Misconceptions about Intact Boy Care And Other Points to Ponder
Jan 19 '00
In reading quite a few of the epinions about circumcision, I noticed a recurring theme, particularly in epinions written by pro-circumcision members. Many people seem to be under the misconception that intact baby boys need to have the foreskin retracted and cleaned underneath. This is absolutely not the case. In fact, doing so can actually cause an infection. All you have to do is cleanse the exterior and let the foreskin retract naturally on its own as the baby gets older. This can take until age 3 or 4, for some boys, and is perfectly natural. Taking care of an intact boy is actually much easier than cleaning either a circumsized boy or a girl. There is literally nothing to it.
The United States is the only country outside of Israel that routinely circumcizes infant boys, and actually that number is dropping. The latest stats I read were that around 60% of boys nationwide and less than 50% of boys on the West Coast were being circumsized at birth. So the old "locker room argument" can't carry as much weight as it used to. The cosmetic argument is rather weak anyway. I figure a limited number of people will ever see my son's naked penis throughout his lifetime. By contrast, everybody he meets will see his face, so I would rather save my money for a nose job, instead of a penis job, LOL.
My point is that somehow 98% of men worldwide live their whole lives without being circumsized and don't have a problem with it. If it is so much "healthier", as a number of members have posted about, why don't more people around the world do it? Why don't their men have massive rates of infections and problems? Especially considering that many of these countries are developing nations?
It's very hard for me to believe that we need to have a body part removed at birth. I believe God made our body parts to have a function, and we shouldn't need to have surgery within days of our birth.
And actually, if we go by the "less infections" argument, we really should do some kind of surgery on females instead, since they have urinary infection rates many, many times higher than boys do. How do we treat them? Not by suggesting surgery, but with antibiotics instead.
I believe US physicians are not educated enough on the care of intact penises, and are much too quick to recommend circumcision, if a problem arises. Hopefully this situation will change as the population of non-circumsized males in the US gets larger.
Yes, you hear the horror stories of men who needed circumcisions at age 50, and how it's better to have it done as infants to avoid that circumstance. Sure, and I would rather have had my gallbladder removed at birth too. That would have spared me the 10 days I spent in the hospital 2 years ago, and all the pain and suffering that I endured because of that. So on the off-chance that it *may* need to be done at some indeterminate future date, we should routinely practice surgery on a newborn? Does that really make sense?
Finally, as a bit of anecdotal evidence, I will say that my uncircumsized 14 yr old son has never had a single problem, infection or otherwise. FWIW.
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Epinions.com ID:
klgarner
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Member: Kristi Garner
Location: Montgomery County,PA
Reviews written: 63
Trusted by: 84 members
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