babyblog

No, you shouldn't leave it alone. It's time the US wakes up to the rest of the world. Keep on!

I had to chuckle at the "looks like daddy" comment. How many prepubescent boys look like their daddy? I really hate to break the news, but they will get questions whether they are circ'd or not.

As for us (living here in the midwest, nonetheless) my new baby boy, like my other two, will look just like their daddy... clean AND uncut. :)

"They don't care what the rest of the world says. They are right."

Welcome to America!

Nope, keep pushing back.

I'm always amazed at how readily people ignore counter evidence. When I tell people that I'm not happy being circumcised, I ask how they'd feel if their son expressed anger at them making his decision. The typical response is that they'll either tell him they did what they thought was best or they'll laugh it off with something pithy like "if that's the worst mistake I even make, I did a good job."

Now, of course, it's HIV prevention. Thank you, but I don't have unprotected sex with HIV-positive women. Circumcision isn't doing me any good for that.

On multiple occasions, I've had people tell me that circumcision isn't surgery. If it's done in a hospital, it's just a procedure. If it's done outside the hospital, it's not even that. It's madness.

Too many Americans use the argument that "girls like it cut". So since you're a woman from England you need to push back and tell them how wonderful sex is with a natural man, and how you could never imagine being with a "mutilated" one. Just to make them squirm in their ignorance.

Hi,
Of course with maternity sneaking up on you, the urge to protect a baby (from unneeded amputation of over half the sensual nerve endings he will ever have) is strong. Circumcision removes the equivalent of 15 square inches of adult mucosal interface and eliminates the natural frictionless rolling/gliding mode of interaction for a man and his partner. It leaves the glans unprotected from drying and abrasion. That's if done well, but 20% have unintended results since everything is so small and since the skin must be torn from the glans (like peeling fingernails) as it is normally fused for the first few years.

Over 80% of the world is intact, and of those, the percent choosing to give up the foreskin is vanishingly small. Even in the US, the rate of cutting infants has dropped to nearly 50/50 (less than 30% are cut in 4 western states). In Sweden they did a study to find that only 1 in 10,000 will ever have a problem best solved by circumcision.

Forget about these recent AIDS findings. They aren't recommending infant circ. By the time today's infant is sexually active, there may be a vaccine. Even if circ somewhat reduces a man's risk, it doesn't change his partner's risk or prevent pregnancy the way condoms do.

Every mammal on earth evolved a foreskin before there was surgery or soap.

HIS body HIS decision

Personally i prefer a 'whole' man. A certain person had been cut and it just looks funny. Whilst i agree that it sometimes needs to be done on medical/religious grounds, i am afraid that 'so it looks like daddies' is far far FAAARRRR from a valid reason! Freaks! Leave those poor little boys alone - you keep on at them Katie, as it was not that long ago (and it still happens in some places) that female circumcision was the norm.

Circumcision doesn't need to be done on religious grounds. It is done using religious justifications, but there isn't a need. There are books explaining the history of religious circumcision that demonstrate how the ritual adapted centuries after the original text of the Old Testament. In the early versions, the commandment to circumcise didn't exist in Genesis.

But even if it was a religious requirement, that doesn't mean we should allow the surgery on children. If adults want to have themselves circumcised, they should have that choice. But adults circumcising children for religious reasons are practicing their religion by sacrificing the body part of another human being.

If we're going to argue that religion is enough to permit it, then we either allow all actions by parents in the name of religion or decide which religious practices are reasonable. Should we allow parents who want to circumcise their daughters for their religion do so, for example? I don't think so. But I'm not willing to be that arbitrary, especially when there are boys facing the knife for the same reason.

Every child is born with an inherent right to ownership of his/her body. Parents don't have a right to violate that. They have the duty to act in the child's best interest if medical need arises, but that should be a last resort when no other less invasive procedure is available and/or effective.