Boys, folks just go round and round on this whole circumcism thing...
Let's look at a few issues:
It's "cleaner" - only if you don't believe in soap and water. C'mon, if we can teach a young boy to wash his ears and wipe his own ass we can teach him to peel back his foreskin and wash his dick. Hell, he might even learn to enjoy touching himself. If it's not clean I have to ask what other bodyparts the boy ain't washin' - because it's a
hygiene problem, not a sexual problem or disease. It's the equivalent of dirty fingernails - which can harbor some very nasty pathogens
if you don't clean 'em. So we teach kids to scrape under their nails, we don't remove their nails. Ditto for foreskins.
Women prefer it - this is strictly cultural conditioning. It's like the days of Chinese foot binding when men thought broken, half-rotted feet were sexier and more feminine than healthy natural feet. I'm sure there were Chinese men who honestly preferred the "lotus foot" and found it beautiful. That doesn't mean it was good for the women who were damaged by the custom.
But as I said, this is cultural conditioning. If all the penises a woman ever saw were uncut, and she saw one that was cut, her first reaction would probably be to ask if the man had been in some unfortunate accident.
The "cleaner" myth plays into this. I mean, think about it - which would you have inserted into your body? Something clean or something seething with germs? If a woman prefers cut dicks there's a good chance you'll also find this "cleaner" myth.
Risks of circumcism - well, aside from being cut too "tight" and interference with both masturbation and sexual sensitivity already mentioned, botched circumcisms do occur. One of the more famous cases involved one of a set of twins whose dick was
burned off by inept electrocautery. For the full story of the ramifications see
As Nature Made Him by John Colapinto. Most of the time, botched circs don't go quite that bad, but it's still a problem of an unnecessary procedure giving bad results, whether that's infection, scarring, or pain and suffering.
Risks of not circumcising - we've already covered the hygiene issue. Other things can happen, such as strangulation of the penis by the foreskin. Since pictures speak louder than words, scroll down in this following link but
!!!WARNING!!! boys and girls, it is a graphic depiction of a serious medical condition and treatment, and gets a little bloody:
http://www.emedicine.com/med/topic2874.htm
About female "circumcism" - the best book I've read on this is
The Female Circumcism Controvery by Ellen Gruenbaum. Just to clarify matters a bit - removing a woman's clitoris is NOT equivalent to male circumcism, it's more like removing a man's entire penis. Removing
just the clitoris might kill a woman's ability to achieve orgasm, but it probably wouldn't screw her up urologically, and she'd still be able to have sex (just not enjoy it nearly as much) and bear children with little hardship - BUT it's never JUST the clitoris. This procedure is usually accompanied by other things, like removing of the labia or even sewing up of the vaginia (infibulation) which, in the unmarried, gives a women an opening the size of a soda straw to piss and menstruate through. THAT's what starts causing infections, smell, and gynecological problems. Upon marriage, such a women is sliced open enough for intercourse. By now, there's a ridge of scar tissue around the opening. When she gets pregnant, that scar tissue won't stretch like normal skin is supposed to in that region - she will have to be cut open even further, then sewn back up again afterward. Rinse and repeat for every child. Keep in mind, in parts of the world where this is common practice it's not unusual for women to have 8 or 12 children. And, oh yes, anesthesia is usually not available. It's a little more extreme than foreskin removal.
Why and when circumcism is done -
Jews want it done on the 8th day after birth,
in the synagogue. Hospital circumcism is NOT a Jewish practice, and circumcism is not done to Jewish boys in a Jewish hospital.
Moslems prefer to circumcise young boys at around 12. Whether this is religious dictate or Middle Eastern/North African custom I don't know.
Other cultures also circumcize young boys/men as an adolescent rite of passage.
The
United States custom is to do this in the hospital between birth and going home. Prior to hospital birth being the norm, infant circumcism didn't exist. It was NOT the result of having Jewish doctors - Jews don't give a damn what gentiles do or don't do with their genitals. The custom arose from some of the more outlandish health fads of the late 19th Century and was
promoted as a means to discourage masturbation.. So the origin is not in "Jewish doctors" but in
Protestants who felt sex was dirty and bad and wanted to discourage all forms of it. Also as being more "hygenic". Given that people
did bathe considerably less frequently back then, maybe it was - I'd still vote for more liberal use of soap and water.
Personally, I'd like to see the custom die out. There will always be a few men circumcised for legitimate medical reasons, but that's justifiable in my mind. I expect it will also continue for religious reaons as well in some cases. Given the far worse problems in the world I can tolerate that, even if I don't approve.
