Circumcision

Circumcision

A barbaric practice. Period.

Study: Circumcision Removes Most Sensitive Parts

How much does circumcision alter what a man ultimately feels? Scientific studies aiming to answer this question have been inconclusive. Now researchers prodding dozens of male penises with a fine-tipped tool have found that the five areas most receptive to fine-touch are routinely removed by the surgery.

Ker Than
LiveScience Staff Writer
15 June 2007

The finding, announced today, was detailed in the April issue of the British Journal of Urology (BJU) International.

Circumcision surgery involves the removal of the skin that covers the tip of the penis, called the foreskin. Infant male circumcision is the most common medical procedure in the United States, with an estimated 60 percent of male newborns undergoing the surgery.

Morris Sorrells of National Organization of Circumcision Information Resources Center and colleagues created a "penile sensitivity map" by measuring the sensitivity of 19 locations on the penises of 159 male volunteers. Of the participants, 91 were circumcised as infants and none had histories of penile or sexual dysfunction.

For circumcised penises, the most sensitive region was the circumcision scar on the underside of the penis, the researchers found. For uncircumcised penises, the areas most receptive to pressure were five regions normally removed during circumcision-all of which were more sensitive than the most sensitive part of the circumcised penis.

Circumcision is a procedure practiced in several countries for medical as well as cultural reasons. Most scientists agree that the surgery confers some protection against infection and the risk of contracting sexual diseases. Recent studies have also shown that circumcision can lower the risks of HIV infection by as much as 60 percent in sex between males and females.

But Robert Van Howe, a study team member at Michigan State University, thinks such claims are somewhat overblown. "The [health benefits] that have been consistently shown are very small, and there are less aggressive, less invasive, less expensive ways of dealing with the problems [circumcision] is supposed to address," Van Howe told LiveScience.

Other practices, such as choosing sexual partners wisely and using condoms consistently, are far more effective in protecting against diseases, he added.

Circumcision is opposed by some groups on the grounds that it is painful and not a life-saving procedure, and that it also makes sex less pleasurable by exposing and numbing the tip of the penis, called the glans. Some have gone so far as recommending foreskin restoration.

Some previous studies found that circumcision led to little, if any, decrease in penile sensitivity, but Sorrells and his colleagues say such findings are suspect because many are based on self-reports from men who were circumcised to correct medical problems.

On female circumcision:

Please Don't cut me!

Erline Andrews
Sunday, January 15th 2006

The fictional village in Ousmane Sembene's riveting film Moolaade is almost a uniform desert brown. Splashes of colour come from the women's dresses as they gear up for special occasions and from the imported goods sold on a rickety cart by the merchant Mercenary.

The sources of colour are important, as the women and Mercenary become subject to the men's ire, borne from the fear of a challenge to their traditional hegemony.

Sembene is one of Africa's most respected filmmakers and he usually tackles social issues. Moolaade's central theme is one of the most contentious: female genital mutilation (FGM), aka female circumcision. I doubt there is any normal woman, or man for that matter, who could watch Moolaade, which aired recently at Studio Film Club in CCA7, without pressing their legs together at least once.

Amnesty International estimates two million women and girls face FGM every year. It is practised mainly in Africa and parts of the Middle East and by immigrants in Europe and North America. But it has a long and international history. Medical practitioners in Europe in the 19th century and in the US up to the first half of the last century carried out forms of FGM on girls to "cure" chronic masturbation, which was thought to have harmful psychological effects.

Today FGM is practised for purposes of religious piety (Muhammad is believed to have condoned it) and social cohesion.

But Moolaade suggests that the real motivation behind FGM is the maintenance of unequal sexual power dynamics-between men and women, between older and younger women. FGM-which may eliminate women's ability to experience sexual pleasure-is intended to keep women docile and faithful and less of a threat to other women.

The women in Moolaade are almost completely under their husbands' thumbs. (It's a Muslim community and men may have more than one wife.)

While heroine Colle's husband is away, she grants protection to four young girls who ran away from the circumcision ritual, which is called "purification". (The moolaade is the pact between Colle and the girls, represented by a coloured rope across the entrance of the compound where she lives.)

When Colle's husband returns, he calls his three wives before him (Colle is the second) like a tyrannical father. They're made to kneel and can't move without his permission. When Colle continues to disobey his directive that she lift the moolaade, he-on the instigation of his older brother-whips her in front of the village, calling for her to say the words that will end the pact. It is one of the most harrowing and telling scenes. The younger women stand to one side of the clearing where the whipping is talking place, screaming for Colle to resist. The older women-dressed in red dashikis, they carry out the circumcisions-call for the husband to whip her more. Mercenary eventually intercedes and pays for his chivalry with his life.

Colle's rebellion widens the schism between the men and women of the village and sets off a chain of events that leads the latter to question the social structure.

On the advice of the male elders, husbands confiscate their wives' radios, the women's only contact with the outside world. The women meet and grumble at the single stand pipe where they gather water.

There are different types of FGM but the most drastic and the one on which Moolaade is based involves the removal of the clitoris and the labia minora. The labia majora are sewn together, leaving a small hole for urination and the passage of menstrual blood. It is often carried out with unsterilised cutting instruments and by non-medical personnel.

Another scene shows a girl of about seven moaning in the gazebo where the circumcised are put after the operation. One of the female elders tells another the girl is unable to urinate because of a blood clot obstructing her small passage. The reporting elder is advised to use her finger to remove the clot.

In a flashback, young Colle is held down by a woman in red while she undergoes the procedure. Her childish screams and pleas for mercy are searing.

She refuses to have her own daughter-her only child-purified. Not being circumcised, however, comes with a stigma that makes it difficult for a girl to get married. Colle's daughter was promised to the chief's son. The union is called off because of her continued status as a "balokoro", a derisive term for an uncircumcised woman.

The climax of Moolaade is heartening but a little too fantastical. After the death of a girl following the procedure, the women rise up and call for an end to purification. They force the red-garbed female elders to put down their knives. In reality, stamping out FGM will take a lot more effort and a lot more time. It will require education, programmes to empower women and films like Moolaade to make sure the practice remains in people's consciousness.

On male circumcision:

"Being circumcised affects the natural operation, appearance and sensitivity of the penis. During recent years much medical research has been carried out in several countries into the function and purpose of the foreskin. There is now conclusive medical evidence that a circumcised penis with the glans exposed has less nerve receptors and is less effective than a naturally covered penis. Over the years the exposed glans becomes less sensitive. There is well-documented evidence which shows that this can, and often does, have a disastrous effect on sexual performance, its consequences, and ultimately, on self esteem" - from: www.viafin-atlas.com/more_information.asp

Circumcision Is Barbaric And Unnecessary

Daily Nebraskan
January 11, 2006

In 1986, when my son was born, his circumcised father and the probably circumcised doctor urged me to consent to having our baby boy altered in like fashion.

Since I had grown up in Germany, where the practice of non-religious circumcision was virtually unheard of, I resisted on instinctual, cultural and ethical grounds.

Circumcision as a medical procedure was introduced in the 19th century as a prevention and cure for "diseases" like masturbation, epilepsy, insanity, hip-joint disease, involuntary nocturnal seminal emissions, phimosis, prolapse of the rectum and at least a dozen of additional "illnesses." The procedure became quasi-compulsory during the Cold War era.

Since then, the supposed medical reasons for mass circumcision have been shifting often and substantially. A 1999 policy report issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics lists three main reasons for which circumcision is supposed to be preventive: urinary tract infection (UTI), penile cancer and phimosis. These are potential health hazards, indeed.

However, the cited statistical incidence of these conditions looks to be extremely rare. We might as well be advocating that, instead of teaching our children how to properly clean their armpits, to surgically obliterate all of the sweat-producing glands right after birth. Or, if we remove the uterus from the bodies of all little girls early on, they will not contract uterine cancer later in life. But wait a minute! The human race would become extinct if we did that!

Today, and after carefully considering information for and against routine "prophylactic" circumcision, I have come to the conclusion that it is a cruel, barbaric, unethical and totally unnecessary American practice.

Routine neonatal penile surgery is not found in Europe or in most of the rest of the world. It ranks among the vastly under-reported human rights issues of our times and should be declared illegal. It is a mystery to me, how our American culture and even the United Nations can decry female circumcision elsewhere in the world, while doing nothing about male circumcision here at home.

Geoffrey P. Miller, in an article for the Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law, writes, "Every year, in hospitals across the United States, hundreds of thousands of newborn boys are strapped naked to a board and assaulted in their genitals by ritually attired practioners known as physicians." According to Miller, the procedure is painful, but performed without anesthetic. The baby" cries serve as proof of healthy lungs, and the "subsequent traumatized sleep" testifies the procedure is painless. Miller also asserts that pain memories may impair a baby boy" intellectual and emotional development. Though the procedure is surgically safe, Miller contends, it is not without risks.

Hemorrhaging, inflection, and ulceration are the more serious side effects, according to Miller, but "the penis may be bent, deformed, split, perforated, amputated, or burned off." Scar tissue may also accumulate in the urethra and even when the procedures are "successful," as Miller writes, "Viewed from the perspective of normal human anatomy, he has been mutilated." To access this article click here.

A conversation last year with my friend Richard Thoene, who died recently, had added a human dimension to my private investigation into the topic of circumcision. Richard was very open about many things outside of his war experiences. He once said that when he was circumcised for real medical reasons at the late age of 67, he lost about 30 percent of his sexual pleasure. He even encouraged me to "Write a column about circumcision sometime! And be sure to quote me on what I just told you."

To access a detailed, most interesting "Adult Circumcision Outcomes Study" click here. Even though the article downplays the negative effects of circumcision on adult males, it nevertheless admits "the reduction in erectile function was statistically significant." And "the reported decrease in penile sensitivity that resulted from circumcision was of statistical significance."

The above Web site also yields interesting numbers on statistical incidence and regional variations across the U.S. Our Midwest area has had the highest numbers of circumcised men since 1979, with 1999 being a peak year during which 81.4 percent of males endured genital mutilation during the first three days of their lives. In contrast, only 36.7 percent of males in the West went under the neonatal knife during 1999.

Circumcisions are robbing men of an essential part of their bodies, and of a large percentage of their potential physical and emotional pleasure. Not to speak of the rare but significant health hazards – including death – that can be byproducts of circumcisions gone wrong.

And then there are a range of psychological traumas some circumcised men suffer from later in life, along with the hopeful news that men can and have been working on restoring their foreskins. Someone needs to stop the atrocity of circumcision, and it might as well be a woman. We women, and our men, have sons to protect.
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To read about the history of circumcision, religious and otherwise, click here