Who Needs Circumcision? Health For Him

Posted on July - 14 - 2011

Who Needs Circumcision?

Today’s justifications are flimsy, arbitrary, and ad hoc. Resistance is grounded in reason and common sense.

There’s a movement in San Francisco to ban routine infant male circumcision. It’s merely a matter of having enough signatures, and the measure will make it to ballot for a vote in November 2011.

No medical necessity

The prevailing attitude is that parents need to weigh the pros and cons and decide what’s right for their son. But the very act of trying to decide whether to circumcise your boy is telling. It tells us, very clearly, that circumcision is not necessary. After all, there is no major medical organization that recommends routine male circumcision.

No prophylactic necessity

Some argue, based largely on three studies run in Africa, that circumcision lessens the spread of HIV/AIDS. These studies and many like them have plenty of critics. Further, given the huge differences between the West and much of Africa (HIV/AIDS being an epidemic and a humanitarian crisis in the latter but not the former), these findings don’t apply to the West. Other studies have found contradictory results, and it’s important to note that the rates of both HIV/AIDS and circumcision tend to be lower in Europe than in North America, further calling into question the African findings.

Others have argued that circumcision lowers the likelihood of penile cancer and urinary tract infections. However, the American Cancer Society states that “Most experts agree that circumcision should not be recommended solely as a way to prevent penile cancer” (which has a yearly 1-in-100,000 incidence), not surprising given that it doesn’t recommend pre-removing breasts to prevent breast cancer (1-in-8). If we found out that removing an earlobe at birth would lower the risk of cancer on the ear (fewer skin cells available to become cancerous), we wouldn’t start removing infant earlobes. And urinary tract and other infections can occur either way, are easily treated with antibiotics, and occur far more often in girls, whom we don’t circumcise.

The female exemption, circumcision risks, and the role of the foreskin

This brings up another point: Our culture is rightly disgusted by the thought of doing this to baby girls even though similar justifications for the practice can be made. There is no reason circumcision should persist for baby boys when there are still more reasons it ought to be done away with.

First, and most obvious, cutting a body part from an infant is going to cause pain and trauma. Second, there are grisly instances of botched circumcisions. Third, the foreskin plays important roles. It keeps the tip of the penis from drying and calcifying, and it creates what’s called sexual gliding, which is responsible for a particular sensation during intercourse and which can stand in for lubrication when there’s vaginal dryness.

That leaves us with little more than mere cosmetic reasons to circumcise. Like other cosmetic body-altering procedures, like tattoos and piercings, the decision would best be left to your son.

Primitive origins

So, really, why do we circumcise at all? The reasons have changed over time. Today, other than the obvious religious and general social-norm traditions, most parents seem to do it for cosmetic or hygienic reasons. Smegma (which plays many useful roles) can build up at the tip of the penis when it isn’t cleaned, like sweat in armpits, and wax in ears. A much less drastic solution here is the same as for armpits and ears: teaching your boy how to clean himself.

Circumcision has also been recommended as a way to lessen sexual sensation thereby discouraging masturbation. The idea was that with a huge chunk of the penis removed, resulting in millions of missing nerve endings on the sexual organ, sensation would be significantly reduced, which is simply another reason to avoid foreskin removal.

Circumcision’s ultimate origins are various. Over millennia it has represented many things to many cultures, and seems to have its roots in the unpleasant practice of ancient blood sacrifice. This brings up perhaps the best reason not to circumcise your baby boy, and why the practice should eventually be illegal: Alas, if it weren’t for ancient blood sacrifice, we would never have heard of routine circumcision, and we wouldn’t even be having this debate.

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Posted on July - 14 - 2011