To snip or not to snip..?

[Schmickers]

I'd like to apologise to anyone whom I offended by my comparison of male circumcision to female circumcision. It was not my intent to compare the horror of female genital mutilation to male circumcision, and I understand the objections of the anti-FGM lobby to comparison with male circumcision, in terms of raising awareness of the harsh realities of this act.

However, FGM covers a wide spectrum of surgical procedures, from excision or cutting of the clitoral hood, to clitoridectomy, to female genital infibulation. In terms of this spectrum, the act of male circumcision is analogous to the excision of the clitoral head, whilst leaving the clitoris and labia intact.

That particular form of female genital mutilation, along with the other more severe forms, is illegal, because it is a human rights issue and potentially affects the sexual function of the child in later years, and there are no good justifications for performing it.

As I specified, the opinions in my last post were of a personal nature. Any surgical alteration of the genitals of a female child without medical cause is illegal in most first world countries, certainly all Western countries that I know of. It is my personal belief that this state of affairs will, in a generation, also apply to male circumcision.

From a purely professional point of view, there are simply no good benefits to male circumcision that outweigh the cost in terms of penile complications - at least in first world countries where there is access to effective forms of barrier contraception and sex education. As seen in this thread, the main reasons stated (in fact, for the most part, the only reasons stated) are:

• Avoidance of gential and urinary tract infection;
• Cosmetic reasons;
• Avoidance of penile cancer later in life;

So long as male circumcision remains legal in this country, then every parent has a right to elect to circumcise their son, but I question the wisdom of undertaking a procedure that carries with it a 10% risk of some sort of complication affecting the penis for purely cosmetic reasons - I know as a parent that I wouldn't do it. And as I have previously mentioned, there is a large body of research that suggests that there are far more cost-effective and less invasive ways to deal with those problems than routine circumcision.