Circumcision – Should You Circumcise Your Son?

What would you do if I told you that I was going to have my newborn daughter’s ears pierced at the ripe old age of eight days? How would you feel if I had a nasal ring torn through the septum in my baby’s nose? Would you blanch if I told you that I had a small but intricate pattern tattooed on my baby son’s penis without anaesthetic?

I assume that you would report me to the police for child abuse. But if I told you that my son was being circumcised, you might frown, but you wouldn’t report me to the police, would you? Why not? What is it about circumcision that is acceptable in our society (if considered a bit peculiar) but piercing my baby is completely unacceptable? Surely both are forms of mutilation; although varying in severity. Circumcision is permanent mutilation whilst piercing can be reversed.

In Australia, between ten and twenty percent of baby boys are circumcised. The rates in other Western countries vary widely with sixty percent of American boys being circumcised, thirty percent in Canada, six percent in the United Kingdom (rates fell dramatically when it could no longer be claimed free on the National Health Service) and less than two percent in Scandinavia (with it being found by a court to be illegal in Finland in 2006).

There are many reasons given for circumcising baby boys. This article considers each reason and examines whether the claims made stand up to scrutiny.

A circumcised penis is easier to keep clean

I’m the father of two young boys. My partner and I have managed to teach them to wash their hands after going to the toilet. It wasn’t difficult. They even wash their hands without my asking before meals. We’ve also taught them to brush their teeth before school and after dinner. It hasn’t taken any effort to teach them to wash their penis. My bet is that once their foreskin starts to retract, they’ll be more than happy to practise pulling it back to wash! Teaching boys to wash their penises is nothing more difficult than teaching them basic hygiene. Why don’t we surgically remove fingernails? Then dirt wouldn’t get under them and we wouldn’t have to clean our nails!

There seems to be two origins to this notion that uncircumcised penises are unclean. The first is the generally held view that circumcision originated in the Middle East because of all the sand and dust. The argument is made that sand lodges under the foreskin and causes irritation and infection. This is a fallacy. This idea was laid to rest by Robert Darby in an article in the New Zealand Medical Journal, “The Riddle of the Sands: circumcision, history and myth” (July 2005) where he analysed the medical records of Allied Troops in the Middle East during both World Wars. His findings were that there was no increase in any infection of the penis caused by the rigorous conditions of the deserts of the Middle East, despite the vast majority of troops being uncircumcised.

As the owner of an uncircumcised penis, my mind boggles at the thought of how you’d get sand under the prepuce. What were those soldiers doing?

A little further thought indicates that it is bizarre to consider that the Jewish and Islamic practice of circumcision was based on hygiene. Cutting off the foreskin with a semi-sharp stone or knife, and bandaging the resultant wound with unsterilized material is the best possible way to injure, maim or kill a baby. One concern that the World Health Organization has raised with its proposal that men in Sub-Saharan Africa should be circumcised (see below) is that the act of circumcision itself (through the use of unsterilized implements) can lead to the transmission of HIV. Circumcision would not have arisen for hygiene purposes.

The second reason that people believe that a circumcised penis is cleaner than an uncircumcised one is the existence of some evidence showing that uncircumcised men have higher rates of infections of the penis than those who are circumcised. In all cases (except where the man has a reaction to soap) these infections could be avoided with some basic cleanliness. There is little doubt that a study of gastro-intestinal upsets would show that those who wash their hands have fewer stomach upsets than those who don’t wash their hands. The answer to the hygiene issue is simple — wash your penis!

I also hazard to suggest that a boy, who has a regular habit of washing his penis, is going to be considerably more alert to the issue of sexual health when he gets older, than one who hasn’t needed to think about it.

I want my son to look like me! Or like his brother/ uncle/grand-dad/best mate/my best mate/my bank manager…

Why? If you wear glasses, do you want your son to wear glasses? If your son’s brother has a bendy penis (penises that have bends up to 30° are considered normal by GPs) does that mean your son has to have one too? How are you going to bend it? Rubber bands and paddle pop sticks? If your son’s uncle is bearded, does your son have to have a beard? Why are penises any different? The worst that will happen is your son will say “Dad, why does your penis look like that?” and that gives you the wonderful opening to discuss penis maintenance with him. It also gives you the opportunity to suggest that it will be a choice he can make when he is eighteen.

A circumcised penis is sexier…

Err, this is your baby son we are talking about here. I don’t think you need to worry too much about penile fashion eighteen years hence. An American Study entitled “Women’s Preference for Penile Circumcision in Sexual Partners,” showed a preference for circumcised men. But a major problem with the study, was that only 38 of the 128 women in the study, had ever had sex with a uncircumcised man. Familiarity breeds, well… familiarity. Making conclusions on the basis of such a small sample size is fraught with inaccuracy.

And then on the flip side, according to Kirsten O’Hara writing in “Sex as Nature Intended It,” (2002) women are five times more likely to have an orgasm with an uncut man than with a cut one and that premature ejaculation was far more prevalent in circumcised men than in uncircumcised men. I’ll leave you to consider the ramifications of this data.

I’m Jewish so I’m required to circumcise my baby boy

Under Jewish law in the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible, the necessity for circumcision arises from Genesis 17:1-14: God [then] said to Abraham, ‘As far as you are concerned, you must keep My covenant — you and your offspring throughout their generations. This is My covenant between Me, and between you and your offspring that you must keep: You must circumcise every male. You shall be circumcised through the flesh of your foreskin. This shall be the mark of the covenant between Me and you. ‘Throughout all generations, every male shall be circumcised when he is eight days old. [This shall include] those born in your house, as well as [slaves] bought with cash from an outsider, who is not your descendant. [All slaves,] both houseborn and purchased with your money must be circumcised. This shall be My covenant in your flesh, an eternal covenant. The uncircumcised male whose foreskin has not been circumcised, shall have his soul cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.

Further, Leviticus 12:3 states “on the eighth day, the [boys’] foreskin will be circumcised. Jews believe that failure to do circumcise will lead to karet, or excision from being one of God’s people, as stated in Genesis. Indeed, circumcision is so much a part of Judaism that grown men, if they convert to Judaism, must be circumcised.

The fallacy of relying on Genesis or Leviticus for guidance on the importance of circumcision is that so much of the Tanakh is ignored by modern Jews already. So why stick with circumcision? A few examples of ignored laws:

Leviticus 5:1-10 If you commit a sin then you can expurgate your sin by sacrificing a goat by gouging it through its neck. If you can’t afford a goat then two turtle doves are okay.

Leviticus 20:13 Gay men must be stoned to death.

Leviticus 25:44 Slavery is perfectly acceptable;

Lev 25:46 Any slave you own is hereditary property that you can happily pass onto your children when you die;

Deut 21:1-29 If you find a dead human body on your land then you must decapitate a female calf and wash your hands in its blood over a swiftly running stream.

Deut 21:10:14 Rape is perfectly acceptable as long as it is an enemy woman you are raping.

Deut 21:18-21 If your son doesn’t do as he says, then feel free to flog him. If he still doesn’t do as you ask, the priests will organize some blokes to stone him to death on your behalf.

I could go on and on with the number of rules and commandments that have been abandoned (quite rightly too) by modern Judaism. If the Tanakh is the inerrant word of God, then all these rules must be kept. If the Tanakh is not the inerrant word of God, then why is circumcision so utterly important? Cannot circumcision be ignored just like most other archaic laws are ignored?

And indeed there is a growing movement of contemporary Jews who do not accept the Tanakh’s requirement to circumcise. This movement has developed a ceremony called the Brit shalom , or “Covenant of Peace” that takes the place of the traditional Jewish Brit Milah or “Covenant of Circumcision.” The movement relies on Leviticus 19:28 (“Do not make gashes in your skin”) and Deuteronomy 14:1 (“Do not mutilate yourself”) for its religious basis. And thus it is clear that being Jewish doesn’t mean that circumcision must be a requirement to maintain the faith.

I’m a Moslem so I’m required to circumcise my baby boy

Why? Where does this law come from? The Koran makes no mention of circumcision, unless you follow a most convoluted path to find it. Verse 16:123 of the Koran states:

“Then We revealed to you: Follow the faith of Ibrahim (Abraham), the upright one, and he was not of the polytheists.”

By being told to follow Abraham, Moslems are being told to follow the teachings of Abraham, which leads back to the Jewish Tanakh and Genesis 17:1-14 (see above). However, various Islamic scholars do not accept this approach , and not surprising, as it would mean that Moslems would need to accept and follow all the Abrahamic laws, outlined in Deuteronomy and Leviticus. Moslems against circumcision quote three verses of the Koran that they state shows that God wanted nothing to do with circumcision:

Our Lord, You did not create all this in vain (3:191). He perfected everything He created (32:7); and “I will mislead them, and I will create in them false desires; I will order them to slit the ears of cattle, and to deface the fair nature created by God” (4:119)

Thus if the Koran does not extol circumcision, where does the requirement come from? The Sunnah (which is the traditions and words of Mohammed, interpreted by scholars) does mention circumcision.

Mohammed said: “Circumcision is a sunnah for the men.” The term sunnah here means that it is conform to the tradition of Mohammed himself, or simply a custom at the time of Mohammed.

Someone came to Mohammed and became a convert before him. Mohammed told him: “Shave off your unbeliever’s hair and be circumcised.”

Mohammed said: “Let him who becomes a Muslim be circumcised, even if he is old.”

One asked Mohammed if an uncircumcised man could go to pilgrimage. He answered: “Not as long as he is not circumcised.”

However, these statements are not without controversy. Some believe that they are not authentic statements from Mohammed. And it is generally accepted that these recitations were not collected until 200 years after the death of Mohammed and therefore their accuracy is very much open to question.

Therefore the spiritual guidance for Muslims, suggesting the need for circumcision is missing.

I’m a Christian, so I’m required to circumcise my baby boy.

No you’re not. As a general rule, Christians are not required to follow their God’s rules laid down in Genesis and Leviticus because at the Council of Jerusalem held in circa 50CE, it was agreed between two competing sects of Christians, after vociferous and fiercely argued debate, that Christians did not need to be circumcised. St Paul declared that:

Those who want to make a good impression outwardly are trying to compel you to be circumcised. The only reason they do this is to avoid being persecuted for the cross of Christ. Not even those who are circumcised obey the law, yet they want you to be circumcised that they may boast about your flesh. May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation. Galatians 6: 12-15 Despite Paul’s declaration, some Christian creeds, such as the Eritrean Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox and Coptic Orthodox still practice circumcision. The Catholic Church for a while seemed a little unsure of whether or not it supported the practice. Until the Second Vatican Council in 1965, Catholics celebrated 1 January as a Holy Day of Obligation as it was the Feast of the Circumcision of our Lord. Post Vatican Council, the Holy Day of Obligation was renamed the Solemnity of St Mary, the Mother of God and circumcision was no longer celebrated.

There is one final point to be made about circumcision and religion, and that is that a small baby does not understand the ‘covenant’ he is making with his God when he is circumcised. Surely, it is a greater act of faith for the boy to under go circumcision when he is an adult, and can make the decision of his own free will? Circumcision when the child doesn’t know the significance of the sacrifice is surely meaningless in not only the child’s eyes but also his God’s eyes?

AIDS and circumcision — the World Health Organization recommends circumcision

Well not quite. The World Health Organization has stated that recent experiments show that circumcision reduces the risk of HIV transmission by sixty percent and that circumcision should be considered as a public health measure in sub-Saharan Africa. While this recommendation may be quite apt for Africa, I’m not convinced by the argument for those who live in the affluent West.

How many couples would make use of a contraceptive, which has a 40% failure rate? And given that the outcome of failure of the method is not a baby, but potential death, it seems a crazy reason to circumcise. And it is a most dangerous idea to promote. “Am circumcised, will bonk!” is not something that will lead to a reduction in HIV!

We know that a condom is by far the best reducer of HIV, so why promote something that reduces transmission by 60% when we know that condoms do it by 99%?

Circumcision stops masturbation

I nearly wasn’t going to include this as a serious argument for circumcision, as most men rather enjoy the practice, except it was the main argument put forward by doctors in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century for doing circumcision:

In the 1890s, it became a popular technique to prevent, or cure, masturbatory insanity. In 1891 the president of the Royal College of Surgeons in Great Britain published On Circumcision as Preventive of Masturbation, and two years later another British doctor wrote Circumcision: Its Advantages and How to Perform It, which listed the reasons for removing the “vestigial” prepuce. Evidently the foreskin could cause “nocturnal incontinence,” hysteria, epilepsy, and irritation that might “give rise to erotic stimulation and, consequently, masturbation.” Another physician, P.C. Remondino, added that “circumcision is like a substantial and well-secured life annuity …it insures better health, greater capacity for labor, longer life, less nervousness, sickness, loss of time, and less [sic] doctor bills.”

Now I’m not quite sure why anyone wants to stop masturbation when we know that it neither causes hysteria nor epilepsy and in fact may help reduce the chance of prostate cancer but those who claim that circumcision reduces masturbation appear to be correct.

A 2007 study found:

There was a decrease in masturbatory pleasure and sexual enjoyment after circumcision, indicating that adult circumcision adversely affects sexual function in many men, possibly because of complications of the surgery and a loss of nerve endings.

Conclusion

Listed above are the main reasons put forward for circumcising baby boys. There are many arguments put for not circumcising babies, but I think the main one, is simply it is a breach of a fundamental human right — the right for bodily integrity. We do not condone the bashing, mutilation or injury of any adult, as we believe that a person has a right to bodily integrity and autonomy. Why as a society do we punish so severely criminal assault? When we circumcise we take away the right of that child to be intact. We also take away the right of the child to make his own decision at a later date about circumcision himself. None of us has that right to make that decision for our baby boy.

David Vernon is a freelance writer. Based in Canberra he writes about science, parenting, health and history. In mid-2006 he completed his third book, an anthology of birth stories told by men, called Men at Birth. He has just released his fourth book, With Women. Website: http://web.mac.com/david.vernon Email: dvbooks@mac.com