A delicate tissue

I think it’s silly to snip a little boy’s willy. And the American Academy of Pediatrics finally agrees. Okay, they didn’t say it was silly, but in a new policy statement released on March 1, the AAP admits the “potential medical benefits of newborn male circumcision are not sufficient to recommend routine infant circumcision.”

Though I’m afraid it may take a little more than that to change the minds of the almost half of Canadian and over half of American men with cut penises. “I like how mine feels cut,” one guy told me, “soft, tender and sensitive (just like me).”

Never mind the women who sleep with them. “What to do with all that skin” said one.

There are others like myself, who don’t mind the added bonus. “In Europe, it’s uncommon for men to be cut,” a British woman told me. “I never saw a cut one until I came here. I like them uncut because when they start getting hard, it’s fun to watch the tip emerging from its folds. And there’s something else to manipulate.”

I think for most of us, it’s an aesthetic issue that depends on what you’re used to. And in North America, as one guy who likes his cut penis said, “you just don’t see a lot of uncut penises in advertising.”

Aesthetically, I swing both ways. But, to me, it just seems absurd to remove part of a perfectly healthy little penis to make it look pretty. And if you listen to the foreskin defenders it’s a bit more than a snip. One source said a full 50 per cent of penile shaft skin is removed, or about 15 square inches of the eventual adult male penis.

Of course, it didn’t start out as an aesthetic issue. Non-religious circumcision became routine practice in Victorian times to prevent or cure masturbation. They believed wanking led to a number of diseases, never mind what it did to the moral fabric of society. The practice spread to other English-speaking countries but is only routinely still practiced today in North America

Religious communities that still practice circumcision (less than 10 per cent of routine circumcision according to John Antonopoulos, president of Circumcision Information Resource Centre in Montreal) take their cue from the Bible, where the procedure has less to do with disease and more to do with having a kinder, gentler, less randy penis.

While I’m happy to trash Catholicism having been raised with the Church (which has done away with circumcision as a religious requirement, by the way), I’m hardly in a position to rag on the traditions I know little about. Even Antonopoulos agrees the folks in religious communities who advocate circumcision best discuss the matter amongst themselves. As for the rest of us, I think it’s high time to get over it.

The cleanliness argument is lame. They might as well snip off our labia then, because it makes vaginas just as hard to keep clean. And we can’t even yank it out in the shower to clean in the folds.

I have always argued it’s easier to give a hand job with foreskin because it provides built-in lubrication. Sure, you can always use lube but who wants to put that thing in your mouth after it’s all covered in goop. Some studies have argued that the built-in lubricating action of an uncut penis makes it more comfy for women when it comes to penetration as well. (Look ma, no chafing.) And girls, imagine what it would be like if your clitoris didn’t wear a hat. Foreskin is there to protect the penis head and to keep it sensitive.

Some would argue this point. I know my current member of preference (and not the one I just bought and told you about a couple weeks ago) is cut and certainly doesn’t lack sensitivity.

One guy I spoke to got snipped at age twenty and said he didn’t notice the difference. He’s always preferred the look of other boys’ penises and when his girlfriend’s doctor suggested that his uncut foreskin might be the reason for her repeated yeast infections, it was a great excuse to lop it off. He’s thrilled with the results. Though he says his dick was definitely the most sensitive after the surgery when the fresh cut broke open and bled every time he had an erection, he thinks the sensitivity argument is a lot of hullabaloo. “It makes sense that the tip would become less sensitive once it’s exposed and toughened up a little, but I noticed very little difference, if any,” he says. Oddly enough, however, he does agree that circumcision is an unnecessary procedure.

For John Antonopoulos, that’s the crux of the issue. He believes circumcision should be a matter of choice for adult men, not something parents decide for you as an infant.

And if some men want to tape up their penis for a few years to try and restore their foreskin, that should be their choice also. Of course, if you’re worried about getting your pubes caught in the tape (a little foreskin humour for you there, from the foreskin humour website), you could always try weights, strap it to your leg for a few years or try surgical restoration. Be warned, however, that none of these restoration procedures can restore the nerves and thus the sensations in your original foreskin. They will, however, give you a new hat and some added gliding action

There’s tons, and I mean tons, of info about all this on the web. You can join the Foreskin Restoration Web Ring, a group of linked foreskin related sites; read Danny, Mark and Zack’s foreskin restoration diaries; watch clips of foreskin in action, or clips of circumcision complete with sound effects; find out which celebs have hats (Adam Ant, Erik Estrada, Hugh Hefner and Prince William to name a few); or post messages on the message boards. “Seattle tugger: 35 biwm, seeking contact with other tuggers in the Seattle area.”

It seems some guys have finally found an issue to get really worked up about. Antonopoulos (who wouldn’t reveal his status) certainly believes it’s an important social issue. “I think we’ve been under a myth, a mistaken consensus that we have the prerogative to cut off part of someone else’s genitals, but we haven’t examined why,” says Antonopoulos, who says the CIRC is there to provide information about circumcision, whether men want to be circumcised as adults or want information on foreskin restoration. “We’re amputating a normal, healthy part of men’s anatomy. We don’t even do that with appendixes and tonsils anymore.”

You can reach the Circumcision Information Resource on the web at <www.infocirc.org>

Tell me what you think. Cut or uncut? What do you prefer and why? E-mail: vogels@afterhour.com Mail: My Messy Bedroom c/o Hour Magazine, 4130 St-Denis, Montreal, QC H2W 2M5.

[Ed note: To see the April 1 column devoted to the readers' responses to this column, click here]