Sweet fuck. I don't know what I thought a circumcision looked like, but my god. Questionable preventative health measures aside, I really don't get how someone could restrain a baby and mutilate the most sensitive part of his body without there being an existing, explicit reason for doing so, all because it could help them later in life...maybe.
I'm cut and I'm fine with that, mainly because that was the typical thing to do when I was born. I've never felt as if I was missing anything. Even though I'm cut, I don't subscribe to the idea that we should encourage circumcision in order to reduce AIDS or any other STD. Doing shit that transmits AIDS has a much greater impact on your chances of contracting AIDS than whether you're circumcised or not. Our focus should be in educating people about what transmits all STD's rather than trying to reduce their risks by other less-effective means. If a guy fucks a heroin-shooting tranny hooker in the ass bareback, his chances of contracted AIDS are about a million times greater than if he doesn't, regardless of whether he's circumcised or not. My chances of contracting AIDS are absolutely unaffected by my circumcision status because I don't do anything that would expose me to AIDS. My dad was uncut, but he had to be circumcised when he was 49 or 50 because he developed diabetes. It was a very painful procedure at that age and that contributed to our decision to have our son cut when he was born - better to have it done and not need it than have to experience that pain later if it was necessary. Maybe it's actually worse for infants though. My dad couldn't walk for two days afterward, but our son couldn't walk for eight months.
First, I almost did a spittake at the 8 months joke. Kudos. Second, I'm sure it really does hurt, but some pain and two days of not walking doesn't sound THAT bad. I had a period of about 5 days where I had muscle tension problems so bad that I couldn't lift my head while in bed (I had to roll out, couldn't sit up), and cried every time I had to take a dump because so many of my muscles were extremely sore (and pooping makes you very aware of this). I'd rather risk going through that again than have my foreskin removed today in a painless, risk-free procedure.
I have 2 boys and while we were pretty sure we were going to leave them uncut, we got the opinions of many people - male, female, cut, uncut, and read as much information about it as we could. We eventually came to the conclusion that the possible, maybe, perhaps "benefits" of circumcision did not outweigh the fact that we were basically performing unnecessary plastic surgery on a newborn. Even the American Academy of Pediatrics agrees with me: I have a friend who had her son circumcised and they did not do an excellent job and after hearing her story about the pediatrician "fixing" it, I am even more glad we didn't do it. It just seems barbaric and I am not even into penises.
Okay, what a thread to come back to post to... As one of the few females in the board, I figured I'd speak up. I've been with both cut & uncut. My first uncut freaked me out, seriously (he was from the UK, hey, I'm from IL, I think that would get in the way of the sheep). First off, he had "issues" with the hood not being large enough to slide down when erect... trust me, the first time was really kind of a WTF? type deal for me. We dated for about a year, and sometimes I'd honestly have to leave the room so he could "settle down" a bit to pull it back, as doing it when extremely aroused was painful. He did tell me that his doctor wanted to do surgery on him to cut it the hood open more, but he was afraid to do it... Yeah, makes no sense to me, because I think I'd do whatever was necessary to make sex less painful! The second one had major sensitivity issues. I have powerful Kegel muscles, and he said sometimes when I "clamped down", it almost hurt him. As far as the actual feeling for me during sex, there isn't really any difference. It was weird at first getting used to going down there & it's already "drooly", but as for as actual sex, that varies by the person, not whether or not they're cut.
Apparently circumcision rates are sub 12% in Australia, so not very surprising that I wasn't circumsized. However, a friend of mine got circumsized under mysterious circumstances at the glorious age of 18. It's not clear how he managed to break his dick; he claims he was attempting first time anal with the then girlfriend, she claims to have not even been present and that he fucked up flying solo. My personal theory is that she has teeth down there, but I've never been keen to find out. Anyway - the notable thing about this story is that amazingly, this wasn't the worst thing to happen to him that day. His biggest mistake, it turns out, was to ask a group of us to pick him up from the hospital. We piled him into the car, and drove him back to his house... However, with every (and I do mean every) bump, turn, or slight variation in the road, he would experience intense pain. This started manifesting as whimpers; before we were out of sight of the hospital, it had turned to moans. By the time we made it back from the 30 minute car ride, he was more or less howling, I think as the painkillers wore off. Now, maybe we are terrible people, but at 18, riding with a friend of yours who has a mysterious sex injury and is crying from bumps in the road is fucking hilarious. We absolutely fucking lost it. I've never laughed so hard in my life. And we laughed for MONTHS.Once we dropped him off, he had to be waited on hand and foot by his parents, who were absolutely thrilled by his exploits and the large hospital bill. They gave him shit at every opportunity, and actually banned him from seeing the girlfriend for a while, presumably out of fear that next time he might lose some more appendages. He continued to experience ridiculous pain every time he saw an attractive girl. As for the girl, every time we saw 'Can-opener', as she came to be known, we cracked up. I imagine it wasn't easy for the talk at every drinking session to revolve around the devastation your vagina can wreak. After they broke up, we warned future boyfriends about her pencil sharpener. Just an incredible time in my life, and one which we laugh about to this day. So, I'm anti-circumcision, if only for the hilarity that mishaps later in life can provide.