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Quick links to products available in the Campaign for Genital Integrity . . .
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Men Need to Reexamine
Reasons for Circumcision
Vicki Iovine Every Sunday, author and columnist Vicki
Iovine |
Dear Vicki: I'm due to deliver a baby boy in five or six weeks, and I'm not sure I want our baby circumcised. My husband says it's not even an issue because "a son is supposed to look like his father." But I think I read recently that even the American Academy of Pediatrics says circumcision is not essential. So what to do?
-TO SNIP OR NOT TO SNIP
Dear Snip or Not: The days when the nurses came to take my little boys away from my postnatal bed to take them to the "clip joint" are still dark memories for me. I hated looking into their trusting eyes, knowing that I was handing them over to feel pain and to give up a body part that I'd not known existed until I was 19 and moved to Europe.
Aside from religious considerations, which I respect, your husband's rationale for circumcision - "a son is supposed to look like his father" - is the most common I've encountered.
Here's my views on that: In the 11 years that my husband has had a son or two, he confesses that he can't recall a single time when any anatomy comparisons have been made. Think about it, a 4-year-old's penis doesn't look anything like a 40-year-old's, no matter how you slice it (ouch).
I can't help but suspect that all it would take for the next generation of little boys to hold on to their foreskins would be for some popular hero such as Kobe Bryant to appear on "Inside Stuff" and suggest his athletic prowess was a direct result of his parents' disbelief in circumcision. "Can't you just see the line snaking out from the local plastic surgeon's office as grown men with hoop dreams submit to expensive and painful foreskin restoration?)
If your marriage is like mine, this issue is probably not really up for discussion. After all, penises are the business of the men folk.
Still, if what I read is true, and the official position of the American Academy of Pediatrics now is that there are too few medical benefits to justify recommending the procedure, I think many many daddies to be will do some serious reconsidering.
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Last updated: 22 February, 2008
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