@Roze: you had your genitalia altered as an adult, and an educated one at that. That is your prerogative. Please understand that your satisfaction with the outcome of what was done to you, in no way justifies doing the same to other woman under the age of 21.

Likewise if a man who is past college age and whose sex life is well under way, wishes to have his foreskin and frenulum removed, that is his business. But please, people, leave baby boys alone.

Oral sex linked to cancer risk

US scientists said Sunday there is strong evidence linking oral sex to cancer, and urged more study of how human papillomaviruses may be to blame for a rise in oral cancer among white men.

In the United States, oral cancer due to HPV infection is now more common than oral cancer from tobacco use, which remains the leading cause of such cancers in the rest of the world.

Researchers have found a 225-percent increase in oral cancer cases in the United States from 1974 to 2007, mainly among white men, said Maura Gillison of Ohio State University. “The rise in oral cancer in the US is predominantly among young white males and we do not know the answer as to why.”

It is obvious that the only way men can acquire the HPV virus is through the oral stimulation of one’s partner’s clitoris which allows the virus to enter the mouth. The virus no doubt is harboured in the prepuce of the clitoris just as it has been found that HPV also resides in the foreskins of males, through the transmission of which cervical cancer occurs in females. Thus a hoodectomy could, by removing the part that harbors the virus, significantly reduce or eliminate the risk of women transmitting the virus to their male partners.

Likewise, male circumcision is not part of Christianity due to about a dozen New Testament passages including “If you be cicumcised Chirst shall profit you nothing.” But tell that to 5% of the world’s Chirstians (mainly in the US, South Korea, and The Philippines) who circumcise anyway.

I do know the bible says THOU SHALL NOT STEAL, and taking healthy normal body parts from someone too young to give informed consent can only be stealing.

Islam does not require any cutting of the female genitals. Some Islamic communities believe that Islam recommends it. Millions of very devout Moslem women have bodies that are completely innocent of the scalpel, including in austere and puritanical Saudi Arabia..

A committee of Islamic theologians at the chief Islamic academy in Cairo, ruled in 2007 that female genital cutting had no basis in Islam.

I am a Muslim woman and chose to undergo circumcision as an adult when I found my religion demanded it. It was a simple procedure really with the lady doctor snipping away the skin covering my clitoris and it quickly healed. I am totally satisfied with the result. No more smelly smegma collecting under the hood while sex has also become more pleasurable, particularly during oral sex. Since my clit is now exposed without that smelly bit of skin impeding it, it is quickly turned on by my hubby’s tongue. Also no more UTIs. And for your information, there a great site dealing with this procedure which is called hoodectomy – http://www.hoodectomyinformation.com.

Those mothers who want their sons done should certainly consider a hoodectomy for the same reasons.

Foreskin motion during vaginal intercourse can make a world of difference. American medical and sex research has not been honest about this possibility.

As a son who was circumcised at birth, I would have preferred to remain intact. I feel like my body has been violated. And, as I aged, my equipment stopped working. After I began restoring my foreskin, my equipment started working again as the foreskin was able to protect my glans. I am finding out first hand that having a foreskin is better than being circumcised. My wife loves it because she does not get sore like she used to. And, we don’t need to use lube like we used to. Having a foreskin is a win-win for both of us. Too bad my parents decided to have my foreskin amputated.

My body, my choice.

@mayisay. I cannot endorse the website to which you supply the URL. It is harsh and graphic, and makes no concession to feminine delicacy. in current lingo, it is Too Much Information. That website was created to advertise a book that makes a number of defensible points, but the underlying research methods were questionable. I know, because I sent away for the questionnaire the authors drew up. That questionnaire was a biased and tendentious affair. It was obvious that the person who drew it up knew nothing about the sociology and social psychology of medicine and sex.

Couples think they are free agents when they choose to circumcise or not. I cannot emphasize enough that in fact, their choices are often the predictable outcomes of their life experiences, the communities they were born into, and the communities they aspire to join. Whether a baby boy is circumcised or not says a great deal about where the parents fall in the national class system, and where they want their children to be. Parents are often held in thrall by snobbishness without being aware of it. Talk of health and hygiene is mostly a smokescreen and rationalisation.

http://www.ForeskinFunctions.com

It is so engraned it US customs, that people are afraid to think out of the box. If insurance complanies would stop paying for it perhaps it would make parents stop thinking it is just what you do before your bring your son home from the hospital.
Thank you!!!

I hope you’ll continue to speak out on, and inform parents about, this harmful and unethical practice which is mostly continued on because people just never thought to question it.

We need passionate people like you to keep speaking out to make sure people understand that healthy, valuable body parts (like the foreskin) are protected and treasured!

One small point, Daphe. The Lauman study only found that in some subgroups of men, the circumcised men had experiences slightly more of certain practices than the non-circumcised, but it’s not at all clear what the connection is, if any.

The fundamental problem is that a good local anesthetic was first sold in 1950: lidocaine. It’s use for a variety of minor surgeries is completely standard. But it was almost never used for infant circ until about 10 years ago. Even today, at least half of infant circs are still done without anesthesia. Doctors can’t be bothered to do something differently from what they learned in their residencies years ago.

I am surprised that more nurses have not revolted against this barbaric practice. I think that routine infant circ without anesthesia of some kind should be deemed a sexual assault or medical malpractice. It is sexual violence.

Yet I have two friends who have told me that they held their sons as they were being cut, and shrugged off the screams they heard. That’s how deep the belief that circ is good is.

I am deeply moved how a woman like yourself has a more eloquent understanding of the tender bits circ removes, than tens of millions of American men.

Your typical young American parents have never seen foreskin in the flesh. The typical mother has never been intimate with an intact partner. The foreskin is imagined to be a foul trap for stale pee and smegma, which is believed to be the foulest body secretion. Fathers fear that an intact son will be humiliated in the locker room. Mother does not want to be reminded of foreskin every time she changes a diaper or gives a bath. Both parents fear that young ladies will refuse to date their son when they find out he is intact. Many Americans are nervous conformists when it comes to body appearance.

American circ will end when young American women decide that it is sexual violence, and that they prefer sex with foreskin. That day will arrive, of that you can be sure.

In history, the earliest surgery was done without anesthesia. Just tie them down and do it quick. Some people were willing to have surgery once. But I’ve read that people refused to endure surgery a second time – even if it meant death. They knew how severe the pain was, and decided they would rather die than endure that pain a second time.

How can intelligent, educated people not realize that a scalpel causes a horrendous, sharp, excruciating pain that no human being should ever have to endure. Tell me how a custom can be so strong that it overpowers intelligence and common sense.

For example, the Chinese custom of “binding” young girls’ feet. The toes were forced down under the foot [ breaking bones, I believe ] and tightly bound forever. So the feet couldn’t grow. Forever small. Big feet were considered UGLY. No one would marry a girl with big feet. Can you imagine the pain? Americans are not under the influence of Chinese customs and from a distance, we are apalled! But in China, even after a law was passed against foot-binding, some parents would still do it – knowing that they were going to prison. That is how strong a custom can be. It can cloud judgement.

The pain of circumcision wouldn’t be quite as bad if the foreskin was fully developed at birth. But it is still adhered to the glans [ head of the penis ] and does not separate naturally for several years. Mother Nature may be slow, but it produces an exquisitely sensitive sexual organ.

The first step of a circumcision is to rip the adhered foreskin off the glans using a metal probe. But the two skins are still fused as one. And patches of skin are ripped off the glans in the process. I see the glans of these tiny penises with skin missing and the tissue exposed every day. The pain is supposed to be comparable to having a metal probe forced under your fingernail and ripping it back and forth until the fingernail comes off. Imagine the pain! It is now recommended that a pain block be used. But it is not a law. So only a few babies get it.

So why do we do it? Because it is what we are used to. A custom. Explain that to a baby that is enduring a pain that no human being should ever have to endure!

There are many other reasons not to circumcise. It is removing the best skin of the penis. The foreskin contains approx. 20,000 specialized nerves that enhance sexual pleasure. The skin remaining is crude and has only a fraction of the sensation. The foreskin is NOT extra skin. It is there so that the penis can get longer during an erection. It is designed to unfold and stretch out, allowing the penis to grow. In the process, the foreskin is pulled off the glans. The glans is then uncovered and now the intact penis looks the same as a circumcised penis. They end up looking the same during an erection. But the intact penis is larger and has more sensation.

Over the years, doctors have invented excuses for circumcision and the public latches onto them. These excuses are false and misleading. There is no reason good enough to inflict such sharp, excruciating pain on someone you love. To forever decrease his sexual pleasure. To amputate the best, most sensitive part of his penis. To violate his human rights.

As I watch parents hug and kiss their new babies. Then insist that their babies endure a pain that is comparable to a fingernail being ripped off with a metal probe. And then a scalpel cuts – with no anesthesia. I want to scream, “Do you love your baby, or hate him?”

There are many organizations that would help you with an expose’. They are easy to find on the internet. Please help! Babies are weak. This custom is strong.

The USA has the HIGHEST HIV/AIDS rate of any western nation.

Thank you for giving concrete examples of the weird beliefs prevalent in Africa.

The African clinical trials cannot be replicated in the West because they would not pass muster with human ethics committees. Imagine selecting 3000 German boys at random, excluding the circumcised Muslims, then selecting a random half of the remainder to undergo circumcision. The control group would be forbidden to undergo circumcision except for a compelling medical problem.

Then follow the two groups for 20 years, carefully noting the STD experience of all subjects. What would the circumcised half say when they began their sex lives?

Scandinavian countries (like Finland, where male circumcision is thankfully outlawed) have ALWAYS had historically low HIV/AIDS rates and have a virtually 100% male population. Europe is the same.

Furthermore, the US is the 2ND HIGHEST male circumcision population (after Israel and Arab countries), yet has the 2ND HIGHEST HIV/AIDS rate (after Africa).

Obviously it’s NOT about penis amputation but more about safer sex education and behaviour (after all, it’s in Africa where they believe circumcision gives them an “invisible condom” or “having sex with a virgin will rid you of HIV/AIDS”).

I conclude that African study has NEVER had results duplicated in ANY other region of the world.

The western country that is most circumcised is the USA. And guess which western country also has, by far, the highest rate of HIV positive people?

The hoo-ha about “circed men are less likely to catch AIDS”
is based on African clinical trials. The way those trials were carried out left something to be desired. The way data from those trials was analysed also leaves something to be desired. But the biggest problem is that life in an East or South African villag is very very different from what we experience in our daily lives. Access to condoms, even soap, are a problem. Running water is a problem. Africans have bizarre ideas about sex. They behave badly and are very hypocritical about it. They have bizarre conspiracy theories about western nations wanting to oppress Africa by taking away sexual pleasure by teaching abstinence.

Circ helps, if at all, ONLY with heterosexually transmitted AIDS. A cut man is as likely to infect a clean woman as an uncut man. Cut ONLY appears to reduce the likelihood that a man will be infected by an infected woman. GIven the way the clinical trials were run, we cannot rule out that circ only slows down the spread of AIDS. Given enough time, and enough irresponsible sex, cutting won’t much influence the death rate from AIDS over the long run.

to sign petition to voice dissent on that.

You know I don’t want people to feel bad about the choices they made at the time. Everyone did what they did with a good heart, but now going forward let’s realize that there is another way. That baby boys can keep their foreskin.

ntvnat, as for moral leadership from President Obama, don’t hold your breath. He has bigger fish to fry. Wealthy Jews are major supporters of his party. By opposing routine circumcision, he risks being seen as anti semitic and anti-Islamic. He is the son of a circumcised Kenyan, and most likely circumcised himself. Also, don’t look to state legislatures to lead the way here either.

This is a sexual culture issue. In the 1940s and 50, USA maternity wards adopted policies whereby every Caucasian baby boy was circumcised by default unless he was born premature, or unless the mother raised the subject and said No Way. Many mothers said nothing because they had no clue that if it was a boy he would be circumcised.

We Baby Boomers were born to anesthetised mothers. As soon as we were out, we got put in a nursery. In the nursery, a nurse changed our diapers, not our mothers. With 48 hours we were circumcised. Mommy and Bubs were not sent home until about 10 days after the birth, by which time Bubs had mostly recovered from his circumcision. The upshot is that Mommy never saw her baby the way nature intended it to be. While babysitting and helping her mother with younger siblings, all she ever saw was circumcised as well. So tens of millions of adult American women have never seen a foreskin in the flesh. If they don’t Google “foreskin” they haven’t even seen a picture of the intact penis.

Another thing. In proper respectable non-Jewish USA families, circumcision is not talked about. Too personal, too sexual, too icky. So every male is circumcised, but that’s not talked about. Sex ed doesn’t talk about it, if only for fear of offending Jews. So tens of millions of American grew up thinking that the helmet look is what nature ordered. Many proper young mothers first think about this bit of male anatomy when the prenatal class mentions it. My SO stumbled on the foreskin while reading the Britannica in middle school. Most of the boys I grew up with first heard of circ in high school health class, and we were very embarrassed. A lot of proper American boys are unsettled the first time they see a foreskin in a locker room, or at the urinal. Male intactivists often say that this discovery left them feeling sad, angry, and sexually deficient. But I would not be surprised if a more common male reaction is “eww that’s weird. And I don’t want to think about what might be growing under there.”

I felt so alien growing up intact in the USA that I joked to myself that I belonged to a third sex! I was 20 when I first read something in print saying that I was healthy. I was 31 when I first read that American obstetrics was mistaken about the foreskin. Most of what I know about the foreskin and sex I discovered after my 40th birthday, and I am still learning. The books on sex and childbirth that fill American book stores are pretty much agreed that “don’t cut it off” but they don’t make an effective case re “this is why Mother Nature got it right.”

I want to thank Daphne and other moms who post here, for being part of the informal woman-to-woman network that is the most likely way the American Foreskin Holocaust will come to a halt. Unless the AMA somehow passes a resolution forbidding circumcision for cosmetic reasons. Which I am not counting on