In defense of the foreskin

Wish I'd been given the choice. "Intact-ivists," a diverse group of men opposed to circumcision, share a common, if unorthodox, mission

http%3A//www.salon.com/2012/12/24/in_defense_of_the_foreskin/


Ekaterina%20of%20Yuriatin
• Gay Dad here: my partner and I are expecting a baby boy in March. We are both cut - but we are thinking about leaving him intact. Thoughts, DLers?

  Proud%20Papa

• r1, good for you. I hope to be a father myself someday. As someone who is uncut, I'd advise you to leave the kid intact. Think of foreskin as the eyelid for your penis. It protects it, keeps it moist, and yes there are a lot of nerves there that make sexual activity more pleasurable and intense. Cleanliness is a complete nonissue. You pull the foreskin back and clean while showering. Simple as that. At the very least, you're allowing the kid to make the decision himself when he gets old enough to.

• By best friend, who is Jewish (and straight), is anti-circumcision. I'm a gentile and gay, and I don't like uncut dicks at all. Go figure.

• To Proud Papa and your partner: Congratulations and best of luck raising a child in this terribly difficult world! When i reply to forums on this topic the haters come after me, but so be it. Do yourselves and your son the best by having him circumcised. My young niece and her husband recently had their first child and wisely had him cut, even though they had to pay for it out-of-pocket. The majority of people don't know how to properly care for an infant with a foreskin or know of the extra work involved for them and for the boy in the future. I'm glad i'm cut, glad my parents made that decision, prefer my men cut, and am damned over activists with nothing better to do who should instead be fighting against things like HIV/AIDS.

  Kosher%20Dick

• There is no need to remove a healthy body part. End of discussion.

• R1. Be civilized and leave your new baby boy intact. The foreskin is perfectly normal and natural and does not need to be cut off nor should it be. An intact penis requires no extra care--leave it alone. The foreskin naturally separates from the head of the penis as a boy grows. Once it separates, washing is simple and is like washing any other part of your body. Sexually the foreskin feels great and it is not unhygenic or unhealthy. It's perfectly fine. The rest of the world does not circumcise, for example, European men who are overwhelmingly intact, along with men throughout the world, have lower std rates than American men. And fortunately, circumcision has been declining in this country for several years now. Circumcision is a barbaric and unnecessary practice. Be civilized and allow your son to enjoy his whole penis.

• There are more advantages than disadvantages for keeping your son intact. In most cases it's an unnecessary procedure that can have fatal results. A guy with foreskin can be as clean as any uncut guy, but to some even the cleanest uncut dick looks and smells dirty (that's just how some guys' brains are wired).

• What I'd like know is why you didn't adopt, r1?

• I am not cut and for many years was embarrassed by it. Because it was so different. But now I realize it was a gift being left intact. My penis is far more sensitive and aroused than any cut man I have ever been with. You lose tons of nerve endings when you remove the foreskin. I say leave it and teach the kid to be proud of it and great hygiene....which isn't hard to do in 2012.

• R4. You don't know what the hell you're talking about--and you, your neice and her husband are not 'wise.' And cutting a kid for religious reasons is some sort of barbarism. The is no 'extra work' to care for the penis now or in the future. You leave the foreskin intact as an infant. The foreskin is adhered to the glans protecting it; therefore, you don't try and forceably retract the foreskin. You only wash what is seen. As the boy grows and the skin naturally retracts you simply wash the penis as you would any other body part. This is how the human race has evolved for billions of years.

• Oh, good. The anti-circ troll is back at R10. What took you so long, hon?

• There definitely are pros and cons for either decision. There is well-documented proof that circumcised men are less likely to contract and spread sexually transmitted diseases including but not limited to HIV. That's a big pro. There are risks with any surgical procedure, and it's right to question removing an infant's healthy tissue without his consent. That's a big con. Intactivists are tiresome, and remind me very much of Michfest womyn. I dread any thread that brings them out of the woodwork to moan about their displaced anger and resentment. However, they make some valid points -- points that should be considered when parents make the decision, NOT used to outlaw a procedure that does have health benefits.

• In the first place, Circumcision is a Jewish religious ritual. American physicians do not perform Circumcisions. Jewish Rabbis called "Mohels" do that. Doctors perform infant male genital mutilation, and they call it "circumcision" to try to give this barbaric practice some sort of false legitimacy. The word "foreskin" is designed to make this part of the body seem unimportant like some sort of extra skin. But nothing could be further from the truth. This is the prepuce of the penis, and it has a very important function to the body. Just as the eyelid keeps the eyeball moist and lubricated, and protects it, the prepuce of the penis performs the same function in the health and protection of the glans penis. My prepuce is intact, but the doctor who tried to talk my father into allowing him to mutilate me, told my parents to forcibly retract my foreskin, and I was damaged as a baby. Just not to the great extent of actually cutting off part of my genitals. One of the best parts of my genitals, I must say. No matter how much you may think that a penis is better if the prepuce is cut off of it, only the person who is being cut has a right to make that decision. A civilized society should recognize that a man has the right to his own intact whole body. Innocent babies must be protected from infant male genital mutilation. Then when a young man reachs an age of consent, and wishes to have any alteration done to his genitals, more power to him.

  Intact Acitivist

• And out come the loonies.

• [quote]There is well-documented proof that circumcised men are less likely to contract and spread sexually transmitted diseases including but not limited to HIV. That's a big pro. Blood on blood contact transmits the HIV virus. Some STDs are transmitted through skin on skin or saliva on skin. The use of condoms prevents blood on blood / skin on skin contact. Do you really want to argue that guys DO NOT NEED to use condoms when the top has a circumsized dick? Really?

• Congratulations r1. :) And I second r6's answer.

• Stupid Americans.

  Euro

• r12 is a moron. What protects against HIV is not circumcision, but condoms. What, would you have r1's son or his son's partners fuck without condoms just because he/they are cut? How irresponsible that would be. Uncut guys are every bit as capable of protecting themselves and their partners from STDs by wrapping it up.

• The idea that HIV is caused by having an intact penis, rather than infection by a virus, is one of the most ridiculous things that the American dick-cutter doctors have ever come up with to try to justify their infant male genital mutilation. And a heinous disservice to public health education! HIV is a VIRUS. Avoiding contact with that virus is the way to prevent becoming infected with it. Cutting off the prepuce of the penis is completely irrelevant to it.

  Intact Activist

• R13 Don't spread misinformation: my niece in northern Wisconsin had twin boys about a month ago--a doctor at the hospital performed the circumcision a few days later. No one on either side of the family is Jewish--it was just done because that was the standard practice. Whether that is a good decision or a bad is quite debatable, but it's not the case that this is an especially Jewish practice in and of itself these days. I am in my mid-50s and was circumcised when a newborn. The connection between circumcision and HIV prevention does, however, need to be contextualized culturally. My understanding is the studies have been done among sub-Saharan African men, where climate and general practice around care of the penis may be different from in the West (I want to be careful not to fall into racist assumptions). I don't know of data about American or European men in this regard. My partner's daughter, who was raised culturally Jewish, gave birth two weeks ago and she and the baby's father (not Jewish) are adamant about not having the baby boy circumcised--they are part of the Intactist movement. Me, I'm a product of cultural and historical conditioning--growing up middle-class in the suburbs of Chicago, I mainly saw circumcised penises. Hence, they seem "normal" to me--of course, physiologically, that's nonsense, but so many cultural practices around the body are. Piercings are unnatural, too--and little girls are often forced to have their ears pierced before they can weigh in on the matter. What I am opposed to is forcing any boys under the age of 2 to get a Prince Albert!

• If the boy wants a Prince Albert later it's pretty awkward to use without a foreskin!

• The African studies concerning HIV were flawed and only showed that heterosexual HIV might be reduced if the woman were infected--with a chance of spreading it to her partner. And these studies took place in Africa where other risky factors exist. HIV among European men has not increased, and they are mostly intact; in fact, American men who are aften cut have a higher HIV rate. And lastly, regarding sex between two males, circumcision played no difference in HIV study after study, and an uncut guy is not at any more risk than a cut guy. Therefore, leave your sons intact and encourage safer sex practices by wearing a condom, which is necessary regardless.

• R20, I am not spreading disinformation, it is the American dick-cutter doctors who are spreading disinformation. What they are doing in hospitals is not "circumcision", it is infant male genital mutilation. It takes a Jewish Mohel to perform their religious ritual of "circumcision". It is my understanding that the bleeding from the tip of the penis has some great significance in their religion. But what American dick-cutter doctors are doing is infant male genital mutilation.

  R13 Intact Activist

• There's something very disturbing about "intactivists" (really with this name?). They seem very cultish and it creeps me out how obsessed they are with this issue. WHO CARES???

• OP: Why would you cut off a perfectly healthy body part from your son's penis? It's not necessary to cut, and besides, it's not your penis. Regarding him not looking like you, how often do fahters and sons see each others' penises after the first few years of life and at a time when sexuality is not even an issue? Besides, the difference between your penises is easily explained if necessary since you're the one missing something. As for him looking like you, there are also plenty of other body parts that won't match on the two of you. And with circumcision on the decline in this country, your son will have several other intact friends.

• R10, the last sentence of your second paragraph is the key phrase in your reply. Until an uncut boy's foreskin naturally "releases" all of his residual urine, body oil, plus debris etc., collects under his foreskin, and parents are instructed to not try to retract it for cleansing. Do you know how long that "release wait" is? An uncircumcised penis is akin to an open wound; almost all uncut men i've been with look as if that's exactly what they have on their dicks beneath their glans -- a huge open wound. That's one reason why uncut men have more STIs than cut men, not less. See CDC/WHO data. Furthermore, the human race has not been around for billions of years. You are way off. While i was raised Roman Catholic and not cut for religious reasons, there is some Jewish/Hebrew ancestry in my heritage of which i'm very proud. Although i'm now Agnostic, i object to silly activists falsely accusing Jews, Muslims, and other religious groups of mutilation. Finally, for the real neanderthals convinced that they're "missing" something, get on the internet and look up the fruit loop who invented some gadget for your cut dick that "pulls down" any loose skin on the shaft to help "restore a foreskin" without surgery. I'm too overwrought to write a detailed account of the surgery a wealthy acquaintance had on his glans so as to be able to cum like a fountain...some queers are just never sexually satiated.

  Glad%20my%20glans%20is%20not%20%22moist%22

• [quote]I'm too overwrought Your entire post should've consisted of that r26. It would've spared us all.

• R26. You are wrong. Te residue from urine, etc., cannot get under the foreskin when it's adhered to the head of the penis as it is with infants and young boys. Shortly thereafter it begins to retract and then slides easily back and forth. Foreskin is not the impossible or difficult issue you try to make it. It's a very easy and natural part of penis that does not require extra special care other than normal washing like any other body part.

• If some culture think it is necessary to do this, fine -- but why insist everyone do it? Why can't you stop intruding on others' lives?

• R27, how does the saying go? "Don't let the door hit you in the ass..." If you don't like it, leave. And as a correction to my response, in the line "...some queers are never sexually satiated," the word "queers" should be replaced with "men."

  No%20slimy%20dick%20with%20an%20%22eyelid%22%20here

• I just want to note to all the straights that God made your child this way...with foreskin..so you are "correcting" God's work. Which is again another example of all you supermarket religious straights* who pick and choose what religious ideologies ove the least several hundred or even thousand years to follow, create or make up as time goes by.

  *for%20the%20most%20part

• The other day, I saw a car covered with anti-circumcision bumperstickers. I thought "blames others for his sexual inadequacy".

  True

• R12 - Okay, I'll bite. What are "Michfest womyn"?

  Enquiring%20minds%20want%20to%20know

• R31, with all due respect, who are you to say that there is a "God" and that he/she/it "made" everyone? I don't believe that silliness and am offended. If human beings had tails, which would serve no useful purpose and actually hinder us, would you be opposed to surgically removing them? This entire thread reminds me of a boorish essay I read long ago by one of these "intact activists." He was a teenager mad at his parents because they had him circumcised and he whined that as a result, among other things, he is allegedly deprived of his "full sexual experience." What B.S.! Young people don't get this: at least in the USA, minors don't have inalienable rights -- their parents have the right to decide what's best for their children until they're 18, so don't blame them during your extended pity parties! Grow up!

  Still%20Glad%20I%27m%20Not%20%22Intact%22

• [quote] Foreskin is not the impossible or difficult issue you try to make it. It's a very easy and natural part of penis that does not require extra special care other than normal washing like any other body part. Depends on your circumstances. My father was a WWII POW and had a horrible time getting enough water to wash sufficiently. This caused him no end of protracted problems when he returned home and eventually he opted for circumcision, well into adulthood. He never wanted that kind of pain to happen to his own sons so, sadly, we were all circumcised as infants. It's obvious circumcision originated in places where water and proper hygienge were difficult, and then became entrenched as a religious ritual in order to propogate with more ease. Mostly we don't need it now, but some men do. Ask Joe Jackson.

• R8: we did not adopt because we wanted to be bioloically connected to our kids. My partner is the bio dad of our 2-year-old daughter and I am the bio dad of our soon-to-born son. They will both have the same egg Mom (a donor). Having kids is a very personal choice. I have a huge amount of respect for people who adopt. It's a wonderful thing to do. We just chose another route to parenthood. Thanks for all the perspectives and advice, DLers. I think we will probably leave him be...

  Proud%20Papa

• I'm still glad to be cut. Because I've heard rumors that every full moon, all uncircumcised men morph into fire-breathing werewolves and sacrifice children to the demon-monster Cthulu. That's right, I'm onto all the dark, nightmarish secrets I know you uncuts are hiding from us ventilated-dick-dudes. Also, without that pesky foreskin holding us back, our cut dicks have certain magical properties that are better imagined than described.

• "What they are doing in hospitals is not "circumcision", it is infant male genital mutilation." Oh, Christ, MARY, give it a rest.

• Natural is better! Much better! I dislike any kind of disfigurement or mutilation of the body. I do support the legal right of adults to do as they please to their own bodies, but the cutting of babies for no good reason is immoral.

• Oh, also us cut guys have this telekinetic ability to move various objects around with the sheer magical force of our ventilated dicks. And we have the ability to shoot these deadly purple (yet weirdly pineapple-smelling) lightning bolts from our fingertips, MWAHAHAHA! So try and beat that, uncut guys!

• Just think of the millions who suffer in silence, with painful, dry cracked peen, unable to cum properly or urinate properly. America should be ashamed!!

  Crying%20as%20I%20type

• We cut guys also have the magical power to communicate with the spirits of the dead . . . . ..in completely reverse English, of course. We vented-dickers have supernatural abilities that you uncut guys can't even conceive of. Because we're not burdened with a spirit-crushing foreskin to muffle our true penile spirits! And cut eldergays HISSSSSS more effectively than uncut ones, I might add.

• circumcision is genital mutilation, period. For those people who believe in God do you really think that mans design was flawed? That we men were born with a pull tab? How ridiculous. I'm one of the lucky ones, intact. I wish that the anti- circumcision groups would push for removing the label 'uncircumcised.' That infers that something hasn't been done and can contribute to the embarrassment that natural boys and men experience. I'm in favor of natural or intact, makes a lot more sense. As for thinking that circumcision reduces the chances of contracting HIV, wow, how ignorant can a human get? What a slap in the face of common sense. These groups that promote this notion should be brought up on charges or have their credentials revoked. Like so many other posters said, condoms, safe sex, know your partner, etc.

• You sniveling little anti-circumcision activitists are, without a doubt, the most psychotic, fanatical, self-righteous psychotics of any political cause I've ever seen in my life, period. That includes PETA. And your clinically paranoid cause is TIED with the WBC cocksuckers in terms of overall credibility! I'm sorry you anti-circ. activists are soooo bored you have soooo much time and passion invested in WHETHER OR NOT A GUY'S COCK IS VENTILATED!!!! ASSHOLES!!!!! Think about this way, assholes: can't you think of FUCKING BETTER PROBLEMS in this world on which to spend sooo much time and raging, emotional energy? And over what........... a COUPLE OF GODDAMN MILLIMETERS OF PENILE SKIN YOU FUCKING PUSSY, NO-LIFE, EGO-BLOATED, ANTI-CIRC. LUNATICS!!!! You anti-circ. fucking assholes lack the self-awareness to realize that you sound EXACTLY as fanatical and delusional as any Christian bible-thumping pig or Muslime swine that ever existed. This cut guy LOATHES you arrogant little anti-circumcision activitists because of your psychotic attitude. Fucking cocksuckers. Self-righteous sewer filth. KEEP YOUR EMOTIONAL MELODRAMA OFF THE END OF MY CUT COCK, YOU MORON-CRETIN-VEGETATIVE-FANATICAL-RETARD-DRAMA-QUEENS!!!! Jesus, you anti-circumcision pigs are fucking disgusting! WHY ARE YOU MOTHERFUCKERS SO OBSESSED WITH A TINY BIT OF SKIN ON MY COCK THAT HASN'T EXISTED IN 40 MOTHERFUCKING YEARS, YOU CARTOONISHLY ARROGANT, WORTHLESS NUTCASES!!!!??? DON'T FUCKING WORRY ABOUT MY CUT COCK, BITCHES!!!! Scumbags. Worry about your own fat, hairy, ugly bodies, arrogant little foreskin-obsessed pieces of tapeworm-ridden shit. THIS CUT DUDE IS TIRED OF YOU FILTH!

• If you're one of those patronizing, condescending, arrogant, diseased anti-circumcision activities who wants to spew pity at me for, as you degenerates put it, "being mutilated at birth," here's what this cut guy has to say to EVERY one of you arrogant, pompous, phony, ego-warped anti-circumcision, penile-cancer-deserving cunts: fuck you, fuck you fuck you fuck you. And just for sheer variety, fuck you even more. GET A GODDAMNED LIFE, YOU LOATHSOME, DISGUSTING LITTLE MARYS WHO ARE SOOOOO FUCKING PSYCHIATRICALLY OBSESSED WITH A COUPLE OF SQUARE CENTIMETERS OF SKIN!!! Stupid, sniveling, misdirected dirtbags, KEEP YOUR MELODRAMA AWAY FROM MY PENIS!!

• So r44 goes on an insane rant about ranting anti-circ trolls. Are you that angry because you have a scarred penis? Glad you're going to let your boy decide for himself, OP. All the best...

• This thread is out of control. I prefer cut guys. I'm cut, that is not nature but that is what I like. Either way, it should be fine, until he becomes incapacitated in some way that is the only time foreskin potentially becomes a problem usually in old age (problems with younger/able males like it being too tight, or getting infected can happen etc but that is not that common)

• look it's really simple. if the father is cut then more than likely the son is/should be cut. male circumcision does not equal genital mutilation fellas. you guys sound like a bunch of pussies. are you sure that was the prepuce that was removed or was it your labia?

  grow%20a%20pair

• Actually, it's simpler than that, R48. The individual should decide, as an adult (or by his parents and doctor for emergency medical reasons) what to do with his own penis. This would save millions on unnecesary or unwanted surgeries annually and takes decisions about what to do with one's body out of the hands of others and restores it to the individual. This should make sense to everyone - whether they view circumcision as socially beneficial hygiene, cosmetic surgery or genital mutilation.

• I agree with you. But as a cut male, i don't have a problem with my penis and more so i extremely glad i don't have a conscious memory of the event either.

• I know that my parents meant well, but they were poorly educated, bigoted, alchoholic, and in my dad's case old-country physically abusive. Also easily swayed by con men and phonies. I think a lot of people feel the same way about trusting their parents' decision making skills, even about better educated, non-abusive parents. We wouldn't argue that a girl or woman leave the decision to have a child up to her parents, so I don't see why we'd leave the decision to have part of your dick removed up to parents. I didn't want to be like Daddy in most ways that matter, why would I care if my dick is like his?