Judge rules against boy’s circumcision

There are reasons to get it done. I was amazed at some of them. Here is an example
There is a higher risk of gonorrhea and inflammation of the urethra (the tube that carries the urine from the bladder outside) in uncircumcised men. It has also been reported that other sexually transmitted diseases (such as chancroid, syphilis, human papillomavirus, and herpes simplex virus type 2 infection) are more frequent in uncircumcised men.
Then there were the other problems like Phimosis,Paraphimosis,Balanitis and posthitis,balanoposthitis etc. I never knew about any of these. If you care to read more the link I learned about this stuff is http://www.medicinenet.com/circumcision_the_medical_pros_and_cons/article.htm

Personally I believe it is a matter of choice but from the feedback I got from my sons they were happy to have it done.

There are reasons to get it done. I was amazed at some of them.

The standard of care used for all other pediatric surgery requires the medical benefits of the surgery to significantly outweigh the medical risks and harms or for the surgery to correct a congenital abnormality. Elective non-therapeutic circumcision of boys is the only surgery that violated that standard of care.

Using the same logic used in the article you cited, there are reasons to circumcise girls. If a girl's labia minora is cut off when she is a child, she will never get cancer of the labia and she will never get infections of the labia. However these small potential medical benefits do not significantly outweigh the medical risks and harms of the surgery.

If someone used that line of reasoning to justify female genital cutting of girls, no one would fall for it. Why do we as a society give it credibility when it is used to justify male genital cutting of boys?

It is past time for American doctors to start using the same standard of care for a boy's foreskin that they now use for a girl's labia and for all other parts of a child's body, i.e. surgery is only performed when the medical benefits of the surgery significantly outweigh the medical risks and harms or the surgery corrects a congenital abnormality.

Personally I believe it is a matter of choice but from the feedback I got from my sons they were happy to have it done.

I also believe it is a matter of choice. I believe it should be the choice of the male himself once he is old enough to give his own informed consent about whether or not he wants to have a normal, healthy, functional part of his penis cut off for social or cultural reasons.

How much do you sons know about circumcision and the normal male anatomy? For example do they know the following facts?

Most of the men in the world (~70%) are not circumcised and never have a medical problem related to their foreskin.
Most of the men in the world circumcised as children were circumcised because their parents are Muslim.
The United States is the only country in the world that still circumcises most infant boys for non-religious reasons.
No professional medical organization in the world recommends that boys should be circumcised.
The American Academy of Pediatrics first said in 1971 there is no medical indication of infant circumcision.
A male's foreskin has a very high concentration of specialized nerves that are cut off by circumcision.

Now don't get mad at me , I am telling you exactly what my 20 yr old & 24 yr old sons standing here are saying. They say dude girls prefer it circumcised. And that since its done they don't care . Both asked their girlfriends if they cared and both girls replied they would be grossed out if it wasn't done. So there you have it out of 2 of my 4 sons right here say they favor being circumcised. Both read your post and said had it not been done they would not go under the knife but are glad it was done. One says he would if his girl really pushed him into it but would have to be highly sedated. On the other hand my grandson isn't done and I have no problem with that either.

Girls will express this because society has conditioned them to view an intact penis as ugly. In Europe, the intact penis is the norm and European women are not "grossed out" by it. Likewise, men in certain African nations where female circumcision is the norm are grossed out by the intact woman.

Men who have been circumcised as adults report an eventual 40 to 50% loss of sensitivity and evidence has shown that circumcised men tend to partake in more deviant sexual behavior than intact men to compensate for the decreased sensitivity.

Very interesting info. My daughter's husband is not circumcised and she prefers it that way. I don't like foreskins myself. I still say its a matter of choice. When my 2 sons were born it was just assumed they would be circumcised. As my Doctor, ex husband and my mother pushed for it, I really never gave not doing it a thought. My grandson isn't and thats fine by me. As for evidence has shown that circumcised men tend to partake in more deviant sexual behavior than intact men to compensate for the decreased sensitivity. I really don't buy that at all. You have links to back that up? I would like to see it. My husband is circumcised and he is in not deviant in any sense.

Of course individuals vary, but studies show a greater tendency in general. Also, there is a lot of info on the subject and note that often times circumcised men will defend their own circumcisions in much the way that an intact man will defend being intact. People naturally try to justify their situations. Most victims of the widely condemned female circumcision support and defend what has been done to them. As for what is preferred by women, consider that the giant lip plates that stretch out the bottom lips of women in primitive tribes are preferred by the tribe's men. It doesn't change the fact those women are mutilating themselves. In cultures where women are circumcised, that is the way that the men of that culture prefer their women. In China, men have traditionally preferred women whose feet were disfigured by foot binding. Here are some good links:

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/12/prweb316865.htm

“Attempts to control HIV by imposing mass circumcision on populations will be unsuccessful,” says Geisheker. “Circumcision can change sexual behavior in a way that promotes the spread of HIV. Circumcised men have a greater tendency to engage in riskier, 'more highly elaborated' sexual practices. Such behavior often includes unsafe sexual practices – less frequent use of condoms, which deaden sensation even more for circumcised men, unprotected anal sex, or sex with multiple partners. This may contribute to the high rate of HIV infection in the United States, where circumcision rates are still of epidemic proportions.”

http://www.cirp.org/library/sex_function/

Sexual behavior. The alteration to the sexual organ causes many circumcised males to change their sexual behavior. Foley reported that circumcised males are more likely to masturbate.10 Hooykaas et al. reported that immigrant (mostly circumcised) males have a greater tendency to engage in risky sexual behavior with prostitutes as compared with Dutch (mostly normal intact) males.23 The U. S. National Health and Social Life Survey found that circumcised males have a "more elaborated" set of sexual practices, including more masturbation, and more heterosexual oral sex.30 The British National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (2000) reported that circumcised males were more likely to report having a homosexual partner and more likely to have partners from abroad as compared with normal intact males.56 Circumcised men are significantly less likely to use condoms.

http://www.circumcision.org/studies.htm

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that circumcision provided no significant prophylactic benefit and that circumcised men were more likely to engage in various sexual practices. Specifically, circumcised men were significantly more likely to masturbate and to participate in heterosexual oral sex than uncircumcised men.

http://www.cirp.org/library/birth/marshall1/

As suggested by Lipsitt, even without memory of the specific circumcision event the painful experience might affect the infant's subsequent behavior, which in turn may determine other's responses to the baby and thus affect subsequent environmental inputs to the child. [CIRP Note: Later research verified long-lasting changes in behavior. See Effect of neonatal circumcision on pain response during subsequent routine vaccination.]

http://www.circumcision.org/aap.htm

It fails to acknowledge that there is much about circumcision that we do not know. For example, it does not answer or even ask about the potential connection between circumcision and impotence. This connection has been noted in the medical literature.

http://www.med-fraud.org/ http://www.cirp.org/library/pain/gunnar/ http://www.circumcision.org/response.htm http://www.circumstitions.com/Nursing.html http://www.noharmm.org/advantage.htm

http://www.med-fraud.org/

http://www.cirp.org/library/pain/gunnar/

http://www.circumcision.org/response.htm

http://www.circumstitions.com/Nursing.html

http://www.noharmm.org/advantage.htm

Thanks for the links. I will read up on them tonight. It is always good to be informed. Like I posted before when my boys were newborns it was just an accepted thing to do and has always been done in my family. I was young and never gave it a thought. Now my daughter checked into it and decided against her son being done. I think some mothers maybe afraid of infection and hurting a baby while cleaning him. My grandson has never had a problem. Thanks again for those links, I will show them to my friend who expects her son in Feb, I think she will be interested in reading them too.