The hot button parenting issue of 2010

Circumcision was named the #1 hot button parenting issue of 2010, and for good reason. People are talking about it. The AAP's revelation that circ rates for newborn baby boys in the US have dropped below 50% nationwide on average, made big waves at the World AIDS Conference. San Fransisco intactivists have gotten a law onto the ballot that would outlaw circumcision within the city from being performed on any person below the age of 18. Best of all, more states have stopped funding it through their Medicaid programs, and more private insurance companies have stopped paying for it, accurately deeming it a cosmetic procedure.

One byproduct of this is that it has flushed out rampant misinformation as popularized by American parents on the whole. They claim it's cleaner, that there is less risk of infection, that guys who are left intact almost universally have problems down the line, and that they get made fun of. This flushing out of rampant misinformation is important, because it gives people like me, who have been there, and gotten to the bottom of this issue, the chance to educate, and that's how change occurs.

I'm not coming from a place of always being informed. I know what it's like to research this topic, and how confusing it can be. I was single when I had to make the decision for Erin, had she been a boy. I didn't have Thak to ask. I didn't have any real familial or religious traditions to fall back on when it came to this. What I had was my mind, and a fat stack of information, some good, some bad, and I had to sort through it. My knee jerk reaction, as an American, was to say, "Well, everyone does it, so I should, too. It's just what you do with boys." (For the record, my midwife totally cringed when I said that. I now understand why.) Then I asked for more time to make the final (albeit hypothetical) decision, because I realized that it was a topic I knew nothing about, and that making irreversible decisions on behalf of another human being, based on a knee jerk reaction, was a pretty uneducated thing to do.

I read that the American Academy of Pediatrics takes a wishy-washy stance, stating that there COULD be benefits, but that even if there are, they're not sufficient to recommend the practice. I read that the World Health Organization doesn't recommend it at all. I read that there are over 20,000 nerve endings in the foreskin, and that it is impossible to anesthetize a baby so as to make the procedure painless. I read that there are risks, that 1% of circumcisions performed require revision, and that in an adult male, the amount of skin removed would be the size of a post card if unfolded and spread out. I read that it really doesn't prevent infection in any great numbers, and that girls actually get thousands of times more infections than boys, circumcision or none. I read that 80% of the world's male population is intact, and that the US is really the only industrialized country that performs this surgery on more than 10% of its baby boys.

After reading all that, I was pretty well settled that I wouldn't be doing that to any child of mine, and at my next appointment, I let my midwife know that if the baby was unexpectedly born a boy, my final answer was no circumcision. After that, I was kind of disgusted with the fact that so many people still did this to their sons when there's so much information out there showing that it isn't good for them at all, and that it's not this minor "just a snip" procedure that a lot of people seem to think it is. I wondered how we got to the point of doing this to so many boys.

Would you like to know how it became popularized in America? There was a guy named Dr. Kellogg (yes, believe it or not, the same guy who made the corn flakes), and he proposed circumcision as a cure for masturbation. According to him, we desperately needed a cure for masturbation, as it is one of the great ills of our society, and causes a whole host of physical and mental problems. He thought that removing the most sensitive part from boys would be the way to go as far as curing it. This is a quote from Dr. Kellogg on the subject:

"A remedy which is almost always successful in small boys is circumcision, especially when there is any degree of phimosis. The operation should be performed by a surgeon without administering an anesthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind, especially if it be connected with the idea of punishment, as it may well be in some cases. The soreness which continues for several weeks interrupts the practice, and if it had not previously become too firmly fixed, it may be forgotten and not resumed."

Hey, Ladies, he had something for us, too.

"In females, the author has found the application of pure carbolic acid [phenol] to the clitoris an excellent means of allaying the abnormal excitement."

Mmmmm.... carbolic acid. Somehow that one never caught on, but the good doctor's recommendation for the boys has pervaded through time relentlessly.

Now, I've just got to ask. Knowing that this practice gained popularity in the US for reasons of curbing masturbation, how's that going? Has masturbation stopped because a majority of our male population is missing a piece? I'll let you come to your own conclusions on that one.


Before we end, let's also take a look at circumcision around the world. As I said before, the US is the only industrialized country that has a circumcision rate over 10%. Other countries with high circumcision rates have majority Jewish or Muslim populations, and it is a religious custom there. (I'm not touching that subject today. We're only talking about non-religious circumcision of male infants here.) We are the ONLY country that does this for non-religious reasons, so pervasively. Here are a few other fun facts:

-It is illegal in Finland to perform a circumcision on a minor, for non-medical reasons.

-The Dutch Medical Association released a strongly worded statement in 2010, imploring doctors to refuse to perform non-medically-indicated circumcisions on minors.

-The British Medical Association has spoken strongly against the practice for years. In fact, even Princess Diana broke with tradition and kept her sons intact, despite the royals being possibly the only people in all of Great Britain with a long standing tradition of cutting.

-Over 80% of the world's male population is intact. (Do infections, issues, and pointing and laughing, run rampant in, say, Germany? Russia? China? Brazil? Scotland? Sweden? Australia? No.)


The facts show, this is a cosmetic procedure. It is one that American parents are still free to choose on behalf of their sons, but I ask one thing of every parent, especially those who are expecting a son. Do real research. Learn where this practice came from. Learn what it does and does not do, and how it is regarded around the world. Get past the knee jerk American reaction of "that's what you do with boys", and actually learn about what it is. Only when you have done that can you say that you have made an informed choice.