Put Down the Knife! 11 Reasons Not to Circumcise
Oh, I’ve heard many reasons why we should circumcise a baby boy. Some of the popular ones are:
I want him to look like me.
He’ll be a freak in the locker room.
You have to. Boys who aren’t circumcised are dirty.
Jennifer’s post last week, WTF? Baby Boys’ Circumcised Foreskins Used for Wrinkle Treatment made me laugh out loud. Mostly it was her shock at upcycling foreskins.
As I commented on that blog, I’d already known they “reused” foreskins. My sister had been involved with a skin grafting on a foot that used those circumcised scraps. If feet and penises combined for life aren’t your idea of fun, perhaps you’ve already hopped on the no-circumcise bandwagon.
Still not sure? Here are 11 Reasons to Avoid Circumcising Your Son…
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1. It is not your body. This is a huge reason to leave your son intact. It is his body, and he should be allowed to choose whether to have surgery on his most private parts. If you choose now not to circumcise, he can always make a different choice later in life. Not so if you snip.
2. For the dads: Your son will never “look like you” in every way. Boys rarely see their fathers’ penises past a young age, and no matter what, grown men’s penises look very different in size and hair content from their baby boys’. Daddy, that “because I am” argument is a pretty poor one. Your mother made the decision to circumcise you in a culture very different from ours. Would you also have your wife not breastfeed if your mother did not?
3. Trauma. I’d say being born was a pretty hardcore experience, wouldn’t you? At least from the mama’s end, it’s hard work. I can only imagine how rough it is for that little guy to work to get out! And how do we give him the big “congratulations”? By cutting off a part of his body! Good job, young chap…Now, you won’t be needing this anymore.
4. It’s cosmetic surgery. Would we get him rhinoplasty, too? Actually, lets have the circ doc toss that one in for free, shall we?
5. Locker room fears: if 40% of boys are now left intact (and more in some places), your son won’t look much different than others in the locker room. And anyhow, why would boys be checking each other out in the first place?! I should think that the one poking fun would be the guy with the real problem!
6. On the supposed increased risk for urinary tract infections: UTIs are rare in boys, much less common than for girls. Recent studies suggest there is no difference in the amount for circumcised boys than for intact boys.
7. On the supposed increased risk for STDs: Some of the studies suggesting that the risk for HIV is lessened by circumcision are flawed, in that they concentrate on populations in Africa, where HIV rates are much higher than Western countries. A 2007 study offers that it is the percentage of female sex workers in the female population, not the incidence of male circumcision, that determines the level of HIV infection. As an alternative to cosmetic surgery, I suggest you teach your son to respect his body, choose partner(s) wisely, and always use protection.
8. And another medical “reason to circumcise”: phimosis, or a foreskin that won’t retract. The foreskin gradually becomes retractable between infancy and 18 years of age. For most kids it’s in the first few years. It’s nothing we should either rush or worry about. In fact, only 1 percent of males over 18 still have an unretracted foreskin, and then it can be easily treated with a topical steroid cream. The risks of this happening, however, are small, because stimulation of the foreskin during adolescence helps this happen naturally. (And that’s something that no adolescent boy minds doing!)
9. Have you heard it decreases the risk of penile cancer? Yeah, I got that one a bunch, too. My argument was this: breast cancer in females is much more prevalent than the risk of penile cancer for males. So tell me, when your daughter begins to develop breasts, will you cut those breast buds off…just in case? And according to the medical dictionary from the National Institutes of Health (which I was delighted to see use the word “smegma”),
Uncircumcised men who do not keep the area under the foreskin clean and men with a history of genital warts or human papillomavirus (HPV) are at higher risk for this rare disorder.
10. The cleanliness thing. A boy is not dirty who bathes regularly. Given a little soap and water, he should stay clean. Incidentally, this “dirty” thing is the same argument used by proponents for female genital mutilation.
1l. And, finally: Would you circumcise your daughter?
Actually, you’re lucky I’m not going all hardcore on you, and posting a video of the process. It’s quite horrific. If you can stomach it, look and pics and videos before you finalize a decision that your son will have to live with for the rest of his life.
As one pro-intact group says:
Circumcision is a solution in search of a problem.
I mean, we all believe in recycling, but how ’bout if they use that soft foreskin on a middle-aged woman’s wrinkles? What fun!
This wasn’t an easy decision in my house when I found out I was having another boy. I went a little bit more into our “debate” over the matter in my original post discussing circumcision at Nature’s Child blog.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
I find these comments very wise. There are several studies which show that the difference in HPV infection between circumcised and intact men is insignificant. There is a vaccine for it anyway. Why lose the two most sexually responsive parts of a male body over it, the frenulum and the inner foreskin? They are far more sensitive than the head.
Even if anaesthesia is used, once it wears off, the boy is urinating salty water on the wound. Circumcision increases the risk of buried penis, meatal stenosis (narrowing of the urethral opening), skin bridges, and MRSA infection.
The US, with all its circumcision, has a higher HIV infection rate than uncut Scandinavian countries, or other European countries. Circumcision is a money making hoax, that robs a man of feeling all that nature meant him to feel, while making the doctor and the cosmetics company richer. What other healthy body part do we routinely remove without consent, and resell to someone else? If washing is OK for girls, who have more UTIs and yeast infections, why is it not OK for boys? They both secrete the same substances. As far as the yuk factor with some American women, why is it that every representation of male beauty in art has a foreskin on it, from the statue of David, to the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel. Do you think, “euwww, gross”, when you think of Leonardo DiCaprio, Mario Lopez, Colin Farrell. Josh Harnett, etc? It’s a felony to remove a girl’s foreskin in the US. but OK for a boy. That’s sexism. Besides, foreskins are fun, for both partners.
This is a nice piece but it misses the number one reason not to do this. The surgery amputates some 20,000 nerve endings. These are fine touch receptors. Many dispute that sex and sensation change. However, to men that have these parts, the sensation is clear, the most sensitive parts of the male genitals are taken away. This is more nerve endings than the clitoris. It is like having lips or fingertips removed.
The only circ and premature ejaculation study found cut men had a pE issue because of signals to brain from circumcision scar. E.D sets in at a younger age for cut men. Sexual health is a human health issue. The parts of the foreskin feel so good, don’t take them away from a child. Natural penis and natural sex are the best.
I’ve read surveys that said that women prefer men who are circumsised.
I asked over 50 women what they preferred, circumcised or uncircumcised. None preffered uncircumcised. And most of the women expressed distaste for uncircumcised men.
I don’t understand these reasons you write about. For heterosexual men it’s about what the women in their life want to “work with” so to speak.
Bob, are these surveys by American women? Most U.S. women (grown women) haven’t seen an uncirc penis.
That will change in the coming decades as almost half the male population is now uncircumcised. When we were growing up, the number of intact boys was very small indeed.
Perhaps it is the cultural belief that an intact penis is “dirty”, just as in other cultures an uncircumcised girl is unclean. Let’s not fall into that mindset.
Jack and Tom, thank you for mentioning the sensitivity point. You’re both right: why cut off an especially sensitive area?
Long ago (Victorian era), circumcision was done to curb masturbation. Hmm…how’d that work out?
Actually Bob, most women in the advanced world prefer a penis that has NOT been circumcised. Maybe in certain backward and isolated areas of the USA women don’t know any better because they have never been with a normal/natural man. Most women in the western world prefer what they know: the normal, healthy, natural, uncircumcised penis.
Sorry to break the news, but there is actually a whole world outside of the small-minded USA.
I can’t even believe that we still have to debate this topic. There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that anyone was coming near my son’s penis with a scalpel. The case for circumcision is so shallow, its advocates deserve no attention at all. It’s just plain silly.
And Bob, if the women in your life are so superficial that they aren’t willing to accept your genitalia as nature intended, then you have much bigger problems than the skin on your penis.
I’m not saying that women wanting a circumcised partner is reason to continue the tradition, as change starts in the grassroots and changes the society’s collective mind and standards, but I do have to say that Paul’s comment “certain backward and isolated areas of the USA women don’t know any better because they have never been with a normal/natural man” is a truly narrow-minded, condescending argument as well.
I’m from a couple sizable and incredibly educated communities, and though my own experience has been very limited, I have a number of female friends who have more than “been around the block”. All except for one say they prefer men who have been circumcised. At least, the ones who speak openly about sex. I am also friends with several all-natural-in-all-things-advocates who may feel differently. These women I speak of are educated, involved, political, well-read women. So, whatever you may mean by “backward” and whatever sized city you call “isolated” may need to be adjusted.
Don’t forget about the problems caused by circumcision — post-surgery infections, for instance, and accidental amputations (it does happen!!). The rate of medical complications from circumcision is, I’m fairly certain, HIGHER than the number of medical problems that it ‘prevents’.
The argument about cutting off a girl’s breasts “just in case” is a good one. While we’re at it, let’s surgically remove the appendix and tonsils at birth, get it over with.
If you’re more concerned about the annoyance of keeping the penis clean, let’s go ahead and completely remove girls’ labia (not just the clitoris of female ‘circumcision’). And remove our fingernails, they’re a pain to have to cut all the time.
Anyway, there’s a typo in the post that should be fixed. I don’t think ANY boys are getting “uterine tract infections”, no matter what the state of their penises… I’m pretty sure you mean “urinary”…
Let us address some of these anti-circ arguments…
1.“It is not your body” Actually, parents and guardians are entitled & expected to be able to authorize emergency medical aid as well as medical treatments that they believe are in the best long-term interests of their child. Male infant circumcision clearly fits into a parental choice for serving the best long-term interest of a child.
2.“Trauma” Circumcision used to be a traumatic experience for an infant, but today with modern analgesics and pain management, infants often sleep through the entire procedure. Proper post-operative care, such as frequent diaper changes and a dab of Vaseline or other salve on the scar/suture to prevent adhesions, is all that is needed.
3.“It’s cosmetic surgery” No, it is a prophylaxis, or preventative, surgery.
4.“Locker room fears: if 40% of boys are now left intact” Maybe if you live in an area of the US that has a very high immigrant population this would be true. The truth is that circumcision rates in the US have not fallen very far in the past decade or more. Hospitals are under no law to report circumcisions and there are many reports of parents that decide on circumcision after leaving the hospital. Mohels, pediatricians, urologists, midwives and others that perform circumcisions do not report statistics.
5.“increased risk for uterine tract infections” Uncircumcised boys are about 10 times as likely to get serious UTIs as are circumcised infants. There are many, many, studies that have demonstrated that circumcision clearly decreases the risk of UTIs. Along with UTIs circumcision also drastically reduces the risk of kidney infections and other opportunistic infections that may cause serious & life-threatening illness if left untreated or under-treated.
6.“increased risk for STDs “ Uncircumcised males have an increased risk for contracting STDs, HIV & HPV. The foreskin provides an incredibly wonderful environment for the care, feeding and reproductive cycles of sexually transmitted pathogens. Micro-tearing along the inner foreskin that may occur du0ring sexual intercourse may introduce these pathogens to enter the body and start or continue to spread infections.
It should be noted, though, that nobody has suggested that circumcision replace primary methods of STD & birth control such as the proper use of condoms and choice of sexual partners. Circumcision may be of some help against STDs should the primary methods fail.
7.“phimosis” “paraphimosis” “posthitis ” Circumcision will clearly prevent these potentially serious disorders of the foreskin.
8.“penile cancer” It has been known for over a century that circumcised men rarely get invasive penile cancer, which is a devastating disease which is more deadly than breast cancer (higher 5 year mortality rate). About 1400 men in the US get this disease and over 200 die annually, almost all of them uncircumcised.
9.“The cleanliness thing” Many parents know, or quickly learn, how difficult it is to get their child to bathe daily. Above that challenge would be to take the time to instruct their son how to properly clean his penis (including retracting the foreskin, when appropriate) and monitoring his bathing rituals to verify that he is actually washing and correctly. In concept, a UTI infection or two should surely help a child to learn the cycle of cause-and-effect, but wouldn’t it be easier and more healthy for all concerned to circumcise him and be done with it?
10.“And, finally: Would you circumcise your daughter? “ This old argument returns. Male circumcision & FGM are two completely different procedures whose points are also completely different. Male circumcision, when done outside of religious reasons, is a preventative or prophylactic procedure. FGM is done for the purpose of decreasing or elimination of sexual pleasure.
NotStyro clearly works for a medical circumcision group, as you will plainly see once you click on the link.
I have already addressed most of his arguments, but I will delve a little deeper.
I work for no activist group when it comes to circumcision, except this one: I am a mother. I am the mother of two intact boys, and I did much research before I made my choice. I talked with numerous pediatricians and to my team of OBs during my second pregnancy. I also discussed this topic with specialists on the matter.
Overwhelmingly, I was told, “It is your decision. It depends on what you prefer.” What I prefer? For HIS body?
If, as NotStyro claims, it is not cosmetic surgery and is instead prophylaxis surgery, let’s also remove the gallbladder and appendix at birth. Those are much more likely to cause problems later in life!
Please do not humor me with the notion that removing the most sensitive part of an infant’s body so soon after birth is not traumatic. After anesthetics wear off, they are left in pain. Just because you can’t remember it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Plus, why would you want to anesthetize a newborn that you are trying to get to breastfeed? Please.
“Prevention” is the current song and dance for this unnecessary procedure. Previously, it was to stop masturbation (”or decrease sexual pleasure”). Religion, prevention, aesthetics: I don’t agree with any of these ever-changing excuses.
An finally, the AAP states on their site:
“benefits are not sufficient… to recommend that all infant boys be circumcised.”
http://www.aap.org/publiced/BR_Circumcision.htm
You won’t convince me otherwise, especially as that neither son have ever had foreskin problems.