Agemegos

I remember reading the same thing.

But circumcised men were not so safe that one could sanely rely on circumcision instead of diligent use of condoms (or abstinence, I guess). And if you are diligent about abstaining or using condoms, then being circumcised makes no difference.

If you are circumcised, you have to use condoms or abstain from sexual contact, or you run an unacceptable risk of HIV/AIDS. If you use condoms or abstain, it doesn't matter whether or not you are circumcised. That doesn't add up to an argument ffor circumcision if you ask me.

It certainly doesn't add up to an argument for circumcision of newly-born babies.

And most especially it doesn't add up to an argument for circumcision without informed consent.

Agemegos

Other studies show that circumcised infants have an increased risk of getting ulcerative meatitis. Which can result in permanent meatal stenosis and in some cases in the loss of the penis.

Other studies show that the complications of circumcision, including surgical infection, and resulting quite frequently in scarring, amputation, and even death, present a higher and more immediate risk to the circumcised than penile cancer and the rest do to the uncircumcised.

The rate of cancer of the penis in uncircumcised men in the West is two per 100,000 per lifetime. The rate of complications of circumcision in the USA is at least 4%, of which at least 0.5% have permanent adverse effects. The rate of death as a result of complications of circumcision is unknown, but at least one per 1.2 million procedures. http://www.circumstitions.com/Complic.html http://www.cirp.org/library/complica...lliams-kapila/

As for phimosis, it stands to reason that a man or boy with no foreskin can't have a tight foreskin. But most cases of phimosis can be cured without surgery. And as for those boys who will require circumcision to correct phimosis, there is no urgency in performing the procedure. Louis XIV didn't have his phimosis corrected until he was 23. It doesn't seem sane to circumcise all boys as neonates on the grounds that somewhat less than one in each hundred of them will need a circumcision before he can start his sex life.

easychair

Circumcision IS a barbaric practice. I don't know how it's done today but in the old days it was done without anesthesia.

At the risk of a little too much self disclosure, let me comment on mine. I have a thin scar with visible suture marks from my glans to the base of my penis. My penis is otherwise normal and works okay but a physician friend of mine could only expalin it by suggesting that the guy who did my circumsion was probably drunk. So I'm lucky to have a penis at all.

I've heard all the bunk about circumcision being more hygienic and I think they still recommend it in spite of the fact that men with foreskins have more fulfilling sex lives. The practice should be outlawed. :down:

Agemegos

If you say so. You aren't alone. [Though my own experience is that ten out of ten girlfriends will fellate my uncircumcised cock. And I don't even have to suggest it, let alone persuade them.]

But tell me, are smilling nnew parents really thinking "We'd better get our newborn's dick docked so that he will get more head jobs when he grows up"? I think not.

If you leave him intact, and he later decides that the extra head jobs are worse the pain and surgical risk, he can have it seen to. The same applies to medical risk in adulthood: when he reaches sixteen he can make his own decision. The only thing that would justify a parent taking the decision out of the hands of their child would be (1) a public health risk, (2) a danger presenting during childhood, or (3) urgency, such as the procedure could not be put off until the age of reason, or would be ineffective iff it were. None of these things is in evidence. Indeed, none of them is even suggested by the proponents of routine neonatal circumcision.

Yangja Isuko

this is what i site i always use to debunk any claims whatsoever that circumcision has beneficial effects:

case against circumcision

Jennie

When we told our local hospital that we didn't want our newborn son circumsized this June, they told us they no longer perform circumcision due to liability issues. Very different from our first son, who was born in 1998, where we were asked at least three times if we wanted a circumcision. It was a different hospital in a different state; but still makes me wonder if there is a sea change in the air.

There are medical reasons to circumsize newborns. One instance is that one of my nephews was born with a condition called hypospadias, and they used his foreskin to reconstruct his penis so that it functioned properly. The consensus however seems to be that it is a medically neutral choice for most infants; and to me that means that the pain involved and the lack of consent tips the balance towards leaving most boys intact. And I am willing to inflict pain for good medical reasons. It distresses me to see my infant cry when vaccinated; but the evidence for the good that vaccination does is so overwhelming that the choice is clear.

MrHambre

The supposed miraculous benefits of circumcision have never been demonstrated to the satisfaction of the medical community. When the New England Journal of Medicine printed an article in 2002 describing a study which supposedly proved the benefits of the procedure, they not only received a ton of mail from dissenting physicians, but also a letter from the very authors of the study making it clear the NEJM had overstated the case.

In the December 1978 issue of the American Journal of Diseases of Children, Dr. Sydney S. Gellis stated that "It is an uncontestable fact at this point that there are more deaths from complications of circumcision than from cancer of the penis."

liquid

I find this debate very interesting. I've participated in at least 2 debates on this issue on II in the past (sorry, too lazy to go search for them!) arguing against routine circumcision of minors.

I seem to recall in those previous debates there was much more pro-circumcision argument. I wonder why the 'evidential' (as opposed to the aesthetic issues) camp in this debate has more or less come down clearly in what I view to be the right court?

Perhaps attitudes have changed somehow? Perhaps it was in a different forum? Or perhaps it's just one of those fluctuations in who's reading what....

greyline

I've had many debates about infant male circumcision in the past (hi, DrRick) and with pro-circumcisers it always comes down to this: they can justify it only by minimising the value of the foreskin. I see it over and over in their arguments, including DrRick's post above. The foreskin is seen as without value, and often as harmful.

The UTI argument is pathetic. Far more baby girls than boys get UTIs, and they are treated with antibiotics. No one has suggested amputation of healthy sensitive tissue a preventative measure for UTIs in baby girls.

AIDS and STD arguments are equally ridiculous. If men want to believe that they're less likely to catch STDs without a foreskin, they can choose to lop it off when they are consenting adults. Ditto for blow jobs. (Girls who haven't played with an intact penis do NOT know what they're missing! :thumbs: And a man's unwashed uncut genitals are just as dirty as a girl's unwashed uncut genitals.)

American women who say they prefer it cut probably have very little experience with uncut - they are showing a bias because uncut looks "strange" to them. To me, a cut penis looks like it's been skinned. Which, of course, it has. It is also less comfortable and less versatile during sex. Sorry, guys, but it is.

No other body part has to justify its existence like the foreskin. We don't cut off any other part of our children unless it is definitely going to kill or seriously harm them imminently, and only then when every other option has been exhausted.

The foreskin isn't given that same consideration because pro-circumcisers consider it worthless. My feeling from talking to them is that in order to not have to confront the fact that they have been sexually mutilated (or have sexually mutilated their own sons/patients), they *must* believe that circumcision is beneficial and the foreskin is a liability - regardless of the child's right to a whole body.

The medical data is a ruse. Circumcision in America is a cultural phenomenon, pure and simple. Other English-speaking countries no longer do it in large numbers. In the UK it never caught on. In Europe they think you are mad. Vast numbers of non-circumcised Westerners are not dropping dead from penile cancer and STDs and all the other terrible things attributed to foreskins over the decades - have Americans noticed?

I would be interested in seeing an ethical argument that logically justifies infant male circumcision.

Respect the foreskin!!

Schneibster

Well, if the ladies are gonna tell their side, I guess some guys ought to as well.

As a circumcised male, I have:

• never experienced erectile dysfunction,
• never experienced an STD,
• never experienced an infection in, on, or around my penis.

I have never had a partner refuse me fellatio, but then again I have never refused to reciprocate. So I don't know how much being circumcised has to do with that.

When I was young, I was concerned that I might have "hairtrigger" trouble because of it, but was reassured by a doctor and a few good friends, not all male, that it didn't necessarily follow.

Who's next?