It seems not. I did a quick Google search just to see if there is any information on this (query was Circumcision & Sensitivity). I haven’t read all the links but on purely anecdotal and personal experience I would say no. In the uncircumcised male the glans is protected by the foreskin. (similar to the hood over the clitoris?) and when it is exposed during sexual intercourse or other sexual activity it is more sensitive as a result. In the circumcised male the glans is exposed to friction from clothing on a constant basis and becomes “calloused” and desensitized. YMMV
Like I said, In My Opinion, it IS very slight. Your post doesn’t convince me that those benefits outweigh the removal of a functional body part. If a kid/man keeps his penis clean, most of the medical benefits of not having a foreskin are kind of moot.
That analogy doesn’t hold up. In the case of immunization, you’re adding something to a kid’s body to enable the immune system to function better (in the most basic sense). You’re not removing a functional body part. In the case of circumcision, religious obligations aside, it’s done primarily for aesthetic purposes anyhow. I don’t think many parents of baby boys who have their kids clipped do so for the health benefits, but rather for ease of cleaning and for the simple reason that Dad is circumcised and so kid should be as well. What really bothers me is when hospitals do it as a matter of routine and don’t explain both sides of the issue to parents. I’d be mad as hell if my kid were circumcised without my permission. Circumcison is not something that MUST be done; otherwise all boys all over the world would be sans foreskins (and they aren’t). It is something that IN YOUR OPINION should be done. There’s a big difference.
Zev, and to Muslims on the board, I apologize for not including Muslim beliefs in my post. I wasn’t aware that it was a requirement for Muslims to be circumcised as well. You learn something new every day!
When my son was born there was considerable angst concerning circumcision. We wound up opting in so that he would look like his dad and the majority of his future male friends. We made this decision without his input, as we also chose things like vaccinations etc.
This is entirely anecdotal, but my mother is a surgery nurse, and she sees lots of old men(70+ years old) get circumcisions for “plumbing” reasons alone.
That’s exactly why we had my son circumcised. The men on my husband’s side have a history of urinal tract and bladder “issues” - chronic infections, cancer, etc. Some of our friends who have had experience working in nursing homes have said that uncircumcised men who are looked after by others often have major problems in that area. We didn’t want our son to be 80, in a nursing home, suffering because he wasn’t being looked after properly, especially since he’s probably more likely to suffer from those sorts of problems because of genetics. I’m very comfortable with our decision.
Also, the OP mentioned that circumcision was done without anaesthesia (I’m not sure if that was meant in all cases or not). Actually, anaesthesia is available. Our doctor used both a topical anaesthesia and a local injection. He actually said the pinprick of the injection itself would be the same level of pain the baby would experience from the actual cut, so he said it wasn’t necessary, but we opted for it. From the time they took my son from my arms to the room where they performed the circumcision, to the time they handed him back to me, was less than 10 minutes. He wasn’t in any distress when they put him back in my arms.
Isn’t this particular procedure a remedy for female sexual dysfunction? It isn’t a practice, but a medical procedure that is performed here and in other major countries. It is necessary and harmless if performed properly. Wish I could remember the technical terms…
My personal experience shows likewise. As an owner of a penis with a more than passing interest in those of others, I’ve noticed a substantial difference in the way each reacts to the same stimulus. The extra sheath mobility affords its own many advantages as well, to put it in as non-graphic a manner as I can. Being circumcised myself, it has made me quite jealous. I feel like I’m missing out, for no tangible benefit. The owners of uncircumcised hardware report no problems with hygiene, my experiments with their equipment supports that datum, and the supporters of the practice for medical reasons are unable to provide any statistics that, to my admittedly barely-trained eye, come close to exceeding the vagaries of coincidence and sampling error.
Then there’s the ethical side of the issue. It’s an irrevocable act, permanently altering someone’s body without their consent and, oftentimes, even knowledge. Few seem to even know the extent of what’s been done to them and are content to have it dismissed as ‘a little snip of useless flesh’ and, in my opinion, that lack of information is the only thing preventing there from being a widespread outcry. The way I see it, someone closely familiar with both forms would pretty strongly favor the natural state over the altered. They quite simply don’t know what they’re missing 
I’m pretty strongly against the practice.
These “health threats” of going uncircumcised are mostly just silly fearmongering. Penile cancer is very rare - 1400 cases a year in the United States, and it’s not the worst kind of cancer you can get by any means. Thirty times more people die in car accidents. Also, circumcision appears to prevent penile cancer, but not always (the rate of penile cancer appears to be higher by a factor of three for circumcised vs. uncircumcised men), as other posters have claimed. Data here .
Abe claims that the complication rate for infant circumcision is “only” 0.2-0.6%. About 65% of male infants are circumcised. Assuming 0.4% developed complications, that means about 390,000 American men experienced complications due to circumcision as infants. Even if only 10% of those complications were serious, that’s a high price to pay to prevent 1000 cancer cases a year.
The elevated risks of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases are another story, but persons truly concerned with those risks can practically eliminate them simply by not having unprotected sex with people whose health they aren’t confident of.
My sons are keeping their tallywhackers in their natural state.
Well go ahead. But just remember you are pulling the dangers of circumcision out of your ass just as much as people touting the benefits.
So let’s see if I understand this …
Benefits of circumcision = 0
Dangers of circumcision = 0
0+0=start snipping … why?
It’s just because I’m used to my own bald avenger, but having seen a couple uncut dongers in the locker room, I’m sorta glad I got the snippage. Then again, if my folks had opted to keep the lid on Kojak, I’d probalby think everybody else looked weird instead.
Religion, aesthetics/look like dad, ease of cleaning.
Religion - fair enough. There’s so many incomprehensible things done in the name of religion, what’s one more.
Aesthetics/look like dad - don’t think I quite understand this one, but then girls don’t tend to compare. I suppose it’s no weirder than implanting dinner plates in one’s lower lip in order to look like everyone else. It does strike me as a rather arrogant assumption to make about an infant - that he’s going to want to “look like dad” when he’s an adult.
Ease of cleaning - I love this one! Being a member of the half of humanity that doesn’t have a willy, I’ve had folds and crevices my entire life. I also cared for two infant girl children and the care of their folds and crevices. Somehow, it just never crossed my mind that surgically making things all neat and smooth was a viable option.
catsix and I have argued over this issue in the past. I’d suggest that she’s unlikely to budge much on the issue, but I do think she has a pretty valid point here: it is somewhat unsettling to me to regard the removal of part of an infant’s flesh with a cost-benefit analysis, when to me it seems that people ought to have some choice of their own when their body is mutilated. This is philosophical and not medical, but the medical benefits are unquestionably slight - though perhaps present. There’s also the medical risks, though - babies do on occasion, even today, suffer from mistakes in the performance of the procedure, or infections, and there still is the occasional death associated with it. Penile cancer is a consideration, but it’s also a very, very rare problem. So the risks and benefits are not necessarily that clear-cut.
catsix is more extreme than I am in opposing the procedure; I do think that parents should have the choice to circumcise their infants if they so choose, but I think they should be given a lot of information, encouraged to think it over, and I’d hope they would decide against it. (Incidentally, why the hell does anyone care about how Junior’s tallywhacker compares to daddy’s? How often do you guys compare?)
I don’t have anything bookmarked to this effect, but it’s worth noting that many women are not anorgasmic after clitoridectomy. Not that it’s a point in the procedure’s favor, and sexual problems are definitely the norm afterwards, but a woman is not destroyed as a sexual creature when the clit’s cut off.
Again with the making the penis look like other penises! For starters, junior’s wang is going to look different from dad’s. And that’s not likely to cause any major psychosocial disfunctions. Secondly, junior’s friends are going to be variously cut or uncut; depending where you are in the U.S., not cutting kids may well be more common, and intact guys aren’t exactly unheard of anywhere. Your generation was a lot different than your kid’s. Besides, under what circumstances are all these hypothetical dick comparisons taking place? And why is it so important they match? You’re not choosing a silverware pattern here, for Christ’s sake! In our family, dinner guests were not likely to notice the non-matching penises and click their tongues!
Oh, and a quote from that PDF on penile cancer cited earlier:
So junior gets his wang altered to avoid having to wash it?
You know… these circumcision threads never ever have a happy out come.
No matter. Allow me to whack (if you’ll pardon the expression) a few of the usual arguments out of the way.
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Women prefer it, woman think it looks better, woman have better sex, etc, etc. Fine. I’m ok with this (highly subjective) argument just as soon as it’s ok to give infant girls surgery for the sole benefit of their future male partners. Until then, put it away.
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Junior is going to want to look like Dad. Well sorry junior, you’re not going to look much at all like Dad until you hit puberty. If Dad can explain that one he can surely manage to explain circumcision. And it certainly does puzzle me where and when these looksie compares take place.
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Less chance of cancer. As has been pointed out, this is questionable. Besides, if you cut it all off it reduces your chances of cancer there to zero!
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Hygene. As above. If we’re going to start cutting bits off to save on washing then why stop there. I can’t imagine how much time and nagging I would have saved as a boy if my parents had had the decency to chop my ears off!