Hol to the ler, #TeamBlaria! Hope y’all had a good weekend. I did. My bf and I, after nine months of dating, finally went to our first farmer’s market together to buy fresh goat milk cheese, fruit, and kale. I know. We’re officially gross/cuter than Lisa Bonet dancing in MC Hammer pants:
I was still on a cuteness high this morn when I turned on the Today show and there was a story about circumcision. Great, now I have to think about dick skin shields while I’m munching on organic berries. Anyway, the story centered around a new article published by Associated Press about how the country’s top pediatricians have come out and said that the benefits of circumcision outweigh the risks. Really? In 2012, we needed more research about how people should have their chillrens circumcised because there’s still debate about doing the procedure? This is ludicrous. Just circumcise the peen. Otherwise, men will face the following #1 risk that failed to be mentioned in the AP article, which is when an uncircumcised dude whips out his peen for the first time with a chick that he started dating and she responds:
Because. Where. Is. Your. Real. Dick. At?”
In all seriousness, I have yet to see such a peen in real life, so to refresh my memory, I Googled “uncircumcised penis” on my phone (because I’m at work, duh) and guess what came up on the home page of the search results? An ad for Lasik surgery. I’m totally serious! Basically, Goggs is like, “You will ruin a bitch’s vision if she has to peep your Eddie Bauer turtleneck peen, so here’s a coupon to help her fix her eyeballs in the morning after you two go halfsies on some scrambled eggs.” Usually, Goggle is fair and balanced, but even it had to keep it real. I also want to be fair and balanced, so let’s take a gander at the AP article entitled Circumcision Benefits Outweigh Risks, Doctors Say:
“It’s not a verdict from on high,” said policy co-author Dr. Andrew Freedman. “There’s not a one-size-fits-all-answer.” But from a medical standpoint, circumcision’s benefits in reducing risk of disease outweigh its small risks, said Freedman, a pediatric urologist in Los Angeles.
Recent research bolstering evidence that circumcision reduces chances of infection with HIV and other sexually spread diseases, urinary tract infections and penis cancer influenced the academy to update their 13-year-old policy.
Hooray! Lowering chances of infection is good news! But the bad news is that even though the risks aren’t great, the fact is that circumcision hurts and it can lead to psychological harm. Ruh roh! The BMA aka the British Medical Association claims that “it is now widely accepted, including by the BMA, that this surgical procedure has medical and psychological risks.” In an article called Circumcision. A Medical or a Human Rights Issue, Drs. Milos and Macris assert that circumcision encodes the perinatal brain with violence and negatively affects infant-maternal bonding and trust. Say what?!?! Okay, so those are some decent risks. However, they aren’t great enough to deter me from wanting to circumcise my son if I had one. First, the pain thing. The baby will get over it. Babies don’t remember pain for the most part. Heck, I mean, how many of us remembering injuring ourselves when we were three years old? Point is, we don’t really recall most things, especially things that happen when we are first born. Also, doctors use a local anesthetic, so, to me, the pain isn’t really a factor. Maybe I’m being glib, but if my vajayjay had extra skin chilling on it like a newsboy cap from Newsies and my man had to give himself a mental pep talk like:
before he could have sex with me, I’d wish that my parentals had put me through 5 minutes of pain, so that my vajay doesn’t instantly remind my boo of a teenage Christian Bale:
Second, getting my son circumcised might negatively affect my relationship with him because he might not trust me? That’s cray! You mean that he’s gonna be giving me the side eye like the Black sassy Pine-Sol lady while I’m breastfeeding him because he knows what I did to him? Um, if so, that’s funny and I will take a picture of him glaring at me and then Instagram it. The point is, folks, this ain’t a real risk!! Baby boys aren’t going to be holding a grudge towards their moms. They aren’t going to poop in a sock and then hide in their moms’ purse as revenge. This is making circumcision into a way bigger deal than it is. You either want to do it so your son has lower risk of diseases, doesn’t have to spend an extra minute or two in the shower, cleaning the foreskin, and will have sex without having to explain his situation beforehand or you don’t want to do it and your child will grow up with a shar pei peen and constantly have to say to women before sex, “What had happened was..” And frankly, there are tougher crosses to bear in life than that.
