’s the religious reason anyway. We had it done.

>Long time lurker, first time commenter. It would have to be this post, too!My husband is not circumcised. My son-is. My husband has a problem with not being circumcised, and has since I met him. He feels that it makes him different, that it isn’t ‘manly’, or like other men’s. It doesn’t matter to me, but he was very vocal (and had the final decision)about our son getting circumsized. He said he didn’t want him to grow up feeling the same way about himself. That is my 2 cents. No opinion, no suggestion. Just my man’s point of view. Good luck in making your decision.

>I told my husband it was his call, and he said yes, definitely, for both societal and medical reasons. It seems like a lot of people I know follow the “Look like Daddy” rule, and that definitely played a part, but I think what really swayed us was knowing someone who had to have it done in his 40’s and how agonizing it was for him.

>I am a 30 year old female and have never seen a circumcised penis. Lest you think I was brought up by nuns in Austria listening to the hills alive with the sound of music, I am the oldest (and only) girl of 7 boys. That’s a lot of penis. I have a live in boyfriend, so it’s not just a family thing.My SIL is Jewish, so my new nephew will be snipped.

>I’m not a father, but as a circumcised man, I’m qualified, I think. My opinion: absolutely, 100%, do not circumcise your son.Since the comments have been so overwhelming in support of circumcision, I can’t respond to every argument, as much as I’d be willing to do so. I’ll hit a few specific points, but this, from dcrmom, is a good summary of the problem with circumcising infants without immediate medical need:Basically, my feelings about circumcision are, he will never remember it, and the chances that he will resent you FOR circumcising are much less than the chances of him resenting you for NOT circumcising.He will never remember it is not a valid justification. If it is, that would justify a lot of unseemly treatment. Children wouldn’t remember a beating, but that doesn’t make it acceptable.As for the chance that your son will resent you, in America, it’s small. But it exists. If the choice over whether or not to remove a natural, healthy functioning part of my anatomy had been left to me, I would never have made the decision to cut off my foreskin. Never. And evidence from every intact man I know points to the fact that, barring immediate medical need, intact men do not choose to have themselves circumcised. Very telling. Social acceptability is not enough.The difference in doing it and not doing it is what the boy, to whom the penis belongs, can do about it. If you leave him intact and he hates it, he can make the choice. If you cut him and he hates it, he’s stuck. One of the biggest fears in the comments seems to be that intact boys will be teased. In my experience growing up in the South, no one was ever teased for a foreskin. But for me, I had a much more common problem. I have red hair, which caused me grief. Today, at 33, I still get teased on the street. Instead of demanding that my parents dye my hair to be more socially acceptable, I learned to ignore the taunts for the meaningless reflection on the teaser.How is surgical, permanent alteration of a boy’s genitals, which will not be seen every day, more reasonable than than not using hair dye for something that will be seen every moment of every day?To the argument that his future partner(s) will find it icky. Who says? Can parents really know what their son’s partner(s) will like sexually? What if his partner(s) prefer intact? And, more importantly, what message does it send to males that they need to be altered to satisfy women? If we reverse that and say that a woman needs to get implants to satisfy a man, we rightly decry him as a pig. Why the double standard?The intact penis is not harder to keep clean. Until a few years after birth, the foreskin adheres to the penis. Do not retract this, as you would not prod into a girl’s genitalia. Just wash like every other body part. As he gets older, and his foreskin separates, teach him to wash, as well as the consequences of not washing. These are the same as every other body part.The foreskin’s adherence brings up another point. To circumcise, the doctor will have to rip the foreskin from the glans. The same cells that hold the foreskin to the glans holds nails to fingers. What kind of damage will that do, even if he doesn’t feel it?If the doctor uses painkiller, the boy will still have an open wound for at least a week. This will cause pain.As to the stories that foreskins cause problems, if we poll gynecologists, they’re going to tell us that vaginas are diseased and troublesome. What should we do about those while they’re healthy, cut them up? And infections? Girls get those, too, in greater numbers than intact boys. With girls we treat them when they arise, with less invasive methods than cutting.Boys should be protected. Their bodies belong to them. They are not subject to whims of parents when surgery and permanent alteration is involved. Immediate medical necessity is the only valid criteria for surgically altering children.

>My cousin opted to have himself circumcised at the ag of 14. Think about that or a second.To me, that is the end all. It was an easy decision to have all 3 (and the fourth on the way) of my sons ciscumcised.

>My husband is uncircumcised. He had a lot of sexual partners before me, and not one had a negative reaction to it. Not one. I had never seen an uncircumcised penis up close until I met him, and for about three minutes I thought it was a little weird. I quickly got over it, however, and now I actually prefer the “natural look.”He says that he’s glad his parents didn’t circumcise him. Apparently uncircumcised men get more satisfaction from sex – more nerve endings, or something like that. And there are more things a partner can do with an uncircumcised penis. Uncircumcised men just need to do a little extra work to keep clean, and it’s no harder than cleaning your bellybutton.I think I’ve just caused you to think about your unborn son’s sex life. I’m really, really sorry about that. Please forgive me.

>Well, I’m a female and also have never had children, but I am from the South and have a bit of an anecdote about the subject.I went to school within 100 miles of Nashville – not a large school but not a tiny one by any means. There was one – ONE – boy in my school that was uncircumcised. And EVERYONE knew about it – girls and guys – because he was the only one.I honestly don’t know whether there was a lot of teasing involved by the other boys. I would guess probably in junior high but not likely by high school since it was old news by then. But given how teenagers deal with sexuality issues, especially younger teenagers – I just can’t even comprehend what it must have been like for that boy to know that every girl in school knew what his penis looked like, most without having seen it themselves.Now, granted, that was 20+ years ago, but I’d about guarantee that’s it’s still probably true there today, that no boys, or only one or two, there are uncircumcised. Mainly because most of the kids there today are the children of people I went to school with, and every single one of those moms and dads remember how that one boy was the only boy in the entire school, for years. Sure it’s a mostly social thing, and not necessarily “right” or “wrong”. But kids so often have a hard time fitting in or dealing with issues of differences as it is, and I have a lot of doubts that in this part of the country, it would ever be the majority rather than minority. That’s just my opinion, of course, but I think if I have a male child, I’d have a hard time agreeing to something that would likely set him apart as different such as the above boy I knew…

>My hubby of 3 years is not circumcised, and is the first man in my life not to be. I have no idea whether or not there’s any *difference* — I haven’t noticed one myself. ;)Hubby did not have his son (now 34) circumcised, and he has never lacked for female companionship, or for male friends.Good luck with this one. I’m going to try to get hubby to throw in his two cents here as well, since he’s actually had to deal with this issue himself.WIP

>I’m sorry but after reading all the responses I had to add this:I have yet to see a penis that didn’t look pretty freakin’ weird. Mrs X

>I have no regrets whatsoever about having my son circumsised. And although I’m now out of the baby-making business, I would make the same choice if it were so presented.I do take issue with those who equate it to mere mutilation for the sake of mutilation. I find very little in life offensive, but that stance tends to get me going a bit. From my perspective, it is a personal choice. And whatever you and your husband choose will be right. As an aside, I disagree with you and some of your commenters on leaving the decision entirely up to the father. I think in a partnership, it is of the utmost importance to be in agreement on something like this. That’s just the two cents of a single father. For what it’s worth.Best,Ryan

>I guess I should clarify that I think the father should make the final decision, provided the couple can generally be in agreement on it and have researched it and provided the father isn’t a total asshole. I feel comfortable with my husband having the final say, mostly because I’m torn and I feel like as the male in the family, he knows what’s best as far as that’s concerned. By the same token, if girls had to be circumcised, I would absolutely want the final say with my daughter, and would be outraged if my husband forced me to make a decision for her in that regard that was against my wishes.

>We adopted uncircumcised twin boys when they were six years old. I just checked with one 17-year-old, soccer-playing son about the locker room issue and he wasn’t even aware of circumcision. His response to circumcision, when I explained the snipping? “That’s weird, Mom.” Now a lot of little boys resist baths (true stereotype) so I had to deal with a minor infection of one son when he was about nine. It cleared easily with over-the-counter triple antibiotic cream. In the late 60s I discovered my finance was uncircumcised (highly unusual for that age cohort), but it didn’t gross me out and it did increase my sexual pleasure. I usually don’t post anonymously, but I am this time!

>my dad didn’t get snipped until he was 18, and he said it hurt like hell. He made sure his own son was circumsised promptly after birth. I made sure my own son were snipped, too. Like many of your readers, I, too have never seen a man un-cut. Not to mention folds of skins that boys are unlikely to clean well.

>I don’t know why I can’t sign in!!!!”I feel comfortable with my husband having the final say, mostly because I’m torn and I feel like as the male in the family, he knows what’s best as far as that’s concerned. By the same token, if girls had to be circumcised, I would absolutely want the final say with my daughter, and would be outraged if my husband forced me to make a decision for her in that regard that was against my wishes.”(I don’t mean any of this in a “flaming” way.)Why? Why is Hubs the better judge on what’s right for a child that’s a part of BOTH of you, just because it’s a boy? Why is Hubs better to make the final decision just because he was circ’d? He doesn’t know any better than you do what it’s like to be an uncirc’d male! By that argument, you could also say that when Baby was born, Hubs knew better than you did on what was right for your child, as he already had two daughters. Nevernomind that Baby was the daughter of BOTH of you, and your step-daughters had a *different* mother with a different personality and possibly different way of looking at things. No, even if Baby was Hubs’ third daughter and only your first, you were still her *mother*, and parenting her, making any major decisions was a partnership. Not left to you because you were the female or left to him because he already had two daughters. My point is, I don’t think you should just go with what Hubs thinks because he’s a man. I think that, just as with any other major family or parenting decision that (I hope) you make, you should look into both sides of it *together* and not let the onus of the “research” fall on you alone.I just realised that I’m assuming Hubs is circ’ed…..so…..If Hubs IS circ’ed, a lot has changed both medically and socially since the time it was done. I think that the two of you should both research it, and have equal input – after all, he’s the son of BOTH of you, just as Baby is the daughter of both of you. In the end, the decision you make is the decision you make. But it should be made, in my opinion, equally from both of you.This is being written from a mother who has to struggle to get her ex-husband to “participate” in their daughters’ “big” decisions, as he now lives 1/2 way across the country, hardly sees them, but still has 50% legal custody. Also from a woman who’s fiancee is a much, much bigger part of her daughters’ lives than their father is. I know I could leave their father out of 99% of their lives, and make decisions based only on what’s going to work for my future family. But I don’t, because even if he doesn’t care, he’s still their father legally, and I need his signature on too many things as they are under 18. Meg

>I am circumcised and I have friends who are not. Pesonally I like the idea of having a piece of my penis waiting for me in heaven.There are both good and bad points on either side of the pant leg.An uncircumcised penis is slightly more difficult to keep clean (something to think about as teens do not always have the most hygenic habits)And a circumsized penis may become slightly desensitized due to continued friction against clothing. Either way the kid is gonna enjoy his ding a lingPenis, penis? I never use the word penis. It sounds like something on the end of your foot. Like, Man I woke up this morning and stubbed my penis on the door…

>Thanks for opening up a dialogue on this subject. (I posted something from a nurse’s perspective on my blog). Great post!

>Hubby voted in favor of the snip. I am in favor as well. I respect the beliefs and traditions of others — it is a tough decision.

>hub is snipped, and my son is also snipped. hub was adamant about it at the time, and honestly I didn’t really think about it either way.. SINCE then, I am more educated about it I suppose. DH went with ds when he had it done (still in hospital), and came back pale and visibly upset. would we do it again? I don’t know.

>I sent you an email with our experiances of circumcisions. I put Circumcision debate ~ Bluepaintred in the subject line, I was worried that my POV would be ..pecked at so i emailed, after eading about ten comments, i see I should have put it in the comments after all, but hey, at least the email is spell checked lol.feel free , if you like, to copy and paste my email into comments :o)

>That “Darth Vader helmet” is a desensitized callous from years of keratinization. Some men do not find it cool.As to my circumcision, no, I don’t remember it, but I’m reminded of it every day. That’s especially useful when I factor in how much I loathe it.Let me ask a question that hasn’t appeared yet. This can be addressed to anyone who circumcised/will circumcised. If your son resents that you made his decision for him, what will you tell him?

>I say snip it – anything that gives men even more pleasure in the sexual arena is patently unfair and must go!Seriously, my husband made the decison and son was snipped at birth. Recently first grandchild was also snipped on the say-so of his father.

>From one of my girlfriend’s husband who was not snipped at birth:GET IT DONE! He had to have it done as an adult and it took ages to heal on top of ages of it hurting and infected and completely wiped out their love making for months. They were newly weds too to boot. How awful is that?

>I didn’t even know there was a debate until I moved to Sweden and found out they consider it very, very close to child abuse and will only do it under extreme religious circumstances. Since I’m married to a Swede, he is totally against it and our son is not circumsized. I don’t think that opinion helps you much since it is from a totally different culture.

>I’M AN “UNCUT” guy and DAD – posting “Anonymously” because this is freakin’ embarassing…AND I have an opinion about this–As a guy who grew up uncut, is still uncut, and still goes to the gym where 95% of dudes are “cut” – it’s a horrible experience. Only immigrant men are uncut. If I were in Europe, or Asia yeah I would be “normal” but here I’m a freak of nature who has to “hide” it as I did growuing up. When some guy did happen to see, it was pretty tough trying to make excuses about it. I figure it would be less-embarassing if I had 4 nipples and a tail.People, if you live in the US for God’s sake, get it cut. No matter what the “non-cut” crowd says about the numbers rising, in reality from life- it ain’t true.AND “The pain”…. keeping the thing clean is horrible enough and the pain of having sex is even worse (until the skin stretches which makes it tough to have sex the first, let’s see 10 or so years.) And my wife even got infections a few times because, although I keep it clean, it’s never clean enough.The wife and I had a girl, but if we get a boy on round 2, no doubt about it- he’s getting cut as a baby.And by the way- I have looked into getting it “normal” and the pain at this age would be more painful. I’ve gone to 3 specialists the last 8 years.I know I’ve just pissed off the whole hippie-crowd who thinks cutting it is akin to human-sacrifice (mainly hippie-moms) but please, we live in the US- in reality when 95% of dudes you encounter are cut, it’s pretty weird to be the freak. Don’t let yours sons be freaks (unless you live in some other country). it’s hard enough growing up, this is something not worth making a statement about.Oh, BTW- Did I mention I DON’T talk to my hippie-ass parents for doing this to me?! Yeah, they wanted to make a statement about being humane. I DON’T see this as being anything humane at all.

>AH! I just read Anon’s comment above me. Let’s hear it for independent verification!

>Check out this blogger’s very interesting post regarding circumcision. Both her and her husband are against it and has some very compelling reasons why.http://crunchydomesticgoddess.blogspot.com/2006/11/circumcision-post_06.html

>It’s sad to say but there were a few guys I grew up with in Jr. High and High School who weren’t circumcised.Everybody knew, even the girls, because nearly everybody made fun of them.”Uncut Guy and Dad” comment made me shed a tear. I’d give you a man-hug (pat on the back) and tell you “dude, sorry man….”

>Wow, I couldn’t even read them all!The Man said “Why?” then, “I didn’t have much choice.” He got it done on his son…”Yeah, why wouldn’t I?” Apparently, he doesn’t care as long as I let him play his video game. So…Urban Legend or “Icky Guy From High School” time:http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ShmagmaThat's all I’m saying.

>If we have a boy, he will be circumcised because his father is. And when I was in high school, there was 1 boy in our senior class (a class of 400+ students) who was NOT and he was the talk of the locker room – and it was not in a good way.

>A number of boy babies, or boys of cousins and friends of mine that I knew when they were babies, were circumcised and had nursing problems in those first few weeks, and at least one had eating problems that persisted. Because nursing is pleasurable, they might get chubby down there and if they have recently been cut there, and it is healing, it would be painful whenever they nursed/ate. Infancy is a time when trust is learned, and though those times may not be remembered, circumcision may explain a number of issues circumcised men have when they are older.Just to broaden the issue.

>Socially – If you’re concerned about the number of kids in your area being snipped or not – ask the maternity ward nurses or your daughter’s ped. I’m sure they’ll tell you. You may be surprised.

>I think it’s good to let the father have the final say. I did that, too. It is a cultural norm, and while it’s changing, from all the statistics I could find two years ago,the vast majority are still opting for it. It is medically unnecessary, but so aren’t a lot of things.I’ve never actually seen an uncircumcised one. It’s more common in other countries I think to not have it done, but my hubby was very strong for staying within cultural norms and lets face it, cultural norms do play a huge part in how we live our life.

>11:52 anonymous….Would you call the tribes in Africa, who perform painful, body-changing prodedures to be part of their cultural norm “animals.” Are you, perhaps, just intolerant of other people’s cultures? I didn’t hear anyone calling the Anti-Snips names.

>It was my husband who was adamantly against. He has permanant scarring from his procedure and his father was intact…Our nephew’s intact, too.

>Uncut Guy and Dad:And by the way- I have looked into getting it “normal” and the pain at this age would be more painful. I’ve gone to 3 specialists the last 8 years.Why would you assume that a boy would feel less pain than you? You’re not brave enough to have yourself circumcised because it would hurt, but you’re willing to force circumcision on a son? That’s a very convenient double standard.He’s going to feel pain, even if his genitals are numbed before the surgery. The healing time will exist, in which there will be an open wound. He will get erections, stretching the healed progress of the open wound. He will urinate and defecate in his diaper, which will come into contact with his open wound. He will feel pain, just as much as you will.On top of that, he will have no coping mechanism for understanding why he feels that way, unlike adults who can rationalize why something hurts. Choice has a funny way of helping.So, again, why is it too much for you to handle, yet an infant is better equipped? Because he won’t remember it? That’s silly, since that would justify all kinds of mistreatment of infants. He gets a hangnail, cut off his finger. He won’t remember it.Circumcision of non-consenting individuals for non-medical reasons is wrong. But if you’re going to impose it, have it done to yourself first. Then you’ll know.

>Wonderful post!I don’t have children yet, but my husband and his two brothers are NOT circumcised. My husband and I have had the discussion about circumcision should we have a son one day. My husband has never had any medical problems with his foreskin, and I have no complaints whatsoever. My husband actually believes guys with foreskins enjoy sex better because of the extra sensitivity of the foreskin. We have agreed that should we be blessed with a boy someday, we will NOT be having him circumcised. I know this is a decision every parent of a boy has to make for themselves, and I hope you’ll be able to find peace soon about whatever you decide. Just wanted to throw my two cents in.

>Circumcision is, was and always has been done because of a religious and cultural rite–not out of medical necessity. We are the only country in the world that has routinely circumcised newborns and yet we still have the highest cancer rates in the world. My husband was circumcised, my son is not—we truly believe that God blessed us with a perfect baby—no nips or tucks needed!

>Both my sons are circumcised. I heard all the same arguments against it and I struggled the same way, but ultimately, like you, I “caved” to the cultural pressure and went with the fact that my husband, their father, couldn’t really accept any of the anti-circumcision arguments. I agree that the dad’s opinion on this necessarily carries a lot, if not almost all of the weight – after all, they’ll have first-hand opinions, which we never could.

>Wow there are alot of comments here….first of all this is one of my first times visiting your site….second of all..my son is 13 months old..and I was terrified of this. They came and got him….he never cried….but it did bleed. That freaked me out…and I have a daughter so this was all NEW to me. It healed and pushing it back all the time was alot. I mean cleaning it is a pain…I went for his 1 year check up and it had trying to grow back a little..and the doctor snapped it back in the office and of course it bled and he cried from utter pain and so did I. Over all do it…snip it….I have heard horrible things if you dont…he will grow up and it will look weird to girls, and it will smell funky….anyway…snip it. He will never remember it. That is my advice…also another thing…my husband bathes him and checks out his “goods” to make sure everything looks right and works right…this way…I dont screw it up…good luck and let us know what you did….one day your son will look at this and realize his penis was an issue to over 100 people…..LOL!!!!!

>I am a circumcised man. I don’t ever recall looking or knowing if any of the other guys in my class were circumcised or not. We decided not to circumcise our son. I am not concerned that he dosen’t look like me or that he will be ridiculed. I really can’t imagine it even being an issue. I will tell my son that if any boy questions why his penis is different to respond by asking why are you even lookin at my dick? If he decides when he is older he would like it done he can do it with the proper anesthesia and medical advise.

>My Oldest Son slept through his. Not so traumatic, apparently.I know this because I was nervous and concerned and was asking a lot of questions. Sure, I’m snipped, too, but I was a newborn and can hardly be expected to remember. My other sons were snipped in turn.The doctor who did the honors for Oldest Son was Jewish and he had a son a little older than mine, so I asked… did he do the honors on his son himself or wait for the bris?You think christenings are stressful? Imagine hiring the mohel for the occasion… and the family is present.The doc told me he had a mohel do it. He was a little nervous when the man asked for a little sip of wine beforehand… he gave one to the mohel, took two himself … and he was a little more nervous at what he perceived as a gigantic ritual knife used in the ceremony… but it all went fine.The comments seem — generally — to support my impression that it is still the norm. I wouldn’t worry too much more about it….

>My husband is European and Europeans are generally only circumcised for religious reasons or if it is necessary for medical purposes, so it was never an issue for us. No snip. It never even came up at the hospital when my son was born. In response to your post, my husband also says that he would imagine that there would be less sensation in an uncircumcised penis, but that is not based on medical evidence. It is just what he thinks. He says that alone is reason to not circumcise.

>As a woman, I prefer them circumcised, and I know many women who feel the same way.Most men I have “Known” are circumcised.My son’s father also wanted him circumcised and I thought it was a good idea, so he wouldn’t be “different”.I don’t think it’s medically necessary but who are the medical profession to dictate our cultural or religious beliefs? I’m not at all impressed with the medical profession and all their illogical practices and scare tactics.So to sum it up, there are lots of reasons I had my son circumcised. His father wanted it, I prefer it, and I didn’t want my son to feel “different”.And I don’t care what the rest of the world does, it seems to be the norm in the United States and that’s where I live.

>there is no reason 2 do that 2 a baby unless ur jewish,then the rabbi does the bris. that is a cultural/religious thing i dunno how it got the popular thing over here. if you read studyies it says u lose a lot of sensation when u have it done 2 u

>Wow, I wish my husband weren’t in Iraq right now, or I’d ask him to write you. He is very glad he was never circumcised. We’ve been married for almost ten years, and even I can tell you that the foreskin is a very sensitive and useful part of sex. My husband cringes not just at the thought of the scalpel, but at the feeling and function he would have lost. He never once had any teammate or friend make a comment about his being “different,” and he was always an athlete in school. And he has three brothers, all also uncircumcised. So lucky for me, it was a no-brainer when my baby boy was born.

>I am not afraid to admit that being female, I felt more comfortable turning to my husband’s life experience when we were making this decision for our sons. If I hadn’t had a husband, I would’ve asked my Dad, or Brother just as easily. And just so you know, it is NOT that common in the western states (we live very near Seattle, WA) not to circumcize your son. And I’ve changed many a diaper, believe me. It is such a private decision, and this information is all very interesting, but it really comes down to you. Be informed, make your decision, and don’t let others make you feel bad either way.Good Luck!Carrie

>When I learned I was pregnant, I pretty much told my son’s dad that if the baby were a boy, we wouldn’t have him circumcised and he agreed. A close friend had already done the research and chosen not to have her son circumcised, and he’d never had any problems with it. I researched it and also found no compelling evidence to have the procedure done. A previous partner and his son were uncircumcised and reported no problems with cleanliness or social acceptance. I personally found the uncirc’d look (adult — I didn’t go checking out the kids) very sexy and natural, and not weird at all. Anyway, my son is *not* circ’d and he’s doing great. Cleanliness isn’t an issue as long as one bathes; it’s as simple as that. Most boys play with themselves in the bath anyway, so everything gets clean just fine. His dad is circ’d, but my son has never mentioned the difference between them. Totally a non-issue. I think maybe twice in his life (he’s turning six) my son had a slight irritation on his penis, but a dab of Neosporin fixed that. I can’t help but compare that to the maintainance of a newly circ’d penis; uncirc’d is much less trouble.

>I am an intact dad of 4 intact boys. I`ve also been in the medical field and know that doctors and nurses hate doing circumcisions and wonder why parents still insist on having it done. When we didn`t do it, doctors came in and thanked us for having to do one less circ that day. A few hospitals near us (DC)are stopping routine infant circ completely, one is a huge Navy hospital.3 things to think about;1. It doesn`t look like daddy anymore. The new circs are done “loosely”, to leave as much foreskin as possible because of the known lack of sensitivity with no frenulum or mucosa left. Its important to know your foreskin anatomy when pondering this decision–too few know that the foreskin is adhered to the glans with the same substance that keeps fingernails on—it loosens and retracts anytime in childhood. In an infant circ, the foreskin is ripped off and then sliced off, its not a simple snip. All of the pain meds given help with only the pain on ther outside, and the baby experiences a crushing pain and ripping on the inside, on an area with more nerve endings than the lips. So… the new circs preserve more frenulum and don`t leave as big of a scar on the shaft, like in previous generations. The problem is the new circs are more likely to cause adhesions, skin tags, phimosis & buried penis. 2.The locker room is not an issue anymore. The rates are 50% and dropping. Very few locker rooms involve full nudity in public schools. There is still more fun to be made of the boy caught looking than the boy with the whole package.3. The complication rate is now 10% for the above complications and meatal stenosis and bleeding problems too. Why put a child through the trauma of surgery when he`s so new and helpless when its taking such a chance? All of the “benefits” of circ are outweighed by the risks. Any basic look at the numbers will show this, every 10 years another reason is pushed to keep it going, it is a business, hospitals make more money when they do at least one circ a day. Circed men still get UTI`s, HPV & HIV. It is not a cure. The US has one of the highest rates of AIDS in the world and we have a majority circed adult population. Sweden, where circ is unheard of, has one of the lowest AIDS rates, maybe having a foreskin is better protection?I appreciate that you`re keeping your mind open about this decision. I can understand leaving it up your husband, but… asking a circed man about havig a foreskin is like asking a deaf man if he`d like a hearing child. Or if breast implants became the norm and all women had them in the US, but your husband wanted your daughter the way God made her, wouldn`t he have some say, or would it only be the woman`s decision? Its just different. I think both parents should weigh in and also remember a mother`s instinct to protect her baby from pain.

>Please watch Penn & Teller, they say it so well!http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=7772002181711601907&q=penn+teller+circumcision

>It disgusts me that we still view circumcision as a societal norm. Why are we surgically removing a part of the male human body when he was born perfectly naturally with it intact? Cleanliness? Aesthetics? Fear of something we don’t fully understand? Would you have removed your daughter’s inner labia for any of these reasons? We are still one of the only countries in this world that view such brutality as normal. And we call ourselves civilized…. Lindsay, please don’t circumcise your son.

>TONY-That’s DISGUSTING and RUDE and RIDICULOUS of you to pick apart my comment like that!I thought of editing that “I prefer circumcision” but any reasonable person who isn’t ANAL-RETENTIVE like yourself, would understand what I was saying, that I was talking about men in general. Yes, men, that I had slept with!Also, considering that I reasonably expected that my son would NOT be giving blow-jobs, either, (OK pick that apart and say I’m “homophobic” whatever) yes, I think a woman can have input into the sexual aesthetics of an uncircumcised penis. AGAIN, I’m talking about how I, and MANY OTHER WOMEN I know, prefer MEN IN GENERAL, not my own son.And I was the one there in the room with him when it was done. He cried less than when he was weighed or measured or given booster shots.And he’s a big boy now. Although we haven’t discussed it, he has not came at me in anger asking why I disfigured him.And you forgot to PICK APART my first statement, “HIS FATHER WANTED IT.” I figured, he’s a man, he would know more about it than me. That was a big part of my decision.

>TONY_And with your attitude, I bet you know your Hand very well, too.

>Annie:Wow.

>Annie, Tony…..I’m not Lindsay, but can I call a time-out? I’ll make no bones that I agree with Tony, BUT…..Annie – He was making a valid point that clearly separated *your* preferences from your son’s future partner’s preferences.What was socially “normal” when you married your husband will probably not be socially “normal” when your son marries. I’d personally like to see how you’d back this up:”I’m not at all impressed with the medical profession and all their illogical practices and scare tactics.”I’ve 2 daughters. Both natural births. One born with nurse-midwives only, in a hospital and one born with an OB, midwife attending, in a hospital. The number of forms I had to sign to give me the right to a natural birth (unless either I or my daughter’s life were in danger) were countless. I’d call that a scare tactic. To sign forms, with doctors and nurses (with #2) urging me not to, that said under no circumstance did I want suction or forceps used in delivery – scare tactics. To sign other forms, waiving my rights to drugs unless an emergency c-section was needed, and to have nurses telling me over and over again that I might change my mind, I might *need* them – scare tactics. To have my midwife be right about my due date, and my OB ignore her to simply rely on ultrasounds, being FOUR WEEKS off the mark, having my daughter born blue as the cord wrapped around her neck and seeing my calcium covered, crusty, shrunken placenta. Well, that was really terrifying. I’d like to know what “scare tactics” are used by those who don’t like circumcision. Everything I’ve experienced, and everything other mothers who’ve used certified nurse-midwifes, with or without Douala’s, have experienced, has been nothing but natural, informed, and pressure-free. Had I had my second daughter in the same facility, with the same techniques as my first, she’d have been induced (yes! it’s not forsaking ALL technology!) 2 weeks earlier, with a healthier placenta and less of a chance of cord wrap, as I’d have been given a series of drugs to prepare me better than typical-hospital-induction. I was never “scared”. I was given all the information of both sides of every decision I had to face/make. I was given control of my pregnancy, childbirth experience, feeding choice, length of hospital stay and even immunizations and newborn testing.I had natural, healthy pregnancies, with few invasive procedures. I had one totally natural birth, and one induced birth. Both pain-killer free. I had one baby totally healthy, and another that needed immediate care. I breastfed both. I immunized both. I tested both. A perfect mix, in my opinion, of “granola” and traditional. So, yeah, I’d like to know what scare tactics are involved in the circ debate. ‘Cause I educated myself on it before I knew the sex of my daughters, I asked my midwives and OB about it both times, and I was never pressured either way. And I live in Milwaukee, WI. A “traditional”, blue-collar (albeit Democratic) town if there ever was one. If you’d prefer emailing me off Lindsay’s comments, feel free. I still can’t figure out why I can’t log in, so you can contact me at celticmeg(at)gmail(dot)com.That goes for anyone. ;)Meg

>Did about 85% of all of you miss that this question was directed to MEN?I’m not going to put in my opinion, since I’m a woman, and don’t have a penis, but I’d like to point out that MOST of the men who have commented (though not all, I know) have spoken in favor of the intact foreskin. Most of the women have spoken in favor of snipping.I feel that it’s important that someone points that out. I’ll let my husband, who DOES have a penis, speak his mind in his own comment.

>As a 24 year old uncircumcised guy, I’d like to comment on a few things.It’s easier to keep a circumcised penis clean. But, I have no problems – and I wash every day. Why not use it as another reason to encourage your boys to make sure they bathe regularly, and take care of themselves? And how hard is it to wash under a foreskin? It takes less than 5 seconds. It’s a question of preventative medicine, yes. But how far do you go, to lower an already low risk? It’s true that intact guys do have to be more careful with their hygiene down there. But, how is that a bad thing? On the NIH website they say that intact males may have a higher risk of contracting AIDS – so be more careful! That’s what we should be doing anyway, regardless. In fact, I think that it’s dangerous to say that one is at less of a risk of STDs if they’re circumcised. Why? Because we all know that sex is a taboo subject, and most kids learn about it from their friends before their parents – some parents never talk about anything related to sex with their kids. When a piece of information gets passed between a legion of curious 13 year olds, it’s bound to get altered. What if it turns into “you can’t get AIDS if you’re circumcised”? Then some poor kid goes and has unprotected sex, the worst happens, and he gets HIV, or gives it to someone else. Speaking of drastically modified facts…one of the first comments says that “it’s been discovered that circumcized (sic) men are 50% less likely to be infected with HIV”. If that was true, believe me, every doctor and health organization would be recommending it left and right – and they’re not. Please don’t make outlandish statements without backing them up. Regarding teasing and desirability – I was never teased about my “intactness”, or whatever you want to call it. I’ve never been teased about having a foreskin, and while two of my partners (including my wife!) have told me that at first they “didn’t know what to do with it”, there was no problem at all. If there’s any substance to a relationship, both partners should be able to get over the circumcision problem relatively easy. Otherwise, maybe there’s not as much to the relationship as was thought?I would much rather have been teased in the locker room, knowing that my parents believed that I could deal with it and not let it traumatize me, rather than having them decide to cut off my foreskin just to save me the potential embarrassment. In fact, I would be quite angry if I knew that my parents wanted to make me look the same as everyone else, just because that’s what other people do. The following is part of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ policy statement on circumcision:(http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002998.htm)”Existing scientific evidence demonstrates potential medical benefits of newborn male circumcision; however, these data are not sufficient to recommend routine neonatal circumcision.”If there’s insufficient data to recommend routine circumcision due to medical reasons, what I’m worried about is parents’ circumcising their boys because they want them to look normal, or because it’s “just better”. Make your own decision, but consider that “normal” isn’t always better.

>You asked for comments from the fathers, so I will give my husband’s perspective. I am doing it anonymously though, so as not to embarrass him. My husband, who was born in 1971, was a wrestler and on the football team in high school. He grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, and has last two years of high school were spent in a *tiny* farming town in Iowa. He went to college and was in a fraternity in Laramie, Wyoming.I was a virgin when I met him, and had no clue about penises (penii?). I did all the granola-mom research and told him I didn’t want our baby circumcised. He said that was fine, because he wasn’t circumcised either. I didn’t know the difference, but once I did some more research, I had to inform my 30-year old husband that he was indeed completely and totally circumcised. This means one of several things. 1) in all his locker room experience, he had never come across an intact guy, or 2) they didn’t really compare or make a big deal of it. For the sake of my argument looking good, I am hoping it is #2. It is hard for me to believe that living in three different places, he would have *never* been in the same locker room with an intact guy. Regardless, I think that preventing teasing is a poor reason for doing something like circumcision. It would be better to teach children to stand up for themselves and have some self-respect and self-esteem.Anyway, we did not have either of our sons circumcised, and do not plan to do it for future sons. My older son’s foreskin seems to adhered to itself, but it is not painful during his little-boy erections, and he can still pee. Even if it requires surgery, that would not change my views on infant circumcision. My son is old enough now to request appropriate pain relief if he has to have surgery. I have read the accounts of babies doing just fine during circumcisions. I have also read accounts of babies passing out from the shock and pain. Their parents choose to believe they did ‘just fine’, but in reality, it was so bad that their bodies couldn’t stay conscious. Then of course there are many in between, who cry a little and are done. I am sure that it is not too traumatic for some babies, but I don’t think it’s worth it to test on my kid.

>I just read that girls get more STDs than both cut and uncut boys and that there was a study done in Africa that proved that circ’d girls there had less STDs AND less HIV!!! In light of that, I definitely think circumcision is good for both boys and especially girls, you never know who they will endup sleeping with!

>I just have a few things to add.Firstly, i am a woman..but my two brothers are intact. They are 15 and 20 years old.When i asked them about their experiences…basically they both said that you would be beat up if you were caught looking at some other geys crotch in the bathroom or locker room. It’s just not to be done. They both have come across no harsh words or anything about their intact status. My 20 yo brother has had many partners, that i know of…and he seems to be doing okay in that area.15yo brother goes to military academy and basically said the same about bathroom and locker room situations. He has no shortage of girlfriends either.That said, when i had dd1 in the hospital, dh was there and we had a woman next to us who had a son. She had him circd and my dh was within earshot. That scream, he says, still stays with him enough that he knows that will never be done to any of his boys…even though he is cut. He said he doesn’t even need to see the research. He said he doesn’t want society or anyone else dictating(lol, sorry) what is done with his future sons penis. Basically, no bodys penis looks exactly the same, so who cares?Lots of luck, i kope you let your son make this decision for himself someday.

>I dont see what the big deal is with the locker room incident. As far as I know, I just graduated high school, there was no locker room incident. No one gets made fun of for not being circumcised.In fact if your looking your considered gay. I didn’t. As far as an american custom, I dont see it as one. MY three closest friends are not circumcised. Infact one of them likes to speak up against circumcision. I dont really see it as a custom, it is totally an unnessary procedure. I’m not circ, my three best friends are not. My girlfriend doesn’t care either way. Its not really neccessary to go and circumcise your child. Infact when my firends and I have kids we already know we are not going to circumcise our kids.

>In response to the comments about intact boys having adhesions and needing circumcisions later in life:Those adhesions are the direct result of not caring for an intact penis properly.It’s quite easy to care for an infant’s intact penis: Wipe the outside like a finger and leave it alone. Retracting the foreskin tears the skin and causes scarring and adhesions. Being intact didn’t cause adhesions — parents and doctors messing with a perfectly healthy foreskin did!My FIL is circumcized. When the nurse came to take my husband away to be circumcized, my MIL instinctively protected her baby and said, “Hell no. You touch him and I’ll sue the ever living daylights out of you.”This was almost 30 years ago when circumcizing was the norm. And you know what? My husband says he was never once “teased in the locker room” or anywhere else for being intact. OK, he was teased about his hair and a couple times about his clothes — and he dealt with it, just like every child does, because teasing happens.When we found out we were having a son and talked about circumcision, he said, “Hell no,” and I completely agreed with him.Caring for our intact son has been easy. No wound to dress, no pain to mitigate. No guilt about causing harm to our perfect, newborn son. Just wipe the outside of the penis during diaper changes and never retract it. It’ll start to retract on its own sometime between ages 3 and 13 and its owner (my son) will handle that. Neither my husband or my son has had any health issues regarding their intact penises. We did a little homework to know how to care for him, as any responsible parent should, and found out it was pretty simple. Wipe and leave it alone.

>Well it looks like the stupid people are going to be, in true Darwin Award fashion, self limiting.”I’m going to circumcise my son because circumcised men don’t get AIDS or STDs”Great, wonderful message to get across, congratulations on your fine achievement on the defeat of this horrible disease. Wonder what the death toll over there from HIV will be in 25 years time? (We can guarantee it won’t be that high over here in Europe, where genital mutilation is not our cultural norm and we use condoms). Looks like the US has also hit on a great idea for population control in Africa too, tell them they’re all safe if they follow the US cultural norm and in 20 years time the famine and war problems will have just melted away.I always thought that interfering with children’s genitals was the preserve of a few perverts and sickos, I had no idea, until I met my husband, whose sadly denuded penis was the product of his parent’s desires and handiwork, that there was an entire nation of them. I hate my stupid mother in law for foisting her ideas of what sexual enjoyment should be onto me, she had no right. I suppose all you cut happy people assume that your sons are all going to stay exact where they have grown up and marry local women? Bad news for you, the world is going global, and there is a whole world of women out there who will despise American men for not being quite up to scratch when they find out what gets done to them at birth.

>QUOTE: And to be a 12, 13, 14 year old boy and know that the 12, 13, 14 year girls were all talking about and perhaps giggling (some of them did, though not to his face) his penis which was the only uncircumcised one around, for years – had to have been embarrassing at that age, dealing with junior high sexuality.That is my point, and the point also being that for the most part, in this part of the country, not being circumcised just generally is not done, and therefore most boys that aren’t will be set apart and considered different. It is, again, a cultural and societal thing – but that stuff has pretty big value in the mind of 12 and 13 year old kids. / QUOTEFor three years of a young adolecent’s life, when there are any number of “we don’t match” issues going on, the next 70 years of his sex life should be altered? I guarantee you that at 35, 40, 45… a man will thoroughly enjoy sex and be glad he has 100% of his body’s sexual potential. Looking back at when he was 14 and realizing that he did not give into pre-teen peer pressure has a huge value in the mind of a 45-year-old. (If he remembers his foreskin ever having been an issue at all.)

>My husband was circumcised at birth, and he wishes he wasn’t. His parents took that choice away from him by having him cut as a newborn. No one asked him what HE wanted. It’s the child’s penis, not the parents’. Our son is happily intact. If he grows up and wishes to be circumcised, he can make that decision. If we had cut him, he wouldn’t have a choice.And for the record, I doubt that many boys born today will endure the teasing that many worry about. The circ rate is only about 50/50 right now and dropping, and in some areas, circ is actually the minority. People can debate all day long about whether or not it is painful (I believe it is), whether circ has benefits (I think they’re negligible), and whether circ causes sexual problems (I believe it does, for the man and his partner). But what it really comes down to is: not my body, not my choice. If a man decides that he wants a circ as an ADULT, I am fine with that, just as any other cosmetic surgery. But I don’t think we have the right to do it to babies. And my husband agrees.

>To “anonymous” above.What other body parts would you also be willing to cut off your kids because you think someone else had a problem with it? Feet, arms or legs because someone you know had the excrutiating pain of a broken limb? How about removal of breast buds because a relative had breast cancer? After all, there’s always formula, babies do ok on that.I’ve always thought it pretty silly to remove part of someone’s body because someone ELSE had trouble with theirs. Believe me, all the men in the rest of the world, who do not have this done to them, are not walking around with their legs apart just wishing that they could escape all the pain and infections from their foreskin, and neither are they queuing up at clinics to have them removed. It just doesn’t happen if they’re left alone with their foreskin to mature on their own, it’s only Americans with their constant cleaning and interventions that seem to generate “problems”.

>To anonymous, following on what AnneH said:What if your son grows up to wish he had been circumcised and resents that he’ll have to get it done in adulthood with the added pain and embarrasement (not to mention the higher incidence of complications)?If he values the circumcision more than the pain and higher complication rate (and embarrassment?), then he can choose to have it done. He gets to decide what is best for him. On the flip side, what if a son grows up to wish he wasn’t circumcised and resents that he can do nothing about it? The ability to make elective surgical choices about one’s own body is what’s at stake here.You can only make the choice you think is right now for YOUR child. Parents do not own their children. Without immediate medical need, his body, including his penis, belongs to him alone. Also, permanent decisions can’t be made in a vacuum without considering the future impact. Lindsay seems like she’s considering the future.

>Suburban Turmoil said: In the interest of fairness, at 7:30am, this post was picked up on the Mothering.com discussion board.It’s likely that your post is getting picked up by circumfetishists too, FYI. You never know who’s encouraging you to cut your little boy.

>One of the strangest things about circumcision is the anti-circumcision lobby and their endless propaganda. Obviously these people are entitled to their views, but the misinformation can make it hard to find real facts.One example is the claim that circumcision rates are low and falling. This is achieved by using data on neonatal hospital circumcisions, which underrepresent the true number. For example, a study of males born in the 1980s shows that 83% in total were circumcised. Hospital data, however, would incorrectly suggest a value of 60-65% for this period. In fact, a recent study suggests that these (hospital) rates are actually climbing.Another example is the claim that uncircumcised males are happier. Most surveys find roughly equal satisfaction rates. See here, here, or here.Probably the best advice on the subject is the AAP’s guidance for parents.

>Congratulations, you’ve attracted Jake Waskett (go on, Google the name) fetishist gay man who just loves to troll parenting sites talking to mothers about circumcising their little boys. (In a “scientific” way of course…)There are a LOT of perverts out there, and against the cultural controls, biotech companies wanting their raw materials, doctors wanting their slice of the money, and paws on the foreskin the whole way along, little boys in the US don’t really stand a chance do they.

>AnneH beat me to it. Very fitting that Jake appeared right after the circumfetishist comments. Note that Jake isn’t pointing out scientific facts, just disputing trends. Sure, there is room to question the numbers because it’s hard to keep perfect statistics for several million births every year. But that only speaks to conformity, not whether or not it’s medically wise to circumcise a healthy infant.

>My partner is not circumcised. He has never experienced social pain at being uncircumcised. He has never felt embarrassed or sexually undesirable. He was never teased in the locker room. And yes, he grew up and went to public school in an area where almost all boys were circumcised.His was the first uncircumcised penis I ever saw, and I didn’t think it looked funny at all. Sex has always been wonderful for both of us. I have never had any discomfort. I have never needed a lubricant. And I have an orgasm every single time.The reason all the men you’ve asked have said to do it is that they are probably all circumcised American men who desperately want to believe that there is nothing wrong with their bodies.Even though it’s a “guy thing” in the sense that it is males who are most directly affected, we still have a duty as mothers to protect our babies from unnecessary and harmful surgery.I think that a circumcised father is actually the worst person to make the decision, because he is biased by his own circumcision. We as women can look at the information more objectively and make a less emotional decision.PLEASE read the following article. It is written by a doctor and it explains the effects of circumcision: http://www.mothering.com/articles/new_baby/circumcision/against-circumcision.html

>I’m actually basing a lot of what I think about circumcision on a close relative who was uncircumcised and chose to be circumcised later in life. He is a doctor and based on both personal experience and medical study, is in favor of infant circumcision. He is someone whose opinion I respect. That’s not to say I have decided 100% one way or the other, but I’m also not blindly following my circumcised husband’s opinion.And I simply can’t read an article on circumcision from the same magazine that publishes placenta recipes. Sorry.

>Lindsay, you asked for male input – so here goes: I was circumcised at birth, and it was absolutely the worst decision my mother ever made. I first discovered that I had lost my foreskin in the communal shower room of a boarding school at the age of 6. I instinctively knew that I was missing something and wanted it back. This has always been a huge disappointment for me – more so when I actualy learned the true form and function of a foreskin and discovered what I was really missing. Check out http://www.cirp.org . When my son was born I was adamant that he be left intact, the way nature designed him.I see from many of the comments already left here that most of the myths and misconceptions common in North America are still widely believed. Here are my perceptions on some of them:1.Matching Dad – most people have no idea what the status of their father is, and precious few fathers and sons stand around comparing penii.2. Teasing – I spent 12 years in boys boarding schools, all with open, communal showers. There was not one single comment made about anyones circumcision status. Lots of teasing about other things from hair clour to ear size.Diseases – Circumcision started being promoted in North America by doctors to cure masturbation. When this was disproved the excuses ran the gamut from epilepsy to HIV. The U.S.A. has by far the highest rate of circumcision of any industrialized nation, and also the highest incidence of Aids. These new studies are no more than an immoral and unethical attempt to sustain circumcision as an beneficial and acceptable practice. It is niether. This is all about the money – where else can a physician make a couple hundred bucks in 5 minutes ?He may need it done later – The only body part that doctors rush to amputate for any problem, whether real or percieved , is a foreskin. Why is that? Girls get genital infections far more often than boys, but they are treated medicaly with antibiotics etc. Why aren’t boys accorded the same care? In most of the rest of the world they are. Circumcision for any reason is virtualy unheard of in Scandinavia.A foreskin is hard to care for – Baloney – The infant foreskin is designed with a tight sphincter at the end to protect the delicate urethral opening from feces etc. That is why only circumcised boys suffer from meatal stenosis which requires more painful surgery to correct. Doctors often instruct parents to retract their baby boys foreskin to clean it. This is so wrong and often causes pain and damage. A foreskin should be left alone and will becme retractable in it’s own time – often around puberty.It’s a parents decision – No it certainly is not . Cosmetic surgery is a decision for the owner of the body to make. If a man wants to be circumcised , that is his decision, and he has to live with the consequences. Very few do. Once it has been amputated there is no way to get a foreskin back. The choice is gone forever. As the more boys are left intact I believe that a lot of parents who chose to circumcise their sons will be faced with some hard questions.Finaly, all male mammals have a foreskin. Millions of years of evolution have resulted in the best possible design. So why do some humans state that a foreskin is a mistake of nature? Pretty arrogant attitude I would say!! Nature does not make mistakes – Humans do.The bottom line, Lindsey – please keep your son whole, and uphold his right to an the body he was born with.

>Foreskin facecream anyone? http://next-magazine.com/archive/1203/personal-best.shtmlThis is the real reason that the cultural norm won’t fade. Money. Doctors and tissue harvesters make a ton of money from this procedure and have a big incentive to encourage the procedure.If babies were ment to have a foreskin, they’d be born with them.My boy is whole as the day he was born. I’m a circumcised male, too. I saw no reason to pass on this ridiculous American cultural oddity to my boy. Circumcision is primarily an American, Jewish, and Muslim thing. Most men in the world are whole and JUST FINE.I’m not worried about the locker room since straight men don’t check each other out. And if someone comments, my boy can let them know that they’re the ones with something missing, something wrong. Their loss, not his!And my boy has enough confidence that if some shallow, pathetic excuse for a girlfriend complains, he can show her the door.To all the fathers who think their boy will be traumatized if he has a whole penis: Stop projecting your insecurities! Its not about you. Grow up and grow a pair!

>Look at this way…boys do not believe that hygiene is the most important excercise in their lives (not until much later). Do you really want to let them wander around with that bit if uncleanliness hanging over your head?I obviously was circumcised and so was boy.imp. I do not really believe that my psyche was harmed by losing that bit of skin. If that were the case then all the skin lost over the years through various accidents should have turned me into a nutcase!

>I think circumcision is simply an unnecessary surgical procedure. It doesn’t do any significant good (unless, perhaps, you live in Africa where HIV rates are actually significant and it’s taboo to use condoms), and it is painful.Contrary to popular belief, the uncircumcised penis isn’t difficult to care for or clean. I recommend looking up the AAP’s info on taking care of it (you’ll see that it’s not hard).USA circumcision rates the past couple of years have been between %50-60, so the old locker-room reason doesn’t apply to today’s babies: approximately half of their peers will be uncircumcised.Having said all this, if a baby is going to be circumcised, he sure as hell ought to be anesthetized. I don’t feel particularly strongly about the circumcision itself, but any parent who submits their child to something like that without sufficient anesthesia is barbaric.If a surgery is absolutely vital to the baby’s survival, and the anesthetic is unsafe, then I can understand something like that. But for a surgery that’s completely unnecessary like circumcision? Especially when the anesthesia isn’t unsafe? Jesus.I can’t imagine what idiotic stuff must be running through those parent’s heads.There was a scientific study done on babies’ reactions to the pain of circumcision with various anesthetics. If you’re considering circumcising your son, please read this article about that study: http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9712/23…The “he won’t remember it” argument is a bullshit way to try to discount the infant’s pain. Using that same logic, it’s perfectly acceptable to use memory-blocking drugs for adult surgeries instead of anesthetics. As long as they don’t remember it, right? Christ.The baby still experiences the pain. That’s what matters.So make damned sure the doctor uses an effective anesthetic. According to the CNN article I linked to above, topical anesthetics aren’t enough, so don’t be duped into that.If the doctor refuses to use an effective anesthetic, either don’t circumcise your baby or find someone else to do it who will use an effective anesthetic. And make sure they really do use it!

>Circumcision should be illegal, and that includes religous circs as well. I am all for freedom of religion as long as it doesn’t impose on others (which cutting off the most sensitive part of a baby’s penis would certainly qualify as imposing). Its illegal here in the states to do anything to a girls genitals and it should be for boys as well. The reasons given for both male genital mutilation and female genital mutilation are similar so those of you that think they are completely different need to do a little research into the subject! There is absolutely no medical organization in the world that recommends the surgery be routinely performed on infants. It is not needed. So if you want to do it so that your son will be like all the other deprived boys go ahead–you’ll teach him a good lesson…comform, conform, conform-or others may not like you.

>Forgot to add: back in the day (before my husband) I saw a couple of unsnipped guys and didn’t notice a difference between them and the snipped guys I saw. Maybe they had superior hygeine or maybe I just wasn’t all that concerned with how they looked (because, to be honest, that isn’t the most attractive part of the body.)

>I am circumcised and wish my parents did not do it to me. Although this is not every cut guy, I know that there are plenty who feel this way.I strongly urge you to not have your son circumcised. All it does is remove a highly sensative part of his body that was working perfectly fine. The aesthetics are cultural and shallow, and the “medical issues” of a foreskin highly preventable in most cases (i.e. by simple washing).What you should do, instead, is offer him the opportunity to get circumcised at a later age. It will be more painful and he will remember it, but he will be able to be cut or uncut and have the satisfaction of having decided for himself. Meanwhile, a circumcised man can’t get his foreskin back, no matter how much he wants it.

>Okay, a lot of these comments are horrifying.Tell you what, ladies, I’ll make you a deal. I’ll give you $50 if you let me take your baby daughters, and remove their clitoral hoods. After all it’s just a flap of skin.Of course, that’s considered genital mutilation. Yet you find it perfectly acceptable to butcher your little boys. Let me tell you why you’re all wrongheaded.1) “Be like Daddy”. So if your husband had one arm, would you cut the kids arm off? Believe me, speaking from personal experience, the boy will be more in awe of the size of his Dad’s penis than anything else. You gonna get the kid penis implants so he “looks like Dad”?2) “I don’t like it.” IT’S NOT YOUR PENIS IS IT! If you spend that much time staring at it, you need professional help.3) You may not want to consider your little boy as a sexual being, but he is, and by butchering his penis you are depriving him of pleasure when he’s older. I am uncircumcised, and I can say with confidence that despite any problems I may have had, I would not FOR ONE SECOND want to lose it.4) Do not delude yourselves about calling it a “snip”. It’s a surgical procedure, and can go wrong just like any other surgery. Unless you’re an idiot, you wouldn’t undergo surgery unless there was a major benefit. There is NO BENEFIT to circumcision whatsoever other than an aesthetic justification from wrongheaded ill-informed individuals who apparently hate their children, and think that causing trauma and pain to a small boy is acceptable. I was teased about my foreskin at school. I’d rather suffer teasing every day than suffer the butchery a lot of you are happily promoting. Honestly, people who promote circumcision make me feel physically ill. The sooner the world wakes up and follows Finland’s lead* and sees butchering a penis the same way it sees butchering a clitoris, we’ll all be better off. If you’re thinking of torturing your child with this butchery, get informed about the prodedure, look at the videos on the net of it. If you’re prepared to put your baby boy through that, you have no right to be a parent.* – Finland has outlawed circumcision for non-medical reasons, basically because it’s a violation of human rights. http://www.cirp.org/library/statements/finland2003/

>Not all of us are from mothering.org. I’ve never been there or heard of it. I don’t know if you have a way of tracking who is from where, but there were many more comments from men after about the 140 comment mark – are all of them from that site, too? I’m just curious. Please don’t disregard every comment after a certain point…. I know mine fell in the post-140 mark and I am not from mothering.org! Also, I have been following this post for the last few days and one thing is clear: people are shoving their opinions in your face even if they don’t mean to, because people feel so strongly about this issue. I’m sorry! I hope that there is a way for you to at least gain some valuable opinions and information through this experience without being totally turned off to the non-circumcision option just because a bunch of people came over together to force their opinions on you!I wish you luck in your decision process! 🙂 hang in there!

>Okay…you lost me at placenta recipes.After reading most of this I am so thankful I never had to make the choice (mother of 2 girls here). But if I did I know that I would:1) feel too awful to go through with itand 2) let my husband have 51% of the vote – and he is snipped so I think that’s how he would voteSo we would be torn. Great discussion, L!

>My husband told me he already commented, so I thought I would add a woman’s perspective. =) When we made our decision not to circumcise our son, I will admit it was a tough one. I didn’t want to because of the pain issue, and thankfully my DH agreed not to. I also knew that I would have horrible guilt if something went wrong. I’m the type of person that always over-thinks. I know that I would have been obsessing over him crying, if he was in pain, the poor little faces he made, strugling against the circumstraint, etc.Even though I had done all the research, I still felt torn. I had only seen circumcised penises, and had no idea what an uncircumcised one looked like or how to take care of one. Once I had my son, I slowly got used to it. And honestly, now when I see my DH his looks different, its so funny. My DS is 5 now, and it is so easy to take care of. I don’t know how people say it isn’t, because I found my DS’s penis much easier to take care of than when my DD would have their poop explosions! You just wipe it like a finger, thats it. Even my SIL who circed my nephew said it looked much easier. My nephew had adhesions and she had to pull back during every change, he would cry a lot.I know that you can feel pressured to do it because its all you know, but it doesn’t take long to get over it. If you do decide to do it, do your research and make sure your baby gets the proper pain relief during and after, and that you’re there to comfort him during it.Congrats on your pregnancy and good luck!

>I just wanted to add this as a counter to all those women saying intact is ‘gross’; I think a cut penis is gross. I think of two things when I see one…about the agony the guy was put through when he was a baby and about the crusty callous that’s there instead of a sensitive foreskin & glans. Eww, poor guys.

>You probably already know this but- The New York Times had a big article this weekend about the “pros” of circumcision, mainly being that is considered an AIDS vaccine. Very interesting study.

>The “crunchies” don’t agree with any form of circumcision in general, religious or not – but they are strictly not allowed to talk about it, and any posts with a whiff of religion are swiftly removed.Just thought you might like to know 🙂 .

>Just as many men wish they’d been circumcised as infants (rather than deal with the prospect of a painful, memorable surgery as adults) as wish they hadn’t- a small percentage on both ends of the spectrum.As parents, these people are all just trying to do the best they can, no matter what their decision. I think it’s time for some of you to move on back to mothering.com now and away from this blog. If anything, you’ve made me more in favor of circumcision now than I was before, and I’m not saying that to be inflammatory. You are turning my perception of people who choose not to circumcise from understandably concerned parents who don’t want to hurt their children- to shrill, agenda-pushing weirdos, whom most would not want to be identified with under any circumstances. Perhaps some of you should learn to be a little more artful or at least more kind in discussing the matter if you truly want people to see your side of things. Personally, I don’t think you really care- It’s too much fun to put others down who aren’t like you.

>Anonymous comments on this post will now be deleted, as will comments from those who attempt to monopolize the discussion. So says I. Unless I change my mind.

>I don’t live in the US So I just seen an circ man once and sex was more painfull because the skin has less motility and is dryer so that’s my experience.Other than that I have always wondered how a First world country who is quickly to judge other cultures is so OK in cutting a part of a newborn infant personally I think is child abuse. And the foreskin is there for a reason to protect the gland.

>Okay, hopefully I’m not too late to add my two cents. I was sorry to read that the anti-circ fanatics have irritated you to the point of moving further from center/undecided. I am anti-circ, but not a fanatic and I did not come from the mothering board.I am a NICU RN who has assisted with many circs. I am also the wife of a circumcised man and the mother of 2 sons who are not circumcised. I don’t want to go over all the arguments that the other anti-circ people have (cleanliness really isn’t an issue, hopefully self-esteem won’t be measured by an intact foreskin, medically it’s up in the air whether there as to any advantages, etc.)I just wanted to mention that I am a rational, concerned mother who researched it extensively. I spoke with my 3 brothers, 2 who are circ’d or partially circ’d and one who isn’t. Both who are circ’d had no strong feelings either way, the one who isn’t circ’d was very definite that it shouldn’t be done. I didn’t make my decision based on that, I was still undecided until giving birth and just realizing that I could not put my child through this procedure (regardless of how well some children seem to tolerate the procedure, I do have first hand knowledge of what is done and couldn’t do it to my own child). I do have doubts at times and would hate to have my child circumcised later in life if there are any medical problems. Of course I would second guess myself, but I would also have second-guessed myself if there was a complication during the circ. So, please don’t be swayed by fanatics either way. I just wanted to add my story and mention that when I am questioned on my decision by other moms(and I am questioned frequently) I am definitely an advocate against circumcision, but hopefully a respectful and well-informed one that isn’t a whack job.

>I hope you are able to get the information you are looking for with this blog. Circumcision is such a ‘hot topic’ it seems understandable to me that people get a bit heated with their responses.My son is intact. If I had circed him and he was to approach me in 15 years and asked why, I couldn’t live with myself if my reason was “so you wouldn’t (maybe) be teased”. It just seems such a trivial, vain and insecure resoponse to such a major invasion of his privacy. Anyone who doesn’t think its “that big a deal” hasn’t seen the pics of “circs gone wrong”. Horrifyingly sad.Whatever your decision I wish you a happy healthy pregancy and incident free delivery!

>I am an intact American father of daughters. My spouse and I agree on this topic. I came of age in the USA during the 1950s and 60s. I neither read nor post at Mothering.com. I read stuff by “intactivists” but am not one of them. My comments will fall under 3 headings, medical, social, and sexual.Medical. When talking about circumcision, I refuse to use the word “mutilation,” a word that is inflammatory and blocks discussion. It is also a bald fact that hundreds of millions of circumcised men have happy sex lives. I have never heard of circumcision interfering with urination, and I am confident that a large majority of cut men have perfectly enjoyable sex lives.There are about 3 billion human males on the planet, at least a half billion of them snipped. This large block of snipped men consists mainly of Moslems, most Americans, a number of African tribes, Koreans, Philippinos, and adult Canadians and Australians. The USA is now the only country where the majority of infant boys are circumcised without medical indication or religious reason.All claims that circumcision facilitates cleanliness are pathetic. I find it utterly trivial to wash under my foreskin every time I take a shower. It is much harder to keep the anus and navel clean.One would think that given the large number of men of each kind, there would be fair epidemiological evidence bearing on circumcision. There is some evidence that having a foreskin increases the rate of a number of medical problems in the Third World, but these are mostly due to ignorance of elementary hygiene and to a lack of access to basic medical care. What is relevant to this discussion is the effect of circumcision on health outcomes in the first world, especially the nations bordering the north Atlantic. I know of no reliable data on how often intact men in advanced countries suffer from infections under the foreskin, or mechanical problems with the foreskin. To my knowledge, nobody has studied and compared urological data from both sides of the north Atlantic. It is my impression that quite a few intactivists have concluded that American medicine cannot be trusted on this tender subject. Over the course of the 20th century, over 100 million baby boys born in American hospitals were routinely circumcised shortly after birth. In many cases, before medical malpractice lawsuits became common, the consent of the parents was not obtained. Local anesthesia did not become the norm until a 1997 clinical trial proved that circumcision is very painful for the baby (some-thing mothers know by common sense). Most of all, these routine infant circumcisions (RIC) were performed without any medical evidence that they were medically necessary. The medical literature on circumcision published before 1920 or so, is mostly unsubstantiated opinion and urban myth. A fair amount has been published on circ in peer-reviewed journals since 1980 or so, and Gooogle reveals that circumcision and the foreskin have generated a fair amount of web discussion since the web came on the scene, circa 1995. But between 1920 and 1980, very little was published on circumcision in either the medical literature, or in magazines for parents. Nev-er-theless, during this period Americans became so thoroughly circumcised that many Americans go through their entire lives having ever seeing a foreskin in the flesh, or giving it any thought.RIC was introduced in the late 19th century because of Victorian prudishness about masturbation and male sexual desire. The late 19th century is also the time when the germ theory of disease was established, sewers and flush toilets were installed in middle class urban homes, and regular bathing became the norm. There was a dramatic rise in hygienic standards. This is when the American aversion to all body odors began, and when genital and anal hygiene became important hygienic norms. Victorian mothers found it very distasteful to talk to their sons about the need to wash under their foreskins; they did not want to think about the penis, and they did not want their sons handling their penises and possibly experiencing sexual pleasure. So they gladly had the foreskin cut off. Continental Europeans left the foreskin alone, simply because they never bought into Anglo-Saxon prudery (much of the relaxed hedonism about human sexuality we see about us was pioneered in northern Europe in the first half of the 20th century), and were more relaxed about body odors and such.“If you don’t snip him now, he may have to be snipped later.” High rates of circumcision post-infancy seem to be mainly a British and American thing. (While RIC has vanished from the UK, 5-8% of British boys are circumcised by 18 years of age, for one medical reason or another.) In continental Europe, circ is rare at all ages. I also think that the trauma of circ after infancy is overstated. Local anesthesia, Darvon, and drugs that temporarily suppress erections help a lot. There is also an excellent reason to delay circumcision until the penis has reached adult size. Only then can the circumcision be thoughtfully tailored to the penis, leaving enough skin to allow painless erections. Before puberty, boys nearly always have long pointed foreskins. At puberty, the penis grows more than the foreskin, so that adult men often do not have full coverage of the glans. To cut off all of the foreskin at infancy can lead to painful erections and intercourse as an adult.All STD related reasons for circumcising do not apply to men who lead traditional sex lives, or use condoms outside of committed relationships. African clinical trials show that circumcision makes it harder to acquire and transmit AIDS. But African hygiene is vastly poorer than in the USA, and AIDS in Africa is overwhelmingly a heterosexual affair. Meanwhile, AIDS in the north Atlantic is a male homosexual affair, and circumcision has not kept the USA from having the highest rate of AIDS infection of any advanced country. Moreover, HIV seropositivity is not more common in intact Europe than in the circed USA and Canada.A New Zealand study of 500 men born in 1977 found that the circumcised 25% were definitely less likely to have had an STD sometime in their lives. Two problems. First, whether a subject had ever contracted a STD was determined by simply questioning the subject and taking his answer at face value. Second, assignment to treatment and control categories was not random. Parents who elect to circumcise their sons are also likely to raise their sons in a way that leads them to have less trashy sex lives on average.Social.At least 10% of American men born each year between 1940 and 1980 were not circumcised. Who are they? Quite a few Latinos, children of recent immigrants, i.e., children whose fathers never experienced an American locker room or served in the US military. Until 20-30 years ago, American blacks were less circumcised than Caucasians. Some boys are not circumcised at birth because they are premature or in otherwise delicate health. Finally, there have always been a few holdouts against the circ hegemony. I am intact because I was born in continental Europe, where RIC is not an option. Since 1980, the fraction of boys leaving the maternity ward intact has risen to 40-45%, but intactness is popular mainly with progressive parents, among children of new Americans and Latinos, and west of Denver for all. In much of mainstream America, the world of split-levels with 4 bedrooms and 2 baths and the world I hail from, I gather that a large majority of boys still undergo RIC.This intact American Baby Boomer cannot pretend that his foreskin was psychologically unimportant. My peers were overwhelmingly circumcised, but typically were told nothing about it. Boys who were all too quick with the bawdy quip on all sort of tender subjects were utterly silent about their genitalia having been surgically altered. (I once camped for 10 days with a group of European boys aged 13-14; even though only one of them was cut, he and the other boys talked about it without embarrassment.) Circ and the foreskin were not discussed in sex education. Diagrams of the male genitalia almost always depicted the penis as circumcised, without discussion. My mother told me nothing until I was 19, and my father never raised the subject with me. Even in college, talk of circ was quite rare. I had no idea why I did not look like my father, brother, and nearly all boys around me until I chanced on the article “Circumcision” in an adult encyclopedia when I was 13. I was 19 when I first read that one could have a foreskin and still be healthy. I was 31 when I read Wallerstein’s book arguing that RIC was, bluntly, an American medical error. I did not read of the possible sexual advantages of the foreskin until I was around 40. To this day, the only persons with whom I’ve discussed circ face to face are my wife and my mother.I avoided being noticed in locker rooms by quickly pulling my foreskin back before taking off my underpants. It would stay back while I showered. Embarrassment about my foreskin led me to sit out the sexual free-for-all of the 1960s and 70s, which was perhaps for the best. I did not lose my virginity until I was nearly 37, to a woman who had had ample previous experience with intact men. Yet the thought of resenting my parents because they didn’t circumcise me has never crossed my mind. I am now very glad they didn’t, if only because growing up intact in an overwhelmingly circumcised world taught me much about tolerance and marginality. Only one doctor has ever expressed curiosity about my being intact. An andrologist I saw in my 30s did not mention the fact while examining me. Only one person has ever expressed disgust at my being circumcised, and I was old enough at the time to know he was flat-out mistaken.The USA today is different; circumcision is far less hegemonic. By high school, most children of both sexes know that the male genitalia come in two flavors. I read that it is still the case that many American young women find the foreskin distasteful. That would end very quickly if Cosmo were to publish a pro-foreskin article, or if Madonna or Julia Roberts or Shania Twain were to take a public stance in favor of leaving boys intact.Boys should be told a few things about the foreskin around the time they start school, including not to make fun of boys different from themselves. Boys should be told more around puberty, as part of their sexual education, and intact boys can be told how the foreskin affects one’s sex life around the age of 17 or 18.In any event, to circumcise a child only because:*The parents fear that other boys will ridicule him in the locker room, or that women will ridicule him in bed, or*Daddy cannot bear to bathe or change the nappy on a baby boy having an extra bit of sexual tissue;are the worst possible reasons, and a sad manifestation of the classic American fear of nonconformity. Africans mutilate their girls for exactly the same reason: most African men will simply refuse to marry an intact girl.Jews matter less for circ than one might think, simply because there are less than 20 million Jews. Also, quite a few secular Jews born in cultures that are reluctant to circumcise except for good medical reasons, such as the former USSR, are intact. The main Jewish contribution to the subject is that they pioneered the idea that a male should be circumcised soon after birth. Some of the most eloquent intactivists are proudly Jewish.Sexual.I accept that millions of American young women find the foreskin strange or distasteful. But that simply follows from the fact that their younger brothers, and any baby boys whose nappies they changed, were all cut. If all the penises you see in your impressionable years have a knob on the end, you will find strange the rare penis that looks like a giant earthworm.That said, the foreskin facilitates masturbation and handjobs. Fellatio on an intact penis is not disagreeable, if the penis is rinsed off immediately beforehand. Mind you, that our noses and mouths find the secretions under the foreskin revolting is Mother Nature’s way of reminding us that she wants to see the penis in the vagina, not in the mouth! The foreskin does a wonderful job of spreading male lubrication all over and behind the glans. You cannot imagine the number of times I have gone to pee after meeting one or more attractive women, only to discover when I pulled back my foreskin that my penis was all lubbed up! The design of condoms leaves something to be desired where intact men are concerned, although I’ve used a condom hundreds of times. I predict that the growing number of intact Americans will lead condom manufacturers to come up with products that better accommodate the foreskin.Do intact men derive more pleasure from vaginal intercourse? There is as yet no scientific answer to that question, although I suspect there will be by 2050. What we do know is that the tip and inner lining of the foreskin are rich in nerve endings. Does the foreskin matter for a woman’s experience of vaginal intercourse? Anecdotal evidence goes both ways here, but there is no scientifically collected evidence (“Sex as Nature Intended It” is NOT science). For one thing, responsible premarital experimentation (“sowing one’s oats”) should take place with a condom, and condoms pretty much suppress foreskin mobility. Hence I am not surprised that some women claim that the foreskin makes for smoother gentler sex, others have the impression that intact men are merely masturbating in their vaginas, still others say that by and large they experience no difference. Scandinavian medicine attributes considerable sexual importance to the foreskin, French medicine does not, and American medicine simply ducks the question.

>I guess it’s a little late for comments, but I just remembered a deal that I made with my first son. Before he was born, I told him that if he didn’t rip me open, I wouldn’t cut him 🙂 I’m really small with dry, non-stretchy skin, and he was 8 pounds 8 ounces, with a head circumference in the 95th percentile. Other than a 1/4″ skin tear I didn’t tear! 3 hours of pushing helped stretch me out nice and slow 🙂 Of course I wasn’t going to circumcise him anyway, but I wanted to get something out of it, lol 😀

>Read about 5 comments. . . Maybe you aren’t even checking anymore! In case you are . . . I am a girl, have no kids, but have had, um, relations with about 8 of the organs in question. 1 was unsnipped. Made no difference to me! I didn’t even notice on sight, it just felt a little looser and I asked the guy why. One thing to note – it was harder to keep clean. Good luck!

>My husband is circumcised, but my family isnt. After the birth of my first son we had a big decision to make. Mine was easy. I told my husband to go in with the doctors if he wanted our son circ. We came home with a very happy mommy and uncircumcised son. Our second son was the same. Our first son had no problem growing up but now 5yrs old and I realized that his skin wasnt pulling back(Doctors told me never to pull back as it would do on its own). I knew we had a problem. We first tried a topical cream but didnt work. The dreaded day had come. He was circumcised 1 week ago. Pain for 2 days. torture the next day as the gauze was stuck and had to come off, another day of horrible pain, then horray, He was of playing gently.My sons remarks were “why didnt you do it when I was a baby (and very angry at me). I replyed that I didn’t have the heart and not every has complications and reminded that his brother is ok) He eventually agreed with me and now tells me constantly that he loves me.So, now I have 2 very different boys who will most likely be in the same locker room when they are older and can defend and help understand the differences.P.s If given the decision again, I wouldnt snip.

>i can’t believe how absolutely ridiculous the concept of an intact penis looking “weird” is. Why would something that evolution has designed and naturally occurs on a human body look weird? They only reason is that the large amount of circumcising that goes on has created a new standard. If you are in europe and circumcised, then you would most defiantly be the weird looking one. So I guess it truly is a cultural thing. as for myself, i am intact and have never had a single problem. i don’t think i spend any more time than a cut guy washing my junk and i never have any issues with hygiene or stuff like that. In the sexual department, it has gotten nothing but rave reviews and every single girl ive been with has been thoroughly enjoyed it. In fact, I know of at least a couple that have changed their overall preference to uncut. I could go into details, but I’ll just say that there are several aspects of sex that are better when your uncut. It just makes things easier. I will admit that when a few of my friends found out when I was about 18, there was some comments, but the concept was so foreign to them they didnt know how much they were missing out on. now they are jealous!

>I’m a “cut” Dad that left his 2nd son intact. I’m so glad we chose to keep him intact. In the SW, there’s about a 50/50 ratio if cut & NOT. I’m a college educated publice employee.There is really no need for RIC at all. “Just for looks”, “peer pressure” or “locker room reasons” are ridiculous. I played sports my whole life in the 70s/80s & no one stared at “other penises”. Now , my DW has been w/ several uncut men & she says, “when it gets erect, it looks the same & the men have much better experiences”Most of world doesn’t circ unless you’re Jewish or muslim. I disagree w/ religious reasons also.funny, my father was uncut but I assume my wacky, hypochondriac mother was talked into to circ’ing by some Dr.. If a Dr told her to cut off her left hand for some “health prevention” she would.Sadly, the comment made by some women posters are highly disturbing regarding a “southern cultural thing” do y’all sit around discussing penises LOL ?There’s many cultural things everywhere that should just die off. YK? the whole “they only cried a peep – YUK ! have you ever heard of “shock” We have Nurses in the famliy & they are all intructed to tell parents” their boy did just fine – only cierd a minute” to assure parents they did the right thing. al lthe nurses in our family now refuse to assist on circs – not b/c they are pro/con on the subject, just that they are tired of lying to parents & watching babies scream in serious pain. Guessing by the $300 pocket change in the Dr’s pocket… that adds up to a pretty good income source.My Blue cross/blue shield doesn’t cover it either.I had MANY male friends in HS that asked, ” Does your d!ck hurt when you get a stiffy?” I told them “NO” & couldn’t figure out what they meant until I researched when we found out we were having a boy. Their circs took off too much skin – too tight. It was hard for some of them to achieve O b/c of underlying pain.I’m in public safety & have been around tons of guys from all over& have heard this more often than not. so for all the chicks that think it looks better – what do you care, you cn see where it usually is, YK? Yes, I’m an anti-circ activist Daddy & I’m about as mainstream as they come. I’m no crfunchy tree hugger either but we do AP for our boy b/c he’s hi-needs.K9PD

>Perhaps 5-10% in Sweden are circumcised so it is odd to do it here. I have never heard that any woman like it more or less so that seems like a very odd argument. A friend did it at the age of 25 because of physical needs (too big a wiener) and he was not in more pain than going to a dentist so that argument is not very good. I can understand that if everybody does it and kids are beefing each other for everything out of the normal, then it might be good to sail along the stream to not stick out of the ordinary. But solid stable parents should be capable of informing, preparing and supporting their kids against these kind of temporary arguments in school etc.

>To all who don`t know….each and everyone of the men who signed that United States Constitution had a foreskin.Thomas Jefferson had a foreskin, and by god if foreskin is good enough for Thomas Jefferson it is good enough for me.I am an intact man with a foreskin of 22 years and I have had no problems. Circumcision was deplored by the framers of the Republic of the United States.

>My husband is sixty-two. He was never circumcised. Without going into personal details, I know he would tell anybody, “Get your kid circumcised!”He’s having some discomfort and will probably have to get circumcised before long. I’ve learned this is not at all uncommon. Better to have it done as an infant and be spared the pain, embarrassment, and all else involved.

>I don’t know about other experiences with circumcision but after my son had it done I don’t know if I would do it again. I have one boy and two older girs. My boy is 21 month now and he is doing great. When he had his circumcision at around 4-6 weeks, I thought I will go crazy!!! He was crying from getting needles with anasthesia(he was poked 3 times). He was bleeding a little more than he should(from Doc’s view). He was crying all the way home( half an hour to 45 min. drive). At home it was hell!!! For about 3-4 days(maybe even a week, I don’t remember now), my son was screaming every time you would look at it, forget about touching!! We used medicated cream given by the doc to prevent infection and every time I would change the gause he would cry. He had no diapers for the first few days. I was not able to pick him up or hold him the way I usually did. I had to be very careful not to touch the area. And after all that, when it all start to heal, the foreskin was stack to the head of his p….We had to go back to the doctor and he had to pull it open again. Fortunatelly, it wasn’t the worst thing but my guy did cry. Also, I have a feeling that the doctor who performed his circumcision didn’t do a good job. He did the cut at an angle which is probably the right thing but he did it at a wrong angle and now I see that he cut a little bit more on top than he should have, that’s why my son was bleeding more than he should in the first place, and the doc didn’t cut enough on the bottom as I see some “loose” skin on the bottome of his P….I did told my hubby that if I knew that my son will have so much pain and suffering from it I wouldn’t have done it, but I hear a lot of positive things about the circumcision and don’t feel as bad anymore. But I still don’t know if I would do it again.

>So sorry your blog got hijacked, but that’s really what these women do. they buddy up and start sending each other to wherever this discussion is going o nand they jump on it like the plague. Sad.Anyway, I have two boys, both circumcised. In my aprticular case, it’s the best choice I could make for them. I had religious reasons to do it and I’m happy that there are certain medical benefits that came with it. Until I read your blog I didn’t realy think the social/cultural reasons were strong enough, but you’re absolutely right. It should be taken into consideration and they defintely determine what’s best for our children. It seems to me that some people have turned their children into their banners and in an attempt to be anti-mainstream and oh-so original and unique, they forget about that important social aspect we all have. So you take into account the factors you think are important and make the best choice for your child. Good luck!

>Sometimes having a foreskin is unattractive ie dirty. Its really that simple. It has its value sexually? -potentially, having as one blogger said 20 000 nerve endings, though surely cosmo, to take a sardonic example has never advised its readers on utilizing that, that would be culturally abnormal to be sure; so, then , what is the value of it? Allow me to be frank; I am not circumcised, and I have never thought that its being there contributed to my sexuality -as many here allude to. But, then again, thats a little like asking a fish what it thinks of the ocean. Is intact or snipped a factor in terms of performance?! I’ll put that out there, in conclusion.

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