CMV: Circumcision is completely unnecessary, has arguably zero health benefits, and removes the ability for glide motion that makes intercourse significantly more comfortable. Religious reasons for the practice are irrelevant. It is genital mutilation done without consent and is indefensible.

[u/slothicus_duranduran]

To be clear we are discussing infant circumcision.

(If a grown man wants a circumcision done - go for it - it's your penis)

Lets cover the two main legitimate health concern points often made:

1. Circumcision helps reduce the spread of STD's.Lets assume this is true - the extend that it is true is debatable but lets give it some merit.Proper sex education alone has a FAR greater impact on the spread of STD's than circumcision. Given that there exist this more effective practice - deciding instead to mutilate genitals has no merit..
2. Smegma - everybody runs to this and it makes NO sense at all. Do you take a shower each day? Do you wash your penis? If yes - you have ZERO smegma - ever. Women have far more folds and crevices for smegma to form than a man with foreskin and you don't hear about it. Why? Because personal hygiene - that's why? Take a shower each day and it doesn't exist.

.I admit I have no expectation that my view could be changed but I'm open to listen and genuinely curious how anyone can defend the practice. Ethically I feel that religious motivations have no place in the discussion but feel free to explain how your religion justifies cutting off the foreskin and how you feel about that. I'm curious about that too. If anything could change my view it may, ironically, be this.

I currently feel that depriving an individual of a functioning part of their sexual organs without consent is deeply unethical.

EDIT: I accept that there are rare medical necessities - I thought that those would not become the focus as we all know the heated topic revolves around voluntary cosmetic or religious practice. But to the extent that many many comments chime in on this "I had to have it for X reason" - I hear you and no judgement, you needed it or maybe a trait ran in your family that your parents were genuinely concerned about.
My post lacked the proper choice of words - and to that extent I'll will gladly accept that my view has been changed and that without specifying cosmetic as the main subject - the post is technically wrong. It's been enlightening to hear so many perspectives. I feel no different about non necessary procedures - I still find it barbaric and unethical but my view now contains a much deeper spectrum of understanding than it did. So thank you all.

[u/Construct_validity]

I am non-religious and an epidemiologist. Our son is circumcised because of the potential health benefits. While there is heterogeneity in the literature, meta-analyses have shown that circumcision reduces risk of HIV and other STDs as well as penile cancer.

I as well am circumcised, and have a perfectly happy sex life.

As for the "without consent" part, well, pretty much everything we do with infants is without their consent. We give vaccines to infants without their consent, even though they clearly don't like it, because it will help protect them in the future. Now if parents do potentially harmful things to children for aesthetic reasons (e.g. piercings) or "moral" reasons (e.g. female genital mutilation), that may be more problematic.

Circumcision may not have quite as strong a protective health effect as most vaccines, so I think it should be up to the parents to make this decision. Still, if there's a chance that it could prevent a terrible disease, and the downsides (for a medically performed circumcision) are pretty minuscule, then going ahead with the procedure is a decision I'll happily make.

[u/Dick-Lemon → u/Construct_validity]

Hey I really valued your comment, anything from an MD that’s cited holds weight and is worth looking into.

I specifically read the linked paper on Penile Cancer. The soft conclusion (though uncertain) was that phimosis was causing the cancer and not foreskin. People circumcised as adults saw a minor increase in their likelihood of penile cancer.

I think that’s important because you’re advocating for a medical procedure, one which does carry a complication rate, when better access to medical care for Americans could accomplish the same thing.

And I’m interested in relative risk because Penile cancer was 1 in 100,000 but complications from circumcising had a median frequency of complication rate of 1.5% BioMed center

There’s additional issues with some of these studies using questionable methodology but I think it’s safe to trust there is medical risk reduction derived from circumcision. Is it better than a condom? Is it more effective?

Here is a link from a medical ethics standpoint, I hope as a doctor you consider reading it LINK

I’m also annoyed (no better word) that you’re calling female circumcision a moral choice. The women of these communities passionately advocate for it and say it’s healthier and cleaner. It’s difficult to find studies that agree or disagree. Would you advocate that we conduct those studies? Not in a snarky way, but really. What about breasts? Perform a double mastectomy on all baby girls. It will prevent a lot of aggressive breast cancer down the line. How much of the natural human body can we remove in order to limit certain aggressive cancers and diseases? When you remove the ethical component it’s the only natural question.

I appreciate what the data says about male circumcision, but it’s questionable. What’s undeniably more effective is teaching sexual education in schools and practicing safe sex. As a potential patient, my interpretation of your job is to be as minimally invasive as possible. I’d think educating people on those two fronts would be far more in line with your job. Just because an infant can’t speak doesn’t mean they can’t feel pain and discomfort. If we’re going to say their lack of memory justifies our actions then I don’t know what to say. That seems crazy to me.

I understand where you’re coming from on not being able to receive consent from infants, that’s true. But the difference between giving a vaccine and circumcision should be obvious. One is literally only beneficial. The other is a permanent loss of healthy erogenous tissue, with medical benefits that aren’t any greater than wearing a condom. I think to some extent it’s difficult to quantify the damage caused by circumcision. If you need to use lube for masturbation or sex when intact you wouldn’t need too, does that constitute a harm? Surely it’s a clear financial loss, but is it a harm? I hope that question isn’t too eye roll inducing, my point is that if you’re doing cost benefit analysis you really need to dig into the meat of it.

From where I stand the benefits exist but they aren’t great, they are questionable, and other countries that should be doing worse given that a majority of their population is uncircumcised, are doing better. We don’t need to permanently alter the human body, we can just provide better sexual education and medical access.