This post is one I have been working on since the creation of my website. I may regret posting this, but if it saves even one boy then it is worth every uneducated insult on the topic. The topic is something I never gave a second thought to, until I found out I was having a son. Circumcision. This is my personal journey down the road to intactivism. Many people who know me personally know this about me, but now the entire internet is going to know my views on it. I really hope I'm prepared for some of the comments and emails I will receive on this, it's been saved in my drafts for months. I invite you to keep reading, and be open to what is going to be a teachable time for many. Many agree with me on this, in fact about 90% of the world does.
Early in my pregnancy I told my husband that if we had a boy, I would leave the decision of circumcision up to him. After all, I don't have a penis so what would qualify me to make such a decision? Fast forward ten weeks, I laid there on the observation table while my husband and I waited to find out the sex of our child. We were told that we were having a boy, and just like that something in my gut told me not to circumcise him. My mind was made up right then and there, before I even researched it, but of course I was going to go home and research it anyways. I was staring out the window in the car on the way home, and I was thinking to myself about the fact that it is illegal to mutilate the genitals of girls, so why would we do it to our sons? I kept these thoughts to myself.
The following Friday I had a prenatal appointment. I told the midwife that we found out we were having a boy. At the end of our appointment the midwife asked me if we had any questions. I voiced to her and my husband that I don't understand why we circumcise boys, why would we do it to one sex but not the other? She told me that we don't do it for the same reasons. Which made me think to myself, what are these reasons? More research to do when I got home. She then proceeded to tell me that the birth center has a Mohel who will come and perform a Bris if we chose to. We got in the car and proceeded to drive home. I thought about how something I don't understand wasn't sitting with my maternal instincts, it was time for me to voice this to my husband.
My husband, an American man born in the 1980s, was circumcised. It's just what you did then. Even now many Americans don't question RIC. It was a standard newborn procedure. You had a son, they took his vitals, then they circumcised him before you left the hospital. Our parents didn't live in the "Age of Information," like we do. They had to read books, printed articles, and talk to professionals for information. The information could have very well been wrong, but if that's all you had for information then that was all you had. Oh, and you never ever argued with the Doctor, the Doctor knows everything. He is in no way upset with his parents for doing what was culturally acceptable and normal at the time. I just want to make that clear before I go on, now back to the present.
We walked into the door of our apartment, I told my husband immediately that I don't think I can circumcise my baby. Something just keeps telling me it's not right. He then said the usual "I want my son to match me" and "He will get made fun of if he isn't," so I dropped the conversation right there, but told him he needs to research this. As did I. Oh, and I did. What an eye opening experience that was, which confirmed my maternal instincts correct.
While I waited for the right time to bring the topic up again with my husband, I asked other men if they left their son's intact or not. I needed to talk to other men who experienced and continued the American tradition of RIC. Every single one of them told me to cut my son, that he would be better off. Every time I was not convinced. Let me tell you what I learned from my research:
There is no medical reason for "routine" circumcision of baby boys. No professional medical association in the United States or the rest of the world recommends routine circumcision. People in Europe, Asia and Latin America — where 90% of men are intact ("uncircumcised") and suffer no negative consequences — are often shocked to hear that American doctors and hospitals remove part of a boy's penis shortly after birth.
Times and attitudes have changed. The circumcision rate in the United States is down from 81% in 1981 to about 55% today (and much lower in some regions). This means that nearly half of all baby boys leave the hospital intact as more and more parents realize that circumcision is unnecessary. Many say it's not a choice they should be making for their son.
The foreskin provides protection and sexual pleasure. The foreskin is a natural, functional part of the body. In baby boys, it's attached to the head of the penis (glans), protects it from urine, feces, and irritation, and keeps contaminants from entering the urinary tract. The foreskin also plays an important role in sexual pleasure, due to its specialized, erogenous nerve endings and its natural gliding and lubricating functions.
Caring for and cleaning the foreskin is easy. A natural, intact penis requires no special care beyond gentle washing. In babies, the foreskin should never be forcibly retracted — just "clean what's seen." Once natural retraction has occurred (sometimes not until late adolescence), a male simply needs to pull back his foreskin to wash his penis.
Circumcision is permanent, and your son might not appreciate it. Circumcision permanently alters a boy's genitals, removing healthy, protective, functional tissue from the penis and exposing him to unnecessary pain and medical risks. More and more men are voicing their displeasure over having lost a natural part of their sexual anatomy.
Circumcision is painful, and there are risks to the surgery. Both common sense and medical research confirm that babies are sensitive to pain. Even when analgesia is used, circumcision pain is not eliminated and the effects can be long-lasting. Also, complications can and do occur with this surgery. These include infection, abnormal bleeding, removal of too much skin, loss of part or all of the glans, urinary problems, and even death. All circumcisions result in the loss of the foreskin and its functions, and leave a scar on the penis.
Circumcision does not prevent urinary tract infections (UTIs) or other diseases.Over the years, the claims that circumcision prevents various diseases have repeatedly been proven to be exaggerated or outright false. UTIs occur more frequently in girls than in boys, and are treated with antibiotics. While most adult men in the United States are circumcised, our rates of sexually transmitted diseases (including HIV) are as high — or higher — than those in countries where circumcision is rare.
I took this information to my husband, I was brave enough now that I had the facts to back my strong dislike for the idea of doing this to my son. I still had yet to research how we even got here as a country, but I didn't need to know that yet. This time around I pushed my husband a little further, and he pushed back. I can honestly say this is the first time we really ever disagreed on something. He continued to tell me that his son should match him, that it's cleaner, and that he will be made fun of. All of my facts actually disproved his entire argument and it was clear that he hadn't researched it yet. I remember telling him, " I absolutely refuse to do this to my son, I won't be in the room, I won't endorse this in any way. In fact if he wanted it done then he had to take his own penis out of this situation. It wasn't about his penis. It was about our son's penis, which doesn't belong to us. He had to research circumcision, the fourteen functions of the foreskin, watch The Elephant in the Hospital, watch another circumcision on YouTube, and come and tell me what he learned. Then, if he still wanted to circumcise our son after that, then he had to be the one to hold him while they mutilated him.
Another week went bye, and I spent more time researching the history of circumcision in this country. I think that was the most miserable research I ever did. Here's what I learned, in short. Please visit the link for more horrifying history of this practice in our country.
1. Kellogg, the cereal brand, was the man who really made it popular. He saw it as a cure to masturbation, the Victorian's were obsessed with cures for sexual urges. In fact, he campaigned for it to be done to both males and females. It never caught on with females, because husbands who had wives that were cut complained about the lack of intimacy in the marriage bed.
2. Since it was unpopular to cut females, they suggested the use of acid on female genitalia.
3. It is interesting to note that, although Kellogg acknowledges that circumcision probably did as much harm as good, the evils of masturbation were judged so great that it was always justified as a treatment in these cases.
4. The US military forced it onto soldiers, as a way to keep them from getting STD's during WWI. Many men remembered the pain, and as a result they figured it was better to do it to their son's as infants so that they wouldn't have to remember how painful it was.
5. In the 1880s there were suggestions that African Americans should be forcibly circumcised as part of a campaign against venereal disease. It was asserted that they were irredeemably promiscuous and impossible to educate in the laws of hygiene. In the 1890s some white doctors went further, arguing that African men committing sexual assaults should be summarily castrated, while Dr P.C. Remondino thought it would be both more effective and more humane to pass a law requiring all African American boys to be routinely circumcised, since the surgery was guaranteed to keep their innate lust within reasonable bounds.This last one is particularly upsetting.
Honestly, I didn't need anymore convincing. Yet, I had to know why we started this practice in the United States. A week or so later, I brought it up with my husband again. I just told him plain and simply, "If we weren't supposed to have a foreskin, then nature would have removed it with evolution. If you don't believe in evolution,and want to because the Bible says so, then why would God who never makes mistakes continue to give every male mammal a foreskin. Nature/God doesn't make this kind of mistake on such a massive scale. The male and female sex organs evolved together, they are perfect how they are." He eventually came around. He decided that circumcision was not okay. The cycle would stop here.
My son was born, whole. My son was left whole. We have never had an issue with his penis. If my son decides one day that he wants to remove fourteen square inches of erogenous tissue from HIS penis, then when he is an adult he can go for it. When he can make the decision for himself. Heck, I'll even pay for it. You know, because insurance doesn't cover the cost of unnecessary cosmetic procedures. There is so much more I could type on this topic, probably a magazine full of information. I will never cosmetically alter any of my children without their consent. Our children are given to us to protect. Their bodies are not our properties to do with as we wish based on our sexual/religious/cultural preferences. Their bodies belong to them, and they should be taught how to take care of them properly. When we know better we should do better.
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