Not wanting to sound weirdly vague, but I think it is best described as a different type of sensitivity.
Current research seems to indicate that the health benefits are not particularly compelling under certain circumstances- the health benefits (complications vs. foreskin issues later) are largely a wash unless you are a subsaharan African living in an area where HIV transmission is high and where you don’t have access to modern hygiene. In those cases, I think there’s a good reason to do it, other than that, less so. The American Association of Pediatrics stated last year that the benefits weren’t sufficient to recommend routine circumcision, and the data on HPV incidence has been contradictory.
The only evidence I totally don’t buy is the decreased cancer risk. If you cut off part of anything that shows increased cell turnover, there’s less of it to form cancerous cells. By that logic, we should be cutting off any “extraneous” mucus membranes in order to decrease our cancer risks. It’s not my favorite line of reasoning, and I think it undermines the better points of the pro-circumcision camp, especially since it’s an exceptionally rare condition (9-10/100K in the US). It’s so much weaker than the other arguments.
According to the above-cited American Association of Pediatrics statement:
It could well be that the anecdote derives from a difference notable to those who grew up with a foreskin and were then circumsized. It may be a different story for those circumsized at birth. Allegedly, scientific study does not disclose a difference in sensitivity.
I’m circumcised. No way I would circumcise my kids, unless it was truly medically needed.
It’s a bizarre tradition, but I understand that anything that is common seems normal, and it’s easy to try and come up with justifications for things you are used to.
I didn’t even know about it until high school and didn’t give it much thought until college. But once I started looking at the issue, I was amazed by the extent of American brainwashing on the subject, myself included.
WRT to sensitivity, I can’t speak to the loss of special nerves or whatever, but it should be obvious to anyone who thinks about it for more than two seconds that a cut dick will be less lubricated and experience more chafing during the day. Try an experiment, wear a lubricated condom all day and see how you feel by bedtime.
I agree with the policy: given that benefits and complications are a wash, it should be up to the parents, being informed of both. In short, do it or not, no big deal either way.
I never experienced any particular chafing. And as cited, the scientific literature states there is no difference.
I am wary of arguments that require an appeal to what is “obvious”. Particularly when that is contradicted by both anecdotal experience and scientific evidence.
Speaking as someone that lost his foreskin five weeks ago, I don’t agree. I feel no chafing issues. The problems I have right now are more to do with the glans being pressed down when it comes into contact with things. Weirdly, that is why tight briefs are recommended for newly circumcised males. The penis is less likely to swing and give impact pain. My penis is in contact with clothing all day and feels no different regarding chafing.
You’ve proved it to me: the Creator’s stupid.
I mean, how dumb is it for him to create us guys with a flap of skin that he says needs to be cut off shortly after birth? If he had any brains, he would have just made us without it.
Or is he smart, but just sucks when it comes to executing his perfect design?
I wonder if this one’s covered in Some More of God’s Greatest Mistakes.
Hell no. The idea is horrifying to me.
The Torah never intended circumcision to be a universal practice, as I’m sure you know. It was supposed to be an exclusively Jewish thing.
Heh. I posted and still didn’t answer the question.
No, I won’t do it if my fetus turns out to be a boy. My husband and I see no reason to do an irrevocable modification without the kid’s consent, since the medical reasons aren’t very compelling and the social ones aren’t severe.
So, I missed the edit, but I just want to jump in here and give two thumbs up to uncut penises. I’ve had experience with both and they’re both delightful.
I’m just feeling a bit bad for uncut guys with folks coming in here suggesting that their junk is ‘gross’ or ‘disgusting’ or ‘makes me run screaming from the room’.
Frankly, if someone has preferences to cut or not cut that’s their call, but all of the above descriptors say more about the person using them than the person with the junk in question. Namely, that they’re a few slices short of a loaf, so to speak.
I was circumcised when I was nine, due to being ill as a baby and my mothers very irrational fear of it being wrong to do it on a baby,(apparently it was okay to do it on a 9 year old). It hurt like hell. I have broken my arm. Been knocked out. Had a nail go through my thumb. There is nothing that I have felt which was ever remotely has bad.
I also think that the benefits are many, and the arguments against are few and frankly emotive. On the other hand, if you think he will be screaming when he is 9 days old, just wait until he is 9 years old. Or 19. Get it done when he is a new born.
Yup I will have it done.
Not all cultures who circumcize believe in a creation or Creator. Or if they do believe, they may not necessarily believe that entity or entities was/is perfect. For some one crucial point of our humanity, a crucial difference between us and the animals, is our ability to make adaptions to our bodies beyond what nature gives us.
Just so you know, trying to clean another person’s uncircumcised penis is not as easy as it sounds. In nursing school we are trained, when bed bathing uncircumcised male, to retract the foreskin, clean, rinse, dry, then move the foreskin back into place.
THIS IS WAY HARDER THAN IT SOUNDS! Nor is trying to do it in a quick, respectful, dignified. manner. The training books made it look so easy. NOT!
I about had a breakdown the first time I tried this. An uncircumcised penis still makes me nervous.
Presumably there are some body types that are more difficult than others when it comes to specialised situations like nursing care. I’m not sure that’s really relevant to the debate, though. I mean, I don’t find it in any way difficult to clean my own uncut penis. I’m not sure that I’d accept, as an argument in favour of infant circumcision, the idea that at some point in the future a nurse might need to give my son a bed bath.
British nurses presumably give bed baths too. I guess they’ve worked out a way to deal with the situation, since most of the men they deal with will be uncut.
See, I hear this argument a lot - that those who argue against circumcision are being “emotional”. Well, to some extent that’s true, I guess. But in general, it seems to me that proponents start from the position that circumcision is good and then seek arguments to justify the procedure.
To answer the OP’s question: I have a son, no he was not circumcised. If, when he reaches the age of 18, he chooses to have himself prophlyactically circumcised, I guess that will be his decision. It sure as hell isn’t mine.
Really? I am the older sister to two little brothers (both uncut) and part of my “job” as older sister was to teach them how to clean properly in the shower - roll back, soap, rinse, roll down; done in about 15 seconds. My ex was also uncircumcised and it was absolutely no big deal at all. Takes me longer to clean my hoo ha, probably.
I am not making a case for cut v uncut here, but I do find it really strange that a NURSE of all things gets freaked out and nervous by an uncircumsized penis. I mean…really?
Four sons, no circs. Maybe if they’d asked me BEFORE they did the whole heel-squeezing-for-five-minutes PKU, but…no. If a poke in the heel is that traumatic for my tender little precious newborn, no way anybody’s getting near his even tenderer bits with a knife.
Their pediatrician, who is Jewish, said there was no medical reason to do it, so we didn’t.
As someone with an enthusiasm for oral examination of erect penises, it’s my anecdotal experience that a difference in sensitivity between the two states is undeniable. There’s a clear difference in texture. The glans of the uncut males is consistently softer and more pliant compared to the smoother, harder texture of the circumcised. It certainly feels like mildly callused skin does, which is no great surprise considering the additional clothing friction. Judging from the owners’ reactions, the uncircumcised glans seems more responsive to stimulation, and activities with the interior of the foreskin itself tend to get good results too.
Quantifying that difference is, of course, impossible, but the difference in my experimental sample is so obvious that I don’t see how anyone can argue against it except from a position of inexperience. Assuming that’s the average, if more males had first-hand knowledge of the results, I’d imagine that circumcision as a general practice would die out in a single generation. That it has persisted this long can only be attributed to the sexual naivety of the culture.