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By Farzad Roohi

Are you a male who, like me, has been circumcised? If you are, then I really need your empathy for what we are missing.

Try to make sense out of the following premises:

1. Perfection comes out of perfection.

2. God, as the creator of man's body, is perfect.

3. Therefore, man's body, as a creature of God, should be perfect.

Up until ten years ago, tonsillectomy for kids was routine surgery. The idea was that tonsils were not functional and useful after infancy; so, by removing them, we would actually prevent later infection and other side effects due to tonsillitis. Nowadays, tonsillectomy is no longer recommended as it once was. We now know that tonsils carry on as a part of the body's immune system even in adulthood. So, the functional value of tonsils is now appreciated to a greater extent.

The same is true about the appendix. As the name indicates, the appendix is an extended part of the gastrointestinal tract with no function in later stages of human life. So, let's get rid of it as we do with our extra clothes. In the past, when many patients had their abdominal cavity opened surgically for other problems, they asked their surgeons to remove the appendix as a prevention against later infection. Sure enough, this kind of appendectomy is not practiced anymore. Why? Because we now know that the appendix is not just a useless, vestigial part of the G.I. tract which can be excised and trashed. In fact, the appendix has an abundance of lymphatic tissue that serves to resist infection.

But how about the foreskin? Why did God or Mother Nature create man intact?

Recent studies reveal that the foreskin has twelve different and useful functions. Researchers have concluded that the foreskin has several kinds of nerves and should be considered a structural and functional unit made up of more or less specialized parts. Oh yes! This piece of skin, which is as big as a quarter, maintains many useful functions. Since the foreskin contains several kinds of specialized nerve endings, it indeed provides excellent, if peripheral, sensitivity for the penile head (glans) and shaft. Also, the foreskin protects the glans from abrasion and contact with clothes. Without the foreskin the glans skin, which is normally moist, mucous membrane, becomes dry, insensitive, and thickens considerably in response to continued exposure (think of the thick skin of your heel compared to your sensitive lip skin).

If you wish to know more about this mysterious piece of skin, just get into an Internet search engine (Yahoo would do the job) and type circumcision.

In English speaking countries circumcision started to be practiced routinely in the mid-1800s only because doctors at the time believed that circumcision prevents masturbation. And unfortunately, masturbation was considered to be responsible for many diseases, including epilepsy, tuberculosis and insanity. I may personally accept the idea that circumcision might have an adverse effect on masturbation, because by removing the most sensitive part of the male genitalia, one is left to deal with a much less sensitive penis.

There are some counter-arguments in favor of male circumcision, including the claim that circumcision prevents cancer of the penis and of the female partner's cervix and venereal diseases, all of which has been disproven. Scientists now know that the foreskin is a normal, sensitive, functional part of the body.

Do I, as a circumcised man, really know what I'm missing? I don't think so. After all, I have never been in Hawaii, so how could it be possible for me to miss Hawaii? However, according to one man who was circumcised as an adult, “sex without a foreskin is like sight without color. Those who have not seen in color cannot appreciate what is lost.”

“Oh well!”, I sigh.

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Circumcision

by Martin Willett

Circumcision began as a tribal custom which later became associated with religion. Mutilation of the genitals was quite common across North Africa and the Middle East, it is not a practice that began with Joshua or Abraham. Of course the Jews (outside of Ethiopia) were relatively fortunate, they only mutilated the genitals of their males. The infinitely more barbarous practices of female genital mutilation were also carried out by other tribes and still continue to this day, often under the quite specious argument that it is sanctioned or even required by Islam. This is not true, it exists across north eastern Africa including in Christian Kenya and Ethiopia. I hardly need mention that surgical removal of the clitoris is hardly comparable to male circumcision, apart from the fact that both are culturally sanctioned genital mutilations with no justification.

Very early on in the first century CE it became established that circumcision was not required to join the new Jewish cult known as Christianity, this helped encourage many otherwise reluctant converts. There was no tradition of circumcision in Europe, Greeks and Romans did not practice it, as can be seen by classical paintings and statues, even those depicting Jesus and other Jews. Many Christian countries forbade the practice.

Much later in the nineteenth century male circumcision began to be suggested as a cure for masturbation, which at the time was seen to be a cause of many debilitating diseases. This link has subsequently shown to be bogus. Masturbation techniques have to be modified for the circumcised, but masturbation still goes on. Medical science is now quite clear on the matter of masturbation, it is widespread, normal and not the cause of any physical or mental problems, although excessive masturbation may be a symptom of other problems.

In Europe circumcision for other than religious reasons continued at a low level. Sometimes it is carried out for medical reasons, a tiny minority of boys approaching their teens cannot fully retract their foreskins and in such cases surgery may be a good idea, but even this is unclear. The vast majority of boys have no problems with retracting their foreskins by the time they are ten and so have no reason to have them removed. There has also been a continuing pressure to define circumcision as a preventative measure for a whole string of medical conditions from urinary tract infections to cervical cancer. Such arguments usually seem to originate in the USA where for some reason circumcision became the unquestioned norm. If circumcision was so wonderfully protective it makes me wonder why evolution has not seen the shrinking away of the foreskin. The answer is obvious, foreskins do more good than harm. It is true that some men are born with a foreskin that resembles a conservatively circumcised penis, this has been used by circumcision advocates as proof that the foreskin is non-functional. In contrast it shows to me that although there is variation in foreskins there has been no evolutionary pressure to remove them, the variation is there, if there was an evolutionary reason (a real reason) to eradicate foreskins they would have been eradicated. The lack of a function is a reason to eradicate an organ, as can be seen by the disappearance of tails in apes and legs in snakes. I am not aware of any mammal that has no foreskin or larger penile sheath, and my searches for information on veterinary circumcision drew a blank. Certainly all primates have foreskins, male and female, the foreskin (prepuce) has a history of providing protection and sexual pleasure to primates for over 65 million years.

I find the cleaning of my penis and foreskin to be no great hardship. Smegma need not be a problem. All parts of the body have mechanisms to keep them clean: eyelids, tears, vaginal and nasal mucus etc. A healthy penis will leak some fluid, including semen, and shed some dead skin cells. These will either be retained by the foreskin or simply spread all over the groin and underwear, why assume the second route is preferable? In addition the inner surface of the foreskin releases lubricating mucus which helps keep the skin of the glans in good condition, moist, soft and supple. Kissably smooth and soft, I like to think. The clitoris inside its hood will also acquire smegma if not washed, smegma clitoridis, also known as clitty litter, not to be confused with male smegma, smegma preputii, or nob cheese. As with any other part of the body moderation and gentle washing is all that is required. Enemas, douches, excessive nose-blowing and routine probing for earwax do more harm than good, so too does forcible retraction of a young boy's foreskin or excessive washing of the adult glans penis. Just as a healthy woman's vulva should smell of healthy woman rather than a citrus grove or a fishmonger's apron so too a healthy penis should taste neither of soap nor gorgonzola.

The glans penis of a circumcised man often seems rough and calloused to me. (I'm going off the sight of it, I haven't had a lot of experience in touching them.) This is known as keratinization. In contrast my glans is smooth, soft to the touch, at times almost waxy in feel without ever being greasy. It reminds me very much of my wife's clitoris, which is very pleasant to touch with lips, tongue or fingers. Nature keeps the clitoris safe in its own hood to protect the delicate tissues and sensitive nerves. That is not accidental.

There is a lot of talk about circumcision reducing the sensitivity of the penis. This is sometimes mentioned as if it was a plus point for the mutilators. The first point to raise here is about premature ejaculation, in the words of that great sage, Gary Strang, “Premature for who exactly?” To me premature ejaculation would be ejaculation before my orgasm, which is getting into the territory of one hand clapping and the sound of trees falling in empty forests. If you are finishing your love making with an orgasm too early in the show then the obvious strategy is to change the script, introduce some new acts. Besides, I strongly suspect that making a permanent change to the sensitivity of the penis will simply reset your built-in tolerance to sexual stimulation. The point of sexual stimulation in love making is to provide incentive to engage in sexual conduct at every conceivable opportunity (pun intended) and the body needs to respond to that stimulation with orgasm and ejaculation after a reasonable time. If the total amount of stimulation is reduced this would not effect the optimum length of time before ejaculation, the body would have a vested interest in compensating for the effect of penile butchery by simply resetting the trigger to fire with less stimulation. This makes sense in theory. If it were not true surely women would be wise to this and show a preference for circumcised men because they lasted longer, despite themselves. As the rate of circumcision varies between countries we might be expected to see it in a female preference for Israelis and Americans over Italian, French and British men. I need hardly point out that there is no such general preference. Neither can I find much evidence of any link between circumcision and longer sexual performance in any internet searches, any evidence I can find seems to point in the other direction, circumcised men get less sensation from sex and climax quicker too.

From an evolutionary biological standpoint premature ejaculation is not a major problem, female orgasm is not necessary for fertilization (although it can help) but prolonged intercourse without ejaculation would be. The foreskin is connected with all the functions of the penis, including stimulation to ejaculation. If it were without function it would be relatively devoid of nerves. In reality the foreskin is as full of nerves as the fingertips or lips. Nowhere on the body is there a large collection of nerves without a function. Parts of the body without much in the way of function have few nerves. The skin of the back basically just sweats and stops the insides oozing out, it has little other function, and so has few nerve endings, to use your back to read Braille would require characters half a metre across. In contrast the foreskin is full of nerves. To me that fact speaks of function. I'd hazard a guess and say I bet I could be trained to read Braille as well with my foreskin as I could with my thumb, but I doubt I'd be allowed to borrow library books.

The skin of the foreskin is thin like an eyelid but it is much more sensitive to touch, far more sensitive than the skin of the penile shaft, almost as sensitive as the glans itself. Which probably means that my foreskin gives me as much pleasure during sex as the glans of a circumcised man, and my glans, well, that would give me even more, almost as much as a clitoris.

The average time between insertion into the vagina and ejaculation is a measly (but efficient) three minutes, that figure does not seem to vary much between societies, despite there being a big difference in the rates of circumcision. It seems to me that this is fair evidence that although circumcision must reduce male sensation it does not seem to offer a payback in the form of longer sexual performance.

Of course men who have been circumcised like to think that reduced sensations may help them with the problem of premature ejaculation. However if reduced sensations led to longer performance and better sex then nobody would ever use any form of contraception other than the condom, which provides this wonderful reduced sensation for free. Do you know of many men and women who use condoms to enhance their lovemaking when they have no contraceptive needs? I think this buries the idea of reduced sensation being a benefit.

I have managed to find a few sites that seem to suggest that circumcision leads to men lasting longer, however they offer no proof to this claim. They all seem to be American websites run by doctors, who presumably get paid only when parents make the free choice the way they want them to make it. It seems to be just the sort of thing that a man without a choice might want to believe, so who needs evidence? Just keep repeating it to each other often enough and it becomes as good as truth. In Britain, under the National Health Service, circumcision is universally available for free, but is not encouraged, I wonder why? Is that excessive cynicism on my part? In Britain circumcision is considered a barbaric butchery of the new-born (and an unnecessary drain on the public purse) while in America it is a boon for health of the nation (And a great bit of extra business for the doctors).

The restoration of the foreskin is touted as a cure for premature ejaculation by those thoroughly disinterested parties who sell the service. Of course while skin from the penile shaft can be stretched to form a substitute foreskin it cannot be as good as the real thing as it lacks all the extra nerves and mucus-producing tissue. Incidentally the practice of stretching the skin of the shaft of the penis is not new, Jews in Europe were practising the technique of hanging weights on the remains of their foreskins to stretch them centuries ago.

I am very much of the mind that the foreskin is functional and so should be retained whenever possible. It keeps the glans penis healthy and protected from abrasion. Joss Knight noted on the Forum that he finds his circumcised state makes cycling uncomfortable. When was the last time Jew or a Moslem won the Tour de France? How much more evidence do you need?

It has been suggested that circumcision offers protection against penile cancer and cervical cancer. This will become a legitimate reason the day women have their breasts and ovaries removed when they have completed their child-rearing. If removing the prepuce prevents some forms of disease wouldn't removing the entire penis also end all inherited diseases? It's a thought...

Another issue that has long puzzled me is why America is so obsessed by anal sex. Perhaps this can be explained by keratinization caused by circumcision. If vaginal sex offers less pleasure to a circumcised man, which seems to be very likely, there may be a temptation to seek out further pleasure through alternative forms of sexual stimulation. Anal sex is one obvious candidate activity. Judging by American pornography sexual intercourse involving the vagina seems to be almost a minority taste. Whilst anal sex is an option for the uncircumcised man is it more of a compulsion for those who have had their penile sensitivity butchered?

Is it a coincidence that societies that have had high rates of circumcision in the past continue to have high rates? While there have been fads for circumcision in the past as a rule it has not caught on in Europe while it has become the norm in America. It is only in the post war (cold war) period that circumcision in the USA became the unquestioned norm. Sometimes quite literally unquestioned, as boys were butchered without anaesthetic and without their parents' consent or even notification. Such a norm can become self-perpetuating. I have a theory to explain that. If you have been circumcised as a child you have two basic options:

1] Hate both your penis and your parents.

2] Convince yourself that you prefer it that way.

Now, which strategy is more likely to be a winner in the most can-do and positive thinking society this species has yet produced? Evidence? Evidence shmevidence. Do you want you should be a kvetch all your life?

Penn and Teller's Bullshit on Circumcision

Circumcised men are better lovers Admits a Rabbi

Effects of adult circumcision on sexual function

Circumcision victim speaks out

The unkindest cut?

Lots of good material including an interesting wanking video

Propaganda the Nazis would be ashamed of

Circumcision Information and Resource Pages A huge site, very high quality information.

Foreskin.org A site full of photographs of foreskins and penises and a lot of information. If you don't get to see a lot of foreskins this site will give you a clearer idea of what real penises are like.

What do you call an uncircumcised Jewish child? A girl.

© 1999 - 2008 by Martin Willett.

mwillett.org: Debate Unlimited