Poll: What do you think about circumcision?

[Sewora]

No harm is done to the child but there is no medical benift from it, so it's all a matter of personal choice of the parents.

Except for the fact that the child loses a very important muceous membrane that has the same sensitivity as the glans, so his sexual sensation is reduced greatly, his ability to lubricate properly is lost, and the reduction of friction due to the piston-effect is lost, effectively making sex less pleasurable for both the male and female.
Not the mention the medical benefits of having your glans protected at young age.

Oh I don't see how it could possibly be considered as harming the child...

 

[Zantos]

Well, on paper there are plenty of medical and hygiene benefits to circumcision. But from the wince I get just from typing the word I think it should be the person's choice and not the parents.

 

[Zantos]

But from the wince I get just from typing the word I think it should be the person's choice and not the parents.

Getting my daughter's tongue tie cut when she was a newborn make me cringe too. In case you don't know what that is, they use surgical sissors to slice back the tissue connecting the tongue to the bottom of the mouth. They do this in cases where the tisse forms too far up. This can interfere with breastfeeding (our problem) and with speach later.

The procedure is at the call of the parents. The medical evidence on it is mixed. It seems pretty clear it does help with breastfeeding and speach in a statistically significant number of cases, but there is also a chance of infection, and a mouth of a newborn is not a place you want an infection.

We authorized it because we felt the breastfeeding benefit was worth it to her health. But I'll tell you, I winced A LOT.

They use no anestetic of any kind. It can take 2 or or 3 cuts since they don't want to over cut and thus do it slowly. The child SCREAMS like you wouldn't believe. I've never heard a sound like that come from a child (and I've been at circumcision as a comparison).

Sometimes the fact that it makes the parent wince is not the reason to say no to something.

Eeeesh, that sounds horrible. Though I would say in the case of immediate medical benefit that's a good call. I can't think of (though don't exactly do much reading up on the subject) any medical benefit to circumcision that can't wait until they're older. If a doctor said they needed to do it now or my future child would suffer in later life I'd say go for it. What I meant was that if it can wait until the kid is older without really impacting them I'd leave it until they were old enough to decide on their own.

 

[DannyBandicoot]

Parents should not be allowed to mutilate their children. They can do it themselves when they are older if they want.
I'm not going to cut off my future-son's little toe even for stupid assed archaic religious reasons.

 

[Brandon237]

Why should it be anyone's choice but the kid's? It's not like it negatively effects anyone.

100 points for Gigastrike.
Those are all the points I have, you now have them.

Regardless of whether or not the child CARES, doing that to them takes away their choice. One that is not so easily given back... Unless it is medically advised, leave it to the person themselves.

 

[tangoprime]

I am SO FUCKING GLAD that I am circumcised... seriously, women like it better, I like it better, less shit to clean, less risk of infection... it's overall pretty amazing.

Pretty much sums up my thoughts.

 

[Lord Laharl's Vassal]

I think it should be each man?s decision of whether or not he should get circumcised. It is his penis and he is the one who has to live with it every day.

There is no guarantee that a child will grow up and believe I the same religion as his parents, so permanently marking them with any type of religious mark is a gamble and a disservice to the child. A child is not a minion one can command as one pleases, it is separate human being with his own ideas, thoughts, emotions, believes, dreams and desires, and if a parent cannot not grasp that they have no business being parents.

I am happy for those individuals who are happy about their circumcision, it is your body and nothing is more important then you feeling good about it, however there are circumcised men who are not happy with their circumcision and wish it had never been done to them and for their sake I am extremely disappointed by the profound lack of empathy they are being shown by their fellow circumcised men. Telling someone to ?get over it? is easy for you to say, and saying that parents have the right to choose even though you are well aware of those who unhappy about it is nothing but cold-hearted.

I am greatly depressed for those who have been circumcised against their own will and I wish from the bottom of my heart that there was something that could reverse it. Fortunately there seems to be something that can be done with lack of protection foreskin gives to the glans, there are special made foreskin substitutes and there is something called foreskin restoration:

http://manhood.mb.ca/ (A type of undergarment. Warning: The site show how to put the undergarment on the penis, I hope this is not considered offensive material)
I found this site to be very helpful and something I intent to recommend any man I meet with this sort of problem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreskin_restoration

 

[Rodrigo Girao]

Jews believe sex is a blessing. Yes, we are only supposed to do it in a marriage or with concubines (which does not mean prostitute), but that doesn't mean we are anti sex. Heck, that's one of the key promisses in the prenup that every groom promisses to his wife. We are SUPPOSED to enjoy sex, its a gift. There isn't even any prohibitions againt masterbation before you are married, or if you are away from your wife. Some think there is no masterbation prohibitions at all under our law.

Think again!

Similarly with regard to circumcision, one of the reasons for it is, in my opinion, the wish to bring about a decrease in sexual intercourse and a weakening of the organ in question, so that this activity be diminished and the organ be in as quiet a state as possible. It has been thought that circumcision perfects what is defective congenitally. This gave the possibility to everyone to raise an objection and to say: How can natural things be defective so that they need to be perfected from outside, all the more because we know how useful the foreskin is for that member? In fact this commandment has not been prescribed with a view to perfecting what is defective congenitally, but to perfecting what is defective morally. The bodily pain caused to that member is the real purpose of circumcision. None of the activities necessary for the preservation of the individual is harmed thereby, nor is procreation rendered impossible, but violent concupiscence and lust that goes beyond what is needed are diminished. The fact that circumcision weakens the faculty of sexual excitement and sometimes perhaps diminishes the pleasure is indubitable. For if at birth this member has been made to bleed and has had its covering taken away from it, it must indubitably be weakened. The Sages, may their memory be blessed, have explicitly stated: It is hard for a woman with whom an uncircumcised man has had sexual intercourse to separate from him. In my opinion this is the strongest of the reasons for circumcision.

There you have it, straight from the most renowned rabbi ever: the very purpose of circumcision is to make sex worse, as a strong (normal, natural) lust is somehow immoral.

 

[Rodrigo Girao]

Never read that before. Source?

"The Guide of the Perplexed", part III, chapter 49. Check it. [http://www.cirp.org/library/cultural/maimonides/]

 

[Olivia Faraday]

I'm a shallow girl and the fact is that circumcized penises are just more visually appealing. I'll cry for you the next time I cut myself shaving my entire damn body to conform to weird infantalized standards of beauty.

 

[Rodrigo Girao]

Shaving? Damn, girl, that's not even close. The proper parallel would be if someone had cut off your clitoral hood.

 

[Lord Laharl's Vassal]

I'm a shallow girl and the fact is that circumcized penises are just more visually appealing.

You are indeed shallow my fellow female. Even if you think normal penises are less visually appealing it is not something you have to look at on a regular basis, it is suppose to go inside you, it was not ment to be an artpiece. I think both male and female sexual organs look ugly regardless of shape, size or cuts and I like to think of them as two ugly thing that come together to make something exceptionally beautiful. I also think the penis looks like an overgrown worm circumcised or not.

I'll cry for you the next time I cut myself shaving my entire damn body to conform to weird infantalized standards of beauty.

You don't have to do that if you don't want to.

 

[chadachada123]

If the price wasn't so screwed up, I'd be inclined to let the kid decide once he's old enough.

As it stands, though, it costs next to nothing when done as a baby, while getting it done later in life when it isn't required costs a TON, is extremely painful (at an age that we'll remember that pain), and isn't covered by insurance.

Fix that last part, and I'll concede that it should wait until the person can decide himself. "Letting the kid decide" is de facto choosing the "no circumcision" option for him, since there's little chance he'd want that painful procedure done now when he could have had it done (cheaply) as an infant. Same with doing it for him, picking what his penis is gonna look like at a young age.

It sucks either way, and, I would say, fairly equally for those that are uncut but want to be cut, and those that are cut but would have preferred being uncut.

(I'd also say that religious indoctrination and other mental conditioning is far more damaging to a person than getting a procedure that most other boys have anyway)

 

[WOPR]

I'm circumsized, and I'm not any worse off than anyone else, and I don't care that doctors cut some of my skin off when I was too young to remember it.

Basically, there's no reason parents shouldn't be able to make the choice.

I'm cirsumsized, and feel that I was mutilated as a child and have so much pent up rage from it that I want to scalp my father (if he can cut the skin off my "head" why can't I return the favor to his!?)

That being said, there's lots of differing opionins on the subject, some just don't care, some hates that it happens, but what's bothering me is... it's surgery at birth to change someones look... people who argue FOR it saying stuff like "It's the parents decision" are the same people that freak out when they see a 2 month old boy with pierced ears, or hear that story about a woman giving her young daughter botox or plastic surgery
they're ALL surgery people, what makes this one so different other than "religious right" (which I say is the biggest joke in America next to the statement "reganomics works")

 

[Meta 99]

They just got the thing, and you want to do WHAT to it?

 

[Telekinesis]

Surprised to see how many of you give a shit about something as unimportant as this. 800 comments and over 80% of you didn't vote for "I don't care"?
Jesus Escapists, Jesus...

 

[AngloDoom]

Surprised to see how many of you give a shit about something as unimportant as this. 800 comments and over 80% of you didn't vote for "I don't care"?
Jesus Escapists, Jesus...

That's because, for a lot of people, it's hurting a child and putting it at risk of infection, taking away it's choice for how it's own body looks, and reducing the sexual pleasure it can ever feel because "We've been doing it a really long time".

It's an issue for a lot of people outside of the US, because a lot of us see it as legalised barbarism that's so ingrained in some people that they go ahead and inflict bodily mutilation on their own child just because everyone else is doing it.

Quite frankly, as someone outside the US, I would bite someone's face off if they told me to put my new-born child through unnecessary surgery because "It looks better".

 

[stinkyrobot]

I voted the parent's choice, but what I really mean, is religious reasons. I really think you shouldn't circumcise, barring medical reasons, unless it's a religious reason. I just don't see a point to cutting off part of the dick for any non-religious reasons. Seems kinda weird.

"(10 points says poll gets eaten)" You, my friend, are out 10 points. I think I will use the points to buy a vineyard, out in the countryside.

And why is it acseptible to mutilate your children in a very painfull way due to religous reasons? If there was a religion that required you to clip of the tip of a childs ear, or cut of part of their finger would you be ok with it?

 

[Olivia Faraday]

I'll cry for you the next time I cut myself shaving my entire damn body to conform to weird infantalized standards of beauty.

You don't have to do that if you don't want to.

That frankly sounds lovely, but it's just not an option. A North American woman with hairy armpits is a woman who not only never gets laid, she also gets horrified expressions whenever she raises her arms in public. I get rashes, irritation, and ingrown hairs regularly, but I'm still expected to keep my pits and legs 100% hair free. If that's the way the world works, I'm perfectly fine with saying I prefer dicks that don't look like they're wearing turtlenecks, though I admit -- neither is particularly mind-blowing attractive.

The fact is, people do dangerous, degrading or unpalatable things every damn day to look attractive, and this particular issue isn't anywhere near as big a deal as it's made out to be in that light.

 

[Rodrigo Girao]

So you're saying: "I suffer, so I want guys to suffer too."