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May
Should We Circumcise Our Son?
I know it's wrong to take a newborn child, strap
him down so he cannot move his arms or legs, and
then, without anesthesia or a compelling medical
reason, slice off a perfectly healthy and
functional piece of an extremely sensitive body
part.
I know it's wrong. Yet I still may do it to my
child.
That's the power of the cultural pressure to
circumcise infant males.
These days, many American parents barely give
circumcision a second thought. Sometime during the
pregnancy, they decide that Junior should look like
Daddy, and so they give the go-ahead to "get it
over with" before the baby leaves the hospital.
As a writer on male issues, however, I bumped
into the other side of the circumcision debate long
before my wife became pregnant. And now, two months
before delivery, still not certain if it's a boy, I
find myself torn between my instinct to protect my
child from physical harm and the pressure to
conform.
The decision to circumcise wouldn't be so
difficult if there was a decisive medical reason to
do it.
While religious and ritual circumcision started
thousands of years ago, it wasn't until the
mid-19th century that U.S. doctors began doing
medical circumcisions, proclaiming them a cure for
masturbation, laziness, alcoholism and a host of
other "ills."
Nonsense, the American Academy of Pediatrics
finally said in 1971, when it deemed circumcision
medically unnecessary. By then, however, about 80
percent of male infants in the U.S. were having
their foreskins removed (compared to about 20
percent in the rest of the world).
Studies in the past few years have found that
circumcision may reduce urinary tract infections
and some sexually transmitted diseases, but the
Academy still does not recommend the procedure
routinely. Neither does baby doctor Benjamin Spock,
former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and TV-radio
doctor Dean Edell.
Why not? Because, they claim, it's a painful and
unnecessary operation. (In most cases, anesthesia
is not used because it can cause complications in
newborns.)
Their argument goes something like this: If we
removed all healthy body parts because they might
someday become diseased, we'd be pulling healthy
teeth to prevent decay, amputating healthy breasts
to reduce cancer. We don't do these things because
teeth and breasts serve a purpose.
And so does the foreskin. It exists to protect
the head of the penis from becoming injured or
desensitized. There is even evidence that men with
foreskins experience a more intense sexual
response.
So why would I even consider circumcision for my
son?
Because, frankly, the pressure's on. Our doctor
recommends that a father and son "look the same."
Almost all of our friends have circumcised their
sons. And, while circumcisions in the U.S. have
steadily decreased in the last two decades, most
Jews still carry out the practice, even if they
don't do it in the traditional ceremony. (I'm
Jewish; my wife is not.)
So going ahead with circumcision would seem to
be the easier route for us. Yet if there's one
thing we've learned about parenting, even before
the birth of our first child, it is this: Don't
confuse our needs with the needs of our child.
Circumcising might be easier for us, but what
about him? Is it really "no big deal," or does it
have subtle, long-lasting effects on a boy's
psyche? Is being different from one's father really
damaging, or can problems be overcome by openly
discussing sexual issues? And what's worse: losing
the chance to be initiated into a religious
tradition, or losing a body part without one's
consent?
There are no right answers for these questions.
No study has been developed that can isolate the
impact of circumcision on a boy's future life.
But it seems to me that if my wife and I choose
to circumcise our son, we should do so only after
carefully answering these questions ourselves, and
not simply because it's the easiest thing to
do.
©2010, Neil
Chethik
Related Issues: Circumcision,
Impotency,
Erectile
Dysfunction
* * *
For 20
years, Neil Chethik has made it his goal to find
out what men really think -- about family,
relationships, fathering, aging, sex, and more. He
is the author of two best-selling books,
Fatherloss
(Hyperion) and VoiceMale
(Simon & Schuster). He’s been a nationally
syndicated columnist, a big-hall speaker, and now,
the national media’s go-to guy for what men
really think about their everyday lives. Contact:
Neil Chethik, P.O. Box 8071, Lexington, KY 40533 or
859.361.1659 or E-Mail
or
www.NeilChethik.com
 .
I'm making trouble on Facebook. Come join our
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you're a marryin' man (or a best man, usher,
father, brother or otherwise connected to a groom),
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