He claimed it reduces the risk of HIV and STD infection, but Peter Lloyd, [right] author of Stand by Your Manhood, slams the advice as preposterous.
Like an eyelid, he says the foreskin has many functions - and its removal causes the head of the penis to harden and desensitise, like a callus.
He also calls out feminist double-standards on the issue, claiming the frequent violation of boys is 'systematically ignored.
By
Peter Lloyd: Most people would consider the bodies of men and
women equally valuable. But, when it comes to circumcision, that
clearly isn’t true - which is odd considering the procedure removes functional
tissue, causes extreme pain, permanently disfigures and forever damages sexual
response, regardless of gender.
Oh, and in most cultures where female
circumcision is routinely performed, the male equivalent is also done with
equally dirty, blunt apparatus.
Meaning it's less a competition of
suffering and more a universal issue of genital integrity.
So, you can imagine my disdain when Dr Paul
Turek, a private doctor from California, recently claimed that clamping a boy’s
foreskin and cutting it off with a scalpel is meritorious (although, with a
lucrative clinic that charges handsome fees, he would say that…)
Fortunately, as someone with 30 years
experience of having a penis, I’m more than qualified to explain why it’s not
OK to modify a person's body without consent.
The first circumcision is thought to have happened in Egypt centuries ago and,
since then, has been performed for religious reasons across the Middle East -
but it only became popular in the West during the nineteenth century when
Victorian kill-joys wanted to discourage people from masturbating.
Not to put you off your breakfast, but one
of the biggest advocates was Michigan physician Dr John Harvey Kellogg – yep,
the man behind your corn flakes.
A medical practitioner and businessman, he
also doubled as a sex prude.
Not content with his own monastic life, he
also wanted to discourage everybody else from pleasure too, so suggested young
girls receive a dab of carbolic acid to the clitoris, while boys have the hoods
of their foreskins cut off.
Both methods were designed with one
specific, leg-crossing aim: to tame lust in the young.
Fortunately, the former didn’t catch on –
but the latter did...and has now become a multi-million pound industry shrouded
in misinformation, monetary gain and foreskin folklore.
So, to combat this, here's a definitive,
six-point reality-check on circumcision:
1) THE BODY HAS FORESKIN FOR A REASON
IntactAmerica - a leading voice of the
rising 'intactivist' movement - note that 'the foreskin is a normal, sensitive,
and useful body part.
In infant boys, it serves a protective
function, and throughout a man’s life, it keeps the glans moist, shields it
from injury, and enhances sexual pleasure.
'By crushing and severing the foreskin, you
damage the healthy penis, cause unnecessary pain and bleeding, create a risk of
infection and complications, and permanently remove viable erogenous tissue.'
In fact, the foreskin has a whopping 16
functions. These include:
Providing bacteriostatic action around the
head (inhibits bacterial growth)
Protecting the nerves to keep the penis
sensitive during sex (where the foreskin also acts as a rolling device –
otherwise thrusting would hurt more and feel a bit pinched),
Distributing natural lubricants
Storing pheromones for releases on arousal
– making us more attractive to our other halves on a chemical level –
Acting as a sleeping bag for the shaft,
keeping it safe and warm
Besides, if we didn't need it, evolution
would've got rid by now.
Oh, and no professional
medical association in the world recommends routine circumcision, so
there.
2) CIRCUMCISION CAN CAUSE PERMANENT INJURY AND INFANT DEATH
More worryingly, boys who have their
foreskin removed often suffer complications – some of which are not revealed
until the victim is sexually mature.
Sadly, an additional 117 babies are
estimated to die from botched procedures in the US alone, each year.
In September 2012, a two-week-old infant
died at a Brooklyn hospital after contracting herpes through a circumcision
ritual called metzitzah b’peh, which involves the bleeding foreskin coming into
contact with the mouth of the mohel, who sucks it dry.
In November 2012, Manchester Crown Court
heard how a four-week-old boy bled to death after a DIY home circumcision went
wrong. Nurse Grace Adeleye was paid £100 to carry out the procedure, using only
scissors, forceps and olive oil, at the family home in Chadderton. Adeleye was
later found guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence.
Likewise, Californian baby Brayden Tyler
Frazier died in 2013. The newborn child, who was only a few days old, suffered
serious complications as a result of the procedure and died from his injuries
on 8 March. Ironically, his death coincided with International Women’s
Day.
3) IT'S SEXIST TO DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN FGM & MGM
One look in the comments section of Dr
Turek's article shows a huge empathy gap - and utter contempt for anyone who
tries to align the issues.
Laws across the West rightly prohibit girls
from undergoing FGM, but the same protection isn’t extended to boys.
Even the NSPCC, Save the Children and
Barnado’s have no initiative to protect boys. Of course, gender warriors
justify this by claiming one is about hygiene and the other the oppression of
women, but is there actually a link between male circumcision and FGM?
‘Oh, there’s absolutely a comparison,’ says
Rebecca Wald, creator of Jewish campaign group Beyond The Bris, which advocates
against boy-cutting.
'There’s a continuum of FGM [female genital mutilation] and the equivalent of
male circumcision is definitely on there, whether people like it or not. Some
forms of FGM are just a pin-prick, which is obviously still bad, but it’s
nowhere near as terrible as complete foreskin removal. The whole thing has
become political.
'As a mother, I’m amazed that there are
people dedicated to saving girls’ genital integrity who couldn’t care less
about boys’. It’s definitely a men’s rights issue. One hundred per cent.’
Interestingly, she also sees it as a
woman’s issue.
‘Most of my audience are women,’ she adds.
‘Which is interesting, because it’s a son’s mother who hands him over to be
operated on in the first place. Her boy is taken with her full consent, when –
like a lioness – she should be opposing it. But where are the feminists?’
Jonathon Conte, a Californian campaigner
who’s also part of a radical new generation of anti-cutting activists across
the USA, agrees.
‘Regardless of the sex of the victim, a
healthy individual being restrained without their consent and having their
genitals removed is a violation.
In its purest form the removal of the
prepuce, which is the same structure anatomically in men and women, it’s
entirely an analogous procedure.
Besides, we shouldn’t be arguing about
what’s better or worse. It shouldn’t be a competition of suffering, everybody
has the right to grow up with their whole body.
‘As an adult if you want to have a body
modification – a tattoo, a piercing, cosmetic surgery or circumcision – great,
go for it, but children aren’t property.’
4) UNCIRCUMCISED MEN ARE NOT DIRTY
Perhaps one reason for the on-going
tolerance of male circumcision is the hygiene excuse.
The World Health Organization says
circumcised boys help reduce the risk of heterosexually-acquired HIV infection
by 60 per cent. But, last time I checked, baby boys weren’t having sex.
And, anyway, when that time eventually does
come there’s always a condom.
Besides, if circumcision prevented HIV so
much, why is America still a nation with high transmission rates? In 2011,
49,273 people were diagnosed with HIV in the United States. In that same year,
more than 32,000 people had full-blown AIDS.
More importantly, let me reiterate what any
sane person already knows: rolling a foreskin back in the shower is not rocket
science. Mother Nature is smart and knows exactly what she’s doing.
And while Dr Turak asserts that
circumcision can help prevent penile cancer, a simpler solution is surely to
offer all young men the HPV vaccine - something that’s currently only given to
women.
Job done.
5) BOY-CUTTING OFTEN CAUSES PSYCHOLOGICAL
DAMAGE
The appropriately named Catherine Hood, a
counsellor from the Institute of Psychosexual Medicine, knows about the mental
scarring, too.
She sees many men who are angry about having been circumcised as a boy - and
explains that they experience feelings of invasion, self-loathing and shame.
‘The issues that men are angry about are
very individual,’ she says from her clinic in LA.
‘But often they are angry with the fact
they’ve had the procedure and this can lead to a sense of loss or of being
different to the other men.
‘This can cause a drop in sexual
confidence, avoidance of relationships, or I have seen one man who felt he had
reduced sensation and so didn’t enjoy sex as much as a result.
'Obviously parents make the decision to get
their children circumcised and the child doesn’t have a say. If the child then
grows up with any grievance against their parent then this is an obvious
focus.’
6) THE CIRCUMCISION INDUSTRY THRIVES
BECAUSE IT GENERATES MILLIONS
In addition to the fee for private
procedures (of which there are more than a million US cases each year) there
are the people who make money off the tools used – the clamps, the boards used
to strap down the children, the cutting utensils and the anaesthetic.
On top of that there’s the
tissue-harvesting industry, where a number of companies make a profit on
neonatal foreskin. The tissue, after amputation, is sold to biotech companies
and it’s used for skin grafts, burn victims, diabetic patients, scientific
research and anti-wrinkle cream.
‘It’s a huge multi-million-dollar industry,
so there’s a lot of financial incentive to keep the circumcision train
rolling,’ adds Jonathan Conte.
‘There are many people who are making a lot
of money when it happens, who would make no money if it didn’t. Forget human
rights, it’s all about the mighty dollar.’
Which begs the question: is there a hidden
financial reason why we’re encouraged to cut our sons? Is this just a
cash-generator – straight from his pants? The answer, with the exception of
medically-correcting phimosis in consenting adults, is always yes.
Meaning practitioners and parents should
cut it out, not off.
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