Father trying to have 12-year-old son circumcised

[Spin Echo]

A friend of mine had circumcision done when he was 13, said it was excruciating...

Hold on. I know they don't endorse anasthetic use on babies because of the risk of an improper dosage, but I had when I was in 5th grade (they were stitching up the back of my head, which had been split open), and I'm positive they used some form of numbing agent. Why can't the same be done for teens and circumcision?

It may not be the actual cutting off of the foreskin that drove him crazy, but just having the glans exposed. A friend's uncle married a jewish woman and converted. Apparently, suddenly having the glans exposed and rubbing up against the underwear was very uncomfortable because it wasn't desensitized like a penis which had been circumcised since birth.

[wolveraptor]

Oh, right. Christ, that's probably worse than the procedure itself. Every time you move...*shudders*

[Molyneux]

Hell, I HAVE been circumcised since shortly after birth and it IS uncomfortable from time to time when it rubs against the inside of my underwear.

[Cairber]

The previous posters have talked about pain from circumcision in older children/teens/adults. I would like to add a little on pain for the infant procedure. A study in OBG Management found that only 14% of OBs in the USA use pain relief during their infant circumcision procedures. Another study in 200 found that 26% of circumcision training programs reported not training for the use of pain relief for infant circumcision. Another study (although this one was 1998) published in the AAP's journal Pediatrics reported that only 56% of family practitioners who performed circumcision used pain relief. The scarey part of that study was that the parents were being told the pain relief was being used even when it was not.

[The Spartan]

My mom's a OR and L&D nurse and she refuses to assist on infant circumcisions. Why? Because she says that the babies are screaming so much that they begin to turn purple.

I was cut when I was two, during another procedure that needed to be done and with general anesthesia. At the time, it was misunderstood to be best for the child, which is strange, since my dad wasn't cut. But after speaking with her and reading about it, any sons I have will not be cut.

[Edi]

A friend of mine had circumcision done when he was 13, said it was excruciating...

Hold on. I know they don't endorse anasthetic use on babies because of the risk of an improper dosage, but I had when I was in 5th grade (they were stitching up the back of my head, which had been split open), and I'm positive they used some form of numbing agent. Why can't the same be done for teens and circumcision?

It may not be the actual cutting off of the foreskin that drove him crazy, but just having the glans exposed. A friend's uncle married a jewish woman and converted. Apparently, suddenly having the glans exposed and rubbing up against the underwear was very uncomfortable because it wasn't desensitized like a penis which had been circumcised since birth.

I've been circumsized as an adult (medical necessity), and for the months it takes for desesitization to occur, every movement is a fucking pain. It's horrible.

[Plekhanov]

Generally, I have no problem with circumcision. THIS, however, doesn't appear to be about circumcision; it's about a father abusing his pre-teen son with a completely unnecessary surgical procedure because of his screwball religious bullshit. Ugg...

Is the son even Jewish in this instance?

What difference would it make if he was? Needlessly chopping pieces of a 12 year old against their will is wrong regardless of their ethnicity or religious affiliation.

[Plekhanov]

I don't want to get too too off topic here but what really is wrong with circumcision? Granted, I don't think this dude should be having his song whack his foreskin off, but in general, why does it become such a passion for some people, barring those who had botched jobs? Note I am circumcised myself.

Do you really not understand why people might be against needlessly cutting off bits of children? Especially when doing so involves inflicting unnecessary pain and suffering (and even risk of death) on them, depriving them forever of a useful piece of their anatomy.

[Netko]

I've been circumsized as an adult (medical necessity), and for the months it takes for desesitization to occur, every movement is a fucking pain. It's horrible.

Guess I got lucky, I only had sporadic "needles" of pain that hurt like hell but were over immediately, after the general soreness from the surgery passed of course. In fact, I got wood from the constant stimulation so often that I felt like I was a horny teenager just entering puberty again.

The fact that I haven't had the entire foreskin removed, just the upper half probably helped (lucked out on the doc, got one who was very conservative in intactness sense so he took as little as possible). That also probably makes me more aware of the loss of sensitivity - when hard, I can go from the still covered base (when not hard) of the head to the top (which is uncovered all the time now) and the "detail" of the sensation drops like a rock - the closest analogy I can think of is touching something with the tips of your fingers and then touching it with the back of your hand.

Consider that, RIPP_n_WIPE.

[Cairber]

I didn't want to start a new thread, but this case has been confirmed by an Oregon news agency:

story[/url]


In case anyone runs into more blogs that claim it is a scam.


*hope it was ok to bump for this information*

[Ted C]

I'm getting reports on blogs that the story is a hoax.

And "blogs" are worth ... what, exactly?

You know, I was going to defend the source, but now I can't find the post where I read it.

For what it's worth, I found the source of that claim.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007 ... atriar.php

Dr. Myers, however, has now concluded that the story is legit. The fact that the actual case closely resembles a fictional story is what caused the confusion.

[Netko]

I didn't want to start a new thread, but this case has been confirmed by an Oregon news agency:
story

Link fixed above.

[Justforfun000]

That lawyer representing the father is a fucking CUNT! I'm sorry but she made me sick to my stomach. I found her email and wrote her something based on her words:

I am motivated to write to you because I simply can’t believe what I read in an article regarding your words:

But Julie H. McFarlane, a supervising attorney with the Portland-based Juvenile Rights Project, said that the child's consent for a medical procedure is not required until he turns 15.
"I think the dad has the legal right as the custodial parent to make those kind of religious or medical decisions," McFarlane said. "It's not much different from cosmetic surgery."

How DARE you suggest any human being would have the right to force a child into a completely unnecessary, and harmful procedure that should be just a illegal as female circumcision. That is the decision ONLY the owner of the body should make. I am absolutely disgusted and appalled that you would call such an irreversible AND desensitizing procedure “cosmetic surgery”. As usual, people in America are woefully ignorant of what the foreskin is, and it is most definitely NOT just “cosmetic” to remove it. I know many men that had the operation later in life who regretted it immensely. One friend claimed that if sensitivity and pleasure could have been measured on a scale from 1 to 10, an uncircumcised penis would be an 11 and a cut one a 3. That’s FAR from “cosmetic”, that’s directly impacting function. It’d be like arguing its ok to scratch up your cornea because you could still see. Who cares if it’s a little blurry.

In any event, this is disgusting and I certainly hope there are some sensible people in positions of power that prevent this idiot forcing of mutilation on an unwilling participant. Even if he WAS potentially willing, he undoubtedly wouldn’t know what he has AND what he would lose. It’s pretty easy to mislead a child with red herring irrelevancies about religion. Parents should never have the power to physically alter their children’s bodies for frivolous reasons, and ESPECIALLY for a non-medical reason. You may as well argue they have the right to tattoo a big Nazi swastika on their babies foreheads if they were Hitler worshippers! If you can’t see the common sense in that, you shouldn’t be a lawyer.

[Justforfun000]

Edit: She's not his lawyer. WORSE. She represents the organization mentioned above. The Juvenile Rights Project. Can you believe that? It'd be like the head of Stop Obesity America suggesting parents should have the right to force-feed their kids to make them fat! Un-fucking believable.

[Stark]

If it's not much different from cosmetic surgery, can I force my children to get implants?