Circumcision rant

[dalekboy]

In one of my recent posts, I mentioned that circumcising a child for reasons that are not solidly medical or religious is something that should be thought about in terms of what the child may prefer, not what you want.

Someone pulled me up on this, saying that they consider mutilation because of religion a bad reason for doing it.

Comments

[king_espresso]

You could google "foreskin cleaning"... but probably don't do it at work.

[shrydar]

Well, if you were my mother you'd ask your 15yo circumcised son to teach his 5yo uncircumcised brother how to clean under his foreskin.. (and yes, that was in the days before google ;)

[fe2h2o]

See... for us, I figured it was pretty much Paddington's call. I wasn't keen on it, but if he'd had a strong preference, I'd probably have gone along with it.

[paul_ewins]

Of all the issues facing mankind male circumcision would have to be the least important.

The upsides are trivial, the downsides are trivial. No, really, the benefits are statistically miniscule and the risks are even smaller.

To compare it in any way to female genital mutilation or foot binding is just so wrong as they cause serious damage to women whereas male circumcision changes nothing.

If you ask yourself "How would my life have been different if I was/wasn't circumcised" the answer for 99.9% of western males should be "it wouldn't be different at all". What football team you support is more likely to shape your life than whether or not you have a foreskin.

If you want to fight against barbaric practices why don't you join Amnesty International or an anti capital punishment group or even help the RSPCA fight against tail-docking of dogs. Any of those would contribute far more to making our world a better place.

[dalekboy]

Of all the issues facing mankind male circumcision would have to be the least important.Actually, I would have said that fandom and worldcons were the least important, but that's just me

[paul_ewins]

The problem here is the numbers, and that is why I threw in the 99.9%. Because so many boys are circumcised, worldwide, the numbers start to sound meaningful even when they are not. When I talked about the miniscule benefit and the even smaller risk the numbers affected sound large but are a very small percentage of the total.

So for most of the world circumcision holds no benefit, but for thousands of people in Africa it could prevent transmission of AIDS to them (while for millions it doesn't). Meanwhile maybe hundreds of people are physically affected by botched circumcisions.

Yes, there are people who have mental health problems that centre on being circumcised, but is that cause or effect? Should we give up hygiene because excessive cleanliness is a common manifestation of obsessive compulsive disorder?

Circumcise or not it really won't make any difference so be happy in your choice. Just don't tell me that you won't get your kids vaccinated because of the risk of side effects....

[dalekboy]

This is weird, and I'm trying to figure out if it's because I'm tired or you're just stirring, because your first reply made a lot of sense and had some good arguments, whereas this one seems more a disjointed hodgepodge of stuff that is mostly not relevant to what was being talked about in either my post or our replies

[kaelajael]

I have two boys - one is circumcised, the other isn't.
When I was pregnant, we discussed long and hard about whether we would choose to do it and after weighing up the relevant factors for our life at the time we chose to have our baby circumcised.
There were a number of reasons, but the biggest one for us was that we lived in hot, humid and dusty place, and we personally knew of a number of boys who had to be done because of infections when they were older (5-15) and each of them then had issues with pain and scarring.
Our second son isn't circumcised, because the doctor I had when he was born refused to perform the procedure despite our requests.

[dalekboy]

See, whether I agree with it or not, I can fully respect the decision. You thought about this, you had personal experience of other uncircumcised people having difficulties, you made an informed choice to have it done.

Where were you living?

[kaelajael]

We were living in Port Hedland and then Newman.

[mireille21]

Can I ask, as the parents of one circumcised and one uncircumcised son, what's your opinion on the whole issue? Do they experience different reactions at school. If you had to do it over, (and could find a willing doctor) would you get them both circumcised? Neither one?

I ask becaue I am a soon to be parent and find myself surrounded by differing opinions of certain male persons in my life (who don't have children yet, I might add). It's become a bigger issue than I ever thought it would, but I'd be interested to get the perspective of someone who has been there and done that.

[battblush]

While we're on the subject of mutilating babies, I find ear piercing on infants to be obscene. I want to slap the parents whenever I see it. Piercing (or any form of mutilation) should be made by informed consent, not because the parent has a preference.

As for the argument "because I want him to look like his father" argument: my husband has a split in his ear lobe due to a birth deformity. Should I then have Connor's ear surgically split so he'll look like his Dad? Answer: see beginning of my rant.

[dalekboy]

You echoed one of my ranty replies above with your second paragraph.

And yes, I don't think infants should have their ears pierced. I think if a child is going to have their ears pierced, it should be considered as an option only when the child has requested it.

And that doesn't include mum or aunty asking the child "So do you want you ears pierced?" Let the child decide they want it done, rather than placing the idea in their mind because you want it done.

[ariaflame]

Of course the surest way to get a teenager to want their ears (or anything else) pierced is to forbid it :)

Not that you were advocating that either. But yes, should be the choice of the person involved. Preferably also an informed choice (i.e. they know what they'll have to do to take care of the piercings, what might possibly go wrong and that it will be their responsibility to take care of it).