http://www.who.int/hiv/topics/malecircumcision/en/index.html

I was the on the swim team were both men and women practice together nude including the instructors .

All those great looking girls on the team never saw a boy without a prepuce and i thank my mother i was not the first!

AMEN!

I frankly do not admire anyone who talks about how they would circumcise and not give their child the chance to decide what his body will have or not have. That’s not brave at all. It’s sad.

I’m the cut father of an intact teenage son, and I’m incredibly angry that it was done to me. However, both of my parents offered sincere apologies, which went a long way toward my own healing. I don’t blame them; it was the 1960s and they were working with the information available at the time. But we know so much more now (like the true function of the foreskin, and its sensory/sensual and immunological functions). There’s simply no reason to do it anymore.

Contrary to the results of the African studies, Langerhans cells in the foreskin (both male and female) have been shown to effectively break down HIV and other viral cells before they can enter the lymphatic system. By cutting away the tissue with the greatest concentration of Langerhans cells, you are removing the body’s first line of defense against STDs. And safe sex practices should still be used, period.

The male prepuce also contains over 20,000 specialized fine-touch nerve receptors (Meissner’s corpuscles), amounting to the 4 to 5 most sensitive areas of the penis. The most sensitive area on a circumcised penis is the ventral scar area. The tissue removed in circumcision is orders of magnitude more sensitive.

In a reversal of the old “son should look like his father” argument, I am restoring. At less than a year, I have already seen amazing improvement in coverage and gains in sensitivity. Sex with my partner is much closer and more intimate. I will never get back what was taken from me at birth, but at least I can approximate the look and feel intended by nature.

Intact is the default, and the odds of ever needing surgical intervention on the prepuce is less than 1%. There is no medical reason for infant circumcision. Any suggestions of prophylaxis are weak and start a slippery slope of questions: females get far more UTIs and four times the genital cancers that males do – do we go back to trimming clitoral hoods and labia like we did up through the ’60s? Do we remove breast tissue at birth? Breast cancer in both sexes is far more common than penile cancer.

If the foreskin was not beneficial in some way (however poorly understood), it would have been removed through natural selection. To perform amputative surgery on a non-consenting minor and remove the most sensitive part of his genitals is an ethical nightmare at best.

This is a cultural custom that belongs in the trash bin of human history, along with animal sacrifice.

But uncut is on the rise among highly educated and progressive parents, starting with California. I bet infant circumcision is way down among children of college professors, research scientists, and clergymen. Among parents who have spent time in European saunas, locker rooms, and nude beaches. Among the children of mothers who had serious sexual experience with foreigners while they were in college.

It still happens that an intact boy is made fun of in Scout camp or the school locker room. There are still American young women who, when discovering that a date comes with foreskin, have hearts that leap into their mouths with disgust. But these are not reasons to cut males, but to educate children about this tender masculine subject.

**********
Jeremy:

“For the most part, guys are fine with whatever choice their parents made”
True

” the only complaints I have ever heard come from uncircumsized guys”
Wrong; some cut guys complain loudly.

“circumcision is no big deal for a baby; it is painful for a little while, and that is it.”
We cannot know that because baby boys cannot talk.

“For an adult male, on the other hand, it is absolutely horrendous;”
I doubt this; it is done under anesthesia, you take
Darvon for 3 weeks during the recovery, and best of all,
you understand what was done to you. Genesis 34 is about a time long before pain management.

“Sure, nothing is wrong at the time, but it would be a relatively minor procedure to eliminate the risk of something going wrong in the future”
This contravenes medical ethics.

“And I see circumcision basically the same way — it is very minor…”
That is an assumption, not a fact.

” and it makes life a tad easier in ways,”
And perhaps makes sex less fulfilling for one or both partners.

***********************
Zan:

“as a nurse, I have taken care of so many elderly uncirc men and they DO NOT clean there. IT is wicked nasty. One of the reasons I did circ was because I know men aren’t as clean, especially as they get older. Retracting to clean their foreskin? What is that? Never took care of a patient who did that.”
Cleaning between his buttocks is just as necessary and even more foul. But no rest home orderly complains about that on the net. Hmmm….

“It is a fact that uncirc men have a 10% chance of UTIs.”
It’s 1%, with questionable data collection. Baby girls have a 2-3% rate, and nobody does anything about that.

“HPV and HIV are harbored in foreskins.”
Only by men who misuse their penises.

“The UN is trying to convince men to be circumcised in African countries, now. Cervical cancer in Jewish communiites is almost non-existant.”
Cervical cancer is also rare in uncut Scandinavia. The African clinical trials were conducted in ways that undermined their validity. Even taken at face value, their outcomes have no bearing on whether American boys should be cut.

“I get very upset when people call circ barbaric or insinuate that it is. If it is than so is God.”
But the God of revealed religion most definitely can be cruel…

“Anyway, I feel so strongly about it that I asked my husband on our third date if he was circumcised. I wouldn’t have continued dating him if he wasn’t.”
American mothers fear their sons will date women like yourself, and that fear contributes materially to the circ rate in the USA.

” That might sound a bit extreme, but it is cleaner and healthier for women. I circ my boys for their future wives.”
I go with what Alex Comfort wrote 35 years ago: ‘Wash, don’t cut.’

“Uncirc men do have a little more sensitivity in their penis, but it isn’t enought to write home about.”
Only men cut as adults can really speak to this.

“It is up around the base, not the tip where most sexual pleasure is felt.”
Wrong. Neither the glans nor the base, but the frenulum, the ridged band, and the corona.

To those who say God wouldn’t have the Israelites do something to reduce sexual pleasure;…WHY do you believe that? One of the most famous rabbis ever Moses Maimenodes believed circumcision was introduced specifically to reduce pleasure, and further that Jewish girls who slept with intact guys would be forever “ruined” and never want to sleep with another cut Jew.

But really, by basing a decision about a permanent irreversible amputation on the Bible, you are dis-respecting the child’s religious freedom, aren’t you? Even if he remains a Jew, he might be of the mind (like many) that the more recent “Thou shall not steal” has abrogated the covenant of the 8th day. (See http://CutTheFilm.com). And of course Christians are specifically chided that circumcision is not part of Christianity. Official Catholic policy even forbids it.

But as an atheist and a man, I can only say foreskin feels REALLY good! How DARE you assume I am unable to clean myself as a well as a girl can (she has a lot more folds and crevices to deal with, no?).

With 95% of the non-Muslim world NOT circumcising, HOW DARE you assume I won’t want to be normal ? ! ? !

HIS body HIS decision.