Did they knock the kid out, or use the usual excuse of "Oh, no, they can't feel it... ignore the screaming..." Yup, most are done without anesthetic. Nice, eh?
As to the 'well it *MIGHT* get infected...' argument... no kidding. And most people will get at least one cavity during their life too - is that an argument for yanking out their teeth before they do? Of course not.
I can't believe there are 9 votes for 'healthy' up there... would anyone care to back that opinion up, since the facts don't?
Based on recent survey data, 54% of pediatricians, family practitioners, and obstetricians perform at least 1 circumcision per month. Of physicians performing circumcision, 45% use anesthesia, most commonly dorsal penile block with lidocaine (71% of pediatricians, 56% of family practitioners, and 25% of obstetricians). Those physicians who reported not using anesthesia cited concern about adverse effects and a belief that circumcision does not warrant anesthesia.
Existing scientific evidence demonstrates potential medical benefits of newborn male circumcision; however, these data are not sufficient to recommend routine neonatal circumcision.
Are there some long-term benefits? Perhaps. Are there some long-term drawbacks? Perhaps.
Is the balance in either direction enough to necessitate the short-term pain, complications and expense of an otherwise unnecessary, elective, and ill-thought-out by most parents surgical procedure on an infant that has no say in the matter?
I voted for "not barbaric, but against it". I am circumcised, but when my son was born in 2002 my wife and I agreed that we would not do this to him. I simply do not see the reason why it is done - aside from those who do it for religious reasons.
20-30 years ago there was some talk about circumscision reducing the risk of cancer in that area. According to what I have read, this is no longer considered to be the case by most doctors. Further, I am not sure that there is any significant sexual performance issue that comes up, other than in rare cases of malformed foreskins. As for general cleaniness, it is not hard to clean a penis with a foreskin - no more so than many other parts of the body - and our paediatrician told us that no extraordinary cleaning measures are needed.
I believe that there was some prejudice against foreskins in the 1950-60s based on medical and hygenic rationales that were not well founded and are no longer considered to have much weight. At the time, in many parts of the Western world, circumcision started to be performed as almost routine. My mother-in-law - a practicing nurse at the time - tells a story of having to fight with the doctors to prevent them from circumcising her own son in the 1950s. Now I understand that non-religious circumcision is far less common and will not be performed unless you specifically request it.
I remember the pain of stepping on a nail when I was 7. Of splitting my lip when I was 6. Of having a cavity filled when I was 20 (which was so terrible that I didn't go back to the dentist for four years).
I don't remember my circumcision, however. So I'd consider it a no harm/no foul situation.
I remember the pain of stepping on a nail when I was 7. Of splitting my lip when I was 6. Of having a cavity filled when I was 20 (which was so terrible that I didn't go back to the dentist for four years).
I don't remember my circumcision, however. So I'd consider it a no harm/no foul situation.
But then, neither do I remember anything before the age of about 2, so that's a wash, and the logical argument is irrational.
OTOH, I do remember at the age of three watching my brother's circumcision - the quack doctor placed a pair of bandage scissors inside the foreskin, then opened them... thereby splitting the foreskin in half. He did not cut, he did not cauterize, he just ripped it wide open. Without anesthetic. One of the most sensitive portions of the body, and he just ripped it open. Ladies, imagine someone taking a pair of Vise-Grips to your clitoris - same thing.
My brother's back arched in agony, he stopped breathing, and he started shaking from the pain. He turned blue. (Kirkland - is it any wonder we don't remember such things?)
I launched myself at the doctor's knees. He threatened to call the police. My aghast mother, who hadn't been in the room when I'd been circumcised, told him to do so, and she'd file charges against him for child abuse.
At the age of three, I could tell this was a wrong thing to do - I haven't found anything to convince me rationally otherwise since. In fact, I've found in recent years only medical evidence that states that it has little to no medical benefit whatsoever in today's hygienic society.
You know what it was originally recommended for? Stopping masturbation, in the 1900's. I think we can move past that mindset, can't we?
Depending on the model employed, approximately 100 to 200 circumcisions would need to be performed to prevent 1 UTI.
On penile cancer...
Quote:
Nevertheless, because this disease is rare and occurs later in life, the use of circumcision as a preventive practice is not justified.
On STDs...
Quote:
Regardless of these findings, behavioral factors are far more important risk factors for acquisition of HIV and other sexually transmissible diseases than circumcision status, and circumcision cannot be responsibly viewed as "protecting" against such infections.
On prevalence... (note: another AMA document states 80% circumcision rate in the mid-90's... only 4 out of 5, not nearly the 'everyone does it' argument)
Quote:
A majority of boys born in the United States still undergo nonritual circumcisions. This occurs in large measure because parental decision-making is based on social or cultural expectations, rather than medical concerns.63-67_Studies from the 1980s suggested that the presentation of medical information on the potential advantages and disadvantages of circumcision had little influence on parents' decisions.64-66_This finding was recently confirmed.68_In another contemporary study, nearly half of those physicians performing circumcisions did not discuss the potential medical risks and benefits of elective circumcision prior to delivery of the infant son. Deferral of discussion until after birth, combined with the fact that many parents' decisions about circumcision are preconceived, contribute to the high rate of elective circumcision.67,68_Major factors in parental decision-making are the father's circumcision status, opinions of family members and friends, a desire for conformity in their son's appearance, and the belief that the circumcised penis is easier to care for with respect to local hygiene._
So basically... there's little medical benefit, and it's basically ignorance, a vague idea of aesthetics, or because 'everyone else is doing it'.
Well, and religion, but that's another can of worms I'm not going to open.
Simple - if someone does it to you at the age of 12 when you start masturbating, and touching it hurts like hell for the next two weeks, and morning erections are agony for the next three months... you're going to establish quite a pain reaction to such things, aren't you?
It was genital mutilation for sexual/moral punishment.
Will find. Original reference was on an AMA page which of course I've now closed...
Edit: Found the following *excellent* page on the history of circumcision in America. (Full citation: Gollaher DL. From ritual to science: the medical transformation of circumcision in america. Journal of Social History 1994;28(1):5-36.) It seems that stopping masturbation wasn't the prime reason for advocating circumcision in the late 1800s, but instead stopping epilepsy, paralysis, asthma... no, really. They really thought this.
Here's the quote relevant to the masturbation prevention:
Quote:
When in 1896 a popular book, All about the Baby, advised mothers that circumcision of baby boys was "advisable in most cases," it recommended the operation mainly for preventing "the vile habit of masturbation." L. Emmett Holt, professor at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and a distinguished expert on pediatric medicine, told his fellow physicians that "adherent prepuce... is so constantly present that it can hardly be called a malformation. It is, however, a condition needing attention in every male infant." The perils of neglect, he said, included "priapism, masturbation, insomnia, night terrors, etc.," and for that matter, "most of the functional nervous disease of childhood." Remondino, for his part, was certain that "circumcised boys may, in individual cases... be found to practice onanism, but in general the practice can be asserted as being very rare among the children of circumcised races... neither in infancy are they as liable to priapism during sleep as those that are uncircumcised." [56]
And, further on...
Quote:
On a more mundane level, it promised to spare parents the ordeal of someday having to deal with masturbation - a concern likely to have elicited squeamishness from Victorian mothers. Circumcision meant that a boy's parents had given him every chance, providing him with proper medical care from the beginning. Conversely, the potential for parental guilt should one's son contract any of the terrible afflictions that circumcision was supposed to prevent was enormous. Frank G. Lydston bluntly emphasized this point in his popular 1912 treatise on social hygiene, when he wrote, "Parents who do not have an early circumcision performed on their boys are almost criminally negligent. " [63]
So basically... there's little medical benefit, and it's basically ignorance, a vague idea of aesthetics, or because 'everyone else is doing it'.
Thanks, Kickaha, for your long post previously. It is what I wanted to say, but better.
As for prevalence, your post indicates there is still an 80% rate - which is lower than I would have thought. I had posted that I thought rates are declining, but this was based on my own non-scientific assessment. My own assessment might, however, be a more accurate reflection of the Canadian experience which, according to a study I saw, indicates that the circumcision rate in Canada is only 40% - this despite the fact that, until relatively recently, the practice was 'listed' - i.e. paid for by public health care.
In looking into this on the web, I also noticed that a debate seems to be raging about whether circumcision practices explain different AIDS rates in African countries, i.e., circumcision in males is associated with lower AIDS rates. Interesting. This could cause me to reassess my views somewhat, although I am still not sure that it would justify the practice. I wonder if the studies sufficiently adjust for more conservative sexual attitudes and practices in societies that practice male circumcision. And even if it is true that circumcision leads to some decline in transmission rates, it must be remembered that circumcision offers no guarentees against AIDS transmission and could, tragically, become a misleading security blanket. My initial view, rather, is that instead of cutting your son, teach him about safe sex practices that do offer good protection.
Simple - if someone does it to you at the age of 12 when you start masturbating, and touching it hurts like hell for the next two weeks, and morning erections are agony for the next three months... you're going to establish quite a pain reaction to such things, aren't you?
It was genital mutilation for sexual/moral punishment.
Nice, eh?
It wasn't done at age 12, it was done to a baby. Even in the ancient Jewish tradition, the boy was 8 days old.
I guess you could argue that the foreskin provides a natural method of masturbation, by moving the foreskin back and forth over the penis. Perhaps it's just a little harder to masturbate without foreskin? I don't think that's the primary, or even one of the real reasons for circumcision. It's been a tradition, and it was done for what people believed were health reasons.
I think I'd probably circumcise a boy of mine, if only because I'd think he would probably be happier because he'd be more like most other boys in his culture and would perhaps seem less weird to a girl. Or at least feel like he'd seem less weird.
In any case, I think it's stupid to be some crusading parent who makes the decision not on what you think your child would want when he gets older, but on some point you're trying to make as a parent.
I have been circumcised. I didn't know it when I was little. The first few times I saw a guy that wasn't, I probably just thought that it was because people looked different. Now I know, of course. I've never even thought about being bothered about it. I am not religious. I don't remember it being done, so have no memory of any pain. I have had no related medical problems. I think a circumcised willie looks better than one with skin (Actually, skin looks UGly). I am not worried about desensitivity/longer sex or oversensitivity/premature ejaculation. Physical pleasure makes up a small part of the pleasure of sex.
So many things don't need to be done. Caesarian sections, teeth whitening, cosmetic surgery, shaving faces/arms/legs/privates, tanning, applying make-up. But I wouldn't argue that all these are barbaric/useless/unnecessary.
I don't understand why someone would denounce circumcision.
Comments
As to the 'well it *MIGHT* get infected...' argument... no kidding. And most people will get at least one cavity during their life too - is that an argument for yanking out their teeth before they do? Of course not.
I can't believe there are 9 votes for 'healthy' up there... would anyone care to back that opinion up, since the facts don't?
Like snipping a dog's tail.
Based on recent survey data, 54% of pediatricians, family practitioners, and obstetricians perform at least 1 circumcision per month. Of physicians performing circumcision, 45% use anesthesia, most commonly dorsal penile block with lidocaine (71% of pediatricians, 56% of family practitioners, and 25% of obstetricians). Those physicians who reported not using anesthesia cited concern about adverse effects and a belief that circumcision does not warrant anesthesia.
Less than half used anesthesia of *ANY* sort.
We treat our pets better than that.
From the American Association of Pediatrician's Circumcision Policy Statement, opening line:
Existing scientific evidence demonstrates potential medical benefits of newborn male circumcision; however, these data are not sufficient to recommend routine neonatal circumcision.
Are there some long-term benefits? Perhaps. Are there some long-term drawbacks? Perhaps.
Is the balance in either direction enough to necessitate the short-term pain, complications and expense of an otherwise unnecessary, elective, and ill-thought-out by most parents surgical procedure on an infant that has no say in the matter?
Not in my book.
20-30 years ago there was some talk about circumscision reducing the risk of cancer in that area. According to what I have read, this is no longer considered to be the case by most doctors. Further, I am not sure that there is any significant sexual performance issue that comes up, other than in rare cases of malformed foreskins. As for general cleaniness, it is not hard to clean a penis with a foreskin - no more so than many other parts of the body - and our paediatrician told us that no extraordinary cleaning measures are needed.
I believe that there was some prejudice against foreskins in the 1950-60s based on medical and hygenic rationales that were not well founded and are no longer considered to have much weight. At the time, in many parts of the Western world, circumcision started to be performed as almost routine. My mother-in-law - a practicing nurse at the time - tells a story of having to fight with the doctors to prevent them from circumcising her own son in the 1950s. Now I understand that non-religious circumcision is far less common and will not be performed unless you specifically request it.
I don't remember my circumcision, however. So I'd consider it a no harm/no foul situation.
I remember the pain of stepping on a nail when I was 7. Of splitting my lip when I was 6. Of having a cavity filled when I was 20 (which was so terrible that I didn't go back to the dentist for four years).
I don't remember my circumcision, however. So I'd consider it a no harm/no foul situation.
And how old were you when you got circumcised...?
But then, neither do I remember anything before the age of about 2, so that's a wash, and the logical argument is irrational.
OTOH, I do remember at the age of three watching my brother's circumcision - the quack doctor placed a pair of bandage scissors inside the foreskin, then opened them... thereby splitting the foreskin in half. He did not cut, he did not cauterize, he just ripped it wide open. Without anesthetic. One of the most sensitive portions of the body, and he just ripped it open. Ladies, imagine someone taking a pair of Vise-Grips to your clitoris - same thing.
My brother's back arched in agony, he stopped breathing, and he started shaking from the pain. He turned blue. (Kirkland - is it any wonder we don't remember such things?)
I launched myself at the doctor's knees. He threatened to call the police. My aghast mother, who hadn't been in the room when I'd been circumcised, told him to do so, and she'd file charges against him for child abuse.
At the age of three, I could tell this was a wrong thing to do - I haven't found anything to convince me rationally otherwise since. In fact, I've found in recent years only medical evidence that states that it has little to no medical benefit whatsoever in today's hygienic society.
You know what it was originally recommended for? Stopping masturbation, in the 1900's. I think we can move past that mindset, can't we?
As for the health reasons... from the AMA Report on Neonatal Circumcision...
On UTIs...
Depending on the model employed, approximately 100 to 200 circumcisions would need to be performed to prevent 1 UTI.
On penile cancer...
Nevertheless, because this disease is rare and occurs later in life, the use of circumcision as a preventive practice is not justified.
On STDs...
Regardless of these findings, behavioral factors are far more important risk factors for acquisition of HIV and other sexually transmissible diseases than circumcision status, and circumcision cannot be responsibly viewed as "protecting" against such infections.
On prevalence... (note: another AMA document states 80% circumcision rate in the mid-90's... only 4 out of 5, not nearly the 'everyone does it' argument)
A majority of boys born in the United States still undergo nonritual circumcisions. This occurs in large measure because parental decision-making is based on social or cultural expectations, rather than medical concerns.63-67_Studies from the 1980s suggested that the presentation of medical information on the potential advantages and disadvantages of circumcision had little influence on parents' decisions.64-66_This finding was recently confirmed.68_In another contemporary study, nearly half of those physicians performing circumcisions did not discuss the potential medical risks and benefits of elective circumcision prior to delivery of the infant son. Deferral of discussion until after birth, combined with the fact that many parents' decisions about circumcision are preconceived, contribute to the high rate of elective circumcision.67,68_Major factors in parental decision-making are the father's circumcision status, opinions of family members and friends, a desire for conformity in their son's appearance, and the belief that the circumcised penis is easier to care for with respect to local hygiene._
So basically... there's little medical benefit, and it's basically ignorance, a vague idea of aesthetics, or because 'everyone else is doing it'.
Well, and religion, but that's another can of worms I'm not going to open.
Originally posted by Kickaha
You know what it was originally recommended for? Stopping masturbation, in the 1900's. I think we can move past that mindset, can't we?
How is being "cut" going to "stop" masturbation ??
Fellows
It was genital mutilation for sexual/moral punishment.
Nice, eh?
Edit: Found the following *excellent* page on the history of circumcision in America. (Full citation: Gollaher DL. From ritual to science: the medical transformation of circumcision in america. Journal of Social History 1994;28(1):5-36.) It seems that stopping masturbation wasn't the prime reason for advocating circumcision in the late 1800s, but instead stopping epilepsy, paralysis, asthma... no, really. They really thought this.
Here's the quote relevant to the masturbation prevention:
When in 1896 a popular book, All about the Baby, advised mothers that circumcision of baby boys was "advisable in most cases," it recommended the operation mainly for preventing "the vile habit of masturbation." L. Emmett Holt, professor at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and a distinguished expert on pediatric medicine, told his fellow physicians that "adherent prepuce... is so constantly present that it can hardly be called a malformation. It is, however, a condition needing attention in every male infant." The perils of neglect, he said, included "priapism, masturbation, insomnia, night terrors, etc.," and for that matter, "most of the functional nervous disease of childhood." Remondino, for his part, was certain that "circumcised boys may, in individual cases... be found to practice onanism, but in general the practice can be asserted as being very rare among the children of circumcised races... neither in infancy are they as liable to priapism during sleep as those that are uncircumcised." [56]
And, further on...
On a more mundane level, it promised to spare parents the ordeal of someday having to deal with masturbation - a concern likely to have elicited squeamishness from Victorian mothers. Circumcision meant that a boy's parents had given him every chance, providing him with proper medical care from the beginning. Conversely, the potential for parental guilt should one's son contract any of the terrible afflictions that circumcision was supposed to prevent was enormous. Frank G. Lydston bluntly emphasized this point in his popular 1912 treatise on social hygiene, when he wrote, "Parents who do not have an early circumcision performed on their boys are almost criminally negligent. " [63]
Wonderfully researched page.
Originally posted by Kickaha
Neither do I.
[...]
So basically... there's little medical benefit, and it's basically ignorance, a vague idea of aesthetics, or because 'everyone else is doing it'.
Thanks, Kickaha, for your long post previously. It is what I wanted to say, but better.
As for prevalence, your post indicates there is still an 80% rate - which is lower than I would have thought. I had posted that I thought rates are declining, but this was based on my own non-scientific assessment. My own assessment might, however, be a more accurate reflection of the Canadian experience which, according to a study I saw, indicates that the circumcision rate in Canada is only 40% - this despite the fact that, until relatively recently, the practice was 'listed' - i.e. paid for by public health care.
In looking into this on the web, I also noticed that a debate seems to be raging about whether circumcision practices explain different AIDS rates in African countries, i.e., circumcision in males is associated with lower AIDS rates. Interesting. This could cause me to reassess my views somewhat, although I am still not sure that it would justify the practice. I wonder if the studies sufficiently adjust for more conservative sexual attitudes and practices in societies that practice male circumcision. And even if it is true that circumcision leads to some decline in transmission rates, it must be remembered that circumcision offers no guarentees against AIDS transmission and could, tragically, become a misleading security blanket. My initial view, rather, is that instead of cutting your son, teach him about safe sex practices that do offer good protection.
Originally posted by Kickaha
Simple - if someone does it to you at the age of 12 when you start masturbating, and touching it hurts like hell for the next two weeks, and morning erections are agony for the next three months... you're going to establish quite a pain reaction to such things, aren't you?
It was genital mutilation for sexual/moral punishment.
Nice, eh?
It wasn't done at age 12, it was done to a baby. Even in the ancient Jewish tradition, the boy was 8 days old.
I guess you could argue that the foreskin provides a natural method of masturbation, by moving the foreskin back and forth over the penis. Perhaps it's just a little harder to masturbate without foreskin? I don't think that's the primary, or even one of the real reasons for circumcision. It's been a tradition, and it was done for what people believed were health reasons.
I think I'd probably circumcise a boy of mine, if only because I'd think he would probably be happier because he'd be more like most other boys in his culture and would perhaps seem less weird to a girl. Or at least feel like he'd seem less weird.
In any case, I think it's stupid to be some crusading parent who makes the decision not on what you think your child would want when he gets older, but on some point you're trying to make as a parent.
So what's f**king wrong with being circumcised?
I don't understand why someone would denounce circumcision.