This article is sort of satirical, but it seems to hit all the major points pretty well and embodies a pretty reasonable attitude about the whole controversy:

http://thestir.cafemom.com/baby/125988/ ... s_cut_your

Lesson 23: Let's Cut Your Penis Off. Or Not. Whatever.

Posted by Jenny Lawson on September 15, 2011 at 10:12 AM

Comments (409)| Likes (115)

To circumcise, or not to circumcise? It’s one of the most debated and controversial questions a parent will ever be confronted with, and regardless of what you decide, you’ll probably be judged harshly. It sucks, but it’s good practice for the rest of your life as a parent, because strangers will forever be giving you shit for things that are none of their damn business, and this is a good practice for ignoring them.

Still, you’ll always remember this moment, because it’s one of the first decisions you’ll ever make about trimming your child’s sexual organs. Luckily, it’s probably also the last.

Some people will say that I’m not qualified to talk about circumcision since I don’t have a son, but I would point out that I’m not qualified to talk about any of the topics I’ve given advice about in the last year, and that hasn’t stopped me yet. In truth, though, I was very relieved that I had a girl and didn't have to make a decision about circumcision. Frankly, I don't have enough creative vision to make solid design choices about a living room, much less a penis.

Some people will say that they want their son’s penis circumcised (or uncircumcised) because otherwise "they’ll look weird" depending on whatever the parents are used to themselves. Newsflash: They all look weird. Because they're penises. And there's no amount of trimming, bedazzling, and tea-cozying that will change that.

Here’s the thing about circumcision: Uncircumcised penises look like they’re wearing little hoodies. If you gave them moustaches, they’d all look like tiny hipsters. Circumcised penises are naked and can’t pull off moustaches, but look fine with beards. It’s like skins vs. shirts, but with penises.

Some people worry that their friends will judge their decision when they see them changing their kid’s diaper, and to that I'd say, "You probably shouldn't be friends with people who are checking out your baby’s penis." And also, it doesn't even matter because baby's ballsacks are so damn freaky that no one even looks at the penis. Why the hell are they so huge? What are they hiding in there? Those things are disconcerting.

I have some Jewish friends who consider themselves lucky, because a bris (and complimentary circumcision) is considered traditional, so they don't really have to make the decision. They just call over their friends and have a party while some religious dude performs genital surgery on their dining room table. My Christian friends often gawk at the strangeness of this, but I think that 1) if you're going to have to make the decision to cut off a piece of your baby's penis, you should probably be drunk and have a lot of friends around to distract you, and that 2) maybe you shouldn't be so judgy if you come from a religion that believes that your priest just turned perfectly good wine into blood so you can drink it every week. All religions sound kind of fucked up from the outside, and genital mutilation parties seem like small potatoes compared to forced vampirism.

Remember when everyone and their sister started getting Brazilian waxes, and for a while almost no one had '70s bush? I bet the people from Brazil were all "What? Americans are just now hearing about this? My God, they're so behind." Point being? Find out what they're doing to penises in Brazil, because those people set a standard regarding painful genital fads. Or you could simply realize that you probably shouldn't really care about what women are doing to their pubic hair in Brazil, or what anyone else is doing to their baby's genitals. You don't have to give your kid a circumcision any more than I ever have to pay someone to wax my butthole. Just because everyone else is doing it doesn't mean you have to do it, too. Do it, or don't do it. It’s up to you.

(But if you do decide to do it, I suggest saving his foreskin in a jar so that you can give it back to him if he hassles you about it later. Then you have all your bases covered. Plus, it’s like keeping his first lock of hair in his baby book. Except it’s foreskin in a mason jar. It’s almost exactly the same thing. Except way grosser. I’m going to stop writing now.)

Penile cancer has yet to be reported in the circumcised.

Moi

moi621 (imported) wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2011 10:49 pm Penile cancer has yet to be reported in the circumcised.

Moi

Breast cancer has yet to be reported in people who's breasts were cut off.

Anyway, I didn't want this to become a circumcision debate. I just found it refreshing that someone had a pretty balanced view -- basically saying that either way of looking at it is okay. It is possible to not have strong opinion on things, despite our tendency to do so.

Perhaps opinions vary. I have a hunch that there are properly peer-reviewed articles in the medical literature which challenge the notion that p

moi621 (imported) wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2011 10:49 pm enile cancer has yet to be reported in the circumcised.

As a possible example, and I have not checked any of the references given:

http://www.circumstitions.com/index.html

In accord with the medical advice they were given, my parents agreed to my having infant circumcision. The prevailing medical opinion of that time was that a newborn baby does not feel pain.

Wrong.

The notion that a newborn baby does not feel pain may arise from a newborn baby experiencing the pain of the sort of circumcision to which I was subjected as a completely new experience, one which was, for me, so stunning as to put me into a form of freeze state, such that the dear surgeon did not recognize that I experienced devastating pain.

There has been a prevailing notion that, in a distressing situation, the choice is between fight or flight. There are actually four f-word choices, fight, flight, freeze, and finish. If you have ever come upon an actual living possum, you may be familiar with the freeze response, for it is sometimes named, "playing possum." Finish is a euphemism for suicide. In the game of life, there are four basic moves, approach, retreat, stay, and quit the game.

Were I to be homicide-prone, and were I to seek someone worthy of being granted a finish, and were I to grant the finish, I guess I would seek out every physician/surgeon who sincerely believed that a newborn baby, such as I once was, would not experience horrible, totally unfamiliar, pain during anesthesia-free circumcision.

On the way to my orchiectomy, one of the issues which I dealt with via seeing a psychiatrist was making sure that my seeking the orchiectomy was not a delayed response to having been very painfully circumcised.

Gullotine's Operation, done early enough in life, is a sure preventive for brain cancer.

I question that it is actual fact that penile cancer in people circumcised as infants has yet to be reported in the medical literature. Penile cancer is, as best I have yet learned, less common, even in uncircumcised men, that is cancer of the vulva in women.

For myself, I find no real objection to male circumcision when done with informed consent of the male being circumcised, when effective, appropriate anesthesia is being used. I also find no real objection to keeping properly clean as a way of minimizing disease risk, cancer included.

Can anyone find a reported incidence of penile cancer in the circumcised?

Is it more difficult for the circumcised to commit rape? Think on this one.

Circumcision is not analogous to mastectomy. A really unworthy analogy to thinkers.

Why not try find a case of penile cancer in the circumcised and lay to rest this position? Or not.

Moi

Well, by your logic Moi, all males should be castrated at birth to prevent testicular cancer as well as to greatly reduce the risk of prostrate cancer. I challenge you to find a case where a male developed testicular cancer after he was castrated (bilaterally of course).

In response to your challenge, I found this website and provided a quote below:

http://www.circumstitions.com/Cancer.html

Penile cancer is one of the rarest cancers - rarer even than breast cancer in men - and figures for it are hard to come by. Circumcised men get penile cancer at about the same tiny rate as intact men. Early studies that seemed to show a correlation had not been corrected for age; penile cancer is a disease of old men, and the old men with cancer in the studies had simply been born at a time when circumcision was less customary than when the younger men without cancer were born. When men of the same ages were compared, the correlation vanished.

The site also contains a graph (based on figures in Cold CR, Storms MR, Van Howe RS. Carcinoma in situ of the penis in a 76-year-old circumcised man. J Fam Pract 1997;44:407-10) comparing the odds of penile cancer in the US (1 out of 1,347) where 80% of men were circumcised and in Denmark (1 out of 1964) where less than 1% of men are circumcised.

Looking at that comparison, as the website points out, one could absurdly conclude that it is in fact circumcision which increases the risk.

It may be noted that, in #4 on this thread, I gave the url for circumstitions.

If one allows that the U.S. NIH website is a decently authoritative source, one paper demonstrating that cancer in circumcised males happens can appparently be found at:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2422896/

Language is tricky. Penile cancer is rare and penile cancer in circumcised male humans is rarer yet because many human males are not circumcised.

Does penile cancer in circumcised males happen at a statistically significant rate? If one deems 0.95 to be the limit of statistical significance, then one can say that, in terms of statistical significance, penile cancer in circumcised males does not happen. Alas, that statistical significance value also makes penile cancer statistically insignificant?

Statistical significance may have no significance whatsoever for those who actually have statistically insignificant forms of terminal cancer.

Richard_Less (imported) wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2011 10:03 pm Well, by your logic Moi, all males should be castrated at birth to prevent testicular cancer as well as to greatly reduce the risk of prostrate cancer. I challenge you to find a case where a male developed testicular cancer after he was castrated (bilaterally of course).

In response to your challenge, I found this website and provided a quote below:

http://www.circumstitions.com/Cancer.html

The site also contains a graph (based on figures in Cold CR, Storms MR, Van Howe RS. Carcinoma in situ of the penis in a 76-year-old circumcised man. J Fam Pract 1997;44:407-10) comparing the odds of penile cancer in the US (1 out of 1,347) where 80% of men were circumcised and in Denmark (1 out of 1964) where less than 1% of men are circumcised.

Looking at that comparison, as the website points out, one could absurdly conclude that it is in fact circumcision which increases the risk.

Please quote me and do not place your "logical" extensions on me.

Whether you choose circumcision for your son is a personal choice, not government. Nor did I come out for pan-circumcision.

There exists an argument regarding Penile Cancer. A rare cancer. Personally I do not believe the literature of the '60's as it was politically motivated. The authors had a conclusion going into their study. Very common regarding this subject. Just like when a company pays scientists to prove their effluents are safe and even good for wildlife. It happens. Find all the bad links you like. There are lots. Even good links where the science is just flawed.

BTW, if you haven't noticed, since the anti circumcision movements of the '60's, Penile Cancer is more frequent. Coincidence? Not true? I sure read about cases more & more today then ever before. The ones today seem faster too.

Moi

Statistical or not, (remember the proverb about liers)

how about one case report of penile cancer in a circumscribed male.

I have predicted a huge increase in cancers of the penis and the vulva over the next several decades as the number of both men and women infected with HPV has increased so drastically. It is epidemic in younger populations. The rate of vaccination is very low and the reasons for this are not very valid. Our older granddaughter is 14, a prime candidate for the HPV vaccine. Her parents have not had this done for her because she is deathly afraid of injection needles. I want to run out in the back yard and scream at this logic.

We are starting to see the first stages of this as the presence of genital warts in circumcised me is not becoming common and these three cases of penile cancer have indeed happened. These three cases had one thing in common. All the victims were infected with HPV and had had active genital warts.

The simple answer here is take all precautions possible. If I had a choice, I would be circumcised for the probable increased protection from disease. Also, if I were in an eligible age range, I would take the HPV vaccine, which is now recommended for both males and females in the 12 - 26 age range. That is my take and yours may be different.

Speed

Recently, head and neck cancers have associated with HPV.

Was Michael Douglas' due to his years of hard drinking and smoking or

some other activity in the best tradition of Hollywood?

Moi

Remember Genesis 34:25,