a little survey - circumcision?

[Sadie]

Without being biased or judgmental or anything else one reading this might assume... I was hoping to get an informal survey of people to post whether or not they circumcised their sons (without giving reasons for or against doing so). I am just curious! And, to be the first, I did not.

UPDATE - I was hoping for just some yes or no answers... I just checked this discussion after not reading it for a while. Seems to have gotten a little heated and/or weird. So, I am closing it. Thanks for the responses!

[Teresa]

I work in long-term hospital care. So my answer will be a little graphic for some.
The poor old men, disabled or out of their minds, who were not circumsized clearly suffer. You can smell them on entering the room. They have awful infections, and often require surgery to cut and open obstructing, scarred foreskins after neglectful "care". This is anecdotal, but easilly half of my uncircumsized patients have some complication from lack of "pull back" hygeine.
Also, I must acknowledge higher STD rates for uncircumsized men and their partners.
My three sons are circumsized for their health.

[ML]

Women's genitals are much harder to clean than men's, but we don't cut parts off baby girls to make it easier for them to be cleaned 70-80 years later. Heck, it would have made it easier for me cleaning my daughters when they were in nappies, but it would still have been wrong to have their inner labia cut off.

We have old people in hospitals and nursing homes in the countries that don't circumcise too (pretty much all South American and European countries, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand etc), but all the problems with intact men that people seem to worry about so much in the USA just don't seem to happen elsewhere.

The only long-term study of circumcision and STD's in a western country (the Dickson study), actually showed a 24.4 STD infections per 1000 person-years among the circumcised group and 23.4 STD infections per 1000 person-years among the non-circumcised group ie the circumcised men had slightly more STD's.

If being circumcised was actually medically beneficial, there'd be at least one national medical organisation that recommended it, and not as many that recommend against it.

[MamaRocwell]

i agree with you on this one. i too work in the medical field and its not just the long term uncircumcised patients who unfortunately suffer from dirty/foul smelling "penis-cheese." ive seen lots of young lads come in through the doors who have the same problem. a lot of them mind you are usually hardcore alchoholics, homeless or iv drug users who have lost their way when it comes to personal hygiene. it really is disgusting. especially when you have have to pull back in order to place a catheter.

[O'rya]

Did not.

[moody_mama]

When we were pregnant with my son nearly five years ago, my husband and I discussed this together, with some friends and family members, with our son's pediatrician, with my OB/GYN and read articles about the pros and cons. My husband's first reaction was to circumcise him, since he was circumcised as a baby. But the more we talked to others about it, read about it and thought about it, we quickly came to the decision not to. According to the doctors we talked to, the percentage of circumcised to uncircumcised is practically even, so that took the "comparison" factor out of it. As for "looking like Daddy", one doctor said, "Well, how often are you going to be standing side by side with your son, comparing penises?" That took care of that. As for health reasons (namely cleanliness and the risk of infections), we came across no evidence that his uncircumcised penis would be any less clean or healthy. Yes, we'll have to teach him to clean his penis. But we've had to teach him to clean his teeth, ears, and other body parts too. As for the sexual component (and many of us don't want to think about that yet, if ever), a male friend of mine confided that he was glad he was uncircumcised because he became less sexually aroused at inappropriate times because his pants weren't constantly rubbing against his shaft. (It came out when he needed it, but wasn't "out" when he didn't.) We heard that sex can be more pleasurable for the uncircumcised man because the penis is more sensitive. (Again, trying not to "go there" but...) We figured if our son ever decided as a grown man that he wanted to be circumcised, he could choose to do it later (but he wouldn't be able to reverse it if he wished to be uncircumcised). Finally, my eldest brother lives in Europe and had a son just a few months before ours was born. It wasn't even a question for them, as most Europeans don't even consider circumcision. His words stuck with me - "Why fix it if it isn't broken?"

[Jenna]

If I have a boy I would not circumcise him until he is old enough to make his own decision. I asked my pediatrician about piercing my baby girl's ear but he said its better if we wait until shes 6 months old because babies are prone to infections. And I would not like my baby to go through any medication as much as possible so one of the reasons why i would avoid circumsicing him while a baby.

[Sarah]

hi--new to babble! new to parenthood! so i never ever thought this was an issue until a friend of mine was having a boy and spent a full hour sharing with me his agony over whether to circumsize or not...the whole "what if the boy looks different from daddy" thing was just something that i never considered.

we did not know what we were having--ended up having 2 twin boys! and so my husband i had peripherally talked about the issue but never really decided on anything. well the boys were preemie and spent lots of time in the NICU and maybe that's what helped sway us but we figured they had already been through enough--why torture them with one more thing? plus i think about this: the baby penis is so small!!! what if they cut too much!??


i left it up to my husband really and he was ok with the fact that they would look different from daddy. they will look like each other so that helps.

i will say that the docs and nurses at the hospital must have asked us 300 times if we were going to circumcise. not that they were overly pushy but they were writing down everything in the chart anyhow--why couldn't they have written down our decision and not question it repeatedly?

i feel good about where we landed. and the more i talked with male cousins and other friends, the more i come to find out that they too did not circumcise. so it seems as if more and more, people that we know are not doing it.

[BoystownMayor]

first 2 circ'd
3rd 1/2 circ'd (long story)
last 2 not circ'd

[Hannah]

Neither did we. -- 2 nephews are

[Lisa]

We didn't, but I wish we had.

[KiwiInOz]

What the African clinical trials show is that African men living in Africa will contract HIV more quickly if they are
uncut. No trial has run long enough to enable us to conclude that circ "protects" anyone from HIV; it could well
only delay the inevitable consequences of irresponsible behaviour.

African houses don't have toilets, showers, or even cold running water. Africans have prescientific notions of
disease and hygiene. Their sexual practices can be curious and irresponsible. Their notion of marital fidelity is
definitely not in synch with what most readers of this forum assume. We who are priviledged to live in the First
World can learn nothing from the African clinical trials. And if circ protects from AIDS, why is it that the USA
has by far the highest HIV positive rate of any advanced country?

Instead of looking to circ as a damage control measure, we should instead be thinking of ways of curning the sex
free for all among high school and college age young people. Wash under the foreskin before and after sex. Bettet
yet, use a condom any time you have casual sex.

I would not like the idea that my parents, not trusting me to behave responsibly, had cut off a part of my body that
is directly engaged in sexual activity. The foreskin is very rich in nerves, and is the primary locus of my sexual
sensations. I am in my 50s and appreciate every bit of sensitivity that is left to me. I fear that if I were cut, most of
the pleasure of sex would be gone. BTW, I was very cautious as a young man, mainly because I feared rejection
by young women who had no clue what a foreskin was. In the world of my youth, the typical proper middle class
girl never saw a foreskin on a brother or child she babysat. The main reason American babies are cut is that one or
both parents think that a penis with its natural foreskin looks sexually weird.

If being uncut is a health problem, where is the evidence from the continental Europe and Japan?

Elderly men in nursing homes, vagrants, drug users, etc. can be unclean under the foreskin. But that's easy to wash.
I am confident that the situation around the anus is even worse. I bet bag women and women in nursing homes have
unsanitary conditions in their vulvas as well. But no one would think of taking a scalpel to their pink bits. And rightly so.

[april]

both of my boys got it done