Efforts to Defund or Ban Infant Male Circumcision Are Unfounded and Potentially Harmful, Experts Arg

Originally posted by MissCoyote
reply to post by Maslo
If a Plastibell device was left in place, it should fall off on its own within 10 days.

Here is a complication from the Plastibell device..

www.cirp.org...

Looks HORRIBLE.

haha, here is the script from the Sex and the City episode.
I remember watching it back in the day with a WTF expression on my face.
The N. Americans in the room thought I was an alien

Sex and the City


Old Dog, New Tricks (with the running theme, can men be changed?) [In New Zealand, it was broadcast as "Old Dogs, New Dicks"]

Charlotte goes to bed with Mike for the first time.

C: Oh! You're... It's...
M: Uncircumcised. Is that okay?
C: No! Sure... Of course it is.

Narrator: It was not okay. The only uncut version of anything Charlotte had ever seen was the original Gone With The Wind.

C (to friends): There was so much skin. It was like a Shar-Pei!

A Shar-Pei A foreskin
(left) a Shar-Pei and (right, to the same scale) a foreskin.
The same comparison is used in Nip/Tuck

F1: You've never seen an uncircumcised one?
C: I'm from Connecticut!
F2: Reminder; you're dating the guy, not the penis.
C: Aesthetics are important to me.
F1: It's not what it looks like, it's what they can do with it.
C: Well, I don't need one that can make its own carrying case!
F3: Personally, I love an uncircumcised dick. It's like a Tootsie-Pop: hard on the outside, with a delicious surprise inside. *
(94KB .wav file)
C: I don't like surprises. I like it all out there where I can see it.
F4: Same here. I'm sorry, it is not normal.
F2: Well, actually it is, something like 85 percent of men aren't circumcised. *
C: Great! Now they're taking over the world!
F2: Honey, it's a penis, not Godzilla.
(116KB .wav file)
F3: Hey, if 85 percent aren't circumcised, that means, I've only slept with 15 percent of the population, tops.
F2: Why, you're practically a virgin.
C: You know, he's a nice WASPy guy; what went wrong?
F1: Well, maybe his parents were hippies and just didn't believe in it.
C: I am so circumcising my kids.
F1: I think you can pay people to do that now.
C: I don't ever want to know there's a woman out there calling my son a Shar-Pei.
F3: All I'm saying is uncut men are the best....
F1: They try harder.
F3: ...I should know. I've slept with five of them.
C: Out of how many?
F2: Infinity?

Later:

M: What happened last night, you're not the first woman to react that way, I've gotten that most of my life.
C: Really?
M: Yeah. And I've decided to do something about it. I've been uncomfortable for too long, so - I'm getting circumcised.
[Gypsy violins start]
C: Can you do that?
M: Well, yeah, I mean, it hurts, and it takes a long time to heal, but - but I'm willing to do that, I want to feel good about making love.
C: But that is so - sweet.

Mike gets circumcised. It was extremely painful ("On a scale of one to five, I'd give it a 72.") and is again when he gets an erection.

Narrator: A week later, Charlotte finally got her chance to break in her new merchandise.
[Zipper]
C: [Gasps]
M: What do you think?
C: It's perfect. (In fact it would still be swollen and bruised.)
Narrator: It was like her birthday and Christmas rolled into one.
M: You realise this makes me a virgin?
C: I'll be gentle.

Later, when Charlotte starts to make plans for them together:

M: I don't think I'm ready for this to be, y'know, like a big thing. ... I just feel like I can't be tied down. There's a whole new me happening, I feel like I should get out there and share it.
C: You wanna share your penis?
M: Well... yeah! I mean I feel like I owe it to myself to take the doggie out for a walk around the block, y'know?
Narrator: Charlotte never saw Mike again. She realised you could take the Shar-Pei out of the penis, but you could never take the dog out of the man.

The above sequence conveys a variety of anti-intact prejudice.

The woman who prefers intact men is the slut.
Intact men are only good lovers because they (know they are inferior and therefore) try harder.
Charlotte is going to circumcise any sons to conform to the prejucides of hypothetical future women, on the assumption that they will all think as she does.
Mike's "feeling good about making love" depends on him fitting others' expectations.

What the man might prefer, how missing part of his penis might affect his sex life - or hers - are not addressed. It is not clear how far the scriptwriters' tongues were in their cheeks when they wrote of intact men not being "normal", or "what went wrong" when Mike's parents left him intact, but that might go over the heads of most of the audience.

Sure, it's only a comedy - but would a TV sitcom that featured men discussing the modifying of women's anatomy in the same terms ("to break in his new merchandise"), or white people decrying the aesthetics of black skin or kinky hair, ever reach the screen?

A correspondent has gone to the trouble of editing the script and changing the sexes, coming up with lines like:

C: Oh! You're… It's…
M: Not infibulated. Is that okay?

C (to friends): It was so loose. It was like jello!
F1: You've never .... an uncut one?
C: I'm from Sudan!

F3: Personally, I like natural vaginas. Their lab

This opinion is coming from the female side of this argument.
I have had 4 serious relationships and the first three of them were circ. From this personal experience and prior to my current relationship, I did not believe in a real difference in regards to the sensations of love making. The penis was pleasing to see, feel, and touch being circ.

I am now in a relationship with someone who is not circ. and I can say confidently that there is a HUGE difference in sensation. I have never had love making be so pleasurable and feel as though it were a "perfect fit". I personally feel that all the other sexual experiences I have had were "cut short" due to lack of sensitivity. Its a shame that we downplay our life experiences for vanity and religious purposes.

Medically speaking (from what I have read on this thread and beyond), cleanly practices can prevent most of the issues related to uncirc. penis'. This can also be said for all females. If you keep yourself clean, then there are less chances of infections, etc...
I find it completely hypocritical and mentally warped that we PREACH through religion how "God" has made us in his image and to be content with how we look physically, yet we remove something all men are born with. Makes no damn sense to me...

To each his own in my opinion, but according to our legal system it is against the law to allow ANY cosmetic surgery before a person is of legal age to MAKE THE DECISION ON THEIR OWN. Now, if there are serious medical complications in relevance to the foreskin once a male child is born then the obvious choice is to remove it. I see no other reason to remove anything physical if there is no medical issue. Its better to have it and leave the decision up to the INDIVIDUAL. Have we as parents forgotten that we are responsible for raising a human being that will ultimately be responsible on an INDIVIDUAL level.
Why do we feel we have the right to take that choice from ANY person... If I were a male, I would be very upset being circ before I could make the decision myself.

Long post short, my future son will NOT be circ. and my husband will be in charge of teaching the responsibilities of foreskin to our son.

To all the dads that plan on circumcising their kids, or have already circumcised their kid, purely for aesthetic reasons, i have one thing to say to you.

Quit projecting your penis insecurity on your kid. If you're worried that your son is going to be shunned by girls for being natural, those girls aren't the kind of girls that are worth the effort anyways.

Originally posted by RogerT

Originally posted by Mcupobob

Again circumcision does not reduce pleasure. The foreskin is there to protect the penis and rolls back when harden and has nothing to do with intercourse.

Spoken like a cut male. Dude, you have no idea

Ah, I think I just got to the whole source of the whole circumcision argument.



I'm not going to get into a pissing match man about who has the better penis. Fact is it stuff works fine, has some medical benefits and may be style choice but I don't mind it. If you don't like its fine by me its not your choice though.

And again according to urologist -

"The foreskin's job is to cover the penis and protect it," she said. "Its job is not to be a part of the sensitivity."

And according to the journal of medical -

AIM:

To assess adult male circumcision's effect on men's sexual function and pleasure.
METHODS:

Participants in a controlled trial of circumcision to reduce HIV incidence in Kisumu, Kenya were uncircumcised, HIV negative, sexually active men, aged 18-24 years, with a hemoglobin >or=9.0 mmol/L. Exclusion criteria included foreskin covering less than half the glans, a condition that might unduly increase surgical risks, or a medical indication for circumcision. Participants were randomized 1:1 to either immediate circumcision or delayed circumcision after 2 years (control group). Detailed evaluations occurred at 1, 3, 6, 12, 18, and 24 months.
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES:

(i) Sexual function between circumcised and uncircumcised men; and (ii) sexual satisfaction and pleasure over time following circumcision.
RESULTS:

Between February 2002 and September 2005, 2,784 participants were randomized, including the 100 excluded from this analysis because they crossed over, were not circumcised within 30 days of randomization, did not complete baseline interviews, or were outside the age range. For the circumcision and control groups, respectively, rates of any reported sexual dysfunction decreased from 23.6% and 25.9% at baseline to 6.2% and 5.8% at month 24. Changes over time were not associated with circumcision status. Compared to before they were circumcised, 64.0% of circumcised men reported their penis was "much more sensitive," and 54.5% rated their ease of reaching orgasm as "much more" at month 24.
CONCLUSIONS:

Adult male circumcision was not associated with sexual dysfunction. Circumcised men reported increased penile sensitivity and enhanced ease of reaching orgasm. These data indicate that integration of male circumcision into programs to reduce HIV risk is unlikely to adversely effect male sexual function.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

reply to post by Maxmars


Harmful huh? Piggies need blankets my friend. Really, you should have not been cut!

reply to post by loves a conspiricy


Those two things are not even in the same ball park. Liken circumcision to ear piercing. It is not mutilation. Middle eastern practices of removing the clitoris and vulva, that is genital mutilation designed to take the pleasure of sexual experience away from the middle eastern woman. That practice is barbaric and obviously designed by a man to keep women in check.

Originally posted by karen61057
reply to post by loves a conspiricy

 

Liken circumcision to ear piercing. It is not mutilation.

No, liken circumcision to cutting off part of the ear. Having a piercing in your foreskin is liken to having an ear pierced....Therefore circumcision IS Mutilation.

IMO of course.

I'm cut and if sex was any more enjoyable or I was more sensitive to it I would never get anything done or think about anything else. I feel this ritual was started to lower our ever present and immensely strong animal urges for sex and even though its obviously painful it isn't a bad thing. Watching a circumcision isn't any harder to watch then two nurses jamming needles into each arm and each leg of your child simultaneously and you having to hold them down and listen to their screams.

I think putting children through public schools is a far bigger abuse to our children then circumcision has ever been or ever will be.

Originally posted by Donkey_Dean
reply to post by Maxmars

 

Harmful huh? Piggies need blankets my friend. Really, you should have not been cut!

edit on 6-10-2011 by Donkey_Dean because: (no reason given)

A) The title comes from the article, not me.
B) The object of the thread is to discuss the topic..., thank you for adding the momentous "Piggies need blankets" game changing argument.
C) Do you know me? Have I said I was cut and regretted it; or wasn't and wished I was? Talk about the topic not me.

and finally,

D) On the off-chance that you were just goofing around.... so am I.

By the way... to anyone who may remember, wasn't there recently some article about guys who restore their foreskin with some kind of device? Anyone remember that?

reply to post by ken10

No, liken circumcision to cutting off part of the ear.

I'll do you one better.

Liken circumcision to having all of your fingernails and toenails surgically removed at birth. Don't worry, the Docs will do it quickly with a surgical clamp made just for the procedure, but no anesthesia because research shows that infants don't really experience pain the way adults do. In fact they are not even sure they feel it at all.

Why the finger and toenails?

Why, because underneath them and all around the cuticle it is a breeding ground for bacteria and especially fungus.

We have all seen the commercials and the products at the stores. Nail infections are a big deal and obviously a public health threat. We all know how many diseases are passed amongst one another on the hands. Imagine how many pairs of shoes you have tried on that have had fungus infected toe nails in them. People can't be universally trusted to have proper hand and foot hygiene so....

Off with the finger and toe nails! At birth!

You see that is all these freak doctors that actually go out of their way to publish have on the dreaded foreskin; the possibility of poor hygiene spreading disease.

And it is bullcrap. And we know it.

That is why it is a good thing that this come up for discussion. It needs to be seen for what it is and eradicated.

And on top of that, it is part and parcel of larger societal issues that need to be addressed. So circumcision is a good thread to pull on if we want to accomplish some productive unravelling of the societal sweater.

Originally posted by Troofseeker

Originally posted by naghammadi
kind of amusing that a "perfect God" would make a mistake which requires surgery.

Yes indeed. Well said.

Or how about birth defects? Would a perfect God allow that? Yes, yes he would.

IMO surgery is only aceptable when it is clinicaly necessary. I remember that i went trougth this procedure when i was 12, and it was brutal and painfull, so today i only recommend ANY kind of surgery when it has to do with real risk and not abstract risk like statistics.

Note: yes, i had a clinical condition it was a MUST to get it done.

reply to post by technologicalsingularity


medgadget.com...

thats a link to an article about the ShangRing, from what im reading its relatively painless and is worn for 10 days. If this could be used in all future circumcisions this argument might go away
my point was that if you are for one form of 'mutilation" that causes pain to a child without their consent and against the other it is hypocritical, especially when the one you are for is simply for cosmetic reasons and the other is for health concerns

Originally posted by A-Dub
Jeez people want to argue about this when there are much more important things in the world.

My sentiments exactly, we all have our opinions on this and can turn it into a debate...but why?

reply to post by baalbuster


why waste your time and ask a question in a thread where you just stated you see no point in debating the topic, by asking the question you have opened a truly meaningless debate.

Circumcision is an archaic ritual which actually stems from the puritan belief that masturbation is something evil.

The main reason it was done in the past was to prevent masturbation. TODAY, they give pseudo arguments "pro circumcisions" which all have no base to stand on. (Hygiene etc.

reply to post by TinkerHaus


I have to disagree with that. A circumcised child wouldn't know they're circumcised until after the fact and what child would then think 'I wish my ___ had that skin back!' I sure didn't and I can't imagine many others would. I'm glad mine was cut at a young age so i dont remember any of it or healing. To have to do it later, most would opt out over the trauma of it. Also, hate to say it but having a little skin pocket to store germs is unappealing and we're lying to ourselves if we don't admit that on occasion we can forget to shower.

I usually don't post much around here, but this time it is relevant.

My Son was born at home. (we had a midwife) yeah for Home Birth!

My Son was to be "Uncut" but soon had an infection due to urine getting trapped inside the foreskin.
We kept it clean for three years when the infection got worse, and the only
thing the doctors could do was a Circumcision. After that the infection went away.

Since then we have met a few other parents who wanted their child to be all natural, but they too got infected and needed to have the Circumcision.

So I feel in some cases it is warranted, but in other cases....................

Again, i'm amazed at all the know it alls who think they know whats best for others.

I can only hope in the future you people feel the effects on your own personal rights when people who think they know better than you tell you how to live your life or take care of your children.

Some of you are soo off base we might aswell call wisdom teeth removal torture and abuse according to your logic.

This whole thread stinks of hypocrisy.