Kuuipogal wrote: "I think good hygiene and protection prevent viruses more effectively than removing a foreskin."

Thanks for writing this!

I get very passionate about this topic, but I really think that a person's genitals are their own business and knowing what I know now - after living with one for 30 years - it seems barbaric to snip it off!

But I guess if I'd been snipped at birth, I probably would be arguing the opposite.

But natural should be better!

I do object to women saying 'it looks nicer,' though. Personally, i think it's like a man going up to a woman and saying that fake boobs look nicer. In my mind, that's actually offensive - like saying 'you're not acceptable as nature made you, you should do this to look better.'

This is an interesting post by a wirter who has had a circumcision later in life link

I will not have any child of mine circumcised nor forcefully vaccinated. I will inform them and it will be their choice. I do not think parents should be making medical decisions for a child that does not understand them.

My reason for being against vaccination? I keep finding more and more studies that many vaccines contain a form of mercury as a preservative and potentially harmful adjutants. In fact I got a vaccine unknowingly and was later informed I could have been killed from it and that I may actually be sterile now from the vaccine.

My reason for being against circumcision? Okay this is going to be very offensive, but who cares? If you are so lazy and your kid is so lazy that you cannot teach him to properly wash his genitals then maybe you should take some parenting classes. Any part of the human body that has contact against other skin will get yeasty and infected if neglected. If you are clean to begin with and if you teach your kid to clean themselves properly it will not be an issue. There is just plainly no reason to do it other than societal pressure, but most foreskins are short enough to where it's not obnoxious anyways- the ones that I have seen in any case. I know some uncircumcised guys that are big enough to where you honestly can't tell when they're hard. It just makes it easier to give them a handjob.

There's just no reason for it in my mind and people saying "Ooooh smegma" are people who need to teach their kid how to use a bar of soap, and stop being squeamish about cleaning their kid when he or she is too young to do it themselves. They're a kid. You have to wash them. They have bits. Get over it or buy an asexual baby doll instead.

*steps down off of soapbox*

Almost all vaccines now contain no mercury, and protect against diseases that can be contracted in ways that are almost impossible to prevent. As a comparison, ask someone who was around when polio was prevalent what they think of vaccines.

Circumcision as a preventative for HIV transmission is not reliable, and advocating it for a marginal reduction in risk (yes, 50%, but that's not a very good reduction for something of this magnitude where people die - also does that study factor in encounters with only HIV positive partners or all encounters - if it were all encounters than it becomes even less meaningful). From a health standpoint it would be better not to circumcise and spend the time promoting methods that are highly effective.

I agree with many of the previous posters in that I would not circumcise a son. It fits, in my understanding of the word, in line with the definition of genital mutilation.

To be clear, I understand mutilation as something that unnecessarily injures the look or function.

Actually, the highest rates of HIV/AiDS transmissions and new cases are young (17-35) year old minority women. The ones who don't use condoms, who get talked into spontaneous sex.

I got a 14 year old in the other day, pregnant and with 3 types od STDs and she didn't think she could get pregnant or get an infection because "I got the Guardasil shot last year".

Ignorance causes disease and unwanted pregnancies, not lack of circumcision. I do however, think parents should vaccinate children according to local rules. We have children needlessly sick and in the hospital because their parents voted no for whooping cough.

I haven't read all the posts in this thread, but it looks like a very good discussion. First off, I am circumcised and my father is circumcised, but none of my boys are circumcised. Why not?
1. We are not Jewish or Islamic.
2. We like to do things naturally, we birth at home, so our children have seldom even been to the doctor.
3. As they become old enough, we teach our children personal hygiene and eventually we will talk with them about sex, sexuality, safer sex, and abstinence.
4. I see no reason for it.
After we decided not to circumcise our oldest son, my mom told me that her father was not circumcised and she supported our decision. My dad, on the other hand, acted as if we should do it as tradition. It seemed clear to me that this was probably a point of contention when I was born and my dad won out. Go figure that eventually I would go the opposite way.

To start, this is all hypothetical. I don't have children and I won't know exactly how I would handle it until I do have kids (which in all likelihood might be never). This is intellectually how I imagine I would handle it:

In either case, it would be unnecessary to have the circumcision AT BIRTH. I would not circumcise either and infant with a vulva nor an infant with a penis at this time. I feel this should be an individual decision. I would probably broach the issue when I felt they were able to understand, maybe around 11 or 12 years old, before they were having sex but at an age where maybe they were starting to have an interest in sex. I'd let them either child know the risks and benefits, provide them any reading on it I could, take them to doctors for consultations as I would with any other surgery. I would tell them that the option for surgery was open to them at any point if they chose it, and if not then that's fine too. Besides that, my door would be open to questions.

I don't see vaccinating a child or choosing his formula or other such things as being similar enough in nature to circumcision to say that since we do one we should do the other.

My husband is intact, and I think he has the most gorgeous penis I've seen. They are beautiful from birth and are not made more attractive by lopping off natural and beneficial parts of it. JMO.