I grew up in the UK where circumcision is pretty rare. Under 20% of men in the UK are circumcised, which is a relatively small amount of men. Being from the UK, I rarely saw a circumcised penis, I was more used to and in fact came to prefer intact men. The first time I saw a circumcised penis, I was baffled by it, not in a bad way, just a neutral way. I could tell there was something not right about it - it wasn't quite the same as a retracted intact penis. The first thing I noticed about it was it was a different colour, the glans were off colour, in an intact man they are pink or a Venus purple colour - in the circumcised guy they were a pale grey kind of colour. I tend to describe the discolouring as the penis looking "unwell", like when you look at someone, if they have a healthy glow you would describe them as looking "well", but if someone looks grey and dull you would describe them as looking "unwell", that was how I saw it. The other thing I noticed, apart from the obvious lack of prepuce, was that the glans were rough and dry. These things were a turn off for me - I love the smooth, moist feeling of the intact penis. This isn't to say I hated the circumcised one, just I was put off by it, and how different it looked - we all have our own preferences, though.

I was told from that experience that circumcision was something that was done to boys who were not well. I accepted that, just like I accepted many other treatments for illnesses. When I later found out this was something which was done to infant boys without medical problems with their penises, I was shocked. "You mean to tell me they cut healthy foreskin off?" I was taken aback by this, why would anyone do that? It confused and shocked me - right from the off I felt this must be illegal - "surely cutting healthy body parts off is not legal! It is? What?" I wasn't sure what to think, all I knew was I felt it was clearly a human rights issue.

In my journey to intactivism I found lots of reasons people give for doing it, and have come across many arguments that people give for doing it. None of them have proved sufficient for me, and so I continue to fight against circumcision. These are the arguments and how I feel about them.

It's cleaner

"It's cleaner to be circumcised." 

Cleaner for who? Intact baby boys are very easy to care for, you need not retract, you just clean what is seen (wipe like a finger), this is because the foreskin is fused to the glans. Compare this with an open wound being exposed to a dirty nappy, full of urine and faeces. That doesn't sound clean at all! For teenagers and men it takes half a second to retract the foreskin, then all you have to do is rinse with water then pull the foreskin back over the glans.

I always find it odd how people feel that foreskin is some kind of huge inconvenience, like it needs to be retracted before you can pee or do anything at all, that it attracts dirt like a magnet and needs to be cleaned 10+ times a day. I find that mentality crazy! You only need to retract to clean once a day, you can pee with it not retracted - In fact I found that idea kind of funny, as if it covers the urethral opening and prevents urine coming out, that's a strange way to view the prepuce. The person who made that comment also said they don't need to wash their hands after they pee, because they don't have foreskin - I truly hope not all circumcised men feel they are impervious to dirt like this. Believe it or not, you can get dirty even without prepuce - and you should really wash your hands after you pee, foreskin or not.

You will get hundreds of infections

Most intact males have long and healthy lives, suffering little to no infections. Usually the people who suffer infections have either tight unretractable foreskins, were forcibly retracted as youngsters, do not clean themselves properly, have underlying health issues, or are using soaps which irritate the glans (you don't need to use soap, and it can mess with the PH). 

Circumcised men do actually get infections. Just so you know.

It prevents STI's and HIV

For a start the results of the study showed that it was 60% affective, and only when practising safe sex. Baring this in mind, why bother circumcising at all? Why not just teach safe sex? Monogamy? Abstinence? Those things are more than 90% affective in preventing STI's and HIV.

If it were true that it prevented HIV, then the USA, where 70-80% of males are circumcised, would have a considerably low rate of HIV than the UK, where less than 20% of men are circumcised - in reality the opposite is true.

Even if it did prevent HIV, that does not justify cutting a baby, who is not going to be sexually active, it would make far more sense to leave this choice to a sexually active adult.

It prevents Penile cancer

Penile cancer is very rare, only affecting about 1 in 100,000 men, it can be prevented by proper penile care, and often treated by removal of the part which contains the cancer. It also only usually affects men over 50. It is not justified to remove body parts because there is a rare disease your son is unlikely to be affected by even when he is over 50, and still has a good chance of surviving from anyway. Also, penile cancer can and does affect men who are circumcised, so its not even a very affective method of prevention. 

It prevents UTI's

Less than 1% of baby boys get UTI's and some of those are circumcised. UTI's are cured by anti-biotics and are rarely serious. They occur much more often in girls.

At the time when the study was done, many of the intact boys were premature, which puts them at more risk for a start, and those who were not premature, where told to retract the foreskin - something we know now to cause infections! Boys who are not forcibly retracted tend not to get infections.

We no longer live in the dark ages, where things are just amputated, we have medicine that is very affective now.

It looks better

This is your personal preference, not your babies. You don't know how he, nor his future partner will feel about the way his penis looks. Let him decide what looks better.

Besides which, why is it important for your sons penis to be aesthetically pleasing for you? You will not be having sex with him, I hope! Why is it even important at all for it to look good? Personally I think intact penises look better, maybe he will too. You don't need to stare at his penis, no one needs to stare at it - it is far more important to have a fully functional penis, than it is to have a good looking one!

I want him to look like Dad

Also, people in the locker room will tease him...

How often do you both roam around together, naked, talking about how glad you are that your penises are both the same? I'm going to bet not often. What is wrong with celebrating differences? It's likely that even if you do circumcised you will look different in lots of ways, you may have different colour hair or eyes, your penis may be a different shape, there are lots of ways your son may look different to his dad. 

With the locker room, the circumcision vs Intact divide is lessening, its is almost evenly split - this may mean that your son could be the odd one out - which is easier to say:

1. "You are different because we cut a part of your body off when you were a baby"

OR

2. "You are different because we choose to keep you intact, so that you could make your own choices about your body"

I'm going to bet number 2 is far easier! It also leaves him the choice - circumcised or no? 

It's just a snip

It's not a "snip", it is the total removal of the whole foreskin.

It's just a bit of extra skin

It's not "extra" its supposed to be there. 

I never in all my years saw a penis and thought "what is this extra bit of skin?" I always saw it as, well, the penis, its just a part of the penis - its not extra. It has a few observable properties to it, firstly it has a protective function - it protects the glans, this is clear to see by the differences between the two, the soft, smooth and suppleness of the intact penis, compared with the rough, dry and discoloured circumcised penis. It also has sexual functions. 

Even if it didn't have a function, would it be right to take it? I think not. It doesn't matter if its useful or not, it still is his, and not yours. 

The appendix is under much debate. Doctors and scientists are unsure of its function, some think it has no purpose, others think it had a purpose but is no longer needed and others believe it has immunological functions. The appendix can rupture and kill you, in fact it is far more likely to kill you than foreskin. (Which, has not proven to kill anyone, mind.) However, we never take these out at birth.

Most men will need to be circumcised later in life

This is simply not true, less than 1% of men will need to have an operation on their foreskin, and often these are not full circumcisions, sometimes they are just a slit in the foreskin, other times it is just a partial removal. Most men (about 80% of the worlds men) are living long and healthy lives with fully intact prepuce.

The procedure will be worse when they are an adult

Lets look at that Adults verses Infants

Adults:

Can consent to the procedure, are usually informed about the procedure

Have chosen to have it done, or need it done due to medical problems.

Are usually either given a general anaesthesia or an epidural
Are given sufficient post-op pain killers
Have a bigger penis which makes it easier to operate, leaving less room for mistakes.

Infants
Cannot consent and are not fully aware of what is happen and why
It is usually done for no medical reason at all

Are given little to no anaesthesia
Are given little to no post op pain killers
Have a small penis which is hard to operate on, and are often left with adhesions

I've never heard a circumcised man complain

If this is the case then you are simply not looking hard enough. Type "Circumcised men who resent being circumcised" into google, you will find many. Look at foreskin restoration sites, there are many there, look on youtube videos, facebook groups etc, there are many of them there too. Circumcised men DO complain.

Just because some men are OK with it doesn't mean it should happen, men who would like to be circumcised can make that choice as an adult, however a circumcised man can never get back all he lost.

It is not comparable to FGC

FGC (Female genital cutting) is not always worse. There are a range of ways it is done, some are worse than the type of male circumcision in question, and some are not. It is important to note that even pricking a girls genitals with a pin is illegal, that is far less invasive than what we do to boys. In some countries they only remove the clitoral hood, which is actually a less serious surgery than male circumcision, which takes the whole prepuce away.

All genital cutting, of all types, to either gender without the consent of the person being cut, at any age is bad. For the same reasons that cutting off any other body part would be seen as abuse.

It is a parental choice

I've never quiet understood this. Since when are my genitals anything to do with my parents? I certainly don't see my future children's genitals as my business. It is quite illogical to call this a parental choice. Look at it this way - who's body is it? It's his body! He will only be in your care for 18 years of his life, he will live much longer than this, about 60+ years, being an adult.

Your job as a parent is to preserve as much of him as possible until he is old enough to give his own consent.

I see a lot of people who say "If you don't like circumcision, just don't circumcise your son" I don't understand this? If you don't like that he/she raped you,  just don't rape others..if you don't like abuse just don't abuse others.. if you don't like amputation of babies toes just keep your babies toes intact..

That isn't much of a consolation is it? This is a choice which is affecting someone else, not you, it is an invasive choice, its one that will permanently disfigure an innocent non-consenting person. This "personal" choice is one which should only ever be made by the person who's body parts are in question. A child is not a parents property, they are not an extension of their parents, they are an individual person, they have their own individual rights, they are a person in their own right. One of their rights is to bodily integrity - to be whole.

When we decided to remove body parts from a non-consenting person in our care we do it for one of 2 reasons:

1. It is an emergency - It's about to rupture, or it is a life or death situation. The person is in immediate danger.
2. As a last resort treatment - this means you have tried everything else offered to you medicines, therapies and minor surgeries which are supposed to cure the current health issue, but it just wont go away. It has to be the least invasive form of treatment available.

With routine circumcision, this is not the case.

It is not so urgent that you need to cut it off at birth or even before he is an adult. It is something which can wait until he is older. I see no reason at all why this needs to be a parental choice.

I grew up in the UK where circumcision is pretty rare. Under 20% of men in the UK are circumcised, which is a relatively small amount of men. Being from the UK, I rarely saw a circumcised penis, I was more used to and in fact came to prefer intact men. The first time I saw a circumcised penis, I was baffled by it, not in a bad way, just a neutral way. I could tell there was something not right about it - it wasn't quite the same as a retracted intact penis. The first thing I noticed about it was it was a different colour, the glans were off colour, in an intact man they are pink or a Venus purple colour - in the circumcised guy they were a pale grey kind of colour. I tend to describe the discolouring as the penis looking "unwell", like when you look at someone, if they have a healthy glow you would describe them as looking "well", but if someone looks grey and dull you would describe them as looking "unwell", that was how I saw it. The other thing I noticed, apart from the obvious lack of prepuce, was that the glans were rough and dry. These things were a turn off for me - I love the smooth, moist feeling of the intact penis. This isn't to say I hated the circumcised one, just I was put off by it, and how different it looked - we all have our own preferences, though.

I was told from that experience that circumcision was something that was done to boys who were not well. I accepted that, just like I accepted many other treatments for illnesses. When I later found out this was something which was done to infant boys without medical problems with their penises, I was shocked. "You mean to tell me they cut healthy foreskin off?" I was taken aback by this, why would anyone do that? It confused and shocked me - right from the off I felt this must be illegal - "surely cutting healthy body parts off is not legal! It is? What?" I wasn't sure what to think, all I knew was I felt it was clearly a human rights issue.

In my journey to intactivism I found lots of reasons people give for doing it, and have come across many arguments that people give for doing it. None of them have proved sufficient for me, and so I continue to fight against circumcision. These are the arguments and how I feel about them.

It's cleaner

"It's cleaner to be circumcised." 

Cleaner for who? Intact baby boys are very easy to care for, you need not retract, you just clean what is seen (wipe like a finger), this is because the foreskin is fused to the glans. Compare this with an open wound being exposed to a dirty nappy, full of urine and faeces. That doesn't sound clean at all! For teenagers and men it takes half a second to retract the foreskin, then all you have to do is rinse with water then pull the foreskin back over the glans.

I always find it odd how people feel that foreskin is some kind of huge inconvenience, like it needs to be retracted before you can pee or do anything at all, that it attracts dirt like a magnet and needs to be cleaned 10+ times a day. I find that mentality crazy! You only need to retract to clean once a day, you can pee with it not retracted - In fact I found that idea kind of funny, as if it covers the urethral opening and prevents urine coming out, that's a strange way to view the prepuce. The person who made that comment also said they don't need to wash their hands after they pee, because they don't have foreskin - I truly hope not all circumcised men feel they are impervious to dirt like this. Believe it or not, you can get dirty even without prepuce - and you should really wash your hands after you pee, foreskin or not.

You will get hundreds of infections

Most intact males have long and healthy lives, suffering little to no infections. Usually the people who suffer infections have either tight unretractable foreskins, were forcibly retracted as youngsters, do not clean themselves properly, have underlying health issues, or are using soaps which irritate the glans (you don't need to use soap, and it can mess with the PH). 

Circumcised men do actually get infections. Just so you know.

It prevents STI's and HIV

For a start the results of the study showed that it was 60% affective, and only when practising safe sex. Baring this in mind, why bother circumcising at all? Why not just teach safe sex? Monogamy? Abstinence? Those things are more than 90% affective in preventing STI's and HIV.

If it were true that it prevented HIV, then the USA, where 70-80% of males are circumcised, would have a considerably low rate of HIV than the UK, where less than 20% of men are circumcised - in reality the opposite is true.

Even if it did prevent HIV, that does not justify cutting a baby, who is not going to be sexually active, it would make far more sense to leave this choice to a sexually active adult.

It prevents Penile cancer

Penile cancer is very rare, only affecting about 1 in 100,000 men, it can be prevented by proper penile care, and often treated by removal of the part which contains the cancer. It also only usually affects men over 50. It is not justified to remove body parts because there is a rare disease your son is unlikely to be affected by even when he is over 50, and still has a good chance of surviving from anyway. Also, penile cancer can and does affect men who are circumcised, so its not even a very affective method of prevention. 

It prevents UTI's

Less than 1% of baby boys get UTI's and some of those are circumcised. UTI's are cured by anti-biotics and are rarely serious. They occur much more often in girls.

At the time when the study was done, many of the intact boys were premature, which puts them at more risk for a start, and those who were not premature, where told to retract the foreskin - something we know now to cause infections! Boys who are not forcibly retracted tend not to get infections.

We no longer live in the dark ages, where things are just amputated, we have medicine that is very affective now.

It looks better

This is your personal preference, not your babies. You don't know how he, nor his future partner will feel about the way his penis looks. Let him decide what looks better.

Besides which, why is it important for your sons penis to be aesthetically pleasing for you? You will not be having sex with him, I hope! Why is it even important at all for it to look good? Personally I think intact penises look better, maybe he will too. You don't need to stare at his penis, no one needs to stare at it - it is far more important to have a fully functional penis, than it is to have a good looking one!

I want him to look like Dad

Also, people in the locker room will tease him...

How often do you both roam around together, naked, talking about how glad you are that your penises are both the same? I'm going to bet not often. What is wrong with celebrating differences? It's likely that even if you do circumcised you will look different in lots of ways, you may have different colour hair or eyes, your penis may be a different shape, there are lots of ways your son may look different to his dad. 

With the locker room, the circumcision vs Intact divide is lessening, its is almost evenly split - this may mean that your son could be the odd one out - which is easier to say:

1. "You are different because we cut a part of your body off when you were a baby"

OR

2. "You are different because we choose to keep you intact, so that you could make your own choices about your body"

I'm going to bet number 2 is far easier! It also leaves him the choice - circumcised or no? 

It's just a snip

It's not a "snip", it is the total removal of the whole foreskin.

It's just a bit of extra skin

It's not "extra" its supposed to be there. 

I never in all my years saw a penis and thought "what is this extra bit of skin?" I always saw it as, well, the penis, its just a part of the penis - its not extra. It has a few observable properties to it, firstly it has a protective function - it protects the glans, this is clear to see by the differences between the two, the soft, smooth and suppleness of the intact penis, compared with the rough, dry and discoloured circumcised penis. It also has sexual functions. 

Even if it didn't have a function, would it be right to take it? I think not. It doesn't matter if its useful or not, it still is his, and not yours. 

The appendix is under much debate. Doctors and scientists are unsure of its function, some think it has no purpose, others think it had a purpose but is no longer needed and others believe it has immunological functions. The appendix can rupture and kill you, in fact it is far more likely to kill you than foreskin. (Which, has not proven to kill anyone, mind.) However, we never take these out at birth.

Most men will need to be circumcised later in life

This is simply not true, less than 1% of men will need to have an operation on their foreskin, and often these are not full circumcisions, sometimes they are just a slit in the foreskin, other times it is just a partial removal. Most men (about 80% of the worlds men) are living long and healthy lives with fully intact prepuce.

The procedure will be worse when they are an adult

Lets look at that Adults verses Infants

Adults:

Can consent to the procedure, are usually informed about the procedure

Have chosen to have it done, or need it done due to medical problems.

Are usually either given a general anaesthesia or an epidural
Are given sufficient post-op pain killers
Have a bigger penis which makes it easier to operate, leaving less room for mistakes.

Infants
Cannot consent and are not fully aware of what is happen and why
It is usually done for no medical reason at all

Are given little to no anaesthesia
Are given little to no post op pain killers
Have a small penis which is hard to operate on, and are often left with adhesions

I've never heard a circumcised man complain

If this is the case then you are simply not looking hard enough. Type "Circumcised men who resent being circumcised" into google, you will find many. Look at foreskin restoration sites, there are many there, look on youtube videos, facebook groups etc, there are many of them there too. Circumcised men DO complain.

Just because some men are OK with it doesn't mean it should happen, men who would like to be circumcised can make that choice as an adult, however a circumcised man can never get back all he lost.

It is not comparable to FGC

FGC (Female genital cutting) is not always worse. There are a range of ways it is done, some are worse than the type of male circumcision in question, and some are not. It is important to note that even pricking a girls genitals with a pin is illegal, that is far less invasive than what we do to boys. In some countries they only remove the clitoral hood, which is actually a less serious surgery than male circumcision, which takes the whole prepuce away.

All genital cutting, of all types, to either gender without the consent of the person being cut, at any age is bad. For the same reasons that cutting off any other body part would be seen as abuse.

It is a parental choice

I've never quiet understood this. Since when are my genitals anything to do with my parents? I certainly don't see my future children's genitals as my business. It is quite illogical to call this a parental choice. Look at it this way - who's body is it? It's his body! He will only be in your care for 18 years of his life, he will live much longer than this, about 60+ years, being an adult.

Your job as a parent is to preserve as much of him as possible until he is old enough to give his own consent.

I see a lot of people who say "If you don't like circumcision, just don't circumcise your son" I don't understand this? If you don't like that he/she raped you,  just don't rape others..if you don't like abuse just don't abuse others.. if you don't like amputation of babies toes just keep your babies toes intact..

That isn't much of a consolation is it? This is a choice which is affecting someone else, not you, it is an invasive choice, its one that will permanently disfigure an innocent non-consenting person. This "personal" choice is one which should only ever be made by the person who's body parts are in question. A child is not a parents property, they are not an extension of their parents, they are an individual person, they have their own individual rights, they are a person in their own right. One of their rights is to bodily integrity - to be whole.

When we decided to remove body parts from a non-consenting person in our care we do it for one of 2 reasons:

1. It is an emergency - It's about to rupture, or it is a life or death situation. The person is in immediate danger.
2. As a last resort treatment - this means you have tried everything else offered to you medicines, therapies and minor surgeries which are supposed to cure the current health issue, but it just wont go away. It has to be the least invasive form of treatment available.

With routine circumcision, this is not the case.

It is not so urgent that you need to cut it off at birth or even before he is an adult. It is something which can wait until he is older. I see no reason at all why this needs to be a parental choice.