Crunchy By Nature: Whatever Wednesday- Genital Integrity

Well, here we go for the controversial title and subject. Today I would like to let my activist self come out.

I would like to share some info on a very sincere subject to me.

I am the only member in my family that decided to leave my son intact. Now I don't actually know what my family has to say on this matter just because I never really asked. One time Orion got a little bacterial infection and his penis got swollen and red. We took him to the doctor and the first thing the doctor did was try to retract the foreskin. WHOA! WHOA WHOA! First off if the doctor had any knowledge of the intact penis he would have known that an intact foreskin should never be pulled back. And since the foreskin could not be retracted with out any pain he determined Orion had phimosis. (For anyone who does not know Phimosis is an abnormal tightness of the foreskin preventing retraction over the glans) Now most males cannot retract their foreskin until they have reached puberty as it is. So Orion, who was only a year and a half at the time should have never even had it pulled back. When the "doctor" tried to pull it back I got angry. I told him to stop, he did and then proceeded to inform us that our son would be needing a circumcision in the next 24 hours. My husband (who is still intact) was aghast. We took the antibiotics and left. The doctor told us that if Orion did not get cut then he would have this "problem" for the rest of his life, and eventually the foreskin will get stuck. For one I highly doubt that especially since Orion is going to be the only one pulling his foreskin back and if it hurts I don't think he is going to keep doing it.

I think this incident proves we need to inform our doctors about how to work with the intact penis. I am sure there are more and more docs getting involved and informed, But it is obviously not enough.

Here are a few things about Circumcision.