Circumcising VS. Intactivism

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Casbel
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Circumcising VS. Intactivism

Unread post by Casbel »

Convince me (an intactivist) that circumcision is beneficial to an baby's health and wellbeing
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Re: Circumcising VS. Intactivism

Unread post by smom12 »

Wow. Pandora's box opened. I'm just gonna get some popcorn. Good luck.


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Circumcising VS. Intactivism

Unread post by Theirmom »

Casbel wrote:Convince me (an intactivist) that circumcision is beneficial to an baby's health and wellbeing
It's not. Unless there's a good reason to expect kidney/uti issues, RIC is purely for cosmetic/cultural practices.

Most of the medical "benefits" have to do with STD transmission in developing nations were condoms aren't in common use.

All hygiene arguments have been debunked. It's a matter of cosmetic preference of the parents. Who, in my opinion, should not be allowed to make permanent cosmetic decisions for genitals that don't belong to them.

I'm not anti-circ, but I am anti-infant-circ for non-medical reasons. I'm vehemently pro-choice from birth until death. Not your body, not your choice. You don't own your sons penis. He should get to decide what to do with it himself.

That being said, I don't argue about it. Many, MANY people disagree with me about "ownership" of minor children's bodies. "My body, my choice" doesn't apply if you think that you own your child's body until they're 18. It's pointless to debate with people whose opinions on bodily autonomy are fundamentally at odds with my own.


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Re: Circumcising VS. Intactivism

Unread post by Theirmom »

My short answer is, I don't like it, but it's not illegal. Until it is, it's not my business.


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Re: Circumcising VS. Intactivism

Unread post by Edenberry »

In my ignorance and exhaustion in the days after my son's birth (my 2nd child, 1st son)...I wasn't thinking clearly about it being his body...I was just thinking it was something that was just "done". You have a boy, he's circumcised, period.'

I had to take him to our pediatrician's office to have it done as we left the hospital early and they weren't able to do it there. Let me describe the sequence of events.

I had not slept in 4 days. I was deeply falling into the throes of PPD, but I was so attached to my son. I felt fiercely protective of him. They took him (still sleeping) out of my arms and to the back room of the office. I was not permitted to go with him. They told me they would strap him to a wooden board so he couldn't move, inject a numbing medicine, then perform the circumcision.

In 5 minutes...I heard shrieking (SHRIEKING) from my newborn son. A high pitched, tortured, breathy shrieking sound that made me pale and had my mother not been there with me, I would have bolted into that room and ripped him away from the doctors. I love our pediatricians, I trust them with my children when they are sick or hurt....but this was horrific. I sat there sobbing, covering my ears so I couldn't hear him shriek like that.

They brought him back to me in 10 minutes, wrapped in his blanket, shuddering, hitching breaths. I felt like the worst mother on earth. I fed him and he calmed, but I was traumatized by this. I told my husband if we ever had another son, this would never happen again.

They can decide if they want this done later in life when they are more mature and can handle it. I still get nauseous thinking about it.
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Re: Circumcising VS. Intactivism

Unread post by Casbel »

I'm so sorry you had to go through that experience :/ at least you're safe in the knowledge that he'll never remember what happened

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Re: Circumcising VS. Intactivism

Unread post by MamaJoAnna »

I can't convince because I too am an intactivist. I fought tooth and nail with my son's father, my own husband, to not have our son circumcised. TMI to so many of you more than likely, but my husband is NOT circumcised, so the idea he wanted our son to be done baffled me (and still does to this day). He claims he had trouble growing up with his foreskin getting caught in his zippers of his jeans and that was THE main reason he wanted our son done. I said it wasn't a good enough excuse. He said "we will see what he has going on down there when he's born."

Flash to June 2015, our son is born and almost dead in an emergency C-section, long story short umbilical cord problems (my birth story is somewhere in the pregnancy/parenting forum if you really want the full extent, because I felt like sharing - again, long story short, PREGNANT MOMMIES PLEASE DO YOUR KICK COUNTS.) ANYWAY...he is shipped to the NICU at a "local" (hour away) children's hospital while I am stuck at the hospital I birthed at recovering from my C-section and trying my damndest to be out of there ASAP so I can be with my child. Around June 15-16 (my son was born on the 12th), we were confronted by a NICU nurse about whether or not we would be circumcising. My husband and I looked at him, looked at "what he had going on," and my husband told them we would not be circumcising, that "he didn't think it was necessary." I breathed a HUGE sigh of relief, because I didn't want to fight him in front of a nurse to keep our son intact.

It's not "cleaner," the UTI risk is only increased by 1% in uncircumcised vs. circumcised men, it's not medically necessary unless God forbid something is wrong with it when it comes out, and it's an unnecessary pain given to baby boys (as evidenced by one previous poster here, so sorry you had to go through that). I told my husband we are not having any future sons done because I'm not about to explain to (hypothetical at this point) son #2 why son #1 and their daddy's penises look different.
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Re: Circumcising VS. Intactivism

Unread post by Mazement »

As a non-American this is a subject that fascinates me. Routine infant circumcision just isn't a thing in either of the countries that I've lived in...I don't understand why people do it/are pushed to do it? What is the reasoning?
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Re: Circumcising VS. Intactivism

Unread post by MamaJoAnna »

Mazement wrote:As a non-American this is a subject that fascinates me. Routine infant circumcision just isn't a thing in either of the countries that I've lived in...I don't understand why people do it/are pushed to do it? What is the reasoning?
Some reasons I've seen:
-wants son to "look like Daddy"
-(supposedly) uncircumcised boys are "picked on" in the locker room at school
-it's (supposedly) cleaner
-it "looks better"
-less chance of UTI (as I said before it's only a 1% difference, 3% in intact vs. 2% in circ, that's a stat I've seen floating around)
-it's "healthier"
-I had a friend who had a son who was born with a cyst on the tip of his penis, and (supposedly) the only way to remove that was circumcision. I think something different could have been done because initially she didn't want to have her son done, but "either way he would have been in pain" (direct quote)

My quotation marks are not meant to poke fun at people who use these reasonings, just for the record.
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Re: Circumcising VS. Intactivism

Unread post by roseter »

I'm also not from America (am from New Zealand where it's just not the done thing, but was in my dad's generation). Some other reasons I've noticed are:

"I don't want to have to pull my son's foreskin back every time I change him" - when you don't have to pull the foreskin back -- and shouldn't -- in infants (in fact, the boy should be the only person to do this) because it is fused and will hurt him/possibly make him require a circumcision due to messing with it. Not to mention, a lot of boys who are circumcised end up with either some slack from the circumcision that the parents do have to pull back to clean under, or they end up with adhesions where the skin had tried to re-adhere and the parents need to pull these apart.

The STD and HIV argument. This one is silly because actually if you look at the stats, there is a higher rate of STDs and HIV in America where most adult men are circumcised, as opposed to Europe where men are very rarely circumcised, only in definite medical situations. Doesn't add up. Not to mention, teach your kids to use condoms with new partners! Also regarding HIV, the sub Saharan African studies done which are used to promote circumcision as an HIV preventative were very flawed - just google it. Also, the 60% reduction amount between circumcised and not circumcised is actually a relative reduction between two figures of ~2% and ~1%. It's very overblown and misleading.

I've seen people claim that their grandfather needed it done in a nursing home because he kept getting infections, but then you have to wonder how well these men are being attended to. Also, what about the elderly women? Surely they have a lot more crevices and nooks to clean. And if the women get infections I'm sure nobody would dare suggest they cut their labia off or their clitoral hood - antibiotics are provided for women, why not for men too?


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Re: Circumcising VS. Intactivism

Unread post by Theirmom »

The most ridiculous argument I've seen for RIC is that he'll eventually want it anyways, and it's less pain as a baby.

WHAT?!?!

No. Babies are not superhuman beings without pain receptors. Their pain is equal, and their healing time is the same. Just because they can't cuss you out or remember it doesn't mean it doesn't hurt.

And, the worst defence I've ever heard. "If I let him decide when he's older, he won't choose to have it done". Yeah. Exactly. So you're basically admitting that your opinion of a penis you will never use should override the decision of the person who owns the penis. It's sick.


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Re: Circumcising VS. Intactivism

Unread post by roseter »

Yes! And when they mention it hurts more as an adult...umm, babies only get Tylenol, adults can have much stronger drugs. Not to mention, when performed on adults they get sufficient anaesthesia by being under general, whereas babies get a local (if that! Sometimes just a pacifier dipped in sugar water. Say what?!) and studies have shown that no pain relief administered is completely effective to block out the pain. The local injection itself is painful and if the doctor doesn't wait for the analgesia to kick in for long enough then it's completely pointless. If anybody is reading this whose baby was back to them within 15 minutes to half an hour, chances are your baby had a hell of a time :( and no, he wasn't sleeping when they brought him back, he was in shock and passed out from the trauma.


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Re: Circumcising VS. Intactivism

Unread post by MamaJoAnna »

roseter wrote:I'm also not from America (am from New Zealand where it's just not the done thing, but was in my dad's generation). Some other reasons I've noticed are:

"I don't want to have to pull my son's foreskin back every time I change him" - when you don't have to pull the foreskin back -- and shouldn't -- in infants (in fact, the boy should be the only person to do this) because it is fused and will hurt him/possibly make him require a circumcision due to messing with it. Not to mention, a lot of boys who are circumcised end up with either some slack from the circumcision that the parents do have to pull back to clean under, or they end up with adhesions where the skin had tried to re-adhere and the parents need to pull these apart.
Okay, question...I have my (intact) son who has had to have a couple of catheters put in to test for UTIs after ridiculously high (103-104) degree fevers on two separate occasions. I can't look at what they do, hell my husband has to leave the room, but...what DO they do in cases of intact boys? Don't they retract?
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Re: Circumcising VS. Intactivism

Unread post by roseter »

MamaJoAnna wrote:
roseter wrote:I'm also not from America (am from New Zealand where it's just not the done thing, but was in my dad's generation). Some other reasons I've noticed are:

"I don't want to have to pull my son's foreskin back every time I change him" - when you don't have to pull the foreskin back -- and shouldn't -- in infants (in fact, the boy should be the only person to do this) because it is fused and will hurt him/possibly make him require a circumcision due to messing with it. Not to mention, a lot of boys who are circumcised end up with either some slack from the circumcision that the parents do have to pull back to clean under, or they end up with adhesions where the skin had tried to re-adhere and the parents need to pull these apart.
Okay, question...I have my (intact) son who has had to have a couple of catheters put in to test for UTIs after ridiculously high (103-104) degree fevers on two separate occasions. I can't look at what they do, hell my husband has to leave the room, but...what DO they do in cases of intact boys? Don't they retract?
They shouldn't, they should either be very careful and insert it by feel or they can use a catch bag. I can't speak from experience as my son has never been cathed, but that's what I've been told :)


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Re: Circumcising VS. Intactivism

Unread post by Theirmom »

MamaJoAnna wrote:
Okay, question...I have my (intact) son who has had to have a couple of catheters put in to test for UTIs after ridiculously high (103-104) degree fevers on two separate occasions. I can't look at what they do, hell my husband has to leave the room, but...what DO they do in cases of intact boys? Don't they retract?
Using your post as a jumping off point.

Proper hygiene of infant penises does not include retraction. Some older doctors still advise pulling it back to clean, and this is WRONG. For most boys, the foreskin remains adhered to the glans until puberty. Forcing it back before then can cause tearing and scarring.

I damn near slapped my doctor when she tried to retract my sons foreskin at his 2 year well visit. He screeched in pain. Fortunately, no damage was done. She apologized profusely when I showed her the new research advising against it.


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Re: Circumcising VS. Intactivism

Unread post by Mazement »

This is super interesting, thanks everyone! Honestly nothing sounds convincing to me...
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