To Circumcise or not to Circumcise- written Spring 2007

I’ve babysat and been a nanny for the past five or six years, so I’ve changed a lot of diapers and given a lot of baths in my day. It didn’t take me long to notice the difference in genitalia from baby boy to baby boy. Most are circumcised, but a substantial amount are not. Around the time that I noticed the physical difference and therefore realized what “circumcision” really is, I remembered all of the verses that I had read or learned in church or in Bible Class at the Christian school I went to- verses equating “the uncircumcised” with “the unholy.” I started, at a very young age, considering the options that I will one day have as a mother. To circumcise, or not to circumcise? Aside from the fact that God, in the Torah and the Bible, commands the Jewish People be circumcised (or the Muslim people in the Koran), what difference does it make, really?
There are very few people in the world who could make a logical case in favor of female circumcision, more commonly known as Female Genital Mutilation, but male circumcision was adopted into the world as a normal practice ages ago. When a baby boy is born, his parents decide his name, his place of residence, what he eats and drinks, what he wears, and whether or not he is circumcised. Circumcision goes back thousands of years to Ancient Egypt, and is typically an important part of the Jewish and Muslim faiths. In the United States in the early twentieth century, cleanliness became associated with wealth, and a circumcised penis was generally thought to be cleaner. At that time about twenty-five percent of men in the United States were circumcised. In the nineteen-thirties the military began requiring soldiers to be circumcised, and by the nineteen-forties and fifties, nearly all males in the United States were circumcised (Pantley).
If not for religious reasons or requirements for the military, the decision of whether or not to circumcise has often been based on what is considered “normal,” so that the boy will be like his father or like everyone else, to avoid embarrassment. In the mid-twentieth century, studies were commonly twisted to always show the positive elements of circumcision, and never the negative. Many parents thus circumcised their children for religious reasons, many for reasons based on skewed studies, and many parents circumcised their children because it was the normal, accepted thing to do. In recent decades, studies have shown pros and cons of infant circumcision, so now it is in the hands of the parents to decide which pros and which cons are most important. Thirty years ago, almost one-hundred percent of infant boys in the US were circumcised, but that number has decreased to only sixty percent, so favoritism of circumcision is clearly decreasing.
Historically, one of the largest arguments for circumcision was cleanliness. The foreskins of intact penises are susceptible to infections, and an eliminated foreskin will eliminate the problem. The other side of this argument is that simple hygiene just as easily eliminates the problem, and removing the foreskin is essentially expecting and accepting that the boy won’t grow up to have very high personal hygienic standards. It’s not hard to keep an intact penis clean; it just needs to be washed regularly, no different than any other body part.
Another argument in favor of circumcision is that uncircumcised men are three times more likely to get penile cancer than circumcised men (Natural Family Online), but this can easily be combated with studies that show the close relationship between penile cancer and sexual promiscuity. It is true that of the men with penile cancer, more are uncircumcised than circumcised, but most would never have been at risk for the disease if they had never engaged in promiscuous and unprotected activities. Many other diseases are like this, too; people are more susceptible to a disease because of something they can’t control, but the disease would never become an issue if they didn’t do something to prod it along. For example, my grandfather died of lung cancer caused by asbestos poisoning. It was a tragedy, but the asbestos never would have created cancer if my grandfather hadn’t willingly weakened his lungs by smoking cigarettes for many years.
A condition known as Phimosis is a rare but real reason for having a circumcision. When Phimosis is present it is impossible for the foreskin to retract, making infection of the foreskin extremely likely (MedicineNet). When Phimosis is present in an infant, a circumcision is performed and complications are usually avoided; however, when Phimosis happens as an adult, the circumcision procedure is much more painful and complications are much more likely. In the case of an adult who has developed Phimosis, perhaps his parents could be blamed for not circumcising him as an infant, but the condition is so uncommon that treating everyone for it as an infant would be overcautious at best.
Aside from the unlikely, there are no real medical reasons for removing the foreskin; and conversely, there are no real medical reasons not to remove the foreskin. Some parents choose not to have their sons circumcised because of the possibility of their sons retaining painful memories of their circumcisions, but modern medicine now allows for the use of painkillers. Claims have been made that the removal of the foreskin desensitizes the penis, making sexual activities less pleasurable, but studies have offered no proof of this. Some parents hesitate to make a life-changing decision without the consent of their infant, but circumcisions in later life can lead to complications, and making major decisions for an infant is the nature of parenthood.
With the millions of baby boys that are born daily, millions of decisions are constantly being made. To circumcise, or not to circumcise? I don’t know what I’ll do when I have kids. Thankfully, I have plenty of time to decide. Some parents should put more thought into a decision like whether or not to circumcise their son. Other parents should probably put less thought into it, since each option has both valid and invalid arguments. One thing’s for certain: I don’t want my son (in the locker-room setting) to be made fun of over something as insignificant as a foreskin (or lack thereof). Until the majority changes or ceases to matter, parents are probably going to keep having their sons circumcised… even if it makes no medical difference.