the taboo of male cutting

‘I’m angry about circumcision. I’m angry that … millions of people are still cutting off part of theirs sons genitals, for no good medical reason and against all good medical advice, because Bronze-age goat-herders thousands of years ago thought their god demanded it.’ – Greta Christina.

Despite a continuing reduction over recent years, thousands of healthy Australian baby boys are circumcised annually. Medicare figures for 1997-1998 reveal almost 20,000 fee- for-service circumcisions on boys, excluding public patients and those outside the medical system.

For some reason there is still as misplaced acceptance of circumcision within our society to the point where it is still legal to perform non-therapeutic circumcision on healthy children as young as 8 days old.

If you think this practice is just a small snip with a knife then take a moment to reflect. During circumcision, the baby's sensitive foreskin is crushed audibly, and the flesh is cut with medical scissors. In all infant circumcisions, forceps or other probes are inserted into the delicate foreskin, scraping, tearing apart and destroying the normal erogenous tissues of the child's sex organ. If a clamping method is used, the foreskin is crushed over a bell-shaped device, to enable amputation.

Are cultural practices or cosmetic reasons enough to justify this ongoing practice?

Any sane parent would be repulsed at the idea of getting breast implants for their young child, or Botox. Why is circumcision outside this cultural taboo of infant cosmetic surgery? Because it has a rich cultural history?

In regards to the cultural practices ask yourself - would it be okay to chop of the tip of the pinky finger from just above the knuckle of an infant? What if it is what your cultural heritage deemed appropriate?

The same people who would cringe at the idea of foot binding for children and become nauseous when confronted with the realities of female genital mutilation are still quite comfortable to have their new born baby’s penis cut with a blade.

In a paper given at the Keel conference on genital integrity in 2008, Dr John Warren shows how the harm of circumcision arises from the operation itself.

Abstract:  Male circumcision results in permanent changes in the appearance and functions of the penis. These include artificial exposure of the glans, resulting in its keratinization and altered appearance. Additionally, circumcision results in loss of 30–50% of the penile skin, loss of at least 10,000–20,000 specialized erotogenic nerve endings, loss of reciprocal stimulation of foreskin and glans, and loss of the natural coital gliding mechanism, etc. From the point of view of sensation and function, the most important effect is caused by the tissue loss itself. The most sensitive part of the penis is removed, and the normal mechanisms of intercourse and erogenous stimulation are disturbed.

While Warren’s study did not deal with the instances of complications it is clear that since genital integrity is always destroyed, and sexual function is always compromised, the true complication rate of circumcision is in reality 100 per cent.

But surely male genital cutting is not as bad as FGM or foot binding? I think it is a dangerous ethical path to walk when we start quantifying human suffering in this way. Is it not enough to realize that thousands of infants a year are having their genitals cut without their permission is not an appropriate practice to have legal protection? These practices are outdated and ultimately abhorrent. Non-therapeutic circumcision is a huge invasion of the individual’s rights to bodily integrity.

If these cultural traditions are so important let them be made by a consenting adult. If an adult male wants to have his genitalia cut for cosmetic or cultural reasons that is his choice. We should be very wary to be making those choices on behalf of infants.

Legal action should be taken to safeguard the physical genital integrity of male children, but what precedes that is strong public censure of the practice.

note: You may have noted that I avoided the religious argument for circumcision because there is simply no way to test the assertion that God wants 8 day old boys to have foreskinectomies.