Is Circumcision genital mutilation?
 

I've been thinking about this for a while now, ever since Anonymous Member (kind of a funny title, considering the nature of this thread) made the comment about his sex life and how is SO would blow him if only he were circumcised. Personally speaking, I'm not circumcised and I'm damn glad about it too! I've always considered that circumcision is a form of genital mutilation, on par with a girl having her labia cut off. But this form of mutilation gets practiced in hospitals.

But what purpose does it really serve? Cleanliness? I keep my unit pretty spanking clean, even with a foreskin. So that argument is out the window. I think too, about sensitivity. I know I'm pretty uncomfortable if my foreskin gets pulled back and the glans of my penis rubs against my underwear. So I think about guys who are circumcised. Does that mean that either they just don't notice it anymore, or are their penises less sensitive than mine? Does that mean that I get more satisfaction out of sex, or that they can last longer before ejaculation? And since, I'm guessing, 99.99% of circumcised men didn't have a choice in the matter, does that mean that their parent's for whatever sanitary or religious reason made a choice about their child's future sex life?? Doesn't that sound like mutilation to you?

So, c'mon Men of the TFP (and ladies too), offer up your opinion/experiences about circumcision.

Been with two uncircumcised men and two circumcised, so this is hardly a scientific study with proper controls... BUT

My experience was that the circumcised men didn't necessarily last longer before cumming. This is likely a coincidence, but they remained hard after cumming and were therefore able to keep me in orgasm longer. The two that were uncircumcised pretty much went flacid after one pop, and I had to work to bring them back to their potential.

I'm sure there are far more men on this board, cut and uncut, that could tell me in general if this is a trend or if it happened to be the case with these particular men.

On the mutilation idea:

My husband is circumcised. I have left the decision to him, if/when we have children. As a woman I don't feel I have the proper perspective on whether it is mutilation or not. Since he has never known different, he plans on researching before making the decision. My main concern is if something were to go wrong with the circumcision, leaving the man with constant discomfort.

Circumcision, at or near birth, in a hospital, is not mutilation.

It doesn't have any serious impact on lifestyle or sexual performance, and has some (debatable) health benefits.

Circumcision as it is practiced elsewhere in the world often is mutilation. Particularly some of the Muslim circumcision practices which are horrifying.

Oh man, not this again.

Yes, its mutilation, however its normalcy wins it major cognitive dissonance points.

I would have to say yes, it is. I am uncircumcised and have no problems with it. I don't see any need to cut off the foreskin. If I have a boy, I won't have him cut. He can have the operation done when he is older if he chooses. I realize that it is a much more serious thing to do when you are older, but since you can't put it back I think that is the best approach.

as a muslim male currently living in the middle east, i find your comments quite irrational.

are you talking about male mutilation older men/boys in muslim countries?

I watched a video in child development this term that detailed the story of David Reimer. While the procedure used in Reimer's circumcision was not the routine procedure, I'm not sure I want to be responsible as a parent for a decision that could significantly alter my child's genitalia, should complications arise. I just don't see it as necessary.

I wouldn't go as far as to call it genital mutilation, as the genitals still function correctly after a successful circumcision. Certainly, a botched circumcision could be called mutilation. Admittedly, I'd feel a whole lot better about the whole thing if it were the individual's decision, and on one else's.

My father-in-law a few years ago had to have a circumcision for whateverthehell reason. If I recall, it was due to yeast infections (yes men get them too apparently).

My dad, in his later years had difficulty with hygiene and had a modified circumcision done in the ER after a nasty infection. So while you may be able to keep it squeaky clean now, there may be a time that you can't.

I've always felt my circumcision made my equipment lower maintenance. Because I had it in the hospital after birth, I don't remember it, but I know I couldn't walk for damn near a year afterward.

I agree, there is another thread about whether it was child abuse a few years ago.

I haven't heard a good reason to get it done yet, and there are too many benefits to having a foreskin to cut it off for no real reason a few days after birth.

I voted for no because I'm circumcised since age 14. I think it's like cutting your hair, you just don't want to have to comb it in the morning. Same thing, less maintenance. I had no decreased sensitivity either ... :D:thumbsup::p

That's SO much better said than the screed I was about to write.

Circumcised. Fine with it. Sexual function is plenty adequate, thanks. If I have male children, I'll probably circumcise them, unless their mother feels strongly otherwise.

The Circumcision Monologues | Circumcised | Circumcision | Muslim Circumcision Attitudes | Ritual Circumcision | Circumcision Ceremony

I'm not sure what Slims was referring to exactly, but the idea that there is a ceremony and the boy gets dressed up for it is a little crazy to me. But, every other major religion has some circumcision element to it as well, and I don't understand why someone would get it done or do it to their kid because others in their group have done it.

Come on people, lets please move away from the literal definitions because piercing your ears would be sound hearing unit mutilation.

I think mutilation comes into play when we introduce the abuse factor.

So far, the only thing I get is the response that if you do it because of your religion then it is mutilation, if the newborn baby doesn't consent to it then it is mutilation ... yada yada yada!!

Well, I had this buddy in Iraq who used to stuff glowsticks in his foreskin and try to hail the QRF choppers doing hip rotations.

...

Middle East or Africa, I think Slims is talking about this kinda stuff. The "manhood rituals" of chopping your wang at ~18 years old in an environment as sterile as the back of a deceased hobo's tongue, sitting in the wild for three days without food, etc. National Geographic horror show stuff.

Yeaaah, I'm all for testing my manhood, but not THAT manhood.

...

I don't care if my helmet has a neck gaiter or not. I certainly don't care how anybody else has their junk equipped. It's mutilation but ya don't have to say it like it's a bad thing.

I see no reason for it. It's cutting a piece of a child off. Doesn't sit well with me.

If you clean it, you'll be fine. If not, expect to have phimosis, infections, etc and require circumcision.

I'm uncut and I prefer it that way for no other reason that I have never been cut and have anything to compare it to. However, I will not circumcise my son should I have one. My wife had better give me a damn good reason for me to agree to it.

asu and cromp - if thats what slims is referring to, i dont see how ithas anything to do with islamic practices. sure circumscision is. but the ritual is not, and is practiced by all faiths.

the ritual a more regional issue than an islamic one

That's how it looks to me.

Xerxys, it sounds like you had your circumcision somewhat late in life (at least compared with my husband and everyone else that had it done when they were infants) Would you be comfortable sharing your experience with us?

even though in a way it is mutilation, i still voted no. every time i look at my wang i dont mutter to myself "curses, i was mutilated."

im sort of glad my parents gave me the chop. circumcised dongers look more aerodynamic in a way. i feel like my dick could go from 0-100 in 4 seconds flat.

i also heard its easier to clean, which is great, because im a friggin slob.

my friend Scum got a circumcision when he was 16, it was his own choice. im guessing its just more appealing or something.

Yeah, foot binding used to be all the rage according to my seventh grade history class.

I think everybody "gets" this issue. It's just a case of "it's what we've always done" versus "well, why are we doing it?"

...

And I'm just pissed because my circumcision took off my twig and berries entirely, leaving me with what we'll refer to as a Yule Brenner.

Smooth-spot'd!

ive watched specials on awkward shit, such as foot binding.

a snip off of my foreskin is a wee bit different than my feet being curved into a "n" shape. in my mind it is, at least. probably because of it seeming the norm.

rabbi have Parkinsons?

Piercing your ears is sound hearing unit mutilation. The question is, as it is with circumcision, is it justifiable?

Methinks not, at least not at birth, or without consent for that matter. It's a basic human rights thing, people should be able do to their bodies what they choose, without someone else doing it for them - including their parents. It can always be done after consent is given.

I'm not mourning the loss of my foreskin.

George A. Romero presents: Night of the Living Foreskin

I can hear the groans now... "peeenussss... PEEEEN-NUSSS!"

Why not? The protective covering is pretty nice when it isn't in use. And it has a function when it is in use as well.

It's the attitude that it doesn't do anything or has no purpose that makes parents think they can have a doctor (or religious person) remove it.

Humor me: What is it really protecting? I mean, it isn't like our dicks have a toenail.

Even if we take as a given that it doesn't do anything.. I mean, shit. My appendix doesn't do anything, and I have yet to find a use for that little fleshy bit at the end of my nose. I'm sure as hell not chopping it off.

Do maternity wards charge by the ounce or something? Are we worried about the kid's 0-60 time, and saving every conceivable bit of weight? Where does useless equate to 'gots to go'?

The hygiene thing always comes up in these discussions. If you can't keep your foreskin clean, then you need to bitch your nurse out in a major way because you're not capable of bathing yourself. It's really not hard.

Don't get me wrong here, at the end of the day, this isn't an issue I'm going to crusade about. I'm not picketing hospitals and starting pro-turtleneck movements. But at the same time, my thought process tends to run that fewer unnecessary surgical procedures are better.

Why do it?

Well, as an observant Jew, obviously I'm happy to be circumcised, and certainly plan to circumcise any sons I might be blessed with in the future. But those are for reasons that have nothing to do with health or sexual fitness or aesthetics.

That said, I have never had any desire to not be circumcised, and have always been pleased by my state over and above the religious reasons. I saw my first uncircumcised penis in junior high, in the locker room, after I transferred from Jewish day school to public school. It scared me out of a year's growth. I thought the guy had some kind of weird disease. Obviously, I know better now, but I have to say that I find uncircumcised penises to be extremely aesthetically displeasing to me. I mean, let's face it, dicks are really not decorative units as it goes, no matter what kind they are, but uncircumcised johnsons just are not...streamlined. They seem to range from looking vaguely sluglike to looking like they just sneezed and have a booger hanging down, and when hard they seem to mostly look like they're kind of activated while still in the package.

I'm not going to say anyone should be forced to circumcise their sons or themselves. But I definitely think that nobody should be prevented from circumcising their sons or themselves.

And I definitely don't think it's genital mutilation. Genital modification, maybe. But mutilation, to me at least, implies a modification of the body which is actively unhealthful or hazardous, is deliberately painful or uncomfortable or unpleasant for the person to whom it was done, and has negative effects on the proper functioning and performance of the body parts in question. And one might argue that the health benefits of circumcision are slight enough not to be worth it; or that the aesthetics are displeasing to one; or that it is simply unnecessary (except where religion is concerned); but there is simply no evidence that it decreases sensitivity or impairs sexual or urinary function, nor is it painful or uncomfortable after it heals. Therefore, I can understand calling it genital modification, but not genital mutilation.

hm. I can't be the only one who wouldn't mind staring at them all day.

:lol: Man, I can't wait to use this line at a bar. Somebody work in a "Voltron" joke and I'll just die.

(condensing paragraph to relevant sentence, no misquote intended)

I think circumcised dicks are ugly.

As Barbie said to the Ken Doll, where's your point?

I don't know. Religion fucks things up. I want to be tolerant of people for their beliefs, but I happen to think that those who refuse to give their children life-saving blood transfusions on religious grounds are supremely fucked up and bordering child abuse. The life of a child changes the equation here.

Now, obviously circumcision is not the same level of seriousness. To my knowledge, nobody's died. So let's say that we give orthodox practicing Jews a bye on that one. So far as I know, the rest of the Abrahamic sphere has no such mandate, or at least not one that's really enforced.

I just don't understand how this came to be the norm. The prevailing arguments seem to be 'it looks funny' (societal pressure, from people not seeing it regularly), 'it's unhygienic' (bullshit) and 'everybody does it.' And I just don't get that. This is a proactive thing. It's a conscious choice parents have to make. I can't get into the headspace of someone who intentionally puts their child under the knife without a clear and compelling reason.

Islam, Jewish all circumcise. I being Jewish do and plan on G-d willing if I have a son(s). I am not sure where people think it is the norm, it really varies on where you are, in America it is very common but Latin countries it is not. There was health debates on it, religious debates, personally I do not have such dilemma, and I feel if you do not want do not do it, but I would not consider it mutilation.

First of all, I really tried to be clear that the religious arguments are their own thing, entirely separate from anything else. Their reasons are valid only to members of those faiths, and therefore are useless discussing the issue with nonmembers. As far as I know, all practicing Jews circumcise their sons, regardless of movement or denomination. As far as I know, all practicing Muslims circumcise their sons, regardless of sect or tradition. Their reasons are valid only for Jews and Muslims, respectively. So unless one is a practicing Jew or Muslim, the religious issue is moot. (Or, I suppose, a member of some other religion that circumcises, about which I have heard nothing).

And circumcision is such a minor body modification, without any negative physical effects on sexual or urinary function, that, to my mind at least, it seems inconceivable to debate attempting to enforce a prohibition of circumcision at the cost of religious freedom. Therefore, what it boils down to is: if you're not bound by your religion to circumcise, and the idea offends you, don't do it. Otherwise, why create an issue where no issue exists?

As for non-Jews and non-Muslims who circumcise...aesthetics can be a reason. You might not like it: it might seem deeply insufficient to you, but it can be a reason. On its own, I'm not sure it would be enough for me, either. But for some, it could be.

Now, it does appear to be accurate that circumcision brings slight health benefits in that it does slightly promote penile hygiene, and it appears to very slightly retard passage of sexually transmitted diseases. If you want to point out that in both those cases, the benefits are minute-- perhaps an edge of three or four percent as opposed to the uncircumcised-- and that you feel that is not at all a sufficient gain in your opinion to justify circumcision, that might be a fair argument. But there will certainly be some parents that think that even a couple of percentage points favor in their sons health justifies circumcision.

I agree, parents can sometimes do terrible things to their kids in the name of their own beliefs. And I too am shocked and offended by people who let their kids die because they don't "believe" in antibiotics or transfusions. But when it comes to body modifications of the kind bearing cultural significance, and without lasting physical harm to the proper functioning of the body-- piercings, scarification, ear notching, circumcision, earlobe or lip stretching...look, you and I may not appreciate either the aesthetics or the cultural reasons to do those things, but that's because it's not our culture. Cultural transmission only works by bringing kids up in the tradition: you can't just teach them abstract lessons during childhood and then let them decide at the age of majority whether to join their traditional society. That produces nothing but secular/Western assimilation, and the traditional culture is lost.

I'm also not saying there's never an appropriate moment to step in: obviously, female genital mutilation, or foot binding, or rituals depriving kids of fingers or eyes or what have you...I would certainly agree that that might be over the line, and should be stopped. But only because those rituals irreparably damage the correct functioning of the body in deeply integral ways, to degrees that it is impossible to presume that any significant majority of children so mutilated in infancy would, on adulthood, agree that, given the chance, they would certainly volunteer for such modifications willingly.

*shrug* Oral is better when the guy's been circumcised, at least in my opinion. Other than that, it doesn't seem to matter.

This Is Not A Big Deal.

People seem to think I get more emotionally invested in these discussions than I actually do. I don't know why that is.

I have almost no exposure to muslim faith. I don't know details there. They circumcise too. Okay, cool. The point is that, for most people, this is not the case. If we take as granted that in the Western world this is how things are generally done, I still don't see how we got here.

It's all about momentum. Sending your son's member to the skin tailor to get hemmed is an active thing. It's a decision that has to be made. And I'm wondering how it is that people with no religious imperative started making this decision en masse so that now the regular reaction to an uncircumcised dick is that it 'looks funny.' The only reason they look weird to you is because you're not used to them. Same as how I thought the first circumcised penis I ever saw looked funny, because I wasn't used to that.

I don't buy the health argument. At all. You want your kids to be healthy, you teach them basic hygiene. Bam! Done. So that's not really flying.

I know it's a minor thing. I know it doesn't really cause lasting harm. But I could say the same things about a foreskin. My default position is to leave it well enough alone. And I don't see the other side on this one, try as I might. When it comes to the health of my child, I want the path of least resistance. I want to make the decisions that force me to interfere as little as possible, while making sure my child stays as healthy as possible. If I have a decision to make about something cosmetic that causes no lasting physical or social harm either way, I'm going to choose to leave it the way it is.

But I guess maybe that's just me.

Jesus, Martian, stop being so funny with the colorful language. It's 4 AM and I'm giggling like a 12 year old in sex ed.

Pfft.

The opportunity to make colourful analogies is what draws me to threads like this to begin with.

getting it done as an infant beats having to get it done as an adult, situation is embarassing, plus what would've been something you dont remember, now becomes those six months-year (really?) that you wish you could forget.
anyone remember that married with children episode? classic.

I don't buy the whole "circumcised penis is cleaner" theory. The foreskin is there to prevent infection from entering the urethra. If you are taught from a young age to pull the foreskin back when you are bathing, there isn't a cleanliness issue either.

Circumcised men are less likely to get and pass on HIV to their female partners.
(Male Circumcision (Updated January 2009))
Male Circumcision Trial Findings:

* Three randomized controlled clinical trials in sub-Saharan Africa demonstrated a 50-60% reduction in risk of female-to-male HIV transmission among men randomized to receive circumcision compared to uncircumcised controls. This evidence is supported by long-standing ecologic and observational data.1
* Elective surgical male circumcision confers a partially protective effect against HIV acquisition for HIV-negative men at risk of acquiring HIV from HIV-infected female sexual partners, and may be particularly effective in populations where HIV prevalence is high and male circumcision prevalence is low.

I'm very happy with my snipped member.

you can always send me a PM ;)

oh..and baby-lish is getting the snips