I haven’t seen convincing evidence to support any of the more extreme claims of either side, how it’s either very good or very bad for boys physically, psychologically, sexually or socially.

If you’re looking for statistical studies, you probably won’t see them, but the effects will fall on bell-shaped curves, and every effect will have its outliers, the physical ill-effects up to and including impairment of sexual function, loss of the penis and death.

What you’re leaving out is that circumcision is surgery, that it’s interfering in the function of something that has shown no problems, and that the alternative is just leaving the baby’s penis alone, which can have no direct ill-effects at all. (Circumcisionists will try to frighten you by blaming every ailment in the region on his intactness, but they can almost always be dealt with as they occur.)

So what bothers me about your moderate tone is that you seem to be saying “If it’s going to create problems between you, just give in and get it done.” In Intactivist circles, we talk of “the adamant father[/mother] syndrome” – the fanatical insistence of one parent – most usually a circumcised man – that it be done, which will carry on the injustice into the next generation.

Notice that it’s the guys who don’t know what they’re missing who say circumcision is no big deal. Guys who’ve got it want to to keep it.

I am not my doctor’s bitch. I have defiled the graveof the dick-raper who raped me.

Circumcision is rape. Rapists derseve no mercy.

You may as well just say that you should do it to the kid so that neither parents need to face the reality that they made a mistake with the first child.

It becomes plainly obvious that if you tell the first son the truth he’s going to be upset.. so to “avoid” this nasty little realization, you’d just close your eyes and plug your ears and hope no one ever questions your choice.

I think the best advice is to say: You DO better when you KNOW better.

You need to protect the healthy, sensitive, functional, erogenous, VALUABLE genital tissue that belongs ONLY to your son. Stripping him of that would be a VIOLATION of his rights as a human being.

After all the bitching I’ve seen about over-the-top analogies, I’m offering my own: In utero, we all start out female. If we have that Y chromosome, what would have been our clitoris becomes the head of the penis and what would have been our clitoral hood becomes the foreskin. I challenge anyone who supports routine infant circumcision of males, to explain why they (presumably) do not also support the routine removal of the clitoral hood from infant girls. After all, with fewer folds of skin the vagina is sure to stay cleaner and less prone to infection. Plus I just think it looks nicer. Amirite?

Secondly, as someone who got circumcised at age 20 I think I have a unique perspective on this.

To any parent who wants to do the circumcision early so their child does not have to endure a painful procedure as an adult, let me say that my circumcision was 99.95% painless. I was given a local anesthetic and was given a large bottle of oxycodone to help with pain during recovery. I only ever had to take one of the pills for pain and that was about an hour after the procedure when the anesthetic was wearing off. The procedure itself and the recovery were otherwise painless. I’m not even talking mild discomfort or a slight soreness. I’m talking literally no pain whatsoever. I realize not everyone will have this same experience, but having a circumcision later in life is not hellish the way some would make it out to be.

One of the pieces of this argument that I find is rarely discussed in any detail, is the impact of circumcision on sensitivity and sexual satisfaction. Pro-circ people will tell you that there is no sensitivity change after a circumcision, while anti-circ people will tell you that the penis becomes a dried-out, dead appendage after circumcision. Predictably, neither of these statements turned out to be true for me. I would compare my post-cut sensitivity to going colorblind. A beautiful garden will still look beautiful to a person who can’t distinguish between red and green. Similarly, sex still feels great, but there are certain sensations a circumcised man just can’t experience and trying to describe them is like trying to describe what red looks like to that person in the garden. I would never make my child colorblind because of an antiquated tradition, and arguments of “it won’t hurt much” and “he’ll never be able to tell the difference” are certainly not valid in this context, so why are they perceived as valid in regard to circumcision?

If I may, I’d also like to point out that differences in post-cut sensation can vary wildly depending on the style of the cut. Didn’t know there are different styles? I didn’t either until I had to pick one out. Basically, the more of the mucosal layer is left, the more post-cut sensation you will have, because you are preserving more nerve endings. Google it if you want more info.

In closing, mutilation of babies is wrong, even if thousands of years of tradition say otherwise.

I made the remark that you quoted because in the last couple of posts, some readers had commented that they disagreed with the advice because it would not fit their circumstances. I should have clarified what I meant more carefully. I can see how that would be confusing, causing you to ask what the heck is it for, then. I am sorry about that. It’s not so much that I want them to agree with my suggestions, but to at least understand why I’m going in a particular way.

Some people did not seem to be reading my responses with the latitude that it might apply to some readers with similar situations, but sometimes differences in the various complex factors in family relations might make the best course of action be slightly or even wholly different. I’m hoping that most people will be able to sort out such distinctions, and also, even if their own situations are very different, they might find a general principle in how I handle the problems to be useful to them in other ways. So my responses are not intended to be cookie cutter, one size fits all solutions, nor are they entirely unique. I’m hoping that people may be able to find some value in a general way even if the fit is not perfect.

Several readers have commented or emailed me over the last six months, saying that they have found something I’ve said helpful because they were able to make the connection between the letter writer’s predicament and their own, even if some of the details were very different.

I have also answered many of the writers privately as you suggest, either because they have requested it or because the subject was covered by a similar post recently. I try to publish a wide variety of letters, because I want to help Hemant’s blog be interesting and useful to many readers. Also, I have many letters to answer, and publishing two a week can cause them to get very old before I can answer them.

I do the column because as a retired family counselor, I miss helping people, and I miss the challenge of the intricacies of family relationships. Also, some of the awful things that I have read on this site that atheists go through break my heart, and I’m tired of just standing by and watching it all happen.

I’ll frankly admit there’s a little ego pleasure involved. No healthy person is entirely adverse to a bit of praise. But it’s a huge amount of work, and shallow ego strokes just wouldn’t be enough to keep me doing it. My main motives are the ones above, and if my ego begins to crowd those out, I have some good friends and some critical readers like yourself to tell me to clean that up.

Again, thank you sincerely for your straightforward thoughts and questions, and thank you for reading so much of Hemant’s blog, even the stuff you don’t like. I believe in what he is doing and it’s an honor to be able to contribute. There will be another post tomorrow that you can enjoy disliking.

discussing it rationally first can often prevent the necessity of putting one’s foot down at all. My impression of THIS couple,

which is the only couple I’m advising,

I just have to take issue with this. If they are the only couple you are advising then why do you publish this junk? When you publish stuff like this it is reasonably interpreted as advice to the greater reading audience. I don’t much care for that approach myself, I don’t like your column much and most often do not agree with your advice and would not seek it. if this is the only couple you were advising then why not just write them directly? Just to be clear it is only your column I dislike, I read it because I read most stuff on Hemant’s blog, I don’t dislike you and find many of your posts on this site well thought out and reasoned, heck sometimes I even agree with you. I just don’t get your claiming that you only advise the letter writers, if this is in fact the case way publish, what is accomplished by it, is it just an ego thing for you?

sex is better for non-circumsized males.

Wow so you really believe that the configuration of you penis is the determining factor in good sex!?! I’m circumcised and I have better sex than many others including a great many who are not circumcised. That was just a ridiculous statement and frankly I find it alarming coming from a doctor even more so from a urologist. If you really believe the shape of your junk is what makes for good sex, I feel sorry for you. Hell I’d even go so far as to say I’ve had plenty of great sex where my penis never came into play, you seem to have a very narrow view of what sex even is. I believe sex is so much more than simply stuffing your member in some wet hole and feverishly humping till you blow a wad. If that was all sex meant to me I’d seriously consider celibacy.

Since son #1 is circumsized, son #2 should be as well. Continuity from 1 son to the next will relieve a lot of pressure/tension/stress from either son while growing up. The debate of should/shouldn’t was decided for ALL of your boys when you decided it for boy #1.

The bright side is that a circumsized penis is less likely to contract an STD. Also, depending on the region you live in, many boys are still circumsized (56.1% national average in 2006).