Put Down the Knife! 11 Reasons Not to Circumcise

I've heard many reasons why we should circumcise a baby boy, but most of them are based on myths. Let's get the facts right.

April 9, 2009 |

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Oh, I’ve heard many reasons why we should circumcise a baby boy. Some of the popular ones are:

I want him to look like me.

He’ll be a freak in the locker room.

You have to. Boys who aren’t circumcised are dirty.

Jennifer’s recent post, WTF? Baby Boys’ Circumcised Foreskins Used for Wrinkle Treatment made me laugh out loud. Mostly it was her shock at up cycling foreskins.

As I commented on that blog, I’d already known they “reused” foreskins. My sister had been involved with a skin grafting on a foot that used those circumcised scraps. If feet and penises combined for life aren’t your idea of fun, perhaps you’ve already hopped on the no-circumcise bandwagon.

Still not sure? Here are eleven reasons to avoid circumcising your son …

1. It is not your body. This is a huge reason to leave your son intact. It is his body, and he should be allowed to choose whether to have surgery on his most private parts. If you choose now not to circumcise, he can always make a different choice later in life. Not so if you snip.

2. For the dads: Your son will never “look like you” in every way. Boys rarely see their fathers’ penises past a young age, and no matter what, grown men’s penises look very different in size and hair content from their baby boys’. Daddy, that “because I am” argument is a pretty poor one. Your mother made the decision to circumcise you in a culture very different from ours. Would you also have your wife not breastfeed if your mother did not?

3. Trauma. I’d say being born was a pretty hardcore experience, wouldn’t you? At least from the mama’s end, it’s hard work. I can only imagine how rough it is for that little guy to work to get out! And how do we give him the big “congratulations”? By cutting off a part of his body! Good job, young chap … now, you won’t be needing this anymore.

4. It’s cosmetic surgery. Would we get him rhinoplasty, too? Actually, lets have the circ doc toss that one in for free, shall we?

5. Locker room fears: if 40 percent of boys are now left intact (and more in some places), your son won’t look much different than others in the locker room. And anyhow, why would boys be checking each other out in the first place?! I should think that the one poking fun would be the guy with the real problem!

6. On the supposed increased risk for urinary tract infections: UTIs are rare in boys, much less common than for girls. Recent studies suggest there is no difference in the amount for circumcised boys than for intact boys.

7. On the supposed increased risk for STDs: Some of the studies suggesting that the risk for HIV is lessened by circumcision are flawed, in that they concentrate on populations in Africa, where HIV rates are much higher than Western countries. A 2007 study offers that it is the percentage of female sex workers in the female population, not the incidence of male circumcision, that determines the level of HIV infection. As an alternative to cosmetic surgery, I suggest you teach your son to respect his body, choose partner(s) wisely, and always use protection.

8. And another medical “reason to circumcise”: phimosis, or a foreskin that won’t retract. The foreskin gradually becomes retractable between infancy and 18 years of age. For most kids it’s in the first few years. It’s nothing we should either rush or worry about. In fact, only 1 percent of males over eighteen still have an unretracted foreskin, and then it can be easily treated with a topical steroid cream. The risks of this happening, however, are small, because stimulation of the foreskin during adolescence helps this happen naturally. (And that’s something that no adolescent boy minds doing!)

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