The New Intimacy

To circumcise or not?!

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Contributor: P'Gell P'Gell
Quote:
Originally posted by "G"
Do it, he'll be made fun of for having a needle dick if you dont
No he won't!

Most people who have boys have not cut their boys. NONE of the boys I know have ever been "teased." Only about half of boys born in the last 20 years are circumcised and many insurance companies will refuse to pay for it, as they consider it (honestly) as Cosmetic Surgery.

My nephew isn't circed and I asked his mom about the "teasing" thing. As it turns out, a little less than HALF of boys are left intact (uncirced.)

His mother asked her son about "teasing." The boy told her, "Ma. If you look at much less comment on an other dude's dick, you'll have more to worry about than teasing. Nobody looks (or admits to it) and nobody cares. If you were to comment on an other dude's dick, you'd be called a really unkind name yourself."

The reports of boys being "teased" in the locker room are simply untrue. My husband said he had never heard of it, even when he was a kid back in the 60s and 70s. In fact, when I was pregnant with our first child, we weren't sure if we were having a boy or a girl. When I said I didn't want the boy circed, he said, "Well, let's wait, we don't even know if he will have one. I don't even know if I had one" I was confused, "Have one?" "Yeah" he said, "Y'know, that skin thing."

"First of all, it's called a foreskin. Of course you had one all men have them. You don't have one now because someone cut it off when you were a baby or a toddler." Sadly, he was that uninformed (as are some on this forum) about penises and their natural state.

My husband is now suffering from seriously painful keratinized tissue on his penis from years of not being protected by a foreskin. I'm sure he's love his foreskin back.

I don't think performing a surgical procedure that removes more than 50% of the tissue from an infant's penis should be done based on old wives tales of "teasing." And just WTF is a "needle dick?" I've never heard of it in my life. Even if I had, it's not a reason to mutilate a baby's natural defense system and a necessary part of his body.

Really. The reasons some people do things....
03/12/2013
Contributor: dv8 dv8
Quote:
Originally posted by Bubba29
i am circumcised so i have no perspective otherwise on cleanliness and sensation. i would go based on women's opinions. i would not want a dick women are grossed out by.
Of course, the gross-out factor doesn't apply to places outside of North America where circumcision isn't prevalent.

If you have no perspective on sensation, why would you advocate reducing other men's sensation?
03/12/2013
Contributor: emilia emilia
Quote:
Originally posted by Jamesey
My little three month old is still uncircumcised, due to the fact that he was born early and they were unable to do it then, and now we just don't know what to do. Men, are you circumcised? And is it that big of a deal? I can't see hurting ... more
it matters
03/15/2013
Contributor: bayosgirl bayosgirl
Quote:
Originally posted by LoganAshlee.
Men should always be!
why?
03/16/2013
Contributor: Bignuf Bignuf
Quote:
Originally posted by Jamesey
My little three month old is still uncircumcised, due to the fact that he was born early and they were unable to do it then, and now we just don't know what to do. Men, are you circumcised? And is it that big of a deal? I can't see hurting ... more
If for no other reason then decreased risk of cancer later, and greatly decreased incidence of harboring and spreading STD's later in life, I think it is worth it. I know that the politically correct thing is to say that there is "no difference" in these area's, but just read the medical research.

link

link

link
03/16/2013
Contributor: P'Gell P'Gell
The African studies have been (rightly) accused of bias. Many in the medical community (please, can we NOT use the outdated, exhausted term "politically correct?") know those studies got the results they wanted by manipulating data. Add that to the fact that much of the HIV virus in Africa is slightly different (and more easily spread by heterosexual PIV intercourse) than the HIV we see in the West, add that to the fact that the average man in many of the countries studied was well over 300 people add that to the fact that many of the men studied had had homosexual relations and refused to admit to it... and you get studies that DO NOT hold up.

No physician I know believes these studies, and you can't judge a child born in the West by a biased study done on a different virus gotten by people who have huge pools of sexual partners.

The data simply doesn't translate to what should be done to infant boys in the West. There are too many variables. Plus the studies are under a great deal of scrutiny about how ethically they were done. IMO, the results are null and void.

NONE of that is a reason to do such a thing to an innocent child.

Here is part of an article describing WHY the African studies do not prove a thing and are basically worthless.


Any link between circumcision and HIV is statistically quite slight, so the protection would be quite inefficient compared to education in safe-sex practices and a culture of protected or otherwise safe(r) sex.
The studies are trumpetted by their Relative Risk Reduction (RRR), currently running about 50-60%, but the corresponding Number Needed to Treat (NNT) is much less impressive. (In the latest Uganda study it is 56 circumcisions to prevent one HIV infection per year. That corresponds to 380 circumcisions/infectio n/year in the US, where AIDS is less prevalent.)
As each new study corrects the errors of its predecessors, the protection claimed is less. When all the errors are corrected, what effect will be left?

In the case of randomised controlled trials (RCTs),

While large numbers of men enter a trial, only a very small number are infected, making random errors high.
The men were randomly assigned to be circumcised or left intact, but they were not a random sample of the population.
They were all HIV-negative, meaning they were more likely to have any natural immunity than the rest of the population
None were circumcised, meaning certain tribal groups had been selected out.
All were willing to be circumcised
They were significantly rewarded for taking part, skewing the socio-economic status of the sample

It may have been impossible to correct for these (since humans are not lab rats), but they are issues none the less.

Significant numbers of men dropped out of the trials (were "lost to study"). Only those who stay the distance should be counted.

Those who are circumcised and contract HIV will be more likely to drop out than the others because
they got what they came for but
circumcision didn't protect them, so they would be disillusioned with the trial.

The three RCTs were cut short: this has reduced their accuracy.

The control groups were then offered circumcision, making long-term follow-up impossible.
Ethical approval for better studies will be harder to get, making these studies the last word.

The gold standard of medical testing is the double blind random controlled trial. Circumcision can not be concealed from the experimenter or the subject. The control groups were not given a placebo operation.

The after-effects of the operation are likely to alter sexual behaviour.

In an experimental environment, the subjects (who were circumcised) got counselling and safe-sex advice that would not be available in a mass circumcision campaign and which were not given to the non-circed group.

The circumcised group had specific instructions to abstain from sex and use condoms that the intact control group does not.

Experimenter and circumcision advocate Robert Bailey has admitted that "repeated study visits and intensive behavioural counselling" of the circumcised men were needed to reduce risk behaviours.

The outcome? These studies were RIGGED so should not only not be believed, but should NEVER be applied to infants in the Western world.
03/16/2013
Contributor: chicmichiw chicmichiw
Unless you're religious, there's not that much reason to. Being uncircumcised has some hygiene-related concerns, but it's actually that little boys shouldn't attempt to clean under their foreskins until they've matured (a special membrane is there that is easily ripped and if damaged, creates complications). Or so I've heard. I'm female and I don't have any male kids.
03/16/2013
Contributor: Virgingasms Virgingasms
I just don't see the point of cutting the foreskin off. In ancient times or certain areas, yeah, I get it, you're hunting or in the desert so you don't want junk getting under your foreskin. But if you have showers and soap I really don't see what the big deal is about cleaning under it.
03/17/2013
Contributor: Pete's Princess Pete's Princess
(Review Program Mentor)
Unless there is a religious reason, I would not do it. He can always make that decision when he gets older.
05/11/2013