Momversation: Circumcision

My Life

http://blip.tv/play/gew+6MJnkOIX

In this Momversation video it may sound like I think you’re a monster when you circumcise. In actuality, I don’t think it matters much one way or the other, I just personally found it too upsetting. Your kids, your call.

Unless you’re beating your kids in the parking lot. Then I’m probably gonna get all up in your business.

Published

66 thoughts on “Momversation: Circumcision”

  1. we did it (after lots of agonizing) and I’m glad. I fully admit it’s like giving your newborn a nose job and I’m pretty honest about why we did it – it looks better and it’s easier (for me). Under no circumstances do I want (or know how, for that matter) to be telling my 12 year old boy how to keep his junk clean.

    Like

  2. I’m not going to be popular here, I just find this post to be so fascinating.Wow. None of us even have penises, right?
    I am going to go again with my experiences, and not base it on some google search I did putting in the words for or against “circumcision, we are all smart enough to get evidence to support our own agendas. However, I can say that cleaning an uncircumsized penis foreskin out, so that you can stick a catheter in it before surgery is disgusting, and sad, and very frequent.
    Also I read the comment earlier that said that uncircumcised adolescents don’t get made fun of because men deny looking at each others penis’s. I’m sorry but that is not true and I think we all know that. I have heard many jokes about “so and so’s” turtle neck, particualarly in high school and college, and for people to act like that isn’t an issue is just ignorant. Yeah I don’t think people should get made fun of for being uncircumcised but it happens, and we all know it.
    FYI Howard Stern is mad at his parents because he has a small penis, and he thinks that’s due to the circumcision. He is a comedian.
    I don’t think circumcision is a violation of human rights, but you know the people who make the law have penis’s and probably are circumcised.

    Like

  3. There are so many comments on here that are incredibly naive to the development and functions of the foreskin. Circumcision is completely unnecessary, harms the normal function of the penis, and removes a child’s right to choose over his/her own body.

    The mythical “infections” and “foreskin problems” are really just a misunderstanding of the foreskin and how it develops naturally throughout childhood.
    http://www.mothering.com/articles/new_baby/circumcision/protect-uncircson.html

    Every child regardless of sex, age, race, culture, religion or nationality has a right to a normal genitalia.

    GET EDUCATED!

    http://www.genitalautonomy.org
    http://www.cirp.org
    http://www.intactamerica.org
    http://www.nocirc.org
    http://www.doctorsopposingcircumcision.org

    Like

  4. To Pixies sticks, commenter #51:

    Would you give your child a nose job?
    (no responsible doctor would allow you to do that)

    would you circumcise your daughter if it made things easier for you and you liked the way it looked?

    Like

  6. Darcy, RIC IS a violation of human rights! What about those men that are furious from being circ’ed as an infant and trying to restore what they were stolen from them? Yes, women has no penises but the baby boys do and who is going to speak out for them? someone has to do it! It is illegal to even drop a tiny drop of blood from a girl’s genitalia, why is it different for boys? Boys do not have rights? What Pixie said it is just simple incoherent feminist remark, you are implying men doesn’t know how to care for their penises, but guess what? they still need to clean their butts and we are not cutting those. I have an intact boy and cleaning his penis is easier than cleaning his butt or ears. Amputation is not the answer to cleanliness. Tell me how 80% of the male in the world are INTACT and has no problem with foreskins. Now I feel for all mommas who didn’t make enough research and had their sons circ’ed, now only 50% of the boys are getting circumcised – every year the rate drops, by the time these kids are teens, circumcised males are going to be in the minority… HIS body, HIS choice!

    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5395565256830319025

    Like

  7. I have two intact sons. Never a single problem. My first was circ’d against my expressed wishes that he NOT be circ’d. See why I won’t have a baby in the hospital EVER AGAIN – not if I can help it anyways. If it ever came to that I’d be DAMN SURE no freaking knife will go near my son’s penis!

    Son #1 has many problems, Meatal Stenosis (occurs in %10 of circ’d boys – funny because UTI’s in intact boys are less common than that), a very painful growth spurt ‘down there’ he had screaming spells for months when he was 3 and 4. God, I hope this doesn’t happen to him when he hits puberty. I will however present to him the option of restoring so he can have some slack to grow into. He also had a buried penis for the first 4 yrs of his life (another very common complication from circumcision).

    Cutting parts off healthy genitals regardless of gender is, well, insane. But hey, that’s America for ya – just another crazy country emulating a backward culture. No wonder every other industrialized Nation on the face of this planet is repulsed by this idea. The only time they see bare glans is when the grown intact male himself is ‘Retracting, Rinsing, Replaceing’ his prepuce during his normal hygienic routine, or when he is erect. The exposed glans is the look of an ADULT horny penis. It really does take a sick mind to want to see that on an infant. Have it your way, wear those cultural blindfolds. You may think bare glans is ‘attractive’ and or ‘pretty’ (yuck, barf) on an infant or child (again, that’s very very gross) but you can’t really explain to yourself why you think that way because you wear a heavy cultural blindfold.

    Like

  8. OH WOW. My mind is totally changed, we should be storming people’s houses and incarcerating these ruthless fiends who are circumcising their sons. OH, wait that sounds a little like hmmmm…. crucifying someone for their beliefs, wow sort of like Nazi’s, but whatever.
    We should spend all of time and effort saving the foreskin, instead of going after pedophiles and dead beat dads. Oh wait people who circumcise their kids are pedophiles right because they like the look of an “adult horny penis”.

    This is really getting ridiculous.

    Like

  9. I am in the UK and I don’t know anyone who is circumcised unless they are Jewish. As I’m sure you all know, it is not standard practice here, or really anywhere outside America. The rest of the world are managing to have good sex, avoid UTIs and keep their penises clean, which I think is pretty much all the evidence you need. I read a figure somewhere that the ratio of circumcised to not circumcised in newborn infants is now 50/50 in the US, and I think as the cultural assumptions become less entrenched, the circumcision rates will continue to fall.

    Like

  10. pixie sticks, how is it cleaner to have urine and feces up against an open wound? Do you defecate on your open wounds? Caring for a circ wound is MUCH HARDER than caring for an intact penis. An intact foreskin is tightly bonded to the glans just as the fingernail is to the finger. Wipe and go, and never retract an infant’s foreskin – its that simple. Ripping away the fused prepuce from the glans results in a raw open wound. The foreskin doesn’t naturally separate until puberty. This is nature’s way of protecting the penis. Its not hard to tell a young child to remember the three R’s during hygiene: Retract, Rinse, Replace. Plus, teenage boys will figure it out. Why in hell do you think they stay in the shower so damn long… Do you NOT tell your daughters that its important to wipe from front to back? Its just as easy, or is that too hard for you? Or, does your son have a mental disability and can’t remember the three R’s? In that case, you should probably cut off other parts of his body since he can’t possibly understand how to clean himself. I guess, having intact genitals is a privilege only for the SMART American.

    Like

  11. um . . . what about the curls? seriously, hot rollers or curling iron? I know you have naturally curly hair, but those waves are fabulous.

    Like

  12. Wow…and I thought the Blowjob Brouhaha of a couple months ago from the comments in one of your previous posts got ugly! Though at this point, the comments are a bit too fanatical for me to delve into, I will echo one of the saner posts above about the fabulousness of your hair. Loves it!

    Like

  16. Sorry, but FGM is NOT the same as male circumcision. Let’s just put that argument down and walk away from it, because it’s not only inflammatory, it’s inaccurate and insulting to those of us who make the choice to circumcise.

    I find it interesting how many people have felt it necessary to not only inquire whether we intended to have our son circumcised, but whether we’ll have the next one circumcised as well. I think that’s a pretty personal question, when I’m asked by anyone other than my child’s physician I decline to answer it, and I am really pretty disturbed by the fact that so many people out there are spending so much time thinking about the genitalia of strangers.

    Make the choice for your kid, not mine, please. And did everyone hear Maggie when she suggested that we needn’t try so hard to prove everyone else wrong just to feel like we’re right?

    Well said, Maggie.

    Like

Comments are closed.