Further Light and Knowledge

I watched my son's circ and it didn't bother me. Then again, I joke that because I had a Jewish doctor, he knew how to do it right, lol. And yes, my Jewish ob was the one who did the circ.

I did it mainly because H was and H wanted it done. I wouldn't necessarily change it because I don't feel strongly one way or the other.

This feels like a major power play issue. I don't see where you talked with your wife about this.... at least your opinions and the research you've done now. You told her you made a mistake and it won't happen again. Period. No discussion just statements. (That's from my quick read so I could very well be wrong.) I can see digging in heels. I would have if Fig had talked to me like I'm assuming you talked to her.

You can't change what you did in the past, so imo, you need to let it go. You can change the future but you shouldn't, again imo, dictate to your wife any more than she should dictate to you.

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Sometimes I make my kids wear sombreros and scuba fins around the house. Not because there is any reason. I just want to teach them obedience.--Darth J

Did H lose his D status?!

--KF

I agree with others that there's probably more than just circumcision involved in the issue, BUT if your wife, etc. are wanting to slice in order to conform, you might let them know that, in the Western U.S. in 2006, only 33.8% of boys were circumcised. So the clipped ones are in the minority in the West.

See http://www.cirp.org/library/statistics/USA/

In the Northeast, rates were 63.6%
North Central - 77.9%
South - 55.3%

Overall - 56.1% (compared to 85% in 1965)

I see people are framing this as a "marriage communication" issue, so I suppose my stance on this will not be terribly popular. But I think Cain is right on to draw a line here.

From the reading I've done, for my money, there isn't any moral difference between doing a circumcision on a baby boy and doing clitoral circumcision on a little girl. It is, as Cain said, an issue of doing a bodily mutilation that serves no legitimate purpose on someone who is completely helpless and at your mercy. Just because infants can't remember it later, doesn't mean the trauma of it doesn't have an effect on them. And the fact that we can't really parse that is a reason NOT to do it, IMO.

As far as the cleanliness issue, NiB, I hear you, but I see the situation you described as anomalous. There are all kinds of hygiene issues with patients in the condition you are talking about. The run of the mill, healthy human being is going to be able to take care of himself.

And why your wife, Cain, is making this such a huge issue just boggles me because circumcision is NOT part of mormon doctrine, and is not required in any way. It's just a freaky vestige of victorianism. If you wanted your daughter circumcised, she would raise all kinds of holy hell about it and all of society would rightly back her up and stop you from abusing the child. She would be right not only to draw a line in the sand whether she "communicated" with you about it or not, but she would be right to be adamant and unyielding about it. I wouldn't let anybody mutilate a child of mine without a fight and I wouldn't worry about communication niceties, either.

To me it is a question of doing an abusive thing to an infant simply for his mother's social comfort. I don't see how that flies under ANY scenario--and marriage communication be damned.

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The apple cannot be stuck back on the Tree of Knowledge; once we begin to see, we are doomed and challenged to seek the strength to see more, not less. ~ Arthur Miller

I caught that too......

?

Back on topic:


Both of my sons were cut. I couldn't watch. My husband made the choice on that one. I have a dear friend who refused to allow her last two sons to be cut. She researched the hell out of the topic. Her theory is that it is not a necessary medical procedure. It is not life threatening to a male to have foreskin. If they want it removed when they are older, well, then it will be their decision what to do with their bodies. She feels like they will have good drugs....men get vasectomies, why not wait till they are older to get circumcised as well? I do see her arguement, and at this point in my life, I feel the same. Hindsight is 20/20 though, eh?

Funny, thing about the circumcision decision...

In the BOM it says (Moroni 8:8 )


Basically its saying that the Abrahamic Covenant was fulfilled by Christ so it no longer applies. AFAIK, that's what TSCC still teaches so the circumcision thing has always made me wonder....

Edited to take out the footnote references

I spent over 8 hours in a van today with 4 kids and a dog (and H) and didn't type the DH. I talk online a lot and have shorthanded the shorthand. What can I say?

But no, he hasn't lost the D status. Fig is awesome, wonderful, handsome, witty, kind, sweet, loving and gorgeous. AND he held my hand most every minute of the drive to and from Maryland.

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Sometimes I make my kids wear sombreros and scuba fins around the house. Not because there is any reason. I just want to teach them obedience.--Darth J

Think about it this way, chicks do not dig the hooded elf. When your boy is in college and wanting BJs or sex, having the hooded elf will slow him down.

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I would be agnostic, but I have a commitment problem.

I'm cut. I don't miss it. Sex with only 20% of the nerves is great; with a full 100% of my nerves I'd have an erection all day and wouldn't get anything done. And forget about premature ejaculation, it would be instant ejaculation.

I was on the fence about having my son cut. The cons: getting cut. The pros: one less thing to wash, and the articles I read written by men who were cut later in life out of necessity (the opening in the foreskin was too narrow to pull back--erections were painful, sex impossible). Their verdict: pain from the surgery lasted at least two weeks and they wish they had gotten it done at the normal age. Sure, there was a slim chance that would have happened if he wasn't cut, but a slimmer chance that he will want to eviscerate me for allowing it to happen.

I guess you can't miss what you never had.

I think however you do an injustice utilizing men with a sexual dysfunction as a justification.
About premature ejaculation: When I became sexually active I was unable to achieve climax through normal intercourse. In interest of full disclosure, I had a slightly more than healthy masturbatory habit. Believe me, its embarrassing to have to rub one out after your GF can't take any more. One can't help but wonder how much more satisfying it might have been.


NIB, I have heard the old man nursing home argument before and I think this says more about the state of health care that about circumcision. There would be no excuse if they didn't wipe his ass.

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I am Jack's Wasted Life.

It's not even that. Almost no American men were circumcised before WWII. The U.S. military brought in a bunch of "experts" to routinize and bureaucratize inscription with checklists for new recruits, and they began to routinely circumcise men going into the military. It became a cultural "given" that men *should* be circumcised. The shift was so powerful that, combined with post-war cultural conformism (arguably the strongest it's ever been in American history), an entire generation of American men had their sons circumcised. There had been a small but growing pro-circumcision movement in the medical community (panopticon and discipline of bodies through knowledge...Foucault was right about a few things!) before WWII; WWII lent it legitimacy and a means to spread through the culture. [There had also been a small group of "purity" doctors who believed that circumcision would curb sexual "deviance" such as nocturnal emissions and masturbation (that's where the victorianism comes in, for sure).]

The easiest way to see that male circumcision is purely culture is to step out of your own culture for 10 seconds and stand back and look at the breadth of human societies through time. I have never seen a single, rational argument for widespread circumcision anywhere, ever. I have seen rational arguments for individual cases where a man probably should be circumcised, but those cases are rare medical anomalies.

And clearly billions of human males have lived happy, normal, healthy lives with the foreskins in tact for the nearly all of human history until a couple of cultures decided it would be cool to lob them off for no other reason than tribal identification (and probably high-cost signaling). The whole hygiene argument just pisses me off. That's like saying, "I might get an infection on my finger at some point in my life if I cut it and don't clean it, so I should just chop it off." Whatever. Health problems related to foreskins are rare and when they occur they are just like any other health problem.

The majority of American parents now choose not to circumcise (i.e., mutilate unnecessarily) their children.

P.S. I think it's funny that this comes up about once a year on FLAK. I wonder why Mormons seem especially attached to the notion that men should be circumcised.

The only arguments for circumcision are anecdotal arguments. There are no scientific studies that indicate there is a benefit. The cultures that do it, as CUMOM said, did it for recognition. Many cultures do body mutilation for the very same reason.

I don't see this is a Mormon issue, except in terms of decision powers. It is funny, that the man in the Mormon house is supposed to be wearing the pants. What are all those Mormon women doing trying to tell a man what to do?

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In my humble opinion

The weird thing is that Mormons don't officially believe in circumcision.

I know...I was freaked out when I heard it, because it didn't stop my parents from having it done for me (but then again, they are converts)...but I mean, there are a couple of scriptures that explicitly discuss it:



So, really, the problem is that the church isn't too vocal about this...and circumcision is still a big part of American Christian culture, so the habit dies hard.

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I blog a lot more than I post, so you might want to check out Irresistible (Dis)Grace sometime.

I soooo want to weigh in on this subject....but sigh.....I have a son who is an active member on this board, and I suppose I had better just keep my opinions on this subject to myself....unless he says that I am free to discuss this issue on this open forum

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"Jenny, I suckle at the teet of your wine..." ~ruoutthere

One time on Phil Donahue there was a guy who was having his forskin reconstructed. The doctor cut two slits in his scrotum, weaved his penis in, then out, with just the tip poking out the second slit. Once the skin grew on, some sort of detatchment was done...and new foreskin in place!
He was also sueing his parents for body mutilation.

I seem to recall Phil telling him to forgive his folks and get a life.