Is Circumcision Wrong?

Mothers couldn't be in a more less informed position. You have no penis; much less a foreskin and quite frankly you don't deserve to choose what's best for any son of yours' penis.

As a quick refresher on anatomy the following is a list of the female organs analogous to particular male organs.

foreskin --> clitoral hood
glans (head of the penis) --> clitoris
shaft of the penis --> the vagina

Removal of the foreskin is the equivalent procedure to removing the clitoral hood. Do some research into FGM and you'll soon realise level 1 FGM is the removal of the clitoral hood and it is overwhelmingly the more common FGM procedure in Africa.

How would you like to have no covering for your clitoris? Would you feel cheated out of something if you'd lost a great deal of sensation due to your clothing constantly rubbing on your clitoris? In fact removal of foreskin is even worse for boys than clitoral hood removal done to girls because the foreskin is stuck to the glans until your son is around 9 years old. Actually the doctor tears back and separates the bond between your son's penis when he's only an infant, leaving scar tissue and loss of sensation long before he's even started wearing boxers.

MGM is the same barbaric ritual as FGM-1 except sexistly it's only practised on boys in the US. MGM and FGM share the myths on so called 'benefits' and are based on the cultural stigmas. There's nothing murky about this decision whatsoever. Do not mutilate your sons penises.

Fri, 2009-03-27 06:41

You didn't say why your husband wanted your son cut, Kathy. One would not expect a guy who still has all his stuff to want to cut off some of his son's, while not cutting off any of his own! I assume it's because your husband was teased by cut men or American women, but it's not clear in your message.

Really though, if your husband is going to have "experience" with this, he should get himself cut before moving on to someone else. Many men who were cut as babies have no idea what they've lost. I assume the same goes for men who have not been cut at all. Your husband would be much more credible if he were to cut off the only moving part of his penis, containing a majority of the sensory nerves, and then allow his glans to dry up and keratinize over. Then he could really speak from experience. (Like these guys.)

Medicalized circumcision in the United States began in the mid-19th century as a means of deterring "self pollution" (masturbation), and ever since, it's been a solution in search of a problem. Here's a summary of medicalized circumcision in the U.S. over the past couple of centuries:

• In the 1840s, circumcision prevents masturbation.
• In the 1850s, circumcision prevents syphilis.
• In the 1860s, circumcision is a treatment for epilepsy.
• By 1871, the U.S. infant circumcision rate climbs to nearly 2%, after it is shown to be an absolute cure for epilepsy, and a preventive measure for spinal paralysis.
• In 1873, circumcision becomes known to prevent peeing in the bed, bumping the U.S. infant circumcision rate to a healthy 6%.
• 1875: the foreskin is discovered to be a major cause of curvature of the spine, bladder paralysis, and/or clubfoot.
• By 1879, it becomes known that circumcision cures abdominal neuralgia, as well as preventing racy dreams.
• The 1880s sees a renaissance in eyesight treatments involving amputation of erogenous tissue. In addition to improving eyesight, the intervention has the added benefit of preventing crossed eyes.
• In the 1890s, it is found to prevent blindness, deafness, and dumbness. (Especially dumbness.)
• By the 1890s, the U.S. circumcision rate is a good solid 20%, when it begins to be proposed as a mass public health measure for all American boys. Furthermore, it is shown to be an absolute cure for both urinary and rectal incontinence. (Bonus!)
• By the dawn of the 20th century, the U.S. rate has climbed to 25%, due to concerted public health campaigns.
• In the early 1900s, Jonathan Hutchinson and Ernest G. Mark publish explanations that circumcision is an effective means of permanently desensitizing the penis, and as such is an ideal neonatal intervention for baby boys of high moral character.
• Just before the outbreak of WWI, the U.S. neonatal circumcision rate reaches a respectable 40%. The January 10, 1914 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association advocates compulsory circumcision of all non-Jewish boys in America as a preventative measure for tuberculosis.
• By 1926, The neonatal circumcision rate in the U.S. surpasses 50%, when circumcision is hypothesized as a prophylactic measure against penile cancer.
• In 1930, Norton Henry Bare publishes a case study of a child he cured of epilepsy. This is notable, as the boy was not circumcised neonatally, and still the therapeutic circumcision seems to have made "the fits" go away.
• In 1932, Abraham L. Wolbarst draws a link between the foreskin and penile cancer in a widely-cited paper "Circumcision and penile cancer" published in the Lancet (Jan 16).
• In 1934, the U.S. neonatal rate is 55%, when the Gomco circumcision clamp is invented by Aaron Goldstein and Hiram "Inch" Yellen. They mass-market the device through the coming decades, and it remains in use today.
• The October 19, 1935 issue of the British Medical Journal publishes an article by R. W. Cockshut (yes that really is his name). In it, he advocates neonatal circumcision in order to desensitize the penis, thus promoting chastity.
• In the September 1941 issue of Parents magazine, the Alan Guttmacher article "Should the baby be circumcised?" advocates the practice as a means of reducing male sexual sensitivity. The article also advises parents of uncircumcised boys to force back the foreskin for a daily scrubbing of the glans. By now the neonatal rate is 60%, a solid majority.
• By 1942, the link between circumcision and prostate cancer becomes known. That is, not cutting off the foreskin can contribute to an increased risk of cancer of the prostate gland.
• The September 1949 issue of Archives of Dermatology and Syphilology explains that circumcision prevents STDs and cancer of the tongue. By now, the neonatal rate is nearly 70%. That's a lot of prostate and tongue cancer averted!
• In 1949, Douglas Gairdner publishes an influential article in the British Medical Journal, in which he analyses the infant death rate associated with circumcision, and points out the lack of medical benefit to the procedure. At the time, the UK neonatal circumcision rate is 45%, but soon after the article is published, that rate drops precipitously.
• In 1951, the New York State Journal of Medicine publishes an article claiming a preventive association between circumcision and cervical cancer in women.
• The January 1953 issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology publishes "Immediate circumcision of the newborn male," in which delivery-room circumcision is exhorted as a means of providing "immunity to nearly all physical and mental illness" to the 30% of American boys who are going uncircumcised. (Plus, according to the article, circumcision prevents masturbation.)
• In 1956, Rapmond Creelman "invents" the Circumstraint®. He gets U.S. patent number RE24.377 for his baby-sized plastic board with tie-down straps at the arms and legs of a comfy, contoured, baby-shaped depression.
• In 1966, Masters and Johnson explain that circumcision has no effect on reducing sexual sensitivity. Before then, circumcision was a good thing because it reduces sexual pleasure, but since the start of the sexual revolution, circumcision is a good thing because it no longer reduces sensitivity. The U.S. neonatal rate rises to 75%, while the U.K. rate falls to 15%.
• In 1969, Morris Fishbein calls for circumcision to cure masturbation and nervousness, in his article "Sex hygiene" in the Modern Home Medical Adviser. Clearly, not everyone is swept up by the sexual revolution.
• In 1971, Circumcision is found to prevent cancer of the bladder and rectum. (That is, the rectums of the circumcised men, not their wives', pets', or fishing buddys' rectums.) This is also the year when the American Academy of Pediatrics declares, "There are no valid medical indications for circumcision in the neonatal period."
• In 1976, Dr. Benjamin Spock reverses his recommendation on circumcision. After thirty years of recommending in favor of circumcision, the 1976 edition of his Baby and Child Care book recommends against circumcision of children.
• In 1985, the journal Pediatrics publishes a discovery that the surgical excision of male erogenous tissue detectably decreases the incidence of urinary tract infections among baby boys. (The higher UTI rate among girls, or non-UTI infections caused by circumcision do not fall within the scope of the study.) The U.S. neonatal circumcision rate begins falling from a high of 90%.
• In 1986, the New England Journal of Medicine publishes Dr. Aaron. J. Fink's discovery that circumcision reduces the likelihood of contracting AIDS. The U.S. rate continues to fall slightly.
• The February 1987 issue of the American Journal of Diseases in Children publishes the heartfelt poetry of Dr. Edgar J. Schoen, who would later chair the 1989 American Academy of Pediatrics Task force on Circumcision. The circumfetishist poems were titled "Ode to the Circumcised Male" and "Circumcision Revision." The decline in the U.S. neonatal circumcision rate is unusually steep that year.
• In 1988, circumcision may be one possible strategy to prevent streptococcal disease.
• In 1989, the American Academy of Pediatrics re-reverses itself under the direction of poet-doctor Edgar J. Schoen, and declares that neonatal circumcision is necessary after all. The U.S. rate drops to 80% of newborn boys.
• In 1991, Dr. Schoen publishes an article "Is it time for Europe to reconsider newborn circumcision?" in the leading Scandinavian pediatrics journal. The European neonatal circumcision rate continues to fall to nearly zero.
• When the 1991 U.S.-Iraq Gulf War comes around, Dr. Aaron J. Fink's article "Circumcision and sand" is posthumously published by the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. It declared that mass circumcision of babies and adults is a great way to avoid sand under the foreskin and penile frostbite for future male soldiers. (That would be the same Dr. Aaron J. Fink who earlier discovered that circumcision protects against AIDS.)
• In 1993, Dr. Gerald N. Weiss claimes the presence of Langerhans cells in the foreskin leads to HIV infection. The U.S. neonatal rate falls to 70%.
• In 1997, Dr. Schoen publishes another European article calling for mass circumcision in Europe. The European neonatal rate holds near zero, and the U.S. rate falls to 60%.
• In 1999, the AAP re-re-reverses its position on infant circumcision. They now say it's once-again unnecessary to cut erogenous tissue from children.
• A 2006 study in the British Journal of Urology, Fine-Touch Pressure Thresholds in the Adult Penis, compares circumcised and non-circumcised adult men's penises. It concludes that the most sensitive area on the circumcised penis is the ventral circumcision scar, which, if it were to exist on the uncircumcised penis, would rank as the sixth most sensitive area overall. It also finds that the glans of the uncircumcised penis is much more sensitive than the glans of the circumcised penis, which develops a leathery layer of protective keratin shortly after circumcision.
• In 2008 the U.S. neonatal circumcision rate falls to 50%, while in California it falls to 25%.

When I was born in the 1960s, doctors were gods, and patients were expected to be submissive to their doctors wishes. Times have changed since then. Now most doctors under 50 are the employee of the patient, not the other way around. Pretty soon, they'll more universally recognize that the circumcision patient is the child, not the parent, and that their professional code of ethics is violated when they accept a parent's consent to perform destructive elective surgery on that child. These days more doctors are examining the ethics of child circumcision. Here's a 2009 short essay by George C. Denniston, MD, MPH, which lays out the case that infant circumcision violates all seven of the American Medical Association Principles of Medical Ethics, as well as the better-known Hippocratic Oath.

With the birth of my son, I'm glad to have had the opportunity to be the end of the line for this Victorian-era abuse. I don't know about the rest of you, but in my family, I prefer to be in the first generation to stop this, rather than the last generation to perpetuate it.

P.S. I see people take offense to the terms "amputation" and "mutilation". I challenge those people to point out any dictionary—that's any dictionary—in which either of those terms is defined in such a way as not to cover the excision of the normal human prepuce from a male child. I also see people claiming that cutting girls' genitalia is not comparable to cutting boys' genitalia. Really? Not even light elective cutting of girls? By a cosmetic surgeon, specializing in infant female genitalia? In a really, really fancy Egyptian hospital? You say it's an unfair comparison, Kathy. How so?

Tue, 2010-02-02 08:26

As a man who was circumcised as an infant, I can tell you I do consider it a form of abuse. I'm with Daphne. It is "dead wrong" to do it without the fully informed consent of the person it's done to.

I was not aware that risky sex is a problem among baby boys. Absent such a problem, infant circumcision is a blatant breach of ethics. Some parents might decide that reducing a future adult's susceptibility to disease in exchange for diminishing that future adult's sexual function is a good trade. Well, such a decision is not for the parent to make. There's no valid cause to cut off an important part of a baby's genitalia without bothering to wait till that baby forms his own opinion as an adolescent or adult.

I find it upsetting that people are objecting to the use of frank, accurate language to describe their personal opinions on such an important topic. Imagine a website called man-of-the-house-talk dot com is hosting a discussion along the lines of, "Some husbands say wife-beating is an essential aspect of domestic life, while opponents claim it's akin to some kind of violence or something. Still other husbands say their religion commands it of them. What do you think about this, fellas?" If you can imagine how that would make you feel, then you'll begin to see how this discussion will be read by our sons in a decade or two.

Thu, 2009-04-30 06:24

Don't worry, KTab. If your decision comes back to bite you in the ass, and your son is displeased that his penis is still all there, you can just say something like, "unlike many of your friends' parents, we respect our son's body. If you want a circumcision, we'll find the best surgeon we can together, and you decide how much to take off."

What you probably don't want is the way my parent's decision to circumcise me bit them in the ass. What could they say to me but, "we made the best decision we could with what we knew at the time, which wasn't much because doctors were pushier back then and it was a taboo subject of discussion and we are sorry you are so upset." Or in your case, "your father tried to stop it, but I insisted on cutting you. I'm not sure why, perhaps it was just cultural programming. Tough break, kid."

Imagine being this kid's mom when she gets The Talk.

I'm sure your son will agree that you made the right call, Kelly.

Thu, 2009-04-30 19:49

Excellent point, nicnicnic. I totally agree that the sharing, and even disagreeing, are wonderful, especially when done in a civil and at least mostly friendly manner. I'm so glad Alice didn't take offense at Daphne's strong opinions, or that Daphne didn't intend offense, because although it's blindingly obvious neither woman would have felt this way from what I've seen so far on the Momversations, it is (unfortunately) common with issues like this.

I find myself most instructed and enlightened when I can really talk things out (even virtually) with others, or listen to/read differing viewpoints. I'm sort of reminded of a preacher my husband used to listen to. I disagree with about 95 percent of what the man says, and disagree vehemently. But listening to him sometimes helps me clarify my own opinions and exactly why I hold them.

Great conversation.

Mon, 2009-01-26 17:29