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Date Posted: 23:26:45 09/06/22 Tue
Author: No name
Subject: USA Circumcision during other procedures

I encountered an old post here in which a 14 year old boy in the USA was circumcised during his tonsillectomy:

https://www.voy.com/216169/2/89.html

To clarify a few things with those who may not be familiar with the USA. The majority of American boys are circumcised at birth. This is called a Routine Infant Circumcision, or RIC. I will not get into a debate about the pros and cons of infant circumcision because that is beyond the scope of what I wish to say. Suffice to say circumcision is very common here. If boys were not circumcised at birth, it was at one time, very common to circumcise them when they had a tonsillectomy, which in approximately the 1940s and 1950s was performed almost routinely on most children. Usually this was done on boys much younger than 14, typically 3 or 4 to 9 or 10 perhaps. Obviously this boy was much older, which happened occasionally, and apparently still does. The boy stated he was told his pediatrician said he needed it, which is plausible, if not probable. Again, I will not comment on the value or lack of value of this procedure. Some doctors in the USA were and still are very pro-circumcision. I simply state this as a fact. It's also possible he was circumcised at the request of his mother, who might have requested it of the doctor removing his tonsils, if this doc was a pediatric surgeon, or she could possibly have told his pediatrician who used his authority to request it for her. In any case the story about his pediatrician worked, whomever requested it. In either case, it was ordered in advance, and was not a spur of the moment decision. A close reading of his description of the procedures shows that he was not upset about being circumcised as such. He was upset because he was not told in advance. Most of his friends were probably circumcised and he was odd man out, and so didn't mind being made like everybody else. It was the fact that he wasn't told. Plus he lost his favorite pair of underwear. Boys who were circumcised during tonsillectomies where not usually told in advance, the rationale being that they would not worry, and they would not have a chance to object to the procedure or be uncooperative. Similar scenes probably played out many times, though they are not nearly as common now as previously. I was frankly surprised to see this happen so recently and to a boy this age, but apparently circumcision are still performed on older boys this way. And as an aside, in the 1950s there were many variations to the joke that girls only had 2 tonsils, but boys often had 3.

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