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I had no idea there were so many complications

Thank you for having "the balls" to post these pictures. I am a former Mother/Baby RN who taught circumcision care without knowing much about it myself.

When I worked in Labor & Delivery we asked patients if they wanted to sign the circ consent form, saying only that bleeding is a complication and making sure there were no coagulation disorders in their family - that's it! I had no idea that there were so many complications... and no idea, until I started researching it myself, how important, useful, and obviously natural a foreskin is. I am still educating myself and my husband about this and we have decided NEVER to cut our little boy if we have one.

Thank you for helping to open my eyes.

- an RN in North Carolina
August 26, 2010

 

I'm intact and damned happy I am

Hi,
great site.
i hate the thought of babies being subject to such torture, for that is what it is. as for adults getting mutilated like that; fools, utter fools. i'm intact and damned happy i am.
best wishes,

- gawkin66 in the UK
June 15, 2010

 

You need to geet a grip

I have no idea who you are but you need to get a grip buddy. First of all, female circumcisions are HORRIBLE, not only do they take the woman's pleasure out of sex completely, but it is a sign of obedience to the husband. That's why in Somalia and other eastern African Nations, females are subjected to this awful practice. They are to be tamed as their husbands can go around having sex with whatever women they want to. I do not think its fair for you to compare this DEGRADING, OFFENSIVE act against women to the male circumcision. Male circumcisions on the other hand, started as a practice for Jews and Muslims but became the norm in America for CLEANLINESS REASONS. You act as if it is some diabolical plot to stop men from having pleasurable sex and to take their freedom to choose away, but that is simply not true. Statistics show [?] that without the foreskin, there is almost a zero percent change of a man getting some infection from uncleanliness. Sex IS still pleasurable, and it has nothing to do with the female at all. [?] Your bias is not only offensive, but ignorant and if you want to go around spewing this crap, then get your facts straight. As an information center on the internet, you must represent information without a bias, not with links that say "watch the similarities between the two". I came on the internet to look for a statistic and I find this bull shit? Honestly present your information less biased and get your facts straight: Female circumcision is a sign of a degraded woman, while male circumcision is a sign of cleanliness. Maybe more so in the old ages where no one showered, but being circumcised surely makes "cleaning" much much easier.

- Eli Rivkin
May 27, 2010

 

Intact men seem to experience something closer to what I experience.

Hello!

I love your website. I read the news updates on it frequently. I also would not mind if you wanted to include my message in the feedback section.

I have been with men both circumcised and intact. I know it is just one person's opinion/preference, but I would like to say that, in my experience, the intact men have been far better in bed. Perhaps part of this is because I enjoy the foreskin itself... gliding it back and forth over the glans. The appearance is much more appealing: whole, complete, manly, sensitive and ripped with veins.

I also believe that giving oral sex to an intact partner is by far a superior and easier experience - same goes for "hand jobs". More to play with, more to do with it and it has an actual taste... sorry, but I am one of those people who believe that genitals are supposed to be lightly scented and flavoured of genitals - not like licking any random patch of skin.

Perhaps I've read too many intactivism websites, and this is all in my head, but I also believe that the intact men that I've been with have richer sensations. I am basing this on their facial and vocal expressions during the act. The intact men... seem to experience something closer to what I experience. It seems to me as if there is some kind of dissonance with a circumcised partner. I remember, one circumcised partner in particular... he would always look into my eyes, almost as if he was trying to glean what I was experiencing for himself to understand it vicariously. In my mind I cannot help but contrast this with my last intact partner: I was acutely aware of the pleasure he received upon the first rolling back of his foreskin down his glans. Again, it could all be in my head, but I don't think so.

Finally, I have most certainly noticed a difference in the amount of moisture available during intercourse. I noticed this before I ever read up on circumcision. I have never had a lack of lubrication with an intact partner (and have been with varying sizes) - I have, however, experienced dryness and chaffing with circumcised partners. These experiences have all lead me to be very hesitant of ever having a relationship with a circumcised man. I know, perhaps it is shallow and mean. However, I know I would be missing out on (what I consider to be) an integral part of the sexual experience.

Anyhow, I think RIC is a crying shame. For the life of me I do not understand why people here in the U.S. prefer a hardened, leathery, and blunt stick to a sexual organ. I know it has to do with what is familiar... it is just a shame that so many do not know what they are missing out on. I'm fairly sure that if they knew, they would not deprive their sons of it.

Sincerely,

- Amy in Texas, USA
May 22, 2010

 

I still rage

I reckon that circumcision should be a punishable offence when inflicted on infants. Whether they do this to young female babies I cannot say but for me, done before 1 yrs old, it was a traumatizing episode of my early life. (Motivation was I think to do with this anglosaxon tradition enforced by the church. Religion is superstition and circumcision is a glaring example of that.) I feel that it was responsible for a complete metabolic breakdown. I became asthmatic and prone to viral attacks that left me in an isolation ward for a long period of my early childhood. My rage, at the operation left me with an anti-authoritarian attitude which later resulted in many incidences of police charges and other antisocial behaviour. I still rage! Cheers

- George Myburgh in Herberton, Far North Queensland, Australia
April 21, 2010

 

They will be intact!

Hi,

My name is Emily L. West and I thank you so much for your website! I have gone from being pro-circ to being decidedly anti-circ, a big reason being your blog! I just want to thank you so very much for all of the wonderful work you have done in illuminating the world about the evils of this practice.

I am a woman, and I have vowed that when I have my own sons, they will be intact!

Thank you so much!

- Emily L. W. in Pittsburgh, PA
April 15, 2010

 

You follow satan and his ways

male circumcision is the covenant between GOD and abrahams descendants. that is why you are against it..you follow satan and his ways,not GOD's...
on another totaly different note, i used to know many strippers/prostitutes when i was younger. every one of them said the hated to give blow jobs to uncircumcised men.

- wendy
March 21, 2010

 

I'm a passionate advocate of early circumcision

[This feedback is unusual because he simultaneously posted his email on his blog, with a bit extra, as follows. He's also posted a slightly different version here.]

One of the theories I have always held dear is the notion that there’s an industry dedicated to making money out of creating problems out of thin air and then offering solutions to them.

[The circumcision industry is a classic example.]

For instance, in this country [India], the usual dark skin is suddenly a horrible, career-threatening problem. But rub in Fair and Lovely ointment, and you know what? Any job you want can be yours!

A mite less transparent is something I came across recently on the net, which informed me that, as a circumcised male, I was sexually crippled and was missing out on virtually all the delights coitus had to offer. [Actually, it says no such thing.] Not too surprisingly, most of these sites also provided nice helpful links to nice helpful surgeons willing and ready to reconstruct my foreskin for me and return me to sexual non-dysfunctionality. [Even this site, by a cosmetic surgeon, offers links to non-surgical restoration first.]

I kind of passed by with a mutter and a shake of the head until I came across this site here, [You're in it.] and especially this page from the site, which somehow or other tipped me over the edge from mere irritation to full-fledged anger with its blatant conflation of circumcision and female genital mutilation ...

[Actually, what these pages conflate is the genital integrity of males and females. Leaving a girl baby's genitals alone is exactly the same as leaving a boy baby's genitals alone.]

... and its open and obvious bias. [- which is spelt out on the masthead] Since the latter page provided a link for people to tell the site’s owner how clever he is [If that was its purpose, it's failed miserably], I wrote the following true account from my youth and sent it to him.

I hope he suffers from a swollen glans.

********************************

Hugh:

I’ve been reading, with some interest, your web page, on reasons not to circumcise.

Let me tell you a little story.

I am an Indian. Among Indians, circumcision is (barring Muslims) exceedingly rare. As I’m not a Muslim, I wasn’t circumcised in childhood. Nor was I given any kind of instructions on genital health or hygiene.

[And that is the first and most important issue.]

Now, being a normal teenager, I began to have erotic dreams, and, of course, I’d have erections. One morning (I was 16 at the time) I woke to find that my foreskin had retracted behind my glans, the entire glans was swollen to twice its size, and if you haven’t experienced this, my friend, you don’t know what you’re talking about when you blab on about penile pain, may I assure you.

I was, naturally, mortified. I could not discuss this with my parents because they had never even spoken of sex to me, or of genital health, or anything. [Exactly. This is the real problem.] Besides, I was terrified of what had happened, and I was – being young and stupid – hoping it would go away by itself.

Well, it didn’t. I walked three kilometres to school and back, and spent the day in agony so excruciating every anti-circumcision writer should be forced to go through it for at least a year, if not eternity. On the second day I summoned up the nerve to tell my dad. He did nothing much except phone his brother, a doctor, who lived several hundred kilometres away. This brother prescribed some medicines and that’s all he did.

[Again, that was negligent on his part.]

By the third day I was no longer capable of walking properly, and my dad finally took me to a doctor. This guy pulled the foreskin back without the benefit of anaesthetic (later I discovered anaesthetic is compulsory for this procedure). [No, actually it isn't, but he certainly should have used a lubricant, and more gentle pressure.] Can you imagine what I went through while he was pulling back the foreskin? No? Or would you rather not think about it?

I had phimosis [He now had paraphimosis, a different condition.] – which nobody told me at the time. Nobody, including this doctor, thought fit to inform me that it was a medical condition.

[The Intactivist movement is entirely in favour of free and frank discussion of these matters.]

The swelling, of course, went down swiftly once the pressure on the glans had been removed, but it left me with a phobia of it happening again. And of course it would happen, whenever I slept and had erotic dreams, which of course was something outside my control. On several occasions I woke in a panic, fumbling between my legs to pull back the foreskin before it got stuck behind the glans.

[Again, this was poor aftercare. Measures should have been taken - non-surgical are usually sufficient - to ensure it would not happen again.]

Over time, then, this thing led to the following problems:

1. I became phobic of falling asleep. I never slept well, and would start awake multiple times a night, afraid of what might be happening. This became a health problem. Ask anyone who’s suffered from chronic insomnia.

2. I became, literally, terrified of having an erection. Remember that I was at an age when the hormones have just begun surging, and you get the full picture. More than once I had to break off proceedings with girls at a crucial juncture because I could literally feel my foreskin shifting as I erected, and I had to rush off to the bathroom to try and pull it back – a procedure that was always extremely difficult and often painful. This, of course, did for my chances with the lady of the moment each time. Do you think this is funny? [Of course not.] Can you imagine what it did to my sexual self-confidence to be functionally impotent in my late teens and early twenties?

Most doctors I consulted were indifferent, since according to them (just as according to you) [Wrong] it wasn’t a problem. I only wish they’d experience what I went through, and then I’d have wanted to hear what they said.

Finally, when I’d saved up money for the surgery, I got myself circumcised at the age of 29. I wonder if you know what it feels like to be circumcised at that age? I wonder if you can comprehend the agony of glans rubbing on clothing until the nerve endings grow accustomed to the sensation? How do you like the idea of walking around the house, doing chores, and looking back to see a line of drops of blood behind you on the floor, huh? How about the itching as the wound dried, itching more like a blazing fire while you were trying to work? I went through hell for a month, and purgatory for almost a year afterwards, my friend, before the last of the irritation went away.

[Clearly he was again given poor after-care. This should not be allowed to happen.]

It was worth it, though. My word, it was. I can sleep now, and have sex (it’s a different matter that I have no sex drive left, and that might be in part because of what I’d gone through during my formative years).

I don’t have any kids nor will I ever have any kids; but I’m a passionate advocate of early circumcision [That is unfortunate. His problem was very rare, and many early circumcisions would be wasted on boys and men who were never going to have it, while many would cause other problems of their own.], and I believe that people like you who militate against it either don’t know what you’re talking about, or have an ulterior motive [We do know what we are talking about and our ulterior motive is to grant to all boys and the men they become the freedom to choose for themselves what part of their own genitals they want to keep.] (those of you who advocate surgery to recreate the foreskin certainly do have an ulterior motive, one clear to understand).

[Very few people advocate surgical foreskin restoration.]

All the best of luck in spreading your message. I shall do my utmost to spread the truth, instead.

Regards, Bill.

- Bill in India
March 9, 2009

The truth is that Bill is the victim of a long history of ignorance. In the first place, if his parents and doctors had been more willing to talk frankly about sexual issues, this could have been headed off early.

He probably would have learnt to masturbate before he had any erotic dreams.

Then he was given poor medical treatment, no advice, and poor aftercare.

This French doctor argues, based on 300 cases, that a major cause of phimosis in adolescents is if they do not retract their foreskins when masturbating. He prescribes the appropriate change in technique, which generally results in success within three weeks.

Beaugé M. The Causes of Adolescent Phimosis British Journal of Sexual Medicine, September/October 1997

He offers some self-stretching exercises - which also give pleasure.

Beaugé M. Conservative Treatment of Primary Phimosis in Adolescents [Traitment Médical du Phimosis Congénital de L'Adolescent] Saint-Antoine University, Paris VI, 1990-1991

"We can be happy that manipulation of the tissues allows the avoidance of surgical intervention, and in other circumstances the limitation of the problems when surgery has unfortunately occurred."

Intactness was a necessary, but not sufficient, cause of his problems, and is the normal state for men. Obviously any problem in any organ can be prevented by cutting it off, but that by itself never justifies doing it.

 

Not "matching" never posed any problems

I'm an intact guy who is in his mid-20s who was fortunate to have a mother who knew how bad circumcision really is. This is what she said when we had a discussion about circumcision:

When she was in the hospital giving birth to her first-born (who turned out to be a girl) she heard another baby screaming horribly loudly and asked the doctor what was wrong with him. The doctor said that he was just being circumcised; at that point my mother decided that's something she'd never let any future sons of hers experience.

Thanks to that I wasn't circumcised (but my father was, and not "matching" never posed any problems).  

I was never in a situation where I was naked in front of others, so I can't mention anything about that experience (but if I was I don't think it would be anywhere as bad as the teasing that many pro-circumcision people claim it to be).  

P.S. Something else I want to mention: Most people on most parts of the body don't find scars attractive, but for some reason penises are an exception for some Americans (claiming that the scar tissue from a circumcision looks better than a natural foreskin and penis); I just thought that I'd mention this bit of hypocrisy.  

- Kelly near Oklahoma City
January 2, 2010

 

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