Second--Even Third--Thoughts on Circumcision

Before our child was born, my husband and I had some pretty spirited “discussions” about circumcision. In fact, that was how I persuaded him we needed to know the sex of our baby. If we were bringing home a boy, I reasoned, we would require several months to duke out our circumcision dilemma.

The debates went something like this:

Me: “We aren’t Jewish, we aren’t Muslim. We have no religious or cultural reasons for circumcising.”

Him: “But he would be different. All the other children would laugh.”

Me: “Lots of kids are uncircumcised these days. Anyhow, you don’t think we can raise a child to accept a minor difference like that?”

Him: “But he wouldn’t look like me. That could be traumatic.”

Me: “You don’t think snipping off his foreskin without anesthesia is traumatic?”

And so on, back and forth, until we got the news.

Thank God.

It was a girl.

*

I recently received a letter from John, a 47-year-old Burbank accountant. His letter was in response to a column about Lorena Bobbitt, who cut off her husband’s penis last June. He also enclosed a news story about a local woman who had castrated her husband with shears as he slept. John underlined what the prosecutor in that case said: that malicious mutilation of men’s sexual organs probably happens more often than we know.

To John’s way of thinking, malicious mutilation includes circumcision. He recently notified the Santa Monica hospital where he was born in 1946 that he is filing a claim for unspecified damages because of the suffering caused by his circumcision.

“It is child abuse to mutilate,” John said. “Nobody asked me for my consent, hence the claim for damages. . . . I have suffered severe emotional distress as a result of my mutilation.”

The hospital does not comment on pending claims. But a risk management consultant familiar with the law said adult patients have a year from the date of the incident or the date of its discovery to file a claim, while children have until the age of 19. Neither would appear to cover John’s situation.

John reached his conclusions about circumcision alone, unaware of the avid and growing anti-circumcision movement.

Anti-circumcision activists such as Marilyn Milos--who founded the San Anselmo, Calif.-based National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers (NOCIRC)--maintain that foreskin is healthy, sexually functioning tissue; that cutting it away is painful and violent, can lead to infection and other complications, and is morally wrong because a baby cannot give consent.

Circumcision, Milos said, “is where sex and violence meet for the first time.”

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 40% of baby boys nationwide are left intact. Worldwide, the figure is 85%.

Boys who are not circumcised for religious reasons are usually circumcised for cultural reasons--it has been routine in this country for 50 years--or because their parents believe circumcision is healthier.

Although for a time the health issue was dismissed, recent studies show that uncircumcised males may experience greater risk of urinary tract infections during the first year of life, although such infections are easily treated with antibiotics. Although penile cancer is quite rare, it is more common in uncircumcised men. Also, studies looking at a higher incidence of cervical cancer in women whose partners are uncircumcised are inconclusive, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Although the academy recommended against routine circumcisions as medically unnecessary during the ‘70s and ‘80s, it shifted into neutral in 1989. Now it maintains that the decision is up to parents, who should be fully informed of the pros and cons.

*

It might be tempting to dismiss guys like John as men’s movement extremists who are whining about something they should just get over.

But it is difficult to feel that way after talking to R. Wayne Griffiths, a soft-spoken 60-year-old construction inspector in Concord, Calif. Four years ago, he founded RECAP, a support and information group for men interested in restoring their foreskins. Although some have referred to men such as Griffiths as “foreskin fundamentalists,” there is nothing preachy about his tone.

“We are not out trying to get converts,” Griffiths said. “We just provide information.”

Restoring foreskin can be done in a few ways. Griffiths used a technique called “taping and traction,” in which the skin of the shaft is stretched over the glans over a period of several months. The same results can be accomplished with surgery.

Before he reversed his circumcision, Griffiths said he always felt “very naked.” His skin was often chafed, underwear was uncomfortable. And sex, he said, “was a labor . . . and there was not much feeling.”

Within a few weeks of the reversal, he said, his skin had become more sensitive. When I asked if that had made a difference in his sex life--and bear in mind that he’s been married 30 years--he exclaimed: “Oh wow! Yes! It was just delightful.

“I feel like I am whole again.”

How can you argue with that?