Newsflash: Baby foreskin causes AIDS. (NYTimes) (via deleteyourself)
This is actually pretty serious news-not because I have a baby boy, or plan to have one in the near term, but apparently the generation of folks presently having babies is debating the worthiness of circumcision. Technically speaking, there is a pretty substantial argument that there is no reason to circumcise your baby boy and a few folks have even dared to make the comparison to female circumcision, which we consider to be a human rights violation. Absent being born Jewish, many believe today we circumcise our boys primarily for “cosmetic” reasons. To quote one friend on the unattractiveness of an uncircumcised penis, ”you’ve definitely never seen one because you can still see.” When aforementioned friend’s boyfriend commented on the pain that a baby boy must have to go through after enduring this procedure, she responded, “do you want the kid to never get a b—w job because that is likely to be a much more painful life experience.”
Circumcision dates back to the biblical days and was clearly originally created (as much as religion is tied to it) for health reasons. It probably wasn’t very sanitary back in the day to have any extra skin hanging around anywhere, but particularly in such an “active” region. Having said that, these days in the developed world, (unless you’re in France) you bathe at least once, and maybe even twice a day and our world just isn’t THAT dirty and therefore, one could argue against having a little boy snipped. Would you let a doctor perform rhinoplasty on your newborn baby? Even if the nose was looking pretty terrible, because it isn’t a necessary surgery you would probably let them be, so I suppose absent a legitimate public health concern male circumcision really isn’t all that necessary.
Having said all that, when the time comes, regardless of whether or not a public health concern really does exist, my kid is definitely getting snipped.
