sorry if it seemed i was attacking you personally, i wasn't. i do agree, any circumcision carried out in a clean hospital is obviously different to the kind of female genital butchering that takes place in many african countries. me, and anyone else who made the comparison (i hope) was making it in a general sense.

i believe male circumcision is completely outdated and needless. there is as little reason to circumcise an infant male as there is to cut off a baby girls labia. but people who claim male infant circumcision to be acceptable claim it for reasons which simply don't make any sense.

i think when most people make the decision to circumcise their children, they don't do it cos they're evil, they do it because they think it is best. but to put it bluntly, most people are ill-informed about what is best. they have been told it is cleaner and healthier but this is not true. in reality, circumcision is a needless and painful procedure and it violates the baby's basic human rights.

The focus here shouldn't be on whether or not it's cleaner. Our focus should be on proper education on how to take care of your penis. The foreskin has a purpose, and if it's properly taken care of, it will serve that purpose. Yes, sometimes it's too tight or gets infected... the same can happen with ligaments.. .are we just going to cut them out. Lets focus on education and not simply getting rid of what the "hypothetical" problem could be.

I understand- but I think it's a lot more logical to teach a boy how to have good hygeine instead of just cutting something off.

That's like saying, your toenails could become infected someday and don't really serve a purpose, let's just cut them off when you're born without anesthesia.

I think it's a legitimate comparision.

Let people choose what they want to do with their own bodies, especially their gentials. Why this preoccupation on what people do with their bits and pieces? Gay marriage, differing sex practices, reproductive choices, circumcision. Educate up and down, and let them make their own decisions.

Many girls are circumcised in clean safe conditions... here in the US, some doctors will perform female circumcision for girls from another culture where it is considered necessary.

I'm not saying it's right, just that I think it's a fine comparison. They're both genital mutilation done for reasons that have nothing to do with medical necessity.

I would do it! But I have been rasied to where that is just the normal thing. Im not against not doing it eaither, I think its just prefrence of the parents. I dont try to change it. If you want to cut then cut if you dont then dont. I would rather just for apperance and cleaness. I have asked guys befor which they would rather and all that I have talked to but one has said they would rather be cut and one wasnt. The one that wasnt was looking into getting it done as a 18 year old...can you say ouch!

Just my OP.

I had a friend who circumcised her infant boy. Can you say ouch? not to mention he didn't have a choice in that ouch?

What's the point of circumcision?

In the old days, there were many functions of a circumcision. One reason was that in desert areas like the middle east, water was scarce, thus it was harder to clean yourself. Removing the foreskin removes an area that needs to be cleaned, thus it is more sanitary. Today, we have something called soap, and free access to water to bathe whenever we want. Thus, circumcision for sanitary reasons is not needed.

A second reason for circumcision is that it was believe it would prevent young men from masturbating and lusting after women, which in many of the middle eastern religions is considered a sin. Thus, circumcision prevented sinning - so they thought. Obviously, circumcised males masturbate just as much as uncircumcised males so there's really no point in doing it. However, it is considered a right of passage to some african cultures, and in Judeism it is considered a mark of a good, clean man. So there are still religious reasons to circumcise.

I personally feel it should be the individual boy's choice, but if it is a religious tradition I can understand why it is done. I do disapprove when it is done "to be cleaner" because that's not a valid excuse these days.

The only point in it today is a sense of control, with the rare exception of actual medical reasons. Most parents do it because they are sheep, following the flock. They want their sons to look like everyone else-which is funny considering that the penis is commonly the last part of a male body allowed to be exposed to the public-and they want to be "good parents".

The trouble is these days that good parents can't be readily defined by what they remove from their children's bodies or what hours they work or whether they breastfeed or not. You'd think that in this day of "damned if you do and damned if you don't" there would be more people opting out of causing their infant sons needless pain, but there is still the lazy factor to consider.

Why teach your son how to clean himself when you can just have it peeled off? No fuss (for you) no muss (for you). You chose to breed just because you want a little DNA replica, why should you care if your permanent choices over his body affect him, right? If people breed knowing they'll pass on genetic diseases and deficiencies then why should they be expected to be considerate enough to care whether their own sons choose what happens to their genitals?

You don't think people should be able to express a religious belief? It's an important aspect of being Jewish to my knowledge. You might not agree, but it's still their choice. I thought you were pro-choice? Or is that only in the case of a woman being able to abort?

It's not very pro-choice to permanently alter someone else's genitals against their will, is it?

It's not very pro-choice to permanently cease the life of a fetus and prevent the existence of a person either. But that's the label. I believe in most cases the parents have the right to make the choice for their child, which is one of the other reasons I'm pro-choice. The fetus is still their child, but for its own good, sometimes abortion is the right answer. Just like euthanizing a sick pet.

It's very prochoice to permanently cease the life of a fetus, as long as it resides within the body of someone. If women only had to lay eggs painlessly and risk-free to reproduce then abortion wouldn't even be an issue for me. Your red herring is weak.

People are free to believe as they wish and practice whatever religion they like, but not at the expense of others. If you support non-consensual male circumcision for religious/tradition purposes then you must also support non-consensual female genital mutilation and rape. You may not personally consider cutting part of the male penis off without his consent to be a big deal because you're used to it and have grown up in a culture that passes it off as a traditional right of the parents. In other parts of the world the same holds true for practices that harm women (such as the aforementioned female "circumcision" that destroys their ability to receive any pleasure from coupling, as well as condoning the rape and beating of women). By all means, practice your religion...but do it on YOUR OWN body.

Everyone, male and female, deserves the right to make their own decisions regarding their bodies. You only get one body in life and it's a human violation in the worst way for others to mutilate it (any unnecessary and forceful alteration, especially if it causes pain, is mutilation), use it against your will or force you to use it in a way you don't consent to, regardless of who is doing the forcing and what excuses they make.

Breast cancer is a deadly and common risk for all females. Should parents have their daughters' breasts removed once they develop "for their own good"? Should people be allowed to drag their kids into the hospital to have their appendix removed because it "might" cause problems somewhere down the line?

Trying to pass off the surgical alteration of an unwilling party's body as something being done "for their own good" when there is no present reason for doing it is a big crock. If you think it's so acceptable then I guess you wouldn't have any objections if society decided that it would be for your own good to have your clit forcibly removed, without anesthetic.

I wasn't raised religiously; my mother is Roman Catholic and my father is Jewish, and they couldn't agree on how to raise my brother and me. If/when I marry, I'll leave religion up to my partner. If they practice a specific religion, then I will have no problem allowing my children to be raised with those beliefs, if my partner is willing to do so. That being said, if my partner were Jewish and we were to have a son, I would have no problem circumcizing him as part of the religious beliefs of my partner and the eventual upbringing of our child.
I wouldn't circumcize for the hell of it, so to speak. If my partner were, let's say, Roman Catholic, then our son would probably not be circumcized.
Does anyone know if a tight foreskin can be genetic? Because if my partner had suffered from this and had to go through a later circumcizion (ie as anything later than 1yr of age) I think it would make sense to circumcize our male child as a sort of preventative measure.

It would make sense if it was genetic, since it is a physical feature. However, I'd ask a doctor as well.

It seems to me that circumcision is based on a delusion. Correct the delusion and there's absolutely no point in castrating ones dick... unless of course, it's a fashion statement... or appealing in another sense - maybe self mutilation turns you on.

Go pro-choice!

Equating a flap of skin to a fetus (~non-human? pre-human? ...does it matter how we look at it?).

Check this out:

"A remedy [for masturbation] which is almost always successful in small boys is circumcision..." The operation should be performed by a surgeon without administering an anesthetic, as the pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind, especially if it be connected with the idea of punishment..." John Harvey Kellog, M.D., Treatment for Self-Abuse and Its Effects, Plain Facts for Old and Young, Burlington,Iowa; F. Segner & Co., 1888.

Here in the UK it is illegal to dock a dog's tail on the grounds that it is cruel, it diminishes the integrity of the dog's essential 'dogginess' and serves no purpose other than to appeal to the vanity of the owner.

In the UK we are known as a dog-loving society and many people seem to treat their pets better than their children. However, almost no one in this country circumcises a child other than for religious reasons. I think you would be struggling to find a doctor who would do it to satisfy the whim of a parent.

As I understand it, circumcision became popular in the US not only for 'hygienic' reasons (so no one has a bath-tub in the US?) but because some 19th century bible-bashers decided that masturbation was to be discouraged.

I'm sorry if I seem a little over-enthusiastic in my condemnation but I feel very strongly in the integrity of the child and that we as caring custodians of the future generations should not impose such cruel disfigurement on another human being and then attempt to justify it by making spurious claims about the need for a boy to look like his father!

Well said, Galaxy!