Circumcision: A Response To Skeptics

Someone asked today how I handle people who just want to circularly argue about circumcision without ever actually looking at the factual research and literature on the topic. Those people who do not know what the prepuce organ is, what it does, or is responsible for - who think that it is 'just skin' that is removed during infant circumcision. How do I respond, she asked, to people who repeatedly bring up the "African studies" or "cleanliness" without really knowing what they are talking about in the first place...


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I don't argue with people who:
(1) really want to remain ignorant due to their own disturbed fascination with cutting boys penises
(2) have circumfetishes
(3) are too intellectually challenged to understand valid medical studies vs. propaganda, read empirical research, or study health-related topics in depth with 1/2 a brain.

It is just too exhausting and those are the rabidly pro-cutting people who are bound and determined to repeat the abuse no matter how unfounded it is. They are those you just hope do not have sons...(or girls if they are in a country that cuts the prepuce organ fr girls). And it is for these little ones that the MGM Bill is so vitally necessary in the United States.

Although I don't waste my time arguing with those who fit the above-mentioned categories, I DO give them and everyone who brings up the topic ample resources to accurate, factual information and well-done empirical studies. I make sure they have access to learn all they can, and dig into the literature and experience of the topic further on their own. I encourage them to watch circumcisions being done - to become WELL VERSED in the prepuce organ - all its many functions and purposes for existing. To thoroughly know the statistics and facts on the matter. I provide the starting point in research on the topic (it isn't difficult when there is SO much of it).

And, in the end, I remind them of a few things:

1) There are many reasons that NOT ONE Medical Organization in the entire WORLD recommends circumcision. This alone should tell us something.

2) The U.S. has the highest rate of circumcision of any Western nation (by FAR the highest as our rates are about 50% and the next closest is Canada with a rate around 10%). We also have the HIGHEST rate of all STDs of any Western nation (including HIV). Developed nations where 98-99% of their boys/men remain intact have the lowest rates of STDs (including HIV). If circumcision 'protected' against diseases (which it certainly does not - it does JUST THE OPPOSITE)...but if it did, we would NOT see these figures to such an extreme and obvious degree.

3) Men have a higher chance of getting BREAST CANCER (0.7% likelihood) than they do of getting penile cancer (0.09%). To argue that circumcision decreases the rate of penile cancer is like arguing that if we keep kids locked inside their bedroom their whole life they won't get struck by lightening outside. It is absurd. Yes, if you cut an organ off your body, you will not ever get cancer in that organ. Bright idea. Maybe we should severe all organs & limbs & live as vegetables.

4) Women/girls have a 900x greater likelihood of getting a UTI than men/boys. Among men/boys it is very rare, and when it does happen, is almost always due to an unknowledgeable adult messing with/forcibly retracting/over-cleaning a baby boy's penis. Should we cut off the prepuce organ of all girls at birth? Obviously they would 'benefit' more than the boys... No, of course not. Because UTIs are minor and EASILY and quickly treated with antibiotics.

5) There are no "African Studies" - there was ONE 'study' (that was not valid/reliable/repeatable or peer-reviewed in any way) conducted by a research team funded and propelled by Americans with the preliminary purpose of going into South Africa to circumcise the black adult men there. Countless medical groups from around the world have critiqued and called into question the methods used for this study. When their first "results" showed no difference between cut vs. uncut men, another small sample of African men was 'recruited' and divided ahead of time into those who tested positive vs. negative for HIV and those who were cut vs. uncut so the 'sample' could be an accurate picture of what they were hoping to show. Although this whole thing is bogus to begin with -- EVEN IF IT WEREN'T - it has NOTHING to do with the routine genital cutting of baby boys in the United States! Dr. Dean Edell discusses this here, along with additional articles on the subject.

6) By simply looking at the purposes/functions of the prepuce organ we see that one of its primary reasons for existing is for protection and to COMBAT illness/disease by naturally warding off bacteria/viruses with its own perfect concoction of antibodies. Remove this, and this most excellent source of protection is gone. When I reviewed EVERY SINGLE study done on the topic as part of my graduate study & thesis publication, I found that it has been repeatedly demonstrated that circumcised men (in all countries) have higher rates of ALL STDS (HIV included) across the board. Intact men certainly are at a benefit as far as health is concerned. And all that said -- why on earth are we focusing so much on cutting/not cutting genitals when it comes to STDs?! The only real protection is (1) to abstain from sex w/ infected partners or (2) use condoms. Maybe we should pour our $ and resources into condom use/education in South Africa rather than trying to cut them all up... This race-related study imposed by white American men on black S.African men sort of reminds me of another STD 'study' done years ago... Tuskegee, anyone?

7) When we started removing the prepuce organ in a U.S. rampage at the end of WWII, we KNEW what it would do to men's sexuality - their sexual sensation, their sexual experience - and that of their partner. Our primary goal was to REDUCE sexual fulfillment among men by removing the ONE organ MOST responsible. We hoped (or, at least Kellogg and Graham hoped and preached) that it would curtail masturbation among boys and reduce promiscuity among men. Our soldiers would be "healthier" in future wars - more able to focus on the war at hand - rather than picking up women (and thereby diseases) around the world. Of course, it never did work to diminish masturbation, promiscuity, disease - or blindness for that matter! But it DID reduce a nation of men's natural sexuality & experience. Kudos to N.O.R.M. for gathering together men who want to counter this assault upon their sexuality (and their partner's experience) as best they can. [More on restoration here.]

8) In the end, a man's body is HIS body. If he wants to cut up his nether regions when he is old enough to say "CUT ME" then so be it. But at birth, a crucial time of primal attachment, bonding, hormone rushes, trust/distrust formation, heightened sensitivity - especially to pain, along with countless other things - it is NOT the time to play hack-saw with a boy's most sensitive organ. It is not anyone's right to remove 1/3-1/2 the penis surface, the most erogenous area, the ridged band, 20,000+nerve endings, mucus membranes, sebaceous glands, and more - forever impacting this man's future life/health/sexuality along with that of his partner, without his knowledge and full informed consent. It is a complete violation of human rights and genital integrity.

I agree with Derek, a father who blogs about his experience w/ circumcision (http://naturalpapa.com/circumcision-will-you-make-the-cut/
http://naturalpapa.com/circumcision-barbaric-mutilation-videos/), when he says that any mother who is going to allow her son to be genitally mutilated at birth should have to hold her writhing baby - legs forced open, screaming bloody murder, lapsing in and out of comas/seizures/petit heart failure - to watch the physician stroke her baby's tiny member to achieve erection for the first time post-birth and get a better 'grip', to rip his prepuce off his glans (as a fingernail ripped from the finger), to stab a knife in between and separate the glans from the prepuce (firmly attached as one-and-the-same at birth), to clamp and slice, cut and sever (and then sell to cosmetic/pharmaceutical companies!) the #1 most sensitive organ that exists on men and women.

If we (as mothers especially) were not allowed to cowardly hand over our baby to be sexually abused as we hid in another room, maybe more mothers would SEE what takes place, do their research ahead of time, and speak out about what a horrifying tragedy is still taking place for the very unluckiest of boys born to parents ignorant or misinformed on this topic.