Why do you care what I decide to do to my son's penis when he is born?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is a current of religious intolerance in the whole discussion here (other thread, but it a
Ways is that was on similar threads). I don't feel I have to apologize for being a proud Jewish woman, looking forward to raising a Jewish son. But I don't plan on having many people check out my sons dick. It's so odd to me that people are seeing all these other kids penises! And I'm not even prude. Just, why would hu be checking out my son?

I'm sure if I read through the 17+ pages of this thread, I'll find a similar comment...but I find it funny that you probably had a bris and invited all your friends to watch his circumscision yet claim you don't plan on having many people check out your son's penis.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, 13+ pages

[Anonymous]

I made that point a bit ago PP. Was told that not everyone invites everyone to brises. Asked if bris was a secret. Got no answer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would not let someone as judgmental and clearly in need of therapy change my son's diapers. Just would not do it. We don't have a lot of judgmental psychos in our boys diapers. Just sayin'

Yes, this. It's astonishing this poster has any friends at all. Certainly, the second Judge Judy mentioned that was too bad that the other mother "mutilated" her son would be the end of the friendship -- and every parent in a several mile radius would know to avoid her like the plague.

You continue to try to cast people opposing circumcision as a crazy minority. They are not, trust me. Not everyone is as passionate about it as some posters here, but the numbers of people who think what you are doing is wrong (and will judge you for it on some level) are growing.

I agree, and the numbers are proving the decline of this habit. But reactions like the PPs are common from people who did it for cultural reasons, horrified that the trend is shifting and they circumcised in vain.

Look, if there's compelling evidence coming up in the next decade or so, demonstrating real benefits of circumcisions, I CAN still have DS circumcised. DS can still do it himself later, at any point in his life.

People like the first 2 PPs don't have that choice, because their decision to circumcise is irreversible; so how can they allow themselves to see they were wrong? They might never admit their cultural bias, the frivolousness and ineffectiveness of the decision to circumcise. Instead, they naturally become defensive and react with anger and derisive invectives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Why don't we have millions of men running around now who are extremely scarred? It is interesting that rarely do fathers get so very hysterical about this issue, but the mother sure do! Quite odd to be that obsessed with your child's and other children's genitalia.

This is what I think every time I see one of these threads. Considering the vast majority of grown men...even teens...have been circd in this society, you would think there would be very known epidemic problems based in what the anti-circ team is saying. I have yet to hear of one grown man express any trauma over their circumcisions.

No one is saying that millions experience long term trauma. They are saying that they have been scarred and that part of their penis has been removed for cosmetic reasons and that it is not justifiable to put a newborn baby who is unable to consent through this process. Many men express regret that this was done to them and that number will only increase as the procedure becomes less common and as your children become the unusual ones (just like in the rest of the world).

This is primarily a women's board, that is why the majority of people posting here are women.

My husband is very happy his parents made the choice to circ him. What if yours wishes you had done the same? It is much more traumatic and risky to do it as an adult.

Really, the histrionics around this issue just isn't warranted. It really makes you sound unstable and crazy.

You do realize you are talking to several posters, yes? What are you considering "histrionics"? Remember this is a cultural issue. If the discussion was about tattooing your newborn and some people vehemently disagreed with it would you say that they were unstable? What if it was about piercing your newborn's nose?

The people who care what other parents do with respect to circing. All weirdos and unstable. There is a lot of overlap with that group and anti-vaxers.

NP here. You are wrong on this one (or do you have evidence?). I am VERY pro-vaccine, and very anti-circ. Because I look at what makes sense from a scientific/medical perspective. I would think there are many people who think that way. Most of Europe, for instance.

PP here again. And labeling people who oppose routine infant circumcision as "weirdos and unstable" (as has been done many times on this thread) just reveals that you are really at a loss for arguments. You can't win a rational argument about this, so you try to discredit your opponent. Pathetic, and so transparent.

Okey dokey crazy cakes.

I hope the humor in this response is intentional!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:WTF is this crap , now circumcision its mutilation? That puts you up in fucking moron status. I am not jewish and did not do it for religion. We circed for medical benefits. Its a tiny flap of skin get over it I couldn't care less about your kid's. Just cause the koran says you should wash your hands before eating it doesn't make me muslim if I do so. In fact all religions have some logical reasons for certain practices that are not just ceremonial.

if for some reason you brought it up in a casual conversation I would think you are a freak but wouldn't blast you with all the medical studies I would just move on to another subject.

Exactly. If you live in a desert without running water like the ancient Jews and medieval Muslims.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why don't we have millions of men running around now who are extremely scarred? It is interesting that rarely do fathers get so very hysterical about this issue, but the mother sure do! Quite odd to be that obsessed with your child's and other children's genitalia.

This is what I think every time I see one of these threads. Considering the vast majority of grown men...even teens...have been circd in this society, you would think there would be very known epidemic problems based in what the anti-circ team is saying. I have yet to hear of one grown man express any trauma over their circumcisions.

No one is saying that millions experience long term trauma. They are saying that they have been scarred and that part of their penis has been removed for cosmetic reasons and that it is not justifiable to put a newborn baby who is unable to consent through this process. Many men express regret that this was done to them and that number will only increase as the procedure becomes less common and as your children become the unusual ones (just like in the rest of the world).

This is primarily a women's board, that is why the majority of people posting here are women.

My husband is very happy his parents made the choice to circ him. What if yours wishes you had done the same? It is much more traumatic and risky to do it as an adult.

Really, the histrionics around this issue just isn't warranted. It really makes you sound unstable and crazy.

You do realize you are talking to several posters, yes? What are you considering "histrionics"? Remember this is a cultural issue. If the discussion was about tattooing your newborn and some people vehemently disagreed with it would you say that they were unstable? What if it was about piercing your newborn's nose?

The people who care what other parents do with respect to circing. All weirdos and unstable. There is a lot of overlap with that group and anti-vaxers.

Let's take a look at this:

Vaccinations -- many are evidence based and have saved lives.
Circumcision -- no compelling medical evidence.

I follow evidence based practice. My kids are vaccinated if there is research that backs that up (as there frequently, but not always is). My kids are not cut because there is no compelling reason do to it and many compelling reasons to leave them as perfect as they were born.

If you want to discuss vaccinations more thoroughly, I suggest you start your own thread.

Absolutely false that circs don't have medical value. You truly haven't done your research if you think this is true.

Not the PP, but YOU haven't done any real research. For starters, look at this:

"only 1 of the arguments put forward by the American Academy of Pediatrics has some theoretical relevance in relation to infant male circumcision; namely, the possible protection against urinary tract infections in infant boys, which can easily be treated with antibiotics without tissue loss. The other claimed health benefits, including protection against HIV/AIDS, genital herpes, genital warts, and penile cancer, are questionable, weak, and likely to have little public health relevance in a Western context, and they do not represent compelling reasons for surgery before boys are old enough to decide for themselves."

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2013/03/12/peds.2012-2896.abstract

Oh, how pathetic. This is COMMENTARY and OPINION on cultural bias in circumcision, not FACT!

You don't understand. It's a commentary based on scientific research published in a peer-reviewed journal by a large group of international researchers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Why don't we have millions of men running around now who are extremely scarred? It is interesting that rarely do fathers get so very hysterical about this issue, but the mother sure do! Quite odd to be that obsessed with your child's and other children's genitalia.

This is what I think every time I see one of these threads. Considering the vast majority of grown men...even teens...have been circd in this society, you would think there would be very known epidemic problems based in what the anti-circ team is saying. I have yet to hear of one grown man express any trauma over their circumcisions.

No one is saying that millions experience long term trauma. They are saying that they have been scarred and that part of their penis has been removed for cosmetic reasons and that it is not justifiable to put a newborn baby who is unable to consent through this process. Many men express regret that this was done to them and that number will only increase as the procedure becomes less common and as your children become the unusual ones (just like in the rest of the world).

This is primarily a women's board, that is why the majority of people posting here are women.

My husband is very happy his parents made the choice to circ him. What if yours wishes you had done the same? It is much more traumatic and risky to do it as an adult.

Really, the histrionics around this issue just isn't warranted. It really makes you sound unstable and crazy.

You do realize you are talking to several posters, yes? What are you considering "histrionics"? Remember this is a cultural issue. If the discussion was about tattooing your newborn and some people vehemently disagreed with it would you say that they were unstable? What if it was about piercing your newborn's nose?

The people who care what other parents do with respect to circing. All weirdos and unstable. There is a lot of overlap with that group and anti-vaxers.

Let's take a look at this:

Vaccinations -- many are evidence based and have saved lives.
Circumcision -- no compelling medical evidence.

I follow evidence based practice. My kids are vaccinated if there is research that backs that up (as there frequently, but not always is). My kids are not cut because there is no compelling reason do to it and many compelling reasons to leave them as perfect as they were born.

If you want to discuss vaccinations more thoroughly, I suggest you start your own thread.

Absolutely false that circs don't have medical value. You truly haven't done your research if you think this is true.

Not the PP, but YOU haven't done any real research. For starters, look at this:

"only 1 of the arguments put forward by the American Academy of Pediatrics has some theoretical relevance in relation to infant male circumcision; namely, the possible protection against urinary tract infections in infant boys, which can easily be treated with antibiotics without tissue loss. The other claimed health benefits, including protection against HIV/AIDS, genital herpes, genital warts, and penile cancer, are questionable, weak, and likely to have little public health relevance in a Western context, and they do not represent compelling reasons for surgery before boys are old enough to decide for themselves."

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2013/03/12/peds.2012-2896.abstract

Oh, how pathetic. This is COMMENTARY and OPINION on cultural bias in circumcision, not FACT!

Might be a good idea for you to actually read it before make sweeping statements like that. Do you understand what a literature review is? Perhaps you should learn.

I did read it. And you did some deceitful editing, leaving out the words, "To these authors,"

So basically the U.S. doctors decided one thing based on their view of the evidence, while European doctors looked at the same evidence and decided something else.

Their review isn't more valid than the U.S. doctors as they are mired in the same cultural issues, only of the flip side.

Deceitful editing? You're nuts. Okay, here's the full abstract lest you think that not including every word is "deceitful" - I suggest you read the full article though. Here's the link to that PDF.

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2013/03/12/peds.2012-2896.full.pdf+html

The American Academy of Pediatrics recently released its new Technical Report and Policy Statement on male circumcision, concluding that current evidence indicates that the health benefits of newborn male circumcision outweigh the risks. The technical report is based on the scrutiny of a large number of complex scientific articles. Therefore, while striving for objectivity, the conclusions drawn by the 8 task force members reflect what these individual physicians perceived as trustworthy evidence. Seen from the outside, cultural bias reflecting the normality of nontherapeutic male circumcision in the United States seems obvious, and the report’s conclusions are different from those reached by physicians in other parts of the Western world, including Europe, Canada, and Australia. In this commentary, a different view is presented by non–US-based physicians and representatives of general medical associations and societies for pediatrics, pediatric surgery, and pediatric urology in Northern Europe. To these authors, only 1 of the arguments put forward by the American Academy of Pediatrics has some theoretical relevance in relation to infant male circumcision; namely, the possible protection against urinary tract infections in infant boys, which can easily be treated with antibiotics without tissue loss. The other claimed health benefits, including protection against HIV/AIDS, genital herpes, genital warts, and penile cancer, are questionable, weak, and likely to have little public health relevance in a Western context, and they do not represent compelling reasons for surgery before boys are old enough to decide for themselves.

Again the U.S. doctors' view is not less valid than the European view. It's a different opinion based on the same evidence.

NP here. I thought you said you read it? It says: "physicians in other parts of the Western world, including Europe, Canada, and Australia." Not just Europeans, no, the entire rest of the Western world.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WTF is this crap , now circumcision its mutilation? That puts you up in fucking moron status. I am not jewish and did not do it for religion. We circed for medical benefits. Its a tiny flap of skin get over it I couldn't care less about your kid's. Just cause the koran says you should wash your hands before eating it doesn't make me muslim if I do so. In fact all religions have some logical reasons for certain practices that are not just ceremonial.

if for some reason you brought it up in a casual conversation I would think you are a freak but wouldn't blast you with all the medical studies I would just move on to another subject.

Exactly. If you live in a desert without running water like the ancient Jews and medieval Muslims.

Exactly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thought you might want to think on this:
What price is America willing to put on a foreskin? $4.4 billion, a team of disease experts and health economists at Johns Hopkins report today in the journal Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. That’s the extra health care costs they predict will surface if U.S. circumcision rates continue drop over the next decade.

Currently about 55 percent of males born in the U.S. each year are circumcised. That’s down from 79 percent in the seventies and eighties. That decline has already cost the U.S. $2 billion, the experts estimate.

Male circumcision rates in Europe are currently around ten percent. If U.S. rates dropped that low in the next ten years, the authors predict:
•a 12 percent increase in men infected with HIV
•29 percent more men infected with human papillomavirus (HPV)
•a 19 percent increase in men infected with herpes simplex virus
•a 211 percent jump in the number of infant male urinary tract infections

This decrease in male circumcision would also increase risks for female sex partners. The researchers predict 50 percent more cases of both bacterial vaginosis and trichomoniasis. Infections of the kind of HPV linked to cervical cancer in women would increase by 18 percent.

Johns Hopkins explains the study methods in a press release:


In the study, researchers constructed a novel economic model to predict the cost implications of not circumcising a male newborn. Included in their forecasting was information from multiple studies and databases that closely tracked the number of overall infections for each sexually transmitted disease, as well as the numbers of new people infected. Costs were conservatively limited to direct costs for drug treatment, physician visits and hospital care, and did not include indirect costs from work absences and medical travel expenses.

Circumcision opponents call the practice cruel. This summer, a German court went as far as to outlaw the procedure for young boys. The New York Daily news reports:


In the United States, a vocal movement of “intactivists,” or people who oppose male circumcision, is engaged in a fierce debate with doctors over the practice of clipping baby boys’ foreskins.

Actor Russell Crowe may be the most famous of them. Earlier this year he declared on Twitter: “Circumcision is barbaric and stupid,” before swiftly tweeting sorry to anyone who thought he was “mocking the rituals and traditions of others.”

yeah, that sounds like a great trend to me.

What's the source for this? It sounds like the Onion. Of course if what you were saying were true, European countries (and many others around the world) would have higher rates of HIV than the US. Is this true? No. They would have higher rates of HPV. Also not true. They would have higher rates of UTIs, again not true. And they would have higher rates of Herpes. Again, not true. Where on earth do those statements come from and how can anyone keep a straight face while trying to defend them? Utterly laughable.

Exactly. This is so ridiculous. We have a real-life experiment going on in Europe and the rest of the Western world where people haven't been circumcising. The rates of disease are not higher. What is the basis for those researchers' prediction regarding the US?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone who doubts that there is an anti-Semitic undercurrent in some (not all!) anti-circ sentiment might take a look at following (appalling) links. I am not Jewish myself, nor am I saying that being anti-circ makes you anti-Semitic. I *am* saying that those who detect a strain of anti-semitism in some of this debate are not making things up:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/foreskin-man-comic-latest-anti-circumcision-groups-push/storynew?id=14045258#.Udb-_jnRmfQ

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/anti-semitism-and-germanys-movement-against-circumcision/266794/

This must be one of the worst articles I have read in the Atlantic. There is no convincing case for the German stance against circumcision being motivated by anti-Semitism, and the author (who isn't even religious but actually says he wants his son to look like him) is only voicing his paranoid feelings. If anything, there may be an element of anti-Muslim sentiment in the German efforts to outlaw circumcision. Aside from a few fringe groups (which also exist in most other countries), Germany today is the least anti-Semitic country in the world.

[Anonymous]

Suck whatever kind of dick you want. Circ or not, the cum still taste nasty. Ugly dick or not so ugly dick, they all the same. Maybe you ladies with your panties I a twist need a little more dick I your lives that isn't attached to a child. Then maybe you all would just leave each other alone.

Everyone does their own research and draws their own conclusion. Makes their own choice. Who are you to say one or the other is completely right or completely wrong. Calling someone a mutilating child abuser is just as derisive as calling another a wakcadoo crazy person. The non-circ camp has not maintained any higher a moral ground than circ camp on this one. Both sides fall back on insults and name calling when their "evidence" is challenged.

Stop judging each other. I guarantee none of you is doing a perfect parenting job above reproach. Live and let live.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Suck whatever kind of dick you want. Circ or not, the cum still taste nasty. Ugly dick or not so ugly dick, they all the same. Maybe you ladies with your panties I a twist need a little more dick I your lives that isn't attached to a child. Then maybe you all would just leave each other alone.

Everyone does their own research and draws their own conclusion. Makes their own choice. Who are you to say one or the other is completely right or completely wrong. Calling someone a mutilating child abuser is just as derisive as calling another a wakcadoo crazy person. The non-circ camp has not maintained any higher a moral ground than circ camp on this one. Both sides fall back on insults and name calling when their "evidence" is challenged.

Stop judging each other. I guarantee none of you is doing a perfect parenting job above reproach. Live and let live.

Well, that's... colorful...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Suck whatever kind of dick you want. Circ or not, the cum still taste nasty. Ugly dick or not so ugly dick, they all the same. Maybe you ladies with your panties I a twist need a little more dick I your lives that isn't attached to a child. Then maybe you all would just leave each other alone.

Everyone does their own research and draws their own conclusion. Makes their own choice. Who are you to say one or the other is completely right or completely wrong. Calling someone a mutilating child abuser is just as derisive as calling another a wakcadoo crazy person. The non-circ camp has not maintained any higher a moral ground than circ camp on this one. Both sides fall back on insults and name calling when their "evidence" is challenged.

Stop judging each other. I guarantee none of you is doing a perfect parenting job above reproach. Live and let live.

+1000

My thoughts exactly!

[Anonymous]

I love how the anti circs totally disregard the positive health benefits, even when they are posted. Over and over again. And try to equate Johns Hopkins with The Onion.

I actually have no problem with those who decide against the procedure for their kid. But anyone who tries to call me a mutilator better be ready for the reaction. (OF course, as we see from this thread, they know how unpopular they'll be so they keep their mouths shut, except on anonymous message boards.)