Leave the skin alone

Tuesday, April 28, 1998

Leave the skin alone

CIRCUMCISION: An argument against circumcision

Most American men alive today are cut – plain and simple.
Whatever your personal attitude toward foreskin may be, the medical
community withdrew its support for non-religious circumcision back
in the early ’70s. Pediatricians gradually started advising new
parents against circumcision in the early ’80s, but that resulted
in only a marginal drop in the number of circumcised newborns.

The subject remained largely unvisited by scholars until a
recent study conducted at the University of Chicago drew fresh
attention. Scientists analyzed data from the National Health and
Social Life Survey (NHSLS), a data source on the sexual,
attitudinal, and health-related experiences of Americans. Their
findings were surprising in that they suggested that circumcised
men engage in more varied sexual practices. In short, according to
the study, circumcised men have more fun in bed!

I will shed more light on the findings reported in the study,
but also try to convince you that performing circumcision on
unconsenting newborns is still essentially wrong, whatever the
reasoning behind it may be.

I recall an episode from my late teens, when I first came to the
States as an exchange student. I still remember how confused I was
the first time I hit the showers at my host high school in upstate
New York in 1992.

Alejandro, another exchange student, and I looked at each other
in disbelief. Then we looked back at our fellow classmates.
Actually, we looked at their penises: they were all cut!

We knew everyone by name, and to our knowledge there were no
Muslim students among them. Alejandro and I later concluded that
not all of them could possibly be Jewish, either. As far as we
knew, circumcision was something performed solely for religious
purposes. Frustrated, we decided that something funky must be going
on.

Six years later and still in the United States, I now have most
of the facts. It is little known that circumcision was introduced
in several English-speaking countries of the New World such as the
United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand toward the end of
the last century. Only in America, the practice still prevails.
Circumcision was thought to prevent or cure a number of diseases,
including blindness, insanity and epilepsy. Additionally, its
purpose was to curtail the incidence of masturbation, which was
seen as sinful. However, the last time I checked, cut guys jack off
too!

In America today, roughly 90 percent of whites, 60 percent of
blacks, and 50 percent of Hispanics have been circumcised. The
findings in the NHSLS study show that circumcised men are more
likely to engage in oral and anal sex. Furthermore, white men are
reported to masturbate more frequently than blacks or
Hispanics.

The explanation of why circumcised guys are essentially on
average "kinkier" and like rougher sex more than their
uncircumcised brethren lies in the fact that the sheath of skin
removed during circumcision contains many highly sensitive nerve
endings and is one of the most erogenous zones on a man’s body.
Removing the foreskin significantly alters how a man achieves
different stages of arousal, in that more stimulation is required.
Inserting one’s penis into tighter orifices provides that extra
stimulation, and that’s where oral and anal sex come into play – a
mouth or an anus is invariably tighter than a vagina. As for
lasting longer – well, needing extra stimulation to get to the same
level of arousal, yet having far fewer nerve endings to work with,
circumcised guys tend to last (or take!) longer.

The explanation for the higher frequency of masturbation among
white men is largely a socioeconomical one, as weird as it sounds.
In the past, circumcision was often a marker of social status:
children of educated parents were 2.5 times more likely to undergo
circumcision, and educational distribution has historically been
uneven among different ethnic groups in America.

Circumcised men (most of whom are white), needing an extra
element of "roughness" sometimes not achieved through other means
of sexual expression, often resort to masturbation more frequently
than uncircumcised men. There you go!

Edward Laumann, the study’s chief author and a leading
sociologist at the University of Chicago, has yet another
explanation: blacks and Hispanics on average come from more
conservative religious backgrounds. They have been taught when they
are young that masturbation is wrong, and that attitude still
prevails.

Today, the opinion endorsed by the medical community is that
circumcision is an unnecessary, antiquated practice whose health
benefits are, at best, questionable. The only documented and
researched health benefit of circumcision is the prevention of an
extremely rare form of penile cancer.

In the mid-’70s the American Academy of Pediatrics started
advocating the abolition of circumcision. In the English-speaking
countries, in which routine circumcision of infants was initially
adopted to prevent masturbation, medical "reasons" were postulated
to justify a practice most of the world has never considered.

Indeed, most of the world’s men walk around with their foreskins
still crowning the heads of their penises. With nothing covering
the heads of theirs, the Americans almost stand alone, save for the
Muslim and Jewish world (strange bedfellows, might I add).

From its original roots in the anti-masturbation hysteria,
circumcision continues to be perpetuated in America through a
series of myths. Many among you have been conditioned to believe
that having a foreskin is "dirty." The argument may have made sense
in past centuries, when hygiene habits were poor and plumbing was
rare, but today it doesn’t hold much water.

Sadly, little attention is given to the serious medical risks
posed by neo-natal circumcision. The risks include possible
infections, swellings, excessive scarring, and in extreme
circumstances, genital mutilation. Those interested in seeing some
disturbing pictures of young boys and men whose genitals have been
permanently messed up should visit
http://www.gepps.com/circomp.htm. How many of you in your adult
years would let anyone with a surgical knife get anywhere near your
dick (CQ), especially if no anesthetic is administered? Most men
come to this world with perfectly functioning penises, and I see no
reason to mess with nature.

Some will say that the real reason why circumcision is still
rampant in America is the concern about aesthetics. Americans have
been conditioned to think of uncut dicks (CQ) as ugly. Does it mean
that most of the world, save for those who have been doing it for
religious purposes for thousands of years, has a completely
screwed-up sense of beauty? If you agree, then don’t ever move
abroad: you’ll be running around screaming!

Another angle to consider: why does our society sanction male
circumcision, while we ban female circumcision, and are disgusted
that it is still performed in some third-world countries? The two
are essentially the same: apart from the desire to rob the woman of
almost any feeling during sex – definitely a form of subordination
– both male and female circumcisions are unnecessary surgeries
performed on children without their consent, and without any
advantage, under the auspices of cleanliness and aesthetic
concerns.

In case you don’t know, female circumcision performed in some
Arab and Asian countries also falls in the realm of esthetics:
removing a young girl’s clitoris and lips, and then stitching up
the vaginal opening, is done so her genitals look "clean."

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t think that there is anything wrong
with circumcision if a person wants to get it done in his or her
adult years. We are (hopefully!) free-willing people, and we do
what we please. But there is something fundamentally wrong about
altering a person’s body without his (or her!) consent. At the risk
of offending the religious sensibilities of some, let me say that I
believe it is morally wrong to perform circumcision on newborns
even if it is done for religious purposes. Parents cannot know how
their child will feel later in life about the religion he or she
was born into.

My own Muslim grandmother was bitter her whole life that my
mother refused to get me circumcised. Although I was born into a
Muslim culture, I do not practice the religion and am glad someone
else didn’t make that choice for me.

In the gay male world, and in the heterosexual world to a minor
extent as well, passions run high when foreskin is at issue. Among
gays, some men have very strong preferences either way. I know
people who are physically repulsed at the mere mention of "skin."
In contrast, I also know guys who will not touch a cut penis.
Others yet don’t really care or have an opinion – I guess they love
the penis too much to favor one side over the other.

I personally love foreskin: you can play with it, tease it with
your tongue; you and your partner (if you both have a foreskin) can
"dock" (use your partner’s foreskin to cover the head of your
penis), and you’ll probably use far less lube – which is both
environmentally and fiscally more responsible.

At any rate, it will be interesting to see how the issue of
foreskin unfolds in the decades to come. I hope that those of you
who will one day be parents will think twice before having your
newborn sons circumcised.

As for me, I am ever so grateful to my dear mother for not
having uncrossed her legs in the United States on that cold
February day I was born.

Thanks to her, I have more to play with.

Like they say, the more, the merrier.

Nevin Jeremic