Divorced parents clash over 12-year-old son's circumcision

http://www.oregonlive.com/oregonian...e/news/1177644329102660.xml&coll=7&thispage=1

I think the decision on whether or not to be mutilated should be up to the boy, as he is the one it most directly affects. He should also be informed of the consequences of being circumcised at his age (pain followed by decreased sensitivity).

But according to the bolded points in the article, elective/cosmetic surgeries don't require the consent of the child if they are under 15. Does this mean a parent could actually force their child to have cosmetic surgery, such as breast implants or a nose job? Or does the cosmetic surgery have to be religious in nature?



Note: I was about to use a cross to denote that this thread features religion, but since the religion in question is Judaism, I used the dollar sign.

I just love the smell of Rome burning in the morning.

Twelve years old? Just wait a few years, he'll be an adult and then he can decide. Because if they don't wait and then he changes his mind it's gonna be a source of life long animosity between the two.

Hmmm... let's turn this around. A divorced parent wants their 12 year old daughter to undergo female circumcision...

Mutilation is mutilation, and the only question is whether or not the 12 year old is competent to make his own decision. If a psychologist decides he is, then I'd reluctantly say it should go ahead. If not, it's put on hold until he is.

Well what the fuck are they going to do exactly? Drag the kid kicking and screaming into a hospital and tie him spreadeagle to an operating table to have the end of his dick chopped off? That would make a lovely media sensation if nothing else.

If the final court ruling goes against him, he should hole up somewhere with a gun and tell them they can have his foreskin from his cold dead dick.

That at least should make them have a few second thoughts.

Force a 12 year old into circumcision??? That father's a fucking asshole. Fuck his religious beliefs. He doesn't care what his child wants. You may as well force the child to have a nose job if it's "not much different from cosmetic surgery." Are parents allowed to do that? Well, I think her honker is like Jimmy Durante's, so she gets the nose job whether she wants it or not.

The fuck??? Parents should be the ones giving permission to have elective surgery, not forcing elective surgery on their kids. This is appalling. If it were a young female, there would be such an outcry, but you can forcibly cut off healthy tissue from a young man that will greatly reduce his sexual pleasure later in life? That's bullshit. If the kid wanted to be circumcised it would be different, but he obviously doesn't.

I can't fathom that the police would come drag this kid, kicking and screaming, and have them strap him down on a table to force him to submit to his father's religious beliefs--his newly acquired religious beliefs. Can you imagine what a nightmarish legal precedent that would set?

You will marry that 72 year old man, Cathy Sue. I have converted to Mormonism. You will get those breast implants to keep him interested.

It's very profitable for doctors, and people are still sold on the idea that it's cleaner and prevents all matter of disease, which it doesn't. Men circumcised as infants don't realize what's been stolen from them and how much pleasure they're missing. It's not okay to mutilate boys without their permission. Let them make the decision when they're older. It's their body.

If circumcision were no longer covered by insurance, it would immediately cease being a routine procedure. It's all about the money. People couldn't afford it anymore, and doctors wouldn't make money off it.

People keep saying that circumcision decreases sensitivity, but is this true?

I'm circumcised but if my dick were any more sensitive I think I wouldn't even be able to make my usual 30 sec. mark!

Well, nothing except AIDS, but hey, that clears up with just a little ointment!

Report: Male circumcision cuts AIDS risk
Study conducted on over 3,000 HIV-negative men, newspaper says

Male circumcision reduces the risk that men will contract HIV through intercourse with infected women by about 70 percent, according to a study reported in The Wall Street Journal.

After discovering the dramatic results, French and South African researchers halted the study about nine months in order to offer the uncircumcised men the opportunity to undergo the procedure, the newspaper reported.

You'd have to ask a man circumcised as an adult who'd had sex as a circumcised and an uncircumcised man. Remember, my husband's and my friend got circumcised in his 20s at the request of his fianceé, who broke up with him before the wedding. He's so angry now he wants to kill her for badgering him into it. He's had girlfriends since then, but he says the sex isn't nearly as good because of all the foreplay he misses out on with all the nerve endings that were in his foreskin, and of course the glans dries out and becomes much less sensitive when the foreskin isn't there to keep it soft. A foreskin is extremely sensitive and gives the man lots of pleasure. Circ'd men are denied that. We told him he was making a mistake, but he was in love. Bitch wasn't worth it if she demanded that he alter his body permanently.

Yes, circumcision is so good at preventing AIDS that you never have to wear a condom again. There are plenty of doctors who dispute that study. Bottom line is you get the same protection by modifying your behavior and using a condom. Why cut off a part of your body if you have to wear a condom anyway? Circumcision isn't a cure, and you'll be denied that pleasure when you finally get into a monogamous relationship. It's a decision a man needs to make for himself. It's not ethical to force it on a child. If the child wanted it, that would be different, but this young man obviously doesn't. Europe, the UK, Australia, Canada, Japan, non Muslim China--none of these countries routinely circumcise and AIDS isn't running rampant in any of them.

If circumcision could be shown to prevent AIDS 100 percent, that would be a different matter. But it doesn't.

Here's an essay on the subject.

The masturbation taboo and the rise of routine male circumcision:
A review of the historiography - Review Essay

....To justify circumcision on the ground that it discouraged masturbation was to acknowledge that the operation reduced the sensitivity of the penis and curtailed sexual pleasure, a powerful argument to use at a time when most respectable people believed that excessive sexual indulgence was morally wrong as well as physically harmful; mainstream paediatric and child care manuals continued to assert the value of circumcision as a disincentive to masturbation right up until the 1950s...

The question is, "What's more important?" Pleasure or reducing a health risk? You might get a little more protection against certain conditions, but do you want to lop off a healthy part of your body when there are other means of preventing those conditions, eg. modifying your behavior or wearing a condom? Ideally, you'll eventually be in a monogamous relationship. What's more important? Cutting the risk of a condition you may never get, or having the full amount of sexual pleasure possible?

It's a decision every adult male should make for himself. It's his body. No woman should force him into circumcision. Neither should she reject him if he chooses it. I'd think my husband was bonkers if he ever decided to do it, but it's his penis.

I look at it this way. Cutting off the breasts of every teenaged girl will reduce the risk of breast cancer by 100 percent. Women do not need breasts. There is infant formula to feed children. It would completely do away with breast cancer. Why aren't we doing it?

um. not much has changed in the past 50 years...

Religious loons hate change...almost always means more of their dogma has been exposed.

It's the boy's penis; let him decide.

Hell, I still resent my parents a little for them making me wear excruciating braces for three and a half years (with no discernable improvements, and with the enamel of my front teeth permanently worn away because of the cement). I can't imagine how much rage a kid would feel towards a parent for forcing a circumcision.

Forcing aside, the kid is of an age to be sporting morning woods...this isn't a happy event with a weenie in stitches from surgery. Had a buddy decide to undergo this when I was Navy, and he wasn't a happy camper till...things...healed.

100% effective, right? So effective that it's the only measure that needs to be taken right?

Then what's your point? It seemed to be "you don't need circumcision because we have condoms", which is silly.

Hey, there is a reason most circumcision's are done at birth. So you won't remember it.

I remember the nurses bringing my son back after he had his done and he was crying. But he got over it and is fine.

Which is stupid to say, given all the evidence.

Well for starters, the evidence about HIV and circumcision that you yourself quoted further up this thread to which you replied "Condoms are even more effective ".

Then there's the fact that male circumcision apparently lowers the risk of catching HPV.

Then there's the lower incidence of penile infections among circumcised men.

Then there's the fact that penile cancer is virtually non-existent among circumcised men.

Then there's the widely shared opinion among women that circumcised penises are far more "presentable" than uncircumcised penises.