Babble

The choice to circumcise is based on cultural, religious beliefs and of course yours. May be this article will help to have some more information for the same. http://www.greatdad.com/tertiary/89/515/circumcision.html 

It wasn't even an issue for us. Cutting your baby went against every maternal instinct I had. Just because you pay a "professional" makes it not child abuse. Seems like a double standard to me. I can't wait until it becomes a crime. Religion should be no excuse to hurt your children.

as a man who is circumcised, don't do it!  i was circumcised when i was  30 for medical reasons completely unrelated to my foreskin and currently attempting to reform my foreskin because i need to cover the glans because of complications because of health reasons. 

 as your boy grows up, he may be teased a little bit, but in the long run he will thank you for this decision you made for him.  should he decide as a man to have it removed then it is his decision.  but that has been called the cruelest cut of all. 

as an adult, he will find sex is so mush better for himself and his partner.  there are many websites out there that explain both sides of the subject but please, just let him make that decision for himself.

just a little history of circumcision.  Dr, Kellogg and Mr graham of cornflake and cracker fame pushed for circumcision because they let their religion got in the way,  circumcision of the masses began because it was to keep boys from masturbating.  thats right.  the only reason!  guess what, it didn't help, but made the religious folk feel better. 

currently there are many folks saying circumcision is more healthy, more sanitary and more hygienic.  that is all pretty much bunk.  is it more healthy?  not really, statistically it is supposed to stop some extremely rare cancers.  remember, these are extremely rare.  don't worry about this.  more sanitary.  teach the boy to wash himself.   its the American way.  just take a bath or shower and there wont be a problem with smagma, smell or taste.  it is supposed to be more hygienic.  teach the boy to use a condom when he get old enough.  that will take care of most any problem.  my goodness, teach the boy to keep it in his pants!  and if he does get sexually active, use a condom.

there is a movement afoot to make circumcision a form of child abuse.  that is going a bit far but it is beginning to be mentioned on some websites.

regards

Dave

I say by all means do not cut.We have two boys and did not cut either one. they both have good functioning foreskins. When I grew up my self I soon realized that I needed all the foreskin I had.I have a 7" long penis, which hangs at 4" when soft. The foreskin never covers the glans of my penis, so you can imagine what my penis would function like without the foreskin.I am very thankful to have my foreski,as it also works very well when having intercourse,as the skin on the shaft is able to move back and forth .Please let the boys decide if they want to get cut, once the penis is full grown you can than realize the benifite of the intact penis

i'm not circumcising. really doesn't have anything to do with being crunchy & more to do with being logical. all the reasons i've heard for doing it are absurd and/or proven to be untrue. less than 50% of chlidren born in the U.S. are now circumcised. top reasons are religion and to "look like dad". 1. religion-i have friends that are "jewish". they eat pork, don't go to temple, know NOTHING about judaism and celebrate christmas, but the ONE tradition they plan on keeping is mutilating their child's penis. go figure. 2. looking like dad-i don't plan on my child and husban planning on spending lots of time comparing each others' penises. not much else is going to look like dad. hell, even being circumcised isn't going to make his penis look much like dad's. if i have a girl, i'm not going to mutiliate her vagina to look like mine. 3. hygiene-boys are just as able to learn to clean the crevices and folds of their genitals, much like we expect girls to. especially if they ever want to get laid. 4. AIDS- um, anyone heard of condoms?

If you are expecting a baby boy, you may have already made up your mind about whether to circumcise him.  Find articles about whether go for child circumcision or not.

 

I have to say that I GREATLY regret the decision to circumcise my son. I had reservations, and I should have listened to my maternal instinct. I know that rates are declining, but I have to say that I felt intense pressure from EVERYBODY in my life, from hospital staff to my own family. We finally did it for the two most common reasons...so that he would "look like Daddy" and for the "health reasons". Five years later I can look at the issue and say "Psh...who cares if Daddy and son have perfectly matching penises! What was I thinking?  My husband is Greek, so very tan, my son is pasty white like his mamma, so their penises don't match anyway :) " Not to make light of it, it is VERY serious and it grieves me every time I run into this issue. I'll admit, the idea of giving oral sex to an uncircumcised penis seems icky, but that is only because I have been conditioned by our current culture to expect a "helmet head" and my only experiences have been with circumcised men.  The guilt I feel is intense, I would NEVER wish this guilt on anybody. I hope that my son will be happy with his penis, but I wish that I had allowed him to make such a decision about his body. 

Expecting a baby boy soon and feel very torn over this issue. While part of me cringes at the thought of cutting part of my baby's precious little body, I have to logically make a decision that will either enhance or detract from my baby's life long after he has grown into a man.Who in their right mind would want to see pain inflicted on a defenseless baby? However, I work as an RN and have spent much time trying to painfully retract old mens' foreskins raw from retained urine and scaly smegma (old secretions). There is also a condition called phemosis which is no fun. The foreskin actually shrinks painfully trapping the glans inside. I've seen 80-year-old men circumcised to treat these problems. Can you imagine a circ at 80? Some have even told me that sex can be very painful especially at first because the glans is so sensitive. I won't even get into the smell and infections that I've seen. I'm not trying to sway anyone, just impart firsthand reality that I've witnessed. I look at some of these poor men and think if only they'd been circ'd as babies, they'd have avoided the suffering they are experiencing now. I probably would not circ had I gone into bookkeeping or law, but after seeing all that I've seen, I'm going to circ. Just because you choose not to circ doesn't mean baby boy will go blissfully through life with an intact foreskin and nary a penis qualm. Intact foreskins come with their own share of issues. While I greatly respect anyone's decision to not circumcise, please consider that you may not be doing baby boy any special by leaving him intact.

If an intact boy is taught to clean his penis correctly, he won't have a problem with whatever painful crustiness being referenced.  It's like toothbrushing- maybe a little boring but necessary for health.  And I'm pretty unconvinced by the anecdote about 80 year-old men, because so frequently EVERYTHING is a problem at that age.  Trying to prevent it all by removal would be universally seen as ridiculous, and I don't see how the foreskin is any different.

 On a different note, I had a circumsized boyfriend whose glans had such a sensitivity loss that he bought SenSlips, which are basically latex (? I think) penis sheaths that serve the same function as a foreskin as far as protection from chafing et cetera goes.  (Apparently they were fairly effective, if anyone was wondering).

 Also, as circumcision becomes less common (which it slowly has been), worries about boys feeling "different" for being intact will disappear (though I see that as a poor reason to cut off a piece of a boys body.  Don't even get me started on the "I want him to look like Daddy" reason.)

LOL,

I agree unless it is for religious reasons leave their skins alone it's there for a reason

Circumcision is kind of like getting your cats declawed.  It's done for convenience not for any legitimate medical purpose.  The cats don't claw the furniture and you don't have to have the awkward conversation about why your son doesn't look like dad or how to perform proper genital hygiene.  We had a boy and I obsessed about it 'til I got the facts, and then it was a no brainer. And when he was born evrything about him was so perfect I couldn't imagine cutting him.

I'm a circumcised guy of 37 and my wife left most of this responsibility for this to me, though she certainly channeled plenty of information my way on the topic. After reading the opinions on both sides and considering why most Americans my age are cut (no good reason, really, other than it was just done), I started to lean toward uncut. I even asked some female friends in my age bracket how they felt about uncircumcised penises (hey, wanted to make sure he could get some action, right?), and was a little surprised to get back some wrinkled noses in response - most hadn't "been" with an uncut guy but most didn't like the foreskin regardless. When pressed most said they didn't like how it looked (aesthetics) or some had heard that they were more disease-prone. One had a story of an Uncle who had a very painful foreskin condition that led to its removal in his 40's. My elder sister particularly disliked the thought of a foreskin. But, ultimately, the opinions of my fellow 30- and 40-somethings were (and are) irrelevant. In my age bracket the percentage of circumsized males is much higher (by 30++%) than newborns today, which would mean that most of these opinions are formed around the norms of their personal experience, which would almost always be snipped.

And of course there have been lots of studies about disease and foreskins but there are as many articles saying that the studies are flawed as there are studies. More compelling for me is that nations that had recommended it for many years (Canada, if I recall), have issued retractions (pun intended) and are basically saying to do it for religious/cultural reasons only. 

As I see it, unnecessary surgery is a bad thing, and the numbers bear out that this opinion is spreading regarding circumcision. Depending on your geography the rate of circumcision has been falling pretty dramatically since the late 70's and chances are good that your son will be in the minority if he's clipped in the locker room. 

But, with all this data, I still found the decision frustrating and difficult. It wasn't until my son was born and I was watching him getting his fist bath by the nurse through the nursery window that I could decide - of course I would not put this precious little creature through an unnecessary surgery for no good reason! How could I?

And a couple of days later we were at the baby bathing class in the hospital with 4 other couples, 3 who had boys. When I peeked I saw bloody bandages on some of their poor tender little penises and I felt bad for those babies and so proud that we hadn't put our guy through that.

Since then my mother learned that we didn't circumcise and she got pretty bent out of shape about it, claiming that we'll “regret it” and “so will he.” My wife's Grandmother said when the topic came up that circumcision was done to “prevent them from bleeding.” But, she's 80, and maybe that's what they told people back then. (They didn't have the internets.)

When the time comes I'm going to tell my guy that when daddy was born people believed that cutting off the foreskin was healthy but that people learned since then that it's not the case. I'll tell him that some parents still do it for cultural or religious reasons and that's OK but that he is very lucky to have his entire junk unscathed. I'll teach him what needs to be done to manage it just like I'll teach him to floss, brush, wear clean drawers and code HTML. These are things kids just need to know.

I'm glad to be part of breaking the cycle of genital mutilation of our children – and that's what it is, isn't it? Cutting part of your children's genitals for no good reason. I mean, OK, if you have strong beliefs I guess whatever floats your boat, but I don't believe in god. I believe in kindness.

My 8-month-old son is actually being circumcised tomorrow during his 6th surgery.  He had a heart transplant at one-week old and will be immunosuppressed the rest of his life.  To my son, infection isn't just an inconvenience, it can be fatal.  A previous poster compared cleaning the uncircumcised penis to brushing your teeth.  Have you seen a kid between 2 and 12 brush their teeth?  For that matter, have you seen some adults brush their teeth?  At this point in my son's life, I am responsible for making sure he is clean.  In the not so near future, I won't be present at bathtime, and I am fairly confident that a young boy is not going to be upfront with me if I were to ask if he was keeping himself clean.  I was told once that my son would never leave the hospital alive.  Only God knows what is in store for my little miracle, but I will do everything in my power to make sure that he's here as long as possible. 

Sorry, but your logic fails. Unless you are orthodox (keeping _all_ the rules) as a Jew you pick and choose what you want to observe. Some won't eat pork but eat shellfish. It is every Jew's right to follow as few as one single commandment, which may be circumcision. Don't want to know about your vaginal mutilation. Re STDs-hey, we have antibiotics. Why use condoms, right? The point is to do as many things as possible to minimze risk, as many aspects of the system (read, condoms) can fail. Circumcision significantly and dramaticlaly decreases the chance of a life-threatening illness +/- some types of cancer.

We did circumsise do to the fact that it cuts down on infections and disease..also, a bit on the vain side..all of the women I know (including myself) prefer the look and feel of a circ'ed one to a non when using it for reproductive reasons...