The Big C: Circumcision

This is supposed to be for "relaxed chat" but I see gun control and Saddam here, so I would like to add a topic of my own.I'm talking about male circumcision, as practised throughout America on baby boys, and to a far lesser extent Australia. I've browsed around the forums here a bit, and noticed that ethics and evolution are two subjects the participants know a thing or two about. Both relate to the issue of circumcision so I'll pop a few questions.Is it ethical to cut off a baby boy's foreskin? Is it ethical for a doctor to perform this procedure if there is no medical reason for it? Are there in fact any valid medical reasons to circumcise?Has the foreskin out-evolved its usefulness, or does it have inherent value to male humans?Does a baby own his foreskin? Or can a parent decide to remove it "to make him look like dad" or for some other non-medical reason? If so, does that mean it's okay to perform an analogous procedure on girls?------------------
o--greyline--o

Is it therefore unethical for parents to consent to a medical procedure, which has certain risks, when there is no medical reason for the procedure?Is it unethical for a doctor to perform what is essentially cosmetic surgery on a minor, when there is no "default" being corrected?

Quetzal - my questions were really just directed at readers in general and designed to keep the topic on the track I intended (that is, square roots not ducks) as I'm very familiar with the history of the practice, but thanks for the further explanation. Perhaps we can find a topic elsewhere that suits us both.------------------
o--greyline--o

Wow, that forum (I mean the entire site) looks like it's the place for me. Thanks, Q.------------------
o--greyline--o

Rrhain, you have nicely summarised the point, thank you. As a female I never had a foreskin, but I have the female equivalent - the clitoral hood. If my parents had decided to hack that off when I was a baby, because it made me look like my mother/sisters, because God told them to, because it would prevent my one in a million chance of dying of clitoral cancer(?!?!) when I was an old lady... if they'd take even one tiny nick out of my flesh, I'd have been mighty pissed off today. The idea of amputating flesh from a child is a last resort most parents only consider when the child's life is in imminent danger... unless it's the evil foreskin.The adult foreskin is a piece of highly sensitive skin the size of a postcard, and quite obviously alters the function or "engineering" of the penis during sex and mastubation. Those who don't have one may not miss it, but I do hope they don't perpetuate the abuse on their sons, condemning them to a lifetime of "No masturbation without artificial lubricant!"------------------
o--greyline--o

Okay, maybe I was basing my comment only on my observations of men I have known, but the circumcised ones generally used lubricant or saliva to make masturbation comfortable.If you have a foreskin, you don't (necessarily) have to "rub" the shaft, because the action of the foreskin sliding over the shaft has the same effect. (I am basing this on my own manual experiences with said shaft and foreskin, as well as simple observation.)There are also analagous differences in the woman's experience during sex with cut/uncut penises, which is not to say that women have anything to complain about - but in the States where almost all men are cut, women have little chance to experience the alternative.------------------
o--greyline--o

They're preferred because that's what everyone is used to (in the States). That doesn't give parents the right to lop off a valuable sensitive piece of flesh from their baby boys.------------------
o--greyline--o

Corrective surgery for what? There's nothing to correct with a foreskin. It's meant to be there. If you don't know its value, that's not surprising - you'd probably rather not know what you're missing, and certainly American society doesn't want to know what it's doing. However, it has many functions including sexual ones.You've brought up the issue of pain as though it doesn't matter that this pain is inflicted on babies.------------------
o--greyline--o

If this were truly the case, why do you think it is that America is the ONLY Western country that still routinely circumcises the majority of its boys, and that the American Medical Association does not recommend the procedure?Circumcision persists for purely historical/cultural reasons. It has nothing to do with health. As to whether it affects sexual pleasure, that's obviously impossible to measure subjectively. However, the foreskin contains an extremely high concentration of sensitive nerves (one type is found nowhere else in the body) so it seems unlikely that sexual experience is not affected. Not to mention the mechanical differences in the way the entire penis functions during sex.------------------
o--greyline--o

Your wearing glasses analogy bears no resemblance whatsoever to circumcision. Nothing has been amputated when someone puts on glasses; glasses correct a clear-cut handicap; and the use of glasses is 100% reversible.I didn't say specifically that circumcision reduces sexual pleasure, I said it alters sexual experience. Regardless of how it alters it, it is not the parents' right to decide how their child should experience sex. However, sex evolved to be a highly enjoyable experience for obvious reasons, and the foreskin was a part of that.Your comment about the foreskin covering the glans shows a lack of understanding about normal penises. In the erect penis the foreskin retracts anyway, certainly during sex itself. Also, if the foreskin was cut off at birth the glans has been left unprotected, to rub against clothes, for years - its surface layer becomes hardened and dry (it's supposed to be a mucous membrane like the lining of the mouth) and its sensitivity is much reduced.------------------
o--greyline--o[This message has been edited by greyline, 08-05-2003]

I use "normal" because it's easier to type than uncircumcised, and because it's an accurate description. I never said the circumcised penis was abnormal - that's your extrapolation.Regardless, the vast gulf has little to do with semantics or even quibbles about sexual pleasure, and more to do with what a parent has the right to do to their child. Parents are not allowed to amputate any other body part unless it's diseased, in most cases a direct threat to the child's life. The foreskin is different only because of historical reasons, and therefore medical and sexual arguments are actually irrelevant.------------------
o--greyline--o

And that's why female circumcision continues in other cultures.Not to mention a hundred other damaging archaic practices across the globe.By the way, in the States circumcision is dying out. The rates have dropped from almost 100% to around half that in the West, with a less dramatic drop in the East. So the idea that your sons would require genital modification doesn't hold water. I suspect you just want them to look like you.------------------
o--greyline--o

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If it's such an outrage, why aren't more circumcised men outraged about it? And what prompts you to be so outraged on their behalf?

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This is an interesting psychological question, notwithstanding the many men who *are* outraged about what was done to them and can do nothing about it. Once it's gone, it's gone.To come to terms with the fact he had an important body part amputated when he was a helpless baby because his parents felt like it, a man has to come to terms with some difficult concepts. His parents didn't value his natural genitals, didn't consider he might object later, didn't care about his suffering (show me one mother who has stayed in the same room as her child while the surgery is being performed). (This lack of concern is from ignorance not malice.) He doesn't experience sex the way nature intended. He'll never know what it could have been like. It's far easier to convince himself that everything's fine - and if only it stopped there. But unfortunately he tends to perpetuate the act on his son because to do otherwise would be to start to admit that something is not right with what was done to him. Something is not right with his very MANHOOD. God forbid.Society, too, has a difficult job understanding what it's doing. Imagine the mental turnaround a doctor has to make if he realises he's been performing unnecessary plastic surgery on babies (totally unethical). Most doctors aren't brave enough to realise they've been mutilating hundreds of children throughout their career. Easier to just keep doing it. Imagine the guilt a parent would feel if they accepted they did something damaging and irreversible to their child. Easier to remain ignorant.------------------
o--greyline--o

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Male circumcision is not comparable to clitorectomy. While the justification may be largely similar the effects are anything but.

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There are many kinds of female circumcision - not all involve radical mutilation performed with rusty knives. If a baby girl's genitals were simply "snipped" under surgical conditions to alter their appearance and engineering, would you be okay with that?In your society and mine, the idea of doing anything whatsoever to the genitals of a girl is generally met with disgust and outrage. The double standard is obvious, and as long as parents continue to believe that they have the right to do as they please with their sons' bodies, the situation will continue.------------------
o--greyline--o

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As Greyline attests, the foreskin acts to protect the glans penis. Not a mucous membrane though, greyline, but a very tender and sensitive tissue indeed, in its natural state.

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Thanks for the correction - it's the inner surface of the foreskin that is mucous membrane. Anyway, it's meant to be wet not leathery and dry.There was an article about the specialized cells lost to circumcision (ie. in the foreskin) in the British Journal of Urology: The Prepuce: Specialized Mucosa of the Penis and Its Loss to Circumcision (based on histological examination), which I'm paraphrasing here:At the junction of the inner (smooth mucosa) and outer foreskin (normal sensitive skin) is a band of ridged mucosa that contains specialized nerve endings - Meissner's corpuscles - also found in the smooth mucosa but higher in concentration here. The sliding of this ridged band (sort of like a sphincter) over the glans is itself a pleasurable sensation (so I hear) that cut men can never know. It also protects the glans and urethra from contaminants.Then there's the sensitive frenulum, which is often removed or damaged during circumcision (it attaches the foreskin on the underside).The point about all this is that the penis in its natural state is a marvellous piece of engineering. Take off the foreskin and it becomes... a dildo. (Sorry guys. I don't personally care one way or the other for the reasons you stated doctrbill, although the uncut penis is more fun to play with IMO, but my point remains that circumcision is not just a "little snip" - it removes a third of the penile skin and creates major long-term irreversible changes in the penis.)

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Has anyone discussed the hemorrhaging and infections which used to kill a number of freshly circumcized infants? Could we call that Natural Selection of the Surgically Unfit?

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Complications are still common, requiring further outpatient treatment. Hmm, no wonder doctors like doing it...What annoys me is that parents consent to this surgery for their babies without having the first idea what it is they're cutting off. A father doesn't want to know, because then he'd realise what *he* was missing.------------------
o--greyline--o[This message has been edited by greyline, 08-06-2003]