Get 'em while they're young and you can give them the anatomical benefits of circumcision alongside the lessons about protection and contraception.

And while you're at it, why not remove his tonsils and give him an appendectomy.

The overwhelming majority of men through history have been uncircumcized and live full healthy lives despite it.

Leave the poor kid alone.

If we are to justify surgery on infants on potentially preventing an otherwise preventable illness during adulthood, why stop at circumcision? We can prevent any number of medical conditions by performing neo-natal surgeries!

Why, imagine the drop in breast cancer if we were to remove all breast tissue from girls as soon as they are born. We wouldn't be just preventing, we'd be preempting an otherwise hard to prevent medical condition. Sure, some of them will never reach adulthood since they'll die from the surgery, but it's a small price to pay -- and besides, bringing this up is really cherry picking the data since most won't die but merely disfigured.

Now, many women may end up resentful as adults because they may decide that they'd look more attractive with breasts and they'd also be able to breast feed their infants. But we can patiently explain to them that this was done for their own good, for perfectly legitimate health reasons. Worrying about how they look is so immature when they can avoid a dreaded disease -- and besides they can always get implants; in terms of breastfeeding, who needs it with our hectic, busy lifestyles? Formula is cheap and available, so be thankful your parents made sure you won't get breast cancer. So what if they didn't actually ask you what you wanted?

I can certainly think of other examples, but this one ought to suffice in illustrating the foolishness of removing healthy, functional tissue from infants who have no say in the matter in the hope that their disfigurement is benign since it may reduce their risk of getting a disease.

___________________________

I suspect that adult circumcisions do not prevent HIV infection because of any medical benefit, but by forcing a change in lifestyle, namely less interest in sex. As everybody knows the sans-foreskin penis is far less sensitive than in its natural state and therefore sex among the foreskin amputees is less pleasurable. With less sexual activity, you have fewer instances of HIV infections.

The HIV effect of circumcision was established well over a decade ago.

Anti-circumcision activists have worked hard to keep it quiet. Apparently foreskins are more important than people's lives.

I knew this post would bring out the crazies before I even opened the comments.

Anti-circumcision activists ?

I suspect that adult circumcisions do not prevent HIV infection because of any medical benefit, but by forcing a change in lifestyle, namely less interest in sex. As everybody knows the sans-foreskin penis is far less sensitive than in its natural state and therefore sex among the foreskin amputees is less pleasurable. With less sexual activity, you have fewer instances of HIV infections.

Was that sarcasm?

Dear Ms. Goldstein:

Would you also support female circumcisions is there was evidence that they could prevent disease? Or perhaps you support male mutilation because you do not possess a penis? Or perhaps because you're still influences by ridiculous religious prescriptions among your particular primitive faith? Just curious...

I don't know about crazies... bt there sure is a lot of, er, passion around this issue.

I'm kind of torn - I sympathize with the "genital mutilation" people, I wonder about the effects... but I like mine cut, so what can I tell ya? I'd rather we gave boys a choice, but it does seem the best the time to perform the procedure is before they can decide. So... I think we're a little stuck. And having this conversation would be a whole lot easier if Americans weren't so generally uptight about sex and sexuality issues.

P.S. Check out Dr. PZ Myers' take at Pharyngula about a poor kid who died because his ignorant parents decided to snip his foreskin: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/06/snip.php

From what I've read, the persistence of circumcision in the U.S. is largely because American women (the mothers) think an uncircumcized boy looks weird.

Most men would never have had the surgery voluntarily.

the AAP statement is slightly more nuanced than that. while not recommending routine circumcision, they also note costs and benefits from it, and, their really full-throated call is for parents to decide themselves, based on full information.

besides the HIV issue, there is also evidence showing that urinary tract infections are much less likely in circumcised infants (this contested, i gather, but, the statistical link is definitely there).

UTIs in infants are no joke. because they're relatively rare in boys, they're often misdiagnosed, and, infants die from them.

i'm mixed on this, but, we had friends whose infant got a UTI and it was horrible. he's fine now, but, it definitely added some serious info to my assessment of all this.

And where is "RealityBites" when we need him?

Just as Mr. JMS rightly cedes "girl stuff" to me, he made the call on what to do with our son, which was nothing. And nothing bad has happened, yet. In rare cases, either choice can have dire health consequences. In most situations, either choice works out for most people. So it's back to being a choice again.

The Africa/AIDS survey does not strike me as sound enough science to base a decision on, really.

1) A painful surgery performed on the penis reduced STDs. Sure, but did the survey take into consideration drops in sexual activity?

2) adult and neonatal circumcision aren't shown to be correlated.

3) Does it make any difference when sex is protected? That's a much better protection against STDs than this.

4) Hygiene.

5) tiny sample size.

6) Have the findings been confirmed? Peer reviewed?

Beware setting public policy based on early findings.

The procedure itself sometimes causes problems, and this ought to be considered in the mix.

One criticism is that parents who are attuned enough to worry about the risk of STDs are more likely to give their kids the proper advice about safe sex anyway, so you realize less of a benefit.

I'm hardly arguing for universal circumcision (and I think the point about early findings is well taken), but the kids who are most at-risk from STDs are the ones who wouldn't get the proper education about safe sex, and a parent who won't take the time to have a little chat with their kid probably won't care enough to have them circumcised solely for this reason.

hmmmm, it has been my understanding that many circumcisions of children in african countries are performed under unsanitary conditions that actually increase the risk of HIV transmission...

Drops in sexual activity because of circumcision?

Give me a break! Anecdotally I've got to tell you that sex feels plenty good with my circumcised penis to keep me wanting more and more and more!

To hear some people talk you'd think that without that magic piece of foreskin sex is just boring.

Uh no.

Ask yourselves please just how much orgasmic pleasure is related to the foreskin before peddling piffle like that again.

lol!

Sure, but did the survey take into consideration drops in sexual activity?

That's where you get written off as "Idiot" and not listened to again.

In case it hasn't occured to you -- the bulk of American men alive today are circumcised. And they really like to bang. In fact, we hear nothing but constant kvetching from certain sources about how we all love to bang TOO MUCH and it's killing the culture.

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I noticed that all the antis are quite agressive when they express their opinions about circumcision, whilst the circed men are actually laid back about the issue, i saw this trend on many websites and forums, i wonder why it is, all these intact men are so worried for the foreskins of other males even without experiencing not to have one themselves, i know a guy who got circ'ed and loved it, no regrets, but of course there are men who regreted it, i dont know any though. So, why are you intact guys so angry about the issue anyway? My husband is circ'ed and is mooore that happy with the state of his penis and wouldnt like to have a foreskin, and not angry with his parents (he is actually grateful) and considers this topic even boring as if there is nothing to talk about but the penises, foreskins and bla bla bla..But the antis, my god, always sooo opinionated, its unbelievable.

I think the circumcised men are laid back because there isn't a very logical reason for undergoing the procedure other than maybe aesthetics in the U.S. Why mutilate your body and undergo the stress of an operation that always has the risk of complications as an infant? The anti-circumcision people see this as a human rights issue because infants have no choice in the matter. It's entirely reasonable if you think back to other issues. Just as women's rights or slavery was more passionately fought over by the people who thought something was amiss than those who saw nothing wrong with the status quo.

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