To circumsize or to not circumsize (male): what is your position?

Absolutely against it. I would not circumcise my son if I were to have one. It is senseless mutilation.

My son is not circumcised and I would never recommend it to anyone. It’s pointless, really.

I have done plenty of research around this and I stand firmly against circumcision of any child, regardless of sex.

Anti.

Um.. inviting myself to be flamed here but…we had our son circumcised. We researched it. We talked to others..I weighed what we heard could be risks both ways.. and in then end, we gave into societal conventions and had him circumcised when the nurse came ‘round to take him for the procedure.
I don’t regret it. He seemed very mellow about it to be honest. The nurses told us he didn’t cry…which frankly I find hard to believe. (Perhaps compared to the fresh trauma of birth it didn’t phase him so much?)
Though, now that I think on it, I remember that my brother-in-law watched his youngest son’s circumcision (at my sister-in-law’s request)..just to make sure it didn’t seem too cruel and I remember he said that my nephew didn’t cry either.

I have dear friends who are Muslim who explained to me that for cultural/religious reasons they wait to have their son(s) circumcised at age 8.
He and his wife are in a big debate over violating this religious practice and having their son circumcised right away after he’s born because they worry it would be more traumatic at an older age.
In gathering information on this we had an informal poll of a group of about 6 colleagues (mainly of my int’l coworkers)—and of the 6, 2 of the families had chosen to not circumcise their sons at birth ..but in both cases had ended up having it done a later ages (8, 14 and 7) due to medical issues. One with terrible swelling/circulation problems as the foreskin did not move(?) and another due to recurrent UTIs in their son.

Flame away. I’m thick-skinned. I can take it.

I don’t much care either way. There is some evidence to suggest that it is protective against some STDs, but in a modern Western society where people more or less keep clean it’s not that big of a deal.

I have a daughter, but if I had had a son, he would have been circumcised.

@geeky_mama Sorry, but I don’t think anyone cares to flame you for your ‘controversial’ decision. After all, you believe in your choice, what does it matter if it’s flame-worthy or not.

I wasn’t circumcised until I was about four years old. The whole area is cleaner (easier to clean and easier to keep clean) as well as more aesthetically pleasing, although the look is just opinionated. Because of those reasons, I’m for it. It’s not the big butcher-fest some doctors/nurses/people make it out to be.

The World Health Organization put out findings of this same topic back in 2007.
WHO source

Its a personal choice for people and this is one of the many factors.

Personally, I would prefer that men simply wore condoms to really protect from AIDS. Male circumcision seems a little extreme.

@tranquilsea Completely agree on your point about raincoats for minimizing STD’s. Far from a high weight on the factor scale of to do or not to do.

Here is a long discussion on the topic, with many opinions and studies cited.

We had my son circumsized, out of trust in the Lord. Afterwards, the stuff about Aids and circumsizion came out. That was well placed trust!

My penis has been mutilated and I don’t really mind. I’d let the mother make the decision, to be honest.

Yes circumcision should be abolished! The foreskin to is there to protect the most sensitive part of the penis (the glans). Removing the foreskin of helpless baby boys is simply mutilation. Circumcision is a very poor method of protecting against the spread of Aids.

Okay, I’ll say it: I think calling circumcision “mutilation” is over exaggerating it’s effects. It’s like permanent removal of the appendix as far as functionality goes. Yeah, it’s meant to protect, but we don’t run around naked anymore.

Infection was a problem before AIDS, it is not just about AIDS. I am sure the majority of uncircumcised men are able to keep their penis clean, and avoid infection. But, I have a family member, when he was young, he got an infection, I think it was a yeast or bacterial infection of some sort. And, I have a family member who is a nurse, and she used to have to do sponge baths, and said if she had a son she would always circumcise, and she tends to be all about natural products, animal rights, vegetarian, etc, etc. She said older men who can’t take care of themselves well, were sometimes looking pretty yucky down there. It is not just about a disease like AIDS or Chlamydia that infects inside, but about the exterior skin. Very heavy people get yeast infections inbetween the folds of their skin on their stomachs and under their breasts. That is the sort of infection I would think about.

My sons were mutilated. They lived to tell their story.

I do find it interesting that I had no problem with this decision 16 and 18 years ago, but I would never take my baby daughter to get her ears pierced. hmmm

@kenmc I’ve been circumcised and I love to cycle (Bicycle) long distances. There have been a few times when a very sensitive area got rubbed raw. Too bad I don’t have my foreskin for protection. It is just a handicap that I’ve learned to live with.

@kenmc It depends. Alex certainly hates that that’s what his parents decided.

Mutilation seems a little harsh. I understand we’re talking about baby and children who are having a decision made for them but this isn’t foot binding or stretching your neck out with rings. Does anyone here with a circumcised penis of their very own feel “mutilated”?

My wife sees more nasty man junk than most unfortunately (not mine funny man), and she’s pretty adamant that if someone’s penis is in a situation where it may get nasty, a foreskin is going to help it get extra nasty. That’s the rated PG version of her descriptions. I would guess similar observations led to the practice getting started in the first place.

If you wash yourself normally, you aren’t exposed to anything, and can take proper care of yourself you’ll stay clean either way. But what if your in a situation where that’s not the case?

It seems like a fairly minor decision to have such strong feelings about, especially with regards to someone else’s children.

I don’t think it’s a minor decision because it’s someone else’s body. I mean, it’s one thing to consider for yourself, but another when the penis doesn’t even belong to you! I find it wrong to make that kind of decision, to take away a body part that nature put there for a reason in the first place. I’ve done a fair amount of research on the topic and I have known men, one in particular, who were rather upset at that choice being taken away from them, The guy I knew well enough to talk about this with, honestly, I felt for him and I think I’d be pissed, too. Ear piercing is reversible, cutting off a foreskin is not.

I’m totally anti. Leave it the way nature intended. Teach the kid to stay clean and care for his penis. Let the guy decide for himself.

I am generally against it, just as my parents were/are. I am one of three boys in my family and we are all uncircumcised, even though my dad is circumcised. My dad does not resent the fact that he is, but he was circumcised because it’s just what was done. His parents put no research into it; they just had it done because that’s what you did.

And that’s one of my major problems with circumcision. You’re removing a part of someone else’s body that does not need to be removed and many people do this without considering the consequences and the reasons for doing so and do it only out of tradition or because it “looks pretty”. I say the same thing every single time the topic of circumcision comes up and I will say it again: Routine infant circumcision is a uniquely American phenomenon. It is not done routinely in places like Asia and Europe. Are Asians and Europeans crawling with penile disease? I sincerely doubt it. Circumcision started out as a religious practice and tradition; health reasons were cited after the fact in order to rationalize circumcision.

As it is, rates of circumcision are going down in the U.S. (about 60% of male infants in the East and 30% in the West and it continues to fall according to my last post on this site :P). I do not believe that it is necessary (yes, I see it as unnecessary surgery—the foreskin is there for a reason; it does not need to be removed) and I do not believe it is right to circumcise an infant.

Also, people greatly exaggerate the difficulty of cleaning down there. Once you learn to do it, you don’t forget and it becomes as automatic as washing any other part of your body. Never had any issues with infections or STDs. That’s just my $0.02 on the subject.

@funkdaddy ”Does anyone here with a circumcised penis of their very own feel “mutilated”?”
I.

I’m 99.3% certain I won’t have children, by my own choice. But if I have a son, he will not be circumcised.

Through the countless stories I’ve heard, the trend is that women (or men) aesthetically prefer whichever kind of penis they saw first. So the argument of ”(un)cut looks uglier!” is moot.

It’s the ritual started by insane ancient people, and is passed down by the desire to fit in and to follow in the footsteps of our ancestors.

I was in favor of it, but I felt that on this matter above all others it should be a male decision. The (male) pediatrician called it unnecessary surgery, and my husband agreed, so we did not have it done, even though we both regarded it as a break with tradition.

I favored it for aesthetic reasons, having my own past experiences in mind.

I don’t suppose I’ll ever know if my sons’ girlfriends or (someday) wives will thank us. I don’t even know if my sons would thank us.

I guess I should clarify a bit.

To me, without reaching for a dictionary, mutilation with regards to the human body is a pretty grotesque word. When I think of someone who has been mutilated, I think of missing limbs, horrible scars, or a person who is left unable to function as they used to. Maybe this is a personal connotation but I don’t think so. I think using mutilation to describe circumcision is akin to using the word “war” to describe sports.

Also, I wasn’t intending anything I said to be about the aesthetics of it one way or the other, so I’m not sure if that portion was directed at me @Sarcasm.

If my use of “nasty” was taken as making an aesthetic judgement, that’s not at all what I meant but I can see how it might be ambiguous and I apologize, I was trying to keep the description fairly clean.

My wife is an ER nurse and I’d guess the majority of her patients that are actually sick would be elderly or homeless. Both groups are often not able to take proper care of themselves and often come in with various infections. If someone has a UTI, an STD, or an injury affecting their penis, the foreskin is sometimes either inflamed, restrictive to the penis itself, or acts as another layer that the products of infection can get caught in. That’s the nastiness I was referring to, not the aesthetics of a healthy individual’s penis either way.

@Jeruba Given that very few men opt to be circumcised once they’ve reached the age at which they can make the decision for themselves, I think you can be sure that your boys will be very thankful with your decision.

On the other hand, @meiosis, I did know a man in his sixties who opted to have the surgery. It was kind of a big deal at that point.

If I had the time I’d regrow. It was probably helpful keeping clean when I was younger, but had someone taught me to clean it at an early age I probably would have been okay.

@Jeruba Personally, I wouldn’t use the risk of a rare medical emergency as the basis for pre-emptive surgery on an infant.

I didn’t circumcise my son. I considered it, researched it, spoke to my doctor and decided it wasn’t necessary. Like Jeruba, my son hasn’t actually commented on whether he agrees with my decision or not!

My husband and I share most decisions. When my son was born I hadn’t really made my mind up. I could have been swayed in either direction. There are pros and cons for both sides. My husband was adamant about getting him circumcised. So, we did. I don’t regret the decision at all.
He (my hubby) has a very close family friend who, for health reasons, needed to have his foreskin removed around the age of 40…ouch! (This is not an urban legend. I have met the man and (over a bottle of wine) confirmed it!)

@meiosis But, some men do have it removed later, and as @Jeruba said it is a much bigger deal then a quick snip. Even men who might prefer to have it removed, think twice, or just don’t bother to take the step, because it is a bigger deal as an adult. The relative of mine I mentioned you had some sort of infection as a young child…his mom came from a family where all boys were circumcised. When her baby boy was born, she let her husband decide, he was European, and I assume uncircumcised, I never asked. He decided not to have it done to his son.. Later, she, the mom, wished she had done it. Now that her son is in his late teens, I have no idea how he feels about it.

Although, I competely understand why people are against having it done to a baby.

@DominicX I wonder how those stats pan out by race, ethnicity, the family’s country of origin? The US is made up more and more of minority groups who are more likely not to circumcise.

My son was circumcised. At first we decided not to do so, as his father was not and we didn’t see any reason to. Then when he was barely six weeks old he became terribly ill with an extremely high fever and other frightening symptoms. He was rushed to Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital where they had to perform an emergency spinal tap on him. It turned out that his foreskin was so tight that it had trapped urine in his urethra, giving him a massive urinary tract infection, which is extraordinarily dangerous in an infant. He almost died and spent over a week in the ICU. After he was stabilized, they circumcised him to prevent a recurrence. It was the most terrifying event of my entire life (thus far). Fortunately he was able to be anesthetized for the procedure, but he was wide awake and screaming during the spinal tap, which I’m sure was equally, if not more excruciating, in comparison to an un-anesthetized circumcision.

So, there are exceptions to every situation in life – and some of them you never see coming.

@diavolobella if you had a second son, would you just do it right away? Or, figure this was a rare occurence, and choose not to circumcise.

@JLeslie I didn’t have a second son. My second child was a daughter and I have no other children (nor will I).

That said, if I had given birth to another son, whether or not I chose to circumcise him would have depended upon the condition of his foreskin. I would have known the second time to have that more closely looked at. Unfortunately, no one (including any of child care books I read, my OB/GYN or my pediatrician) prepared me for the possibility of that situation happening. I’d never heard of such a thing.

I think that before anyone makes a decision one way or the other, they should know how deadly urinary tract infections are in babies and make sure they get their son’s foreskin checked thoroughly to see if it is an issue. I believe it should be a routine procedure to determine if an infant’s foreskin poses a risk for a UTI before they are released from the hospital.

Also, it’s not a rare occurrence. I found out afterward that it is more common than you’d think.

I have recently done a 180 on this issue. I never thought that circumcision was a big deal, and aesthetically I have always thought the circumcised penis was better looking.

But after working with an asylum client and doing research on Female Genital Mutilation, from a consistency perspective I realized that I had to switch. Many groups argue the inconsistency of railing against FGM when male circumcision is so common. Now, I agree with this in principle but not degree – FGM doesn’t reduce so much as destroy, isn’t a snip so much as a ripping. But the argument is sound.

Sex is a central part to the human experience. But STD transmission involves decisions made later in life than birth, when we can make our own decisions. The fact that this is being used as an argument in favor of circumcision, regardless of the geographical context, is upsetting. Proper safer sex tactics, education fixing social stigma and gender inequalities, and the dispelling of traditional superstitions regarding sex should be the focus in STD reduction.

Finally, from a rights perspective, I’m with those who say it’s not your choice. I’m not emotional about the subject, but I do think that it’s offensive when women advocate circumcision – women are a valuable part of the conversation, but the fact that it’s an issue they can’t truly empathize with makes it an uneasy thing for me to hear them advocate. @diavolobella presents a great case for ensuring we have the proper information (and thank you so much for that). We do need to know about the health risks – but to prevent and recognize when they’re happening. I doubt that foreskin is dangerous enough to warrant preventative removal – if the threat was significant enough so that the surgery couldn’t wait until a life-threatening or serious situation arose, I don’t think we’d still have foreskin – that’s a pretty huge evolutionary drawback….

A person’s body is their own. Regardless of whether by chance it would have been better to do it earlier, the person with the foreskin makes that decision. This has to be a consistent position from anyone, I argue, from a pro-choice perspective. It’s an important complimentary recognition of private sexual and reproductive rights decisions. And it’s not minor, really – it’s a profound intrusion on a person’s sexual life that we’ve never thought was a big deal because we never really thought about it at all.

Diavolobella brings up an interesting point about the lack of information about problems that might occur if a boy is not circumcised not being readily available, on a similar topic I remember being at a total loss in terms of educating my son on what he should do with his uncircumcised penis i.e. washing. I didn’t have an uncircumcised man (or any man) to tell him how he should take care of his penis. I had to go searching on the internet for advice.

@Mz_Lizzy – If you’re in the U.S., I think that’s because circumcision has historically seemed a forgone conclusion. I feel like people aren’t giving out the information really because they aren’t equipped to deal with someone who’s like “hell, no you’re not doing that to him…”

Because you can’t ask for the baby’s consent no one has the right to do it. And once it’s done it can’t be undone later.

@mattbrowne Actually, it is possible to restore foreskin for some people.

@kenmc Do people do that? Do they lose faith, and decide to have flesh restored to their circumsizion?

@filmfann http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreskin_restoration