Circumcision is a controversial topic and we here at BluntMoms love a good debate.
There are movements out there comparing the circumcision of newborn male babies to child abuse . Public health officials actively discourage and shame parents who choose to circumcise and the procedure is no longer covered by some provincial medical plans. Don’t even think about bringing up the issue at book club unless you are prepared for full scale warfare.
Me? I’m proudly pro-circumcision. My boys’ dad is Jewish and although he is a non-practicing, bacon-loving Jew, it was extremely important to him that our boys be circumcised. He felt strongly that his boys be “like Dad” in the dong department, that he honour his Jewish heritage and that we take measures to reduce their chances for infection later in life.
In Canada, circumcising your newborn is done is a private clinic and is efficient, painless and safe. It can be a little traumatic; not for the baby but for the parents. No sane parent wants to see their child in pain, if only for a moment. Both of my boys cried once during the procedure then promptly fell asleep. There were no complications, or infections and the follow up visit to remove the bandage and gauge healing was equally painless. In fact, it was quite funny as there is a certain renowned doctor who who uses the follow up visit as an opportunity to remind exhausted, sleep-deprived parents of his vasectomy practice as he tends to your newborn.
All of my friends who chose to circumcise their babies had similar experiences. And that I believe, is the key word: choice. It was our choice to circumcise our boys just as it was our choice to put them in soccer instead of softball or have them vaccinated or letting polio take them. We did our research and made informed, educated decisions that would affect our children’s future and we are confident we made the right choices for our family.
As for those people who try to compare male circumcision to female circumcision, I call bullshit. You can’t rationally compare the sterile, safe and humane circumcision of a barely conscious newborn to the barbaric mutilation of a girl’s genitalia. Female circumcision is practiced in misogynist countries, usually when a girl begins to menstruate, on the cusp of womanhood and can no longer be trusted to be obedient and remain chaste. It is a blatant act of aggression to control a woman’s sexual urges and discourage her from masturbation, experimentation and straying from her marriage. There are no health benefits of female circumcision. Female circumcision involves the removal of the external female genitalia and is usually done with an unsterilized, rudimentary tool. It can be so traumatic, physically and emotionally, that most women can never enjoy sexual intercourse, experience intense pain during urination,and can develop infections, cysts or suffer from infertility, extreme bleeding or in some cases death.
Heavy stuff, right? To lighten the mood, I’ll tell you that I have my own reasons for being pro-circumcision: a circumcised penis is, to me, an attractive penis. My sexual partners prior to marriage were circumcised. My husband, needless to say, was circumcised. My first encounter with a non-circumcised penis after my divorce was something out of American Horror Story. I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing. It was just…wrong. Like a snake in a sweater or one of those one eyed worms from “Dune.” I tried to master it the same way I learned to drive a manual stick, but one move in the wrong direction at the wrong speed and things would just….stall.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what might lie beneath that loose layer of lubricated skin: dirt, sweat, worse. It’s been some time since that terrifying encounter yet I still shudder at the memory.
Call me racist, sexist, shallow, cock-ist whatever but I. Just. Can’t. Truth is I wouldn’t touch an uncircumcised penis with your vagina, ladies. Hopefully my future daughters-in-law will feel the same way.