Here’s all the arguments you’ll ever hear and why I ruled them out. First, I’ll say, when I found out my 1st was a boy, I immediately thought we’d have him circumcised, because my husband is circ’d and that’s just what you do, right?
Then I started reading, because I can’t help myself.
I cried, for about 4 hours straight, and then whenever I
thought of it again. Reading the descriptions of both methods of circumcision,
reading the horror stories, reading how
this barbaric practice came to be. I don’t consider myself to be an activist
about much, but when it comes to circumcision, I am. I just feel so awful for
all those little baby boys, being tortured in their first moments outside of
their mother’s womb. L
One of the convincing arguments I’d always read was that it
was religiously called for. The thing is, it’s only called for if you are Jewish,
and even then, the original practice of circumcision was NOT a complete removal
of the foreskin, it was a tiny snip through the foreskin which would heal (and
not affect the foreskin at all) and leave a scar, showing your covenant with
God. If you feel called to have this covenant with God, I suggest you practice
the original act of circumcision, not a modern one. Along the same religious
lines, I’m of the opinion that we’re born perfect. If, by some odd work of
nature, we’ve come to not need a part, it will eventually disappear on its’
own.
A side note, speaking of something we’re born with that is
no longer necessary – ever heard of an appendix? Our appendix is completely
unnecessary anymore, and actually a danger if it bursts, yet we don’t remove
every newborn’s appendix. If you were to believe that newborns can’t feel pain,
as many pro-circumcisers say, why wouldn’t we just remove their appendix at
birth?
Uncircumcised boys are more likely to have STDs or
infections, right? Nope, research has shown that to not be true. The US has the
highest rates of circumcision in the world and also the highest rates of STDs
and infections. I believe this mistaken impression comes from people who
“clean” the penis by pulling back the foreskin and scrubbing with soap. This
has the same effect as cleaning in the vagina with soap – it removes the good
bacteria and allows the bad bacteria to take over. I actually suffer from
horrible yeast infections if I use soap to clean my lady parts.
Cleaning it seems intimidating – I’ve never even seen an
intact man, I didn’t know what to do with that extra skin. The thing is, you
don’t have to do anything. It’s actually LESS care than is needed for a
circumcised penis – since when a boy is circ’d it has to be kept clean &
dry during a period when little boys are peeing and pooping on themselves. You
wash the outside and don’t pull back on the skin at all. The very few times my
boys have had poo that got into the tip of the penis, it just washed right off.
Nothing a bath can’t take care of ;)
He’ll get made fun of in the locker room! I have a very
short answer for this – as my husband said “if other boys are looking at his
pecker, he’s got bigger problems than getting made fun of.” Most boys don’t
shower naked with other boys any more in school.
He’ll be different than his daddy! Yup, in more ways than
just his penis, like his nose, but I don’t plan to give him rhinoplasty. By the
time he is big enough for his private parts to look similar to his daddy’s
(including pubic hair and size), they really shouldn’t be naked together
anymore. My husband has no idea whether his dad is circ’d or not.
The convincing statistic for my husband is that intact males
are about 25% larger in size than circumcised males when fully erect. The
belief is that this is because the foreskin gives the penis extra room to grow.
My husband was pretty upset to learn he could have been 25% larger.
I was also strongly affected by the origins of modern
circumcision – a practice started by the Catholic Church to stop boys from
masturbating. It sickens me L
I hope as a society we’ve come far enough along to realize that a little body
exploration by kids is completely normal and even expected.
