Tuesday, 30 November 2010
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Hey San Francisco: Circumcision is a Benefit in My Mind
I'm just going to be blunt right now: I think circumcision is a benefit, and San Fransisco is out of line for trying to ban newborn circumcision. (Especially with the high number of gays there. Nt to be sexist, but I know for a fact gays find circumcision as a benefit for their own reasons.) It should be allowed.
I've always known that circumcision allowed men to keep their penises clean and make them less prone to certain infections, but doing some research, I found several benefits that outweigh the cons, especially some associated with newborn circumcision. (BTW: For those who don't think WebMD is a reliable source, it's written and reviewed by board certified doctors and is recommended by medical professionals.)
1.) When circumcisions are preformed as newborns, it's less complicated and less risky. For a newborn it takes 10 or less minutes, but it takes an hour when performing it on a grown man.
2.) They prevent urinary tract infections in men. I know urinary tract infections are painful for women, but my ex had one before (yes, he is circumcised) and they're more painful in men. They're rare in men, so they automatically run painful tests (that I've had before because I'm prone to them) such as sticking needles and tubes up the urethra. It hurt being led up the vagina, but the penis is only one tiny hole. It's a very traumatic experience, especially since I had it done when I was 4 and they wouldn't let my mom in the room because it's a sterile procedure. I wouldn't want my future son to ever be exposed to a UTI and such painful tests. Circumcision helps men clean their penis to clean it so they don't get UTI's. It's the same way women get UTI's... except it's not cleaning their vagina correctly.
3.) A reduced risk of sexually transmitted diseases in men (and HIV). I can see how this is a huge benefit with circumcision and again the diseases get trapped in the foreskin, making them more prone.
4.) Protection against penile cancer and a reduced risk of cervical cancer in female sex partners. I don't know about you, but I just prefer a circumcised man sooo much more right now and I'm glad I've only slept with a circumcised man. I'd want my son's and his future sex partner to be healthy and at less risk for cancer.
5.) Prevention of balanitis (inflammation of the glans) and balanoposthitis (inflammation of the glans and foreskin). These are like insane, painful erections that don't go away, to the point men can hardly wear pants [I saw it last night on Untold Stories of the E.R.]. Sometimes they can be relieved with icing or a topical cream, but in some situations they must be relieved with a surgical procedures, like the guy on UTS of the E.R. They also said, they're more common than one thinks..
6.) Prevention of phimosis (the inability to retract the foreskin) and paraphimosis (the inability to return the foreskin to its original location). These cause permanent erectile dysfunction in most cases and may need surgery.
7.) Fewer problems with erections, especially at puberty.
To sum it up: If I ever have a son, I'll be getting his circumcised at birth. I feel like the benefits outweigh the amount of pain a baby won't remember when he grows up. If a guy gets it when he's an child, teen, or adult, he'll definitely remember it.
Are these benefits enough for you to circumcise your son someday or do you still think circumcision is irrelevant? Is newborn circumcision worse than adult circumcision in your opinion?
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- From: planetlovee@xanga
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Comments (662)
if i have a son, i will most likely have him circumcised. if parents can pierce their babies' ears, then any safe body modification should be an option.
I'm not a man. However, I would still be awfully angry at my parents if they decided it was best if my body was mutilated because they didn't like the harmless, innate skin on my genitals.
I got a lot of UTIs, bladder infections and yeast infections as a kid because I wasn't taught how to properly clean myself, and my labia isn't perfectly tight and tucked (although it's far from abnormal). (TMI, probably, but I don't care.) Would that justify chopping my labia minora off without my consent? No. I know I certainly would've missed it as an adult. So why should the foreskin be removed? How about parents teach their children how to keep themselves clean, and let them decide if they want sensitive areas chopped off?
I would never permanently remove an area of skin from anybody's, let alone a newborn child's body. It is painful, even for babies. Why would I welcome my new child to this world with a painful surgery to remove something naturally there? Ears, bellybuttons and underneath fingernails breed uncleanliness too... let's do something about those areas too... not to mention toes! Women get breast cancer at far higher rates than men get penile cancer. Let's chop breasts off once they grow during puberty!
http://www.cracked.com/article_18840_5-common-medical-procedures-that-secretly-arent-worth-it.html#ixzz15BnNVlqx
Read about this poor little boy's circumcision gone wrong :(.
http://onelovelivity.com/childofnatureblog/?p=1339
@too_pretty_to_die@xanga - Circumcision is NOT safe. It has a very high complication rate (complications in ALL procedures, I'm about to talk about those).
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What American doctors WILL NOT TELL YOU, the many complications of circumcision:
*Reduced Sexual Pleasure (ALL procedures). The foreskin contains 20,000 highly sensitive nerve endings, compared to only 4,000 in the glans. That makes up 83% of the penile nerves. Men almost universally report reduced sexual gratification when circumcised as an adult. Further, having the glans exposed causes it to become dried out, and covered in a thick layer of callus since it's actually designed by nature (or God, if that's how you see it) as an inner mucous membrane. This makes the circumcised man have to thrust much harder and more forcefully to attain the necessary amount of stimulation, and circumcised men also have to masturbate more and engage in more deviant sexual practices just to get the necessary amount of sexual gratification for optimum mental and physical health.
*Inability To Orgasm (common). Sometimes, the desensitization is so severe that men cannot orgasm in a timely manner, or orgasm at all. Circumcised men may last longer sometimes, but in these cases, they nearly all last way too long, or don't come at all.
*Painful erections (common). Sometimes when the circumcision is performed very tightly, the circumcision scar can become very tight upon erection, leading to pain.
*Bleeding upon erection (occasional). Same reason as above.
*Erectile Dysfunction (common). Circumcision is THE LEADING CAUSE OF ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION. Ironically, the United States and Israel have the highest rates of ED in the world.
*Bowed erections (occasional). Sometimes an uneven amount of skin is removed from either side. If this is the case, bowed erections will occur, and these can present all sorts of problems for sexual intercourse.
*Psychological trauma (common). Men who were circumcised at birth and who become aware of their losses can spiral into a deep depression, and often resent their parents for having it done to them. Further, studies have shown that circumcision disrupts maternal bonding and breastfeeding patterns. Further, circumcised men seem to have a lower pain threshold, and react with greater fear to medical procedures such as surgery or vaccination. Further, in rare cases (but I know a guy that this is true for), engaging in sexual activity causes flashbacks to the experience and they can RECALL THE EXPERIENCE AS VIVIDLY AS IF IT HAPPENED IN ADULTHOOD.
* Hemorrhage (occasional, most common in hemophiliacs). Sometimes emergency blood transfusions are required.
*Infection (common). Can be treated with antibiotics, but it's extremely painful to do so.
*Adhesions (common, and quite frankly normal). The foreskin is not retractable until puberty, and sometimes into adulthood (this is normal and OK). In the infant, what's left of the foreskin naturally wants to reattach itself to the glans, because that's how it's designed by nature.
*DEATH (about 100 to 200 per year). It happens way more often than it's reported. Circumcision is a leading cause of death in infant males in the US.
*Increased (?) UTIs in adulthood (maybe). The protection against UTIs (which there's only about a 1% difference in risk) only is true of the first year of life. After year 1, the risk for circumcised and intact UTIs is the same. Further, a study conducted in Israel suggests that circumcised men tend to get more UTIs in adulthood than do intact men!
Now that we've talked about the many potential complications (and the list is a hell of a lot longer, those are just the big ones), let's talk about why these reasons are complete and total bullshit:
1) It's actually more difficult to perform a circumcision on a newborn, because of the fact that the foreskin is attached to the head of the penis at birth. These adhesions have to be broken apart before the foreskin is removed. In the adult male, the foreskin is separated from the glans, and it is easy to remove.
2) Addressed above.
3) Not true when safer sex is practiced. The Africa AIDS studies were concluded prematurely and had many methodological flaws. The circumcised test group was told to abstain from sex while healing, while the uncircumcised control group continued to have sex during this 2-month window. Further, circumcised men were given sex education and condoms, whereas the intact control group was not. You change more than one variable, you taint the study. Abstinence is 100% effective (and is what SHOULD be practiced unless you're married and/or monogamous). Condoms are 98% effective. Further, circumcision confers NO BENEFIT to gay men, who are 60 times more likely to contract AIDS.
4) Cigarette smoking is the primary cause of penile cancer. Nearly all cases are seen in smokers, and even so, penile cancer is extremely rare: 1 in 100K men. The cervical cancer claim is sketchy at best, as studies performed in primarily intact nations have not supported this conclusion.
5) Foreskin infections, when they do occur, can be treated aggressively with antibiotics and rarely, if ever, leave any lasting effect. Circumcision is only rarely needed to treat this condition.
6) Most cases of phimosis and paraphimosis (about 90%) can be treated with stretching exercises and steroid creams. In the 10% of extreme cases, it can be relieved by a dorsal slit, which leaves the foreskin intact but slightly widens the opening, which causes easier retraction. Never is circumcision required to treat phimosis.
7) Simply laughable. Read above for everything that can (and does) go wrong in a circumcised man's erections.
The facts: the United States is THE ONLY nation that circumcises for so-called "medical" reasons. The other nations that circumcise boys (and girls, for that matter) are done for religious and/or cultural reasons. Over 80% of the world's men are intact, and nearly all medical associations worldwide recommend AGAINST circumcision (the AAP/AMA/CDC are the few holdouts, having a neutral stance on the practice). There are no valid reasons for routine circumcision, which is why it's even dying out in the US (down to about 33%, and that number continues to drop as we learn more about how circumcision harms a man's sex life).
Pro-circumcision people need to get a fact check, and quite frankly if they'd look outside of the US they'd see just how disgustingly misinformed and blatantly WRONG they are.
Here are a couple of videos of circumcisions. Note that in both, there is no anesthetic used, and the baby is feeling EVERYTHING. If it is too much for you to watch, it's too much for you to put your child through.
Circumcision by plastibell method: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmX6RdRNoqk
Circumcision by GOMCO clamp: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDuDhkiDdns
Disturbing business
Yeah. If I had a son, I would NEVER make the decision to get him circumcised. If he wants to do it as an adult, then he can go right ahead and do so.
Also, your post lost credibility when you wrote about how you can't believe San Francisco is trying to ban circumcision despite the gay people there. Did you ever think that in SFO it is just more acceptable for them to be openly gay? And you can't circumcise babies just in case they end up being gay.
There so much bashing here about ethics and such but how about the boundary they're stepping on, making it illegal for people of certain religious background to continue a practice? Just because you don't believe in it, doesn't mean you should make it illegal, you have the choice not to do it. Making it illegal takes that choice away for others. Though I'm not siding with anyone on this topic, just my point is it's absolutely outrageous to ban such a thing.
I don't know if it should be banned... that's a tough one.. is it infant genital mutilation? Or a parent's right?
But I will say, I am against it on a personal level. I had my first son circumcised cause I thought it's just what you do right, my ex husband was circ'd so why not? Well with out going into details about his penis, I am not happy with it at all and I feel terrible I allowed this to happen to him. So years later, remarried, my now current husband is intact and has never had issues and well, maybe I'm bias but I love his penis LOL so... My second son stayed intact.. and any future sons will as well.
I really liked this blog, well put...http://9davids.blogspot.com/2010/11/50-reasons-to-leave-it-alone.html
Rather than banning circumcision, maybe there should public awareness campaigns so that more people are aware of the actual pros and cons. Instead of limiting their choices, government should sponsor informing the public.
I disagree. Most of those diseases/conditions are easily preventable (UTIs - teach your son how to clean his penis properly! My mom has to do it with my youngest brother, my boyfriend had to do it when he was growing up. That's basic hygiene and perfectly preventable). The other ones, such as cancer, is probably so unlikely I can't find it in me to justify cutting off part of my son's body in a very painful procedure without his consent. I will not circumcise my sons because I think the pros/cons are so trivial - so why add pain to his life when it isn't needed?
@cblakelee@xanga - well said.
@methodElevated@xanga - it's RARE that you hear a guy being mad at a parent for getting him circ'd.
i'm not gonna argue with anyone on this. it's not a matter of who's right and who's wrong. it's a matter of personal preference and in some cases, religious beliefs. there are pros and cons to both and it's up to the parent to decide at birth whether or not the child is circ'd. i chose to get my son circ'd. yes, of course you hear of horror stories where the doc messes up the babie's penis. but you also hear horror stories of an uncirc'd penises getting super infected and messed up. it's ridiculous to argue this because no one will ever agree. however i do think it's stupid as hell to make it illegal. some people do it for religious and cultural reasons and it's not anyone's place to make that illegal for those families.
@cblakelee@xanga - That's what I'm screaming!
@cblakelee@xanga - There are some things for which people should NOT have choices. There's a lot of truth to the saying "give people choices and they'll always make the wrong choice, so better not to give them a choice."
@beebizzle@xanga - I don't know where you've been? Rare? If you hang out in the circles I hung out in, you'd find it's nowhere near as rare as you think. As far as religious, it's not your right to force your religion on your child, and further, this demonstrates why religion needs to be eradicated (and banned) from society. The sooner we become a purely atheistic society the better.
@MrsJenBean@xanga - Read response above.
As for the doctors and religious leaders that perpetrate this sex crime, I have a personal statement for you.
@LG -
how dare you say religion should be banned. that's not your right at all and i think this world would go to hell if it were run by atheists. and see, that is my opinion. we all have one. and look, i don't hang out in the circles you hang out in. i'm sorry you hang out with a group of men who complain that their mommy and daddy cut their dicks. GET OVER IT. i agree it's not right to force religion on your child but in muslim (and other) families that's just how it works. and it's not MY place to take that away from them. it's not yours either.@beebizzle@xanga - It's not that easy, to "get over it," knowing that our sex lives are PERMANENTLY COMPROMISED because of it. Sure, most of us have restored or are restoring our foreskins, but it'll never be as good as the real thing, and that's a time consuming affair nonetheless.
This world would go to hell? It's already going to hell. There are more wars fought in the name of, and more people killed, in the name of religion than any other cause. Religion is the single most destructive force in society today. THAT'S why it needs to be done away with. It's for the good and the survival of the human race.
@too_pretty_to_die@xanga - Exactly this. Ear piercing in girls is for vanity. This is for health benefits.
@LG - your sex lives are permanently compromised? that is the biggest load of horse shit. i'm sorry you're having winky problems, that just sounds like a personal problem other than a circumcised problem. my CIRCUMCISED husband has NO problems with sex, erections, getting off etc. it's not like you know how it would feel if you were uncircumcised so there's no way you can compare it except for going by what another man says. and we all know men exaggerate about their sex lives.
religion is not destroying the earth. extremists are the ones who give a bad name to religion. God has done nothing but good for me.
making it illegal is like making abortion illegal.
you're taking rights away from people simply because you don't agree.
@a12906@xanga - then parents shouldn't be allowed to force their children to do ANYTHING religious. personally, i'd love to take my mom to court for forcing me to go to church for more than a decade of my life. but that doesn't make it intelligent or legal.
how do you plan to argue that the line between parental consent and individual rights should be drawn at circumcision only?
@clandestin_e@xanga - No. UTI's aren't preventable all the time. Do I ask to have 2-3 UTI's a year so I have to miss school to go to the damn doctors all the time and guess what? Genetics play a role for them too. Doesn't matter if you're a girl/boy. There's 50% of a chance or higher (if your partner has one). A lot of my family is highly prone to them, so am I
@methodElevated@xanga - I'd happily have my labia chopped off if it meant I wouldn't have to get UTI's all the time. My mom told me they'll go away after I have a child, but may worsen after a while again. (genetics)
@beebizzle@xanga - The foreskin contains 20,000 nerve endings (vs. the glans that contains only 4,000). Studies show that intact men enjoy four times more sensitivity than circumcised men, and their orgasms are much more intense.
Yes, I did have problems attaining orgasm, etc. during sex before I restored my foreskin using non-surgical stretching techniques. It was a two and a half year battle, but it was worth it, because I'm now three times more sensitive and my orgasms are at least twice as intense as before (when I could even have one before).
Why do you think hundreds of thousands of men are restoring their foreskins? And you say "God has done nothing but good for you." No he hasn't because he doesn't exist! Prove your "God" exists using scientific evidence. And I've read your Bible, and it's a truly disgusting book, and how anyone can claim to use it as a "moral guide" I have no clue, and quite frankly if you claim to get your morals from it, you're a screwed up person.
@LG - last i checked, having trouble getting off is NOT a disease. and i think that calling ED an illness is the biggest joke in the medical field today. by your account, every uncircumcised male should have amazing stamina in bed. i'd like to see some proof of that.
also, your call for enforced abstinence tells me you're nothing more than a bigot. you don't get the right to tell others how to live their lives, especially their sex lives. you are, without a doubt, proof that you don't have to be religious to be a bigoted fundamentalist intent on having everyone live and think as you do.