B
blutea
Guest
This post is not directed at anyone specifically, only directed toward specific attitudes that are commonly repeated throughout society.
For anyone doing it for religious reasons, first, I just want to ask you to please read the articles that have been mentioned that show the actual history of how circumcision became to be associated with religion.
Why I don't agree with doing anything for religious reasons -
Do you agree with stoning and all the other things Palestrina mentioned? What about the religions/cultures that cut off girls' clitorises when they are born? That is called female circumcision (and is now illegal in the US, but before it was made illegal, don't you think people had arguments about it all the time just the same as male circumcision is now being argued about?), and male circumcision became a common practice in the US for the same reason. NOT for medical reasons. The medical reasons were searched for and exaggerated to back up the real reason. It was started by people who thought that removing the foreskin and thus reducing sexual pleasure would keep boys from masturbating and keep men from cheating on their wives.
And Jews did not originally circumcise, they made a tiny cut and sucked out a few drops of blood as a sacrifice to God. They did this with the foreskin because they considered it the most god-like body part. They began routinely circumcising in order to prevent them from looking like everyone else, so they couldn't fit in, not because removing the foreskin was what God told them to do. That is why there is a growing movement within the Jewish community to bring the religious rite back to what it was originally intended to be.
Lots of religions have lots of examples of things that most of their followers believe is mandated by their religion, but if you dig deeper and do research, you will find that these things are not required at all, and in fact some of them are actually forbidden!
Why I hate people who say "It's MY kid, I can do what I want with him!" -
CHILDREN ARE NOT PROPERTY!
Slave owners thought the exact same thing about their slaves. They were treated as property. They did barbaric things to them with the same excuse.
Children are PEOPLE. They deserve the same rights as adults, including the right to choose whether to have unnecessary surgery performed. As they are too young to decide for themselves at that point in their lives, they deserve the chance to grow up and learn enough to make an informed decision on their own.
This is also an example of why I never do anything just because "everyone else does it" and don't think there's anything wrong with doing something that is commonly done, just because everyone else thinks it's fine.
Other reasons I am anti-circ -
(TMI alert) My husband is circumcised, and thanks to the removal of his foreskin, he has very little sensitivity in his penis. In addition to that, too much of his foreskin was removed (it is impossible to cut precisely the "right" amount because the penis is so tiny at birth and there is no way to know how much it will grow), and this caused his scrotum to be pulled up the shaft of his penis, making the shaft hairy, which causes sex to be very difficult. The only practical method of hair removal would be laser or electrolysis which is far too expensive for us, so trimming is the best that can be done without causing it to be prickly and make the pain even worse. This has caused us so much emotional pain in our relationship, and I would estimate his circumcision as 70% of the reason it took us over four years to conceive this child. I don't hate his mother for getting him cut. I hate society for making it a common practice that people who weren't well-informed just went along with, not even knowing it could have this kind of effect on their sons' lives.
Children die from circumcision. Not that commonly, but not as rarely as you might think, either. Children don't die from NOT being circumcised. Why take any risk on anything that could possibly kill your child, even with a .0000000000000001% chance, if it's not medically necessary? Any chance is still a chance, and I'm not going to take that chance if I don't have a damn good reason for it. If I had a son, he could take that chance himself if he chose to later in life, but I refuse to be responsible for something like that. How would I feel if my baby was the 1 in 1,000 (or whatever the actual odds are, I can't recall specifically at the moment) that died from circumcision? I would hate myself forever. How would you feel?
I'm sure I've left out something that I've thought of while reading the last 6 or so pages that were posted since the last time I peeked in on the thread, but these are things that I felt it very important to say. Had I ever had a son and had him circumcised, like blutea, I would feel horrible and wish that someone had pointed out the truth about circumcision to me before I did that to my poor child. I don't think she should blame herself. She didn't know. It's so widely accepted in our society that people don't even think to question it. She obviously had never had an experience at that point in time that gave her any reason to question societal norms. Thankfully, now she has, and can make informed decisions about everything in the future. Many people live their entire lives in ignorance, not questioning anything, doing what they're told. It isn't really their fault because they trusted their parents, who trusted theirs, who trusted theirs, etc, who trusted society to be honest and do the right thing all the time. In this age of information, though, many more people now know better. I think that is probably why the rate of circumcision has dropped so dramatically in the last few years.
Thank you for this.