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Circumcision

  
  

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Sekhmet
16:32 / 28.05.04
I live in the U.S. and have yet to encounter a single uncircumcised man in my life. If there are really fewer circumcisions being performed these days on the West Coast, I would chalk that up to the more progressive cultural vibe in that part of the country... Here in the Bible Belt I think very few boys get out of the hospital uncut.

I'd say there are a number of cultural factors involved in the general American acceptance of the practice... 1) We tend to have a sadly repressive attitude towards sex and genitalia, which probably leads many parents to be very unfomfortable even discussing the subject in any depth. 2)We have a tendency to accept at face value whatever the medical and religious establishments tell us. 3) We have a nearly pathological fear of uncleanliness and contamination (my mother, for instance, used to shower two or three times a DAY). Most people really don't even question the idea of male circumcision.

My father, a pediatrician, performed circumcisions regularly (also known at our home as "whacking weenies", as in, "Gotta go up to the clinic and do some weenie whackin'.") My understanding from him was that the procedure is done to infants because it doesn't bleed very much and seems to hurt less at that age, whereas for older, fully-developed boys it's much more traumatic. He was fairly ambivalent about it himself, and said that there really wasn't a legitimate medical reason for it now that modern hygeine has presented us with wonderful things like anti-bacterial soap... but according to him, he would consult parents about the issue, and most people still wanted it done to their boys for religious and cosmetic reasons. And the beat goes on.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
15:51 / 30.05.04
most people still wanted it done to their boys for religious and cosmetic reasons.

Well most of the major religions believe that sex is wrong so you might as well punish boys for their actions by cutting off the nerve endings that make it that much better. It's logical and twisted.
 
 
nidu713
18:12 / 30.05.04
"...seems to hurt less at that age..."

This may be true... but since the degree of pain can only be gauged against the comparison of other experiences, and being that a baby doesn't have many experiences to compare that to (being so young), I'd wager that it's more traumatic than we'd like to believe.

Just because a baby doesn't remember the experience, doesn't mean that there hasn't been a profound effect. I think that people can believe that it "seems to hurt less at that age" because a baby isn't going to sit up after having part of their penis cut off and say "Well now, that f***ing hurt!".
 
 
Mohenjo
02:53 / 08.07.04
Male babies in the US are only circumcised with the parents' consent. About 70% of American males up to the early 1990's were circumcised, but the number is decreasing dramatically.

A couple of points:

Female circumcision doesn't always include cliterodectomy. It is more often a removal of the clitoral hood only, which coincides with the male foreskin.

Male circumcision has been proven to prevent penile cancer, and may reduce the chances of contracting STDs, but those were never the reasons for the practice. In fact, there are a great many botched circumcisions. These used to sometimes result in "gender re-assignment" operations, but today they usually result in a partial or full penectomy.

Male circumcision in the US (and Canada. It was common practice in Canada until the late sixties) began because it was imported to the US from the UK after WW2. It was considered hygeinic. The British adopted the custom in the ninteenth century when fighting Muslims in India and elsewhere. When the Muslims would catch an infidel, forced circumcision was one of the results.

The Muslims didn't perform the circumcisions very well, and the operations instead turned into unintentional penectomys. Then, with so many sexually non-functional British soldiers returning from war, it became accepted to circumcise them before they went to war.

The custom then became erroneously associated with hygeine and a status symbol, so much so that the Royal family adopted the practice, employing a "royal mohel". Supposedly, the royal family still practices male circumcision to this day.
 
 
Ganesh
05:57 / 08.07.04
Male circumcision has been proven to prevent penile cancer

A link to some data, please. As far as I'm aware (and there have been some large Scandinavian studies of this), nothing nearly as conclusive has been "proven".
 
 
Mohenjo
14:01 / 08.07.04
I was working from memory of two books I have on the subject. One is "Foreskin" by Bud Berkeley and Joe Tiffenbach, (c) 1983. Unfortuantely the book is rare and has no ISBN number, BUT, I did a Google search and came up with A SINGLE reference to the book here:

http://www.sexuallymutilatedchild.org/quarter.htm

Some of the other facts came from a publication called "Male Circumcision in America" by an organization called NO HARMM (National Organization to Halt the Abuse and Routine Mutilation of Males) whose website is here:

http://www.noharmm.org/

I was working from memory and I've just now dug out these books. I did confuse some facts - male circumcision in the US was being practiced before WW2, but became much more widely accepted after that time.

I also haven't as yet been able to find the quote about penile cancer, but I do recall one of the books stating that there has never been a documented case of penile cancer in a circumcised male.

I don't have the time to re-read these books right now, but when I do I'll post the information.
 
 
Ganesh
19:40 / 08.07.04
I'm sure I've linked to a lot of the research earlier in the thread, but this page collects the references. Its summary reads:

It is now clear that the major risk factors for both penile cancer and cervical cancer are the use of tobacco, which spreads carcinogens throughout the body via the bloodstream, and the presence of the human papillomavirus, which is communicated through sexual activity.

Abraham Wolbarst's promotional claims that circumcision prevented penile cancer were false and mislead the medical community for decades. Circumcision does not prevent penile cancer in men and it does not prevent cervical cancer in the female partner.

However, phimosis, or a non-retractile foreskin, is a risk factor in adult males who are sexually active, because a non-retractile foreskin is more difficult to clean. There are many non-traumatic, non-distructive methods for conservative effective treatment of phimosis available to the male with phimosis. Circumcision is neither required nor recommended to treat phimosis. Cancer may form on the circumcision scar.

Fear of cancer cannot be used to support the practice of male circumcision.
 
 
Mohenjo
02:23 / 09.07.04
Thanks for the link.

It looks like the information in the books I've read is incorrect (or I could be recalling incorrectly). When I read the first couple references on the page you linked to, I thought my sources were just dated, but some of those articles date back to the mid-sixties, well before the sources I'm referencing.
 
 
Bill Posters
17:28 / 04.02.05
Thought I'd give this a bump due to the furore in NY where a rabbi's got the NYPD on his case due to fear he "gave tots herpes" via the oral circumcision ritual. (Yep, you read that right, oral.) It's detailed here. I have the full text saved if the link doesn't last long. Oh and before anyone bothers, the 'police were acting on a tip off' jape has been done on about a million other boards, so just don't bother! Just try to be respectful of other cultures' traditions.
 
 
Chiropteran
17:57 / 07.02.05
Since it's been bumped...

When my son was born in 2003, our midwife told us that the circumcision rate in the U.S. has dropped to about 50% in the last decade. Unfortunately, I don't have a citation for her source. It does mean, though, that for his age-group, my son wouldn't need to worry about "looking different" either way (which, according to our midwife, was a very common concern for expecting parents - the whole "locker-room and new girlfriends" thing).

Meanwhile, my brother-in-law argued to have his son circumcised specifically because he wanted his son "to look like [him]." (I don't remember if he got his way or not.) I know that it's apparently not an uncommon feeling, but to hear it laid out that plainly took my breath away...

~L
 
 
Ganesh
21:53 / 07.02.05
When my son was born in 2003, our midwife told us that the circumcision rate in the U.S. has dropped to about 50% in the last decade. Unfortunately, I don't have a citation for her source.

I've read the same thing somewhere, too. It does appear as if some sort of cultural (aargh) tipping point has occurred.

It still seems bizarre to me that a culture that ostensibly prizes individuality is apparently so anxious about the possible effects of someone's penis looking 'different' that it's prepared to sanction an unnecessary surgical procedure on a non-consenting infant in order to transform atypical-but-alterable (uncircumcised) into typical-but-inalterable (circumcised)...
 
 
Sekhmet
14:23 / 08.02.05
a culture that ostensibly prizes individuality

The operative word being "ostensibly". American culture is really all about fitting in and not rocking the boat, unless you're a)wealthy, or b)famous. Or both. Then you can be as individual as you like.

I hope the 50% statistic is accurate; that would be heartening.
 
 
Ganesh
10:57 / 10.02.05
Yeah, I used "ostensibly" with care, there. I'd have thought, though, that pointless surgery-because-everyone-else-does-it challenged even the paper-thin ideal of individuality.
 
 
HCE
17:09 / 10.02.05
(sorry for a fragmented post)

I wonder whether the folks who've never encountered uncircumsed men in the US have noticed any racial or ethnic pattern? I have found that blacks and Catholics (mostly Latino) are generally uncircumcised, whites, Asians, Jews are circumcised.

I observed the circumcision of two boys (sons of friends) and cared for them in the weeks afterward. A baby's screams when he is being circumcised are very different from his cries at any other time, I can tell you that, and these procedures were both performed in hospitals by doctors. Both mothers were fairly casual about having the procedure done until it actually happened. One had committed to raising her children as Jews (she isn't Jewish), and the other wanted the son to look like his father, to spare him the distress caused by wondering why he looked different. Both mothers were shocked at how horrible the procedure and subsequent healing process were, and wished they hadn't had it done.

I do know a colleague chose to have his fifteen year old son circumcized because the boy, who is autistic, was not able to learn to clean himself properly and suffered repeated infections. I know both parents were unhappy about having to resort to surgery but felt it was in the best interest of their son's health.

I am opposed to circumcision of children for religious reasons, but then I'm not religious, so it's easy for me to oppose it. What if you really believed not circumcizing your son would imperil him spiritually? Where does a parent's right to protect a child spiritually end and the government's responsibility to protect him physically begin? Is male circumcision more or less dangerous than, for example, Christian Science's ban on medicine?

"false beliefs are the procuring cause of all sin and disease." (Science and Health, p. 171)

I believe that the state can and does interfere with Christian Scientists. How grave a threat to the child's health do we require before we transfer responsibility for decision-making from the parent to the state?

I really don't think it's a clear yes-or-no issue. For orthodox Jews, waiting until a boy can give consent (and when would that be? the age of legal consent (18)? should a sixteen-year-old be able to consent? a twelve-year-old?) is waiting too long.
 
 
Ganesh
14:48 / 23.02.05
I really don't think it's a clear yes-or-no issue.

Not if one lends the religious rationales any sort of weight, no. What is clear, however, is that (with a tiny number of therapeutic exceptions) there is no rational justification for carrying out male circumcision.
 
 
hoatzin
10:58 / 27.02.05
I have read in the past that many of our now 'social' rituals developed from physically sensible practices- that circumcision in males decreased infections in desert communities with very little water for cleaning- is this likely?
 
 
Malle Babbe
17:23 / 01.03.05
and the other wanted the son to look like his father, to spare him the distress caused by wondering why he looked different.

When this rationale is given, I always wonder why explaining is not an option. Is it against the law to say, "Son, when you were born, I figured that you had been through enough, what with shoved thru a 10 cm hole and whatnot, so you I decided that getting your foreskin cut off by a sleep-deprived intern with hands shaking from too much coffee was a trauma from which you should be spared."?

I mean, last time I checked, it wasn't a felony to say "foreskin"!
 
 
sdv (non-human)
21:11 / 08.03.05
somebody, anybody ban this boring topic... and make sure it never reoccurs... (this is a moderated intellectual space isn't it...)
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
22:24 / 08.03.05
Well, yes. But not one in which the moderators exercise dictatorial power. If people want to talk about circumcision, then as long as the discussion remains above a certain level there's not really any reason to ban it. It may be boring for you, but other people might be interested in reading or talking abou it. You have the option of not reading it or not posting to it if it is not to your taste.
 
 
Ganesh
10:30 / 12.03.05
When this rationale is given, I always wonder why explaining is not an option.

Well, quite. What's so difficult about "well, we wanted to allow you some say in the matter"? One assumes that, if the father's been involved in a mutilating sawmill accident, his baby son might have the corresponding digits/limbs surgically amputated - just, y'know, so he doesn't grow up feeling different from Dad...
 
 
Tryphena Absent
19:22 / 12.03.05
Female circumcision doesn't always include cliterodectomy. It is more often a removal of the clitoral hood only, which coincides with the male foreskin.

This comment is absurd, is it meant to excuse female circumcision? Make it sound better?

Mohenjo, you're male, right? Because if you're not than man do you have a lot to learn about your body. You have no idea how sensitive the clitoris is. I believe that at some point in this thread someone mentioned the number of nerve endings that this tiny space of the female body actually contains- y'know, more than your entire penis. The point being that little piece of skin that protects it is extremely important and in no way coincides with the foreskin.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
19:25 / 12.03.05
somebody, anybody ban this boring topic

Hey, nobody's making you read it. I'm enjoying it (though perhaps I shouldn't be since my enjoyment mostly stems from the absurdity of some of the comments). I think you get my point.
 
 
Warewullf
18:21 / 14.03.05
However, phimosis, or a non-retractile foreskin, is a risk factor in adult males who are sexually active, because a non-retractile foreskin is more difficult to clean. There are many non-traumatic, non-distructive methods for conservative effective treatment of phimosis available to the male with phimosis. Circumcision is neither required nor recommended to treat phimosis.

I suffer from this condition and it's only over the past year that I've been able to retract my forskin fully, (I'm 26) thanks to a steoid cream and regular stretching exercises. When I first decided to go to a Doctor about this, his immediate reaction was "get circumcised". I actually had to ask for the cream (which I'd read about online.)

Now, this was in Ireland, where circumcision isn't common. I found it intersting that getting cut was his first response and I wonder how many men have been needlessly circumcised bcause of this condition...
 
 
Lama glama
21:40 / 15.03.05
Now, this was in Ireland, where circumcision isn't common. I found it intersting that getting cut was his first response and I wonder how many men have been needlessly circumcised bcause of this condition...

Raises a hand

I live in Ireland too and was instantly advised to go under the knife. A cream? I was told that the only reliable method was giving my little fellow an impromptu shave.

It certainly seems to be double standards when it comes to circumcision. We're always told by various medical organisations that we as a culture go for surgery or other drastic methods far too soon, however, here is my doctor somewhat flippantly telling me to go for the snip (there are only so many euphamisms for circumcision :P).
 
 
Ganesh
11:12 / 16.03.05
Interesting that both these instances took place in Ireland. I'm too long out of Urology to know for sure what's standard practice re: management of phimosis, but I don't remember circumcision being touted as a first-line option among Scottish physicians. Even if surgery is required, there are various possibilities shy of full circumcision.

Ireland being, on the whole, a more 'religious' part of the UK, I wonder whether a vestige of the 'spiritual cleanliness' notion remains, perhaps unconsciously lowering physicians' threshold for performing (medical) circumcision, in less secular parts of the world? It might partially explain why circumcision's persisted so long in the US...
 
 
Warewullf
12:19 / 16.03.05
Ireland being, on the whole, a more 'religious' part of the UK

*cough* Ireland's part of where now?

Not sure if Religion is a factor. If it matters, the Doctor wasn't Irish. He was, I want to say Indian or middle-eastern (not sure which and don't want to offend anyone) and I wondered if that was a factor in his prognosis (is that the right word?).
 
 
Ganesh
12:36 / 16.03.05
*cough* Ireland's part of where now?

Hey, I didn't know which bit y'meant. I hedged my bets; I lost.

Not sure if Religion is a factor. If it matters, the Doctor wasn't Irish. He was, I want to say Indian or middle-eastern (not sure which and don't want to offend anyone) and I wondered if that was a factor in his prognosis (is that the right word?).

Proposed management ('diagnosis' = what he thinks is wrong; 'prognosis' = likely outcome).

Possibly; I guess I'm speculating generally about the individual and wider personal context within which doctors recommend circumcision as a 'first-line' treatment. I suppose I wondered whether a vague notion of 'cleanliness' underpins the decision-making process of certain doctors in certain settings more than others - and whether the pertinent factor might be 'background religion', even in cases of circumcision for non-religious reasons.

But I dunno.
 
 
Spaniel
12:41 / 16.03.05
I don't think Ganesh was suggesting that the doctor was religious, just that perhaps he works within a medical establishment that is permeated by religious attitudes that affect the kinds of treatments prioritised for certain conditions.

Or am I wrong?
 
 
Warewullf
09:39 / 17.03.05
[threadrot]

Hey, I didn't know which bit y'meant. I hedged my bets; I lost.

Ah, I'm only kiddin'! I live in Northern Ireland now but I saw the doctor in Dublin.

[/threadrot]
 
 
Ganesh
10:09 / 17.03.05
I don't think Ganesh was suggesting that the doctor was religious, just that perhaps he works within a medical establishment that is permeated by religious attitudes that affect the kinds of treatments prioritised for certain conditions.

Yeah... although probably not on that explicit or conscious a level. I'm wondering whether, where circumcision if concerned, religious concepts of 'cleanliness' might exist in a more subliminal, background kind of way, and subtly influence those making ostensibly secular/medical decisions.
 
 
Spaniel
13:01 / 17.03.05
Thas what I meant.

Sorry, my post was pretty badly worded.
 
 
slinkyvagabond
22:52 / 04.04.05
Ok, I'm going to town here in Headshop tonight (a rare occasion, break out the champagne) but for those inquiring minds I think that in Ireland circumcision for men was common in the first half of the 20th century. This was done ostensibly for reasons of cleaniless but as much social practice in (the Republic of) Ireland back in the day was at the behest of Catholicism and its minions so it's, well, we are in Headshop so perhaps 'safe to assume' is very unwise phrasing, but I will assume that the issue was influenced by religious beliefs, especially a desire to limit mastrubation. My father was circumcised at the age of about 4, if I remember his story correctly. This was done in a hospital but I seem to recall he said it happened without anesthetic, or at least a very localised and ineffectual one. In any case he certainly didn't relish (hmm, can't imagine many would...) the experience and remembered it quite vividly, describing the pain he felt after the procedure. However, I have never seen a circumcised penis on an Irish born man of my generation, including those who were brought up Catholic.

I'm personally not down with unnecessary surgery for any reason, including cosmetic surgery, so to me circumcision of anyone seems just a waste of time, effort and some good skin that could be used for grafting one day. Why do people see it as acceptable? For religious reasons; because they're used to it (as in the US); because it APPEARS in most cases to be a minor surgery; due to misconceived notions (just WASH, you dirty feckers) about cleanliness and disease and finally because it's a Western cultural practice accepted into the Judaeo-Christian matrix of beliefs. Why is female circumcision seen as barbaric? Because it fucking is and also - and I'm surprised no-one's mentioned this - it's not a Western cultural practice. When it comes to something as disgusting as female c'cision I'm not relativist but we would be looking at this topic from a different angle if it was common Western practice, culturally and religiously sanctioned in the same way that male c'cision is. For the record, I don't think the two are analagous but...

As for the 'UK' thing, I'll accept that the North is part of it but you lose the rest of the island, I'm afraid. 'British Isles' is geographically correct, nonetheless, with all the semantic wrangling that goes on here I don't think it'll cost anyone their typing fingers to write 'British/Irish' or 'Britain/Ireland'.
 
 
HCE
23:21 / 04.04.05
"What's so difficult about "well, we wanted to allow you some say in the matter"? One assumes that, if the father's been involved in a mutilating sawmill accident, his baby son might have the corresponding digits/limbs surgically amputated - just, y'know, so he doesn't grow up feeling different from Dad"

Which was pretty much what I told her. To my regret, she didn't go for it.
 
 
BrianFitzgerald
03:21 / 11.04.05
I just want to say thank you to all of the posters to this thread.

My wife and I are expecting our second child (our daughter is 2 and a half years old), a boy, this week. C-section is scheduled for Wednesday. We've known the gender for about six months now, and the topic of circumcision has come up between my wife and I several times, but never have any of the many medical personnel we've dealt with during this pregnancy brought up the subject.

Neither my wife nor I knew much about the procedure, so we just kind of assumed that, even if we didn't know why exactly, there had to be some good reason that circumcision is the norm in our culture (midwest United States). So, we were heading into the little guy's birth thinking that we'd just go ahead and get him "snipped."

Luckily, as I sat at my computer at my workplace this past Friday, looking productive but really just trying to keep myself entertained enough to stay awake until I could leave for the weekend, the postings in the Comics, Books, Film, and Temple forums were coming few and far between, so I took a rare stroll through the Head Shop. Lo and behold, five days before the birth of my son, a topic on circumcision. So I started reading.

It's now Sunday night, and I have spent a large chunk of this weekend researching circumcision on various websites and in several books, and sharing what I've learned with my wife. We have decided to leave the little guy's penis alone. Frankly, we are both more than a little stunned at how ignorant we were about this procedure. Especially me, as I had the procedure done to me as a newborn. I think there are many complicated (and a few not so complicated) reasons for this ignorance, but most of those have been mentioned (repeatedly) at some point earlier in this thread, so I won't sidetrack things with a lengthy examination of "Hermit's take on modern America."

Again, I just wanted to say, on behalf of my wife and I, and our son, thanks. Not so much for "making us see the evil that is circumcision," but just for inspiring us to educate ourselves before making such an important decision.
 
 
fuckbaked
21:38 / 12.05.05
Well, not to derail this thread from the discussion of circumcision completely, but I think the discussion of why some forms of genital mutilation are considered to be abusive (FGM) by western society while others are acceptable (circumcision) is incomplete without mention of the surgeries performed on intersex people without their consent. According to the Intersex Society of North America “So far as we can tell, most medical centers still practice the concealment-centered model of care that grew out of Hopkins’ optimum gender of rearing system. We still hear many reports of “normalizing” (medically unnecessary) genital surgeries and hormone treatments that were not consented to by the patient, and of adult patients and parents of minors being denied medical records.”

I found an article in the Lancet (see citation below, the article is available in it’s full text for free at www.thelancet.com if you register) on the results of a study concerning the sexual function of intersexed women, which found that, “Of the 39 individuals enrolled, 28 had been sexually active and all had sexual difficulties. The 18 women who had undergone clitoral surgery had higher rates of non-sensuality (78%) and of inability to achieve orgasm (39%) than did the ten who had not had surgery (20% [p=0•002] and 0% [p=0•03], respectively).”

Um….I’m trying to think of something to say other than the obvious, “I think this is fucking astounding and why the hell isn’t this illegal?”, but I can’t.

The study I mentioned has the citation:
Minto, Catherine L., Lih-Mei Liao, Christopher R. J. Woodhouse, Philip G. Ransley, and Sarah M. Creighton. 2003. The effects of clitoral surgery on sexual outcome in individuals who have intersex conditions with ambiguous genitalia: a cross sectional study. Lancet 361:1252.
 
  

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