Circumcision has been on the wane for years, but a growing community of men are out to reverse the snip decision their parents made years ago. Meet the foreskin restoration movement.
Tally has been tugging on his penis for two years. His hand movements are methodical and prescribed. He forms the OK symbol with the index fingers and thumbs on both hands and pulls down on the shaft, stretching it between his spreading hands. After five minutes of tugging, Tally does what any man in a public restroom does: tucks in his shirt, steps out of the stall, washes his hands, and returns to the desk. Tally has what he’s after: his foreskin is slacker. He’s happier because of that. And his co-workers are none the wiser.
Tally is short for Tallywacker, a British nickname for penis. It is also the nom de Internet of a 55-year-old, heterosexual, happily 
married attorney in Tennessee who is at the vanguard of the foreskin restoration movement. With evangelical zest, he shares his story, and a sequential series of photographs of his penis, to thousands of private members and hundreds of daily visitors to his websites, RestoringForeskin.org and RestoringTally.com.
“Foreskin restoration has changed my life, like I never imagined was possible,” he says. “At 55, I’m enjoying sex like I’m in my 20s. Having my foreskin has made me feel more confident and comfortable in my skin and body.”
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Circumcision has been practiced for millennia, across continents and cultures. Anthropologists disagree about its origins; some think it goes back 15,000 years to a single culture, some think it originated independently at different times, in different places, for different reasons. We know that Australian aborigines, Native Americans, and ancient Egyptians practiced it, dating back at least 6,000 years.
Over time, circumcision took on religious significance in Judaism, Islam, and even Christianity. Jews consider it a commandment from God; Muslims believe it to be one of five acts that “befit the natural state of man.” And then there is the Holy Foreskin (or prepuce) of Jesus, cut off in a cave on his eighth day of life, and supposedly handed down through the centuries by popes, kings, and even Charlemagne himself. It was thought to have magical properties—and if the accounts are to be believed it would have had to, given that during the Middle Ages, there were as many as 18 Holy Prepuces scattered across Europe.
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John Harvey Kellogg prescribed circumcision (along with, it should be noted, Corn Flakes) to prevent masturbation.
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By the mid-19th century, circumcision was medicalized. It was proposed as treatment for a range of conditions, from the mutually counterintuitive—priapism and impotence, paralysis and epilepsy—to some that are still cited today: prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and foreskin-related problems like phimosis and balanitis.
By the turn of the 20th century, it was widely advocated by doctors, including John Harvey Kellogg, who prescribed circumcision (along with, it should be noted, Corn Flakes) to prevent masturbation.
In the 1930s, by some accounts, the neonatal circumcision rate was around 32 percent. That figure rose over the ensuing decades, peaking in the ’70s, when 80 to 90 percent of American boys were circumcised as infants.
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Tally came to foreskin restoration through the back door. Two years ago, while researching surgery he was about to have for bacterial prostatitis, he stumbled on an abundance of anecdotal information online from men in their 40s and 50s who had lost penile sensitivity or the ability to ejaculate. Tally recognized himself in their stories and confided in the urologist who would perform the prostate surgery.
“I talked to him about the trouble to get erections and taking me longer to complete having sex. And of course his response was he gave me a free sample of Viagra. Viagra helps the erection problem. You’ll stand at attention. But it doesn’t make the sex act pleasurable,” Tally says. “Sex wasn’t fun anymore. There were times when she’d say, ‘Aren’t you done yet?’”
But Tally says while most men think that diminished penile sensitivity is just a normal part of aging, he also found an abundance of narratives by men who restored their foreskins and reported that those problems went away. The idea that Tally’s circumcision might have harmed his penis began to firm up.
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The effects of circumcision on penile sensitivity is the subject of debate, but NORM, the National Organization for Restoring Men in San Francisco, reports that more than 20,000 nerve endings are amputated through circumcision.
For a little over two decades, NORM has been Penis Central for “intactivists,” circumcision opponents and men wishing to restore their foreskin.
NORM co-founder R. Wayne Griffiths, 77, whose outreach efforts have spawned two dozen groups in seven countries across five continents, says he has provided information to at least 10,000 men—and there is no letup in sight.
Griffiths was among those who revived interest in foreskin restoration in the U.S., but uncircumcision is hardly a new phenomenon. The first historical references appear in the Old Testament (I Maccabees 1: 14–15): “Whereupon they built a place of exercise at Jerusalem according to the customs of the heathen. And made themselves uncircumcised, and forsook the holy covenant, and joined themselves to the heathen, and were sold to do mischief.”
Pondus Judaeus
To avoid persecution during the reign of Antiochus (175–163 B.C.), circumcised Jews stretched their remaining foreskins with a specially designed weight, the Pondus Judaeus. A Roman medical text written during the reign of Tiberius (A.D. 14–37), De Medicina, contains the first-known reference to surgical restoration. And although few written accounts exist, surgical foreskin restoration, understandably, made a comeback among European Jews during the 1930s and ’40s.
The latest restoration revival isn’t limited to American enthusiasts. “I recently got emails from men in Saudi Arabia, Israel, the Baltic countries, and Russia,” Griffiths says. “I’m always amazed at where these men come from, whether it’s Kokomo, Indiana, the Philippines, Japan, or China. It keeps happening.”
And the number one reason why? Better sex. “Men have lost tens of thousands of nerve endings that have been amputated,” he says. “No one has feelings anymore.”
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That argument is lost on Dr. Joel Piser. He has been a urologist in private practice in Berkeley, California, for 24 years. And for the past 20 years, he has been a mohel, circumcising newborns as part of the Jewish ritual Berit Milah.
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Tally maintains that there’s newfound magic in his johnson—no matter what science says.
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Piser says he hasn’t seen a surgical foreskin restoration in Berkeley in 23 years. And while he’s seen a few men who have manually restored, he says, medically speaking, the gain is, as the saying goes, all in the big head.
“The few I’ve seen, it covers part of the glans. It could pass for an uncircumcised penis. Do I think they’re gaining anything other than cosmetic? No, I do not. I don’t see how it’s anatomically possible to rejuvenate nerves by just stretching the penile shaft skin over the glans. That’s not physiologically plausible. If the nerves in the penile skin could be rejuvenated by stretching, we’d be transplanting foreskin into spinal cords,” Dr. Piser says.
Tally maintains that there’s newfound magic in his johnson—no matter what science says.
“The difference I feel is not about the number of nerve endings I have. It is about stimulating what I have in a different way. The gliding action rolls the inner foreskin over the corona, both of which are highly innervated normally. The sensation from the gliding action is very pleasurable and new to me.”
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Circumcision is a lucrative industry, earning the medical community hundreds of millions of dollars annually for the 1.3 million circs done each year. But an equally ambitious, if not as lucrative, industry has sprouted up for men willing to stretch their foreskin. Manual tugging can involve tape, extension devices such as cones, weights, elastics, and just palm-to-penis pull action.
Tally tried two different devices but didn’t have enough foreskin to work with. “In order to wear the device you have to have enough slack skin for it to fit. I had a very tight circ so I had very little slack skin.” So he began manual tugging and made excellent progress. The routine conveniently coincided with frequent bathroom visits following his prostate surgery.
“I’ve noticed major differences in masturbation within about four months. Increase in sensitivity around the six- to eight-month mark just in general and in sex. At about the one-year point, I hit a milestone, full flaccid coverage,” Tally says. “I had enough of a restored foreskin so when I’m hanging natural, I am covered. If someone saw me now, they’d say I wasn’t circumcised.”
That’s music to the ears of the roughly 2,800 active participants at RestoringForeskin.org. Tally spends two hours a day moderating comments and answering questions online.
And who, exactly, is asking? Tally says the demographics are divided evenly between gay and straight, under 30 and over 40. One member is in his 80s, but it’s the younger set, Tally reports, that’s particularly interested in foreskin restoration.
“They’re brought up on the Internet, learning, ‘Hey, they cut off part of my sex organ and I want it back.’” That, in a sentence, has become the clarion call of the foreskin restoration movement: you’re missing out—it’s so much better au naturel.
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At least that’s the message Matt got at the tender age of 15 when he stumbled on information online about FR.
“I had never heard of it,” Matt said. “I didn’t have much self-esteem in the first place, but it scared me—it said if you are circumcised, when you have sex with a woman she won’t feel pleasure, only pain. I didn’t want my wife not to be happy with me sexually when I eventually got married. So I found ways to grow it back.”
Matt, a 26-year-old New Yorker active in the online FR community, asked that his real name not be used. His attempts to restore his foreskin lasted 11 frustrating years before he opted to be re-circumcised.
“The devices didn’t work well or they would hurt too much so I had to take them off,” Matt said. “I never liked the way it looked. The grown-back version is always so much thicker and not very natural-looking—like a swollen version of a foreskin.”
The smell of smegma (the cheese-like secretion found under an unwashed foreskin), the feel of his new, loose skin—just about everything about his lengthening foreskin—turned Matt off of the process. But at the same time—adding to his confusion—he found just as many men online citing better sex as a result of adult circumcision.
Matt eventually went to a urologist, who re-circumcised him almost a year ago. But he was disappointed, he says, that the doctor “didn’t take more off”—so in July he had the procedure done again, by a different urologist, 11 years after he first began growing it back.
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For Matt, the worst thing about his restoration adventure was the influence the people on the Internet had on him.
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This is precisely the type of story that makes some medical professionals roll their eyes in frustration or disgust. While most restoring websites focus on facts, just as many traffic in personal anecdotes and hysterical grievances.
For Matt, the worst thing about his restoration adventure was the influence the people on the Internet had on him. When he told the story of his two re-circumcisions online, others in the community accused him of lying. “They said how evil circumcision is. Some said they hated their parents because they let it be done to them,” he says, emphasizing that restorers are often swept up in the rhetoric. “One guy said he wanted to pee on his doctor’s grave.”
“Circumcisioninflames a lot of people because they need a focus,” says Dr. Piser. “I want them to look at things objectively and try to eliminate the emotional component, which is hard to do when it comes to the phallus.”
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In the medical community, there is mild debate about circumcision’s benefits.
It is virtually impossible to get penile cancer when circumcised. It is similarly rare to see balanitis (inflammation of any residual foreskin) and it eliminates the possibility of phimosis, a condition in which the foreskin cannot retract from the glans. Snipped newborns are 10 times less likely to get a urinary tract infection.
To be fair, these conditions are rare in uncircumcised men as well. And for over a decade, neither the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) nor the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have advocated routine neonatal circumcision.
And there’s evidence that the anti-circ groundswell is having an effect. In August, the CDC confirmed that between 2006 and 2009, the U.S. infant circumcision rate declined from about 50 to 33 percent—its lowest rate since the 1930s.
While the AAP and the CDC aren’t taking sides, the World Health Organization (WHO) considers circumcision part of a comprehensive HIV prevention program. They cite compelling evidence that it reduces the risk of HIV transmission in heterosexual sex by up to 60 percent.
Research released just last week indicates that circumcision also helps reduce the spread of human papillomavirus (HPV), which can lead to cervical cancer in women (HPV is the most prevalent sexually transmitted disease in the U.S.).
Both the CDC and the AAP are reevaluating their positions on circumcision in light of new data. Results from the AAP’s circumcision task force are likely to be released this year.
Not surprisingly, the new findings haven’t silenced critics of the procedure—among them, mothers, Jews, doctors, and the restoring community. For intactivists, the rhetoric has shifted from a risk-benefit analysis to an anti-mutilation, human-rights argument.
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“It’s quite the task to change your body—to accept that you had a procedure done that harms you.”
Randy Tymkin was only 32 when he realized that the sensitivity in his penis was going away, “quicker than I could have hoped for.” This was 15 years ago, when the Internet wasn’t the fount of FR information it is today. Still, the idea that he could restore some sensitivity intrigued him.
Living in Winnepeg, Manitoba, meant Randy went to tanning salons during the long winter. He suspected the UV rays were one reason he felt desensitized. Wearing jock straps and jeans without underwear were also culprits. “I thought of how rough our hands can be when we masturbate,” he says. “Running callous skin up and down on the naked glans. So I started thinking about this.”
Randy’s thinking turned into tinkering. He got out a sewing machine and created a little silk hood that fit over the tip of his penis, acting as a foreskin substitute. He trademarked it the ManHood, and found that wearing his creation increased the sensitivity in his penis—so much, he says, “I could not not wear it.”
Randy, who works as a juvenile jail guard, began advertising his product in two magazines. Within days, his mailbox was stuffed with 27 orders. Today, he fills up to four orders a day and has sold upward of 20,000 ManHoods without further advertising.
Encouraged by the renewed sensitivity he’d acquired, Randy used tape and weights to stretch about three-fourths of an inch of skin over a period of a few months, but he gave up: “If you have plans for sex, going swimming, or playing sports, you can’t because the device is cumbersome.”
Randy settled for wearing his own silk creation, filling orders, and answering emails from men who are circumcised as well as those who are restoring. But his interest in, or perhaps outrage at, routine infant circumcision, has not abated.
“I wish I hadn’t been circumcised. I don’t blame anybody except doctors. I wouldn’t trust their answers. I don’t think they’re educated.” he says. “When I was circumcised, everyone was. The guy in the shower who wasn’t would be rare. We looked at him like he was different. And he should have looked at us like we were different because we were the ones who changed.”
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If the San Diego–based advocacy group MGMbill.org has its way, locker rooms of the future will be a very different place. The group, founded in 2003, is dedicated to preventing the circumcision of newborns. (MGM is the acronym for male genital mutilation.)
Last week, the group’s regional directors contacted some 2800 legislators in search of a sponsor for its bill, which would extend the 1996 prohibition on female genital cutting to males. The bill would make it illegal—punishable by up to 14 years in prison—for anyone to circumcise or assist in the removal of male genitalia (except when deemed medically necessary for the health of a child) of anyone under 18 years old.
It’s a bill Dr. Piser calls “nonsense.”
“Even if you’re against circumcision,” he says, “why would you make it so that someone else couldn’t do it if they wanted?”
Intactivists, who prefer the term “male genital mutilation,” believe the removal of the foreskin is a straightforward human rights issue: we don’t allow parents to choose neglect or abuse, and thus we shouldn’t allow parents to choose circumcision.
But the comparison of male to female circumcision isn’t so straightforward. Female genital mutilation involves the total removal of the external female genitalia for non-medical reasons.
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The twain may never meet on the medical benefits or religious significance of male circumcision, or on the physiological truth to the joys of foreskin restoration. But it’s the leap to equate male circumcision with female genital mutilation that irks Hugo Schwyzer.
“I have no qualms about foreskin restoration. But let’s not equate circumcision with a man being robbed of his essence. And I don’t want him elevating what was a fundamentally minor surgical procedure to the status of mutilation. I find that offensive as a feminist in particular. And as man who’s been on both sides of it, I find it ridiculous.”
Mr. Schwyzer is no stranger to the heated debate around infant male circumcision and its correlation—or not—to female genital mutilation. Four years ago, Schwyzer, a writer and college professor living in Los Angeles, wrote a magazine article about the circumcision he had as an adult. He was, in his own words, “hammered by the anti-circumcision” people who perpetuated “the false equivalence between male circumcision and female genital mutilation.”
“All of that leads me to be very clear that there is no comparison. It’s used as a serious argument. It cheapens and diminishes the discussion about circumcision. And invalidates what are some reasons we should rethink infant circumcision.”
Schwyzer, now 43, is married and the father of a daughter, 2. His decision to undergo a circumcision when he was 37 was fueled by a hard-earned combination of medical and psychological imperatives. Schwyzer was an alcohol, drug, and sex addict who managed to earn a Ph.D. while burning through three marriages. “I was very much your classic addict, so my penis went a lot of places,” he says. Those “places” inflicted a series of sex-related injuries that involved repeated tearing of the frenulum, the triangle of skin where the foreskin attaches to the underside of the penis. Life in the fast lane over 18 years took its toll on Schwyzer, who calls himself “a walking cliché.” He ended up in a hospital emergency room on death’s door.
Schwyzer underwent circumcision just before he married his current wife. “I did it for two reasons: to deal with frenular tearing and scarring, and to symbolize this commitment to enduring monogamy.”
“And not only is the pain gone, but the pleasure has not been reduced. The pleasure is as strong as it ever was.”
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“I’ve met men who were circumcised as infants who have an amazingly deep sense they were robbed of something. Dude, get over yourself!”
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He further explains: “The penis I had had, uncircumcised, had been with a lot of people. With the circumcised penis, I would only be sexual with my wife. It wasn’t born-again virginity. It was a way of saying, ‘Look, I am different.’”
The majority of public reaction to Schwyzer’s story was intertwined with the growing narrative that circumcision is abuse by another name.
“If a guy wants to do foreskin restoration, knock yourself out,” Schwyzer says. “But for the men who feel they lost something—the foreskin wasn’t all that. I had great experiences with it. Foreskin can be integrated into sex play. There’s no question there are nerve endings there,” Schwyzer continued. “But I’ve met men who were circumcised as infants who have an amazingly deep sense they were robbed of something. Dude, get over yourself!”
Schwyzer concedes that opponents of circumcision have valid concerns when they argue that it’s painful, unethical, and full of possible post-procedure complications from scarring, ulceration, and hemorrhage.
“But this idea that circumcision was this horrific violation comparable to sex abuse, and that you were deprived of something extraordinarily valuable? Having had a lot of sex both ways, I can say no. I find it ridiculous.”
“Let’s step back and take a deep breath,” Dr. Piser says. “This is a valid, valuable medical procedure. Whether you want to do it to help protect your child from urinary tract infections, penile cancer, and HIV transmission, or whether you want to do it electively as an adult. That’s personal. But there is a huge psychological component to all of this.”
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And that’s one thing all sides of the argument can probably agree on: that for a little piece of skin, whether retracted or restored, the foreskin carries a lot of emotional baggage for a growing number of men.
But who is to question whether restoration, and its sequelae of an allegedly super-improved sex life, is all in the big head rather than the little? After all, pleasure—as Shakespeare might have said of his willy—is in the prepuce of the restorer.
“Emotionally, I am different from restoring,” Tally says. “I’m freed up to experience life. I don’t have the vocabulary. I have no explanation for it. It’s just something I’ve observed.”
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If you haven’t had your foreskin fix yet, check out “Why I Let My Son Get Snipped.”
About Laura Novak
Journalism at its best. This is such a balanced discussion of a difficult topic with a humorous tint just when you need it. Your skills are showing, Miss Novak – and they’re stellar.
How I love it when I’m quoted accurately, and how rare it is that it happens.
This is a great piece, and I appreciate the even-handedness in the approach.
Is it worth having a debate about infant male circumcision? You betcha. Are there cons and pros? Yes, and any fair-minded and thoughtful person will admit that there are both. But there are no “pros” to female genital mutilation, and they aren’t comparable. Making the comparison delegitimizes the anti-circ argument. As I — and other adult men who’ve had sex before and after circ can state — there is pleasure on both sides, both ways. Female genital mutilation — clitorectomies, infibulation, etc — is designed to destroy the capacity for pleasure and orgasm. It has no health benefits.
It is a grotesque false equivalence that needs to stop. And then we can continue to have a reasoned discussion about the pros and cons (for again, there are both) about infant male circumcision.
People need to get some of the facts without the heaps of misinformation. It is true that men and women are different so MGM and FGM are not equivalent.. However, there are many types of FGM. There are also many variations of MGM with some leaving more nerves and erogenous tissue and some being tight and causing painful erections and curvature. Most FGM is labia and clitoral hood cutting qand not cutting out the clitoris. This most typical form of FGM (as done eg in Maylasia) is LESS sexually harmful than typical male circ (MGM) as done in the US. Most FGM is NOT done to harm sexual pleasure. Instead, it is typically done for imagined health, hygeine and looks reasons. Like MGM, some of it is done in the bush, but it is normally done in a hospital setting. Women say the sex is fine, say it is cleaner and they want it done to their daughters. There are health benefits claimed for both, but they are contrived by people trying to keep the practices going. At least two studies are purported to show that FGM (labia nd clitoral hood cutting) lowers the risk of HIV to the woman by over 50%. A fact is that both these practices involve cutting off erogenous tissue and often of a minor. As to those general points, they are the same.
Male circumcision is nerve damage — a cutting off about 20000 fine touch and stretch sensing nerve endings and removing a source of pleasure from the male FOR LIFE. This is 2/3 of the total pleasure source amputated! This is nerves, blood vessels, protective covering and pleasure zones taken away from a human before the human can experience this. The dynamics and function and pleasure from sex and masturbation of the penis is harmed for good.
I am against all cutting of the genitals, certainly against all cutting of the genitals without the consent of the person being cut. I ask that those against FGM also voice their disapproval of MGM. The rest of the world sees the selective treatment as hypocrisy, which it is.
It is foolish to argue with someone who obviously knows nothing about the variable harms that any genital alteration can cause children regardless of gender. When knife is placed on penis, labia, clitoris, etc., it is a violation of human rights to do so to a minor, regardless as to the degree of pain or result. We must protect those who cannot speak for themselves except but to scream in agony at the hand of their abusers. That is what it is, a cycle of sexual abuse regardless of what you might want to believe. We must ere on the side of equal treatment under the law for both genders no matter what because males have rights as well as females.
You had a choice, and have obviously not had time to realise the loss since you have grown up with a protected and sensitised glans, unlike myself who had no choice and am now inconveniently trying to reverse the damage done with questionable results. Gee, I suppose luck doesn’t always include good sense.
Just off hand I would assume that removing some of the folds in the labia would reduce the number of urinary tract infections as substances wouldn’t get stuck. How do we know there are no pros to any alteration of the vagina? What studies were done? You’re basing your assumptions on what was practiced not what could be practiced.
The reason we shouldn’t circumcise infants is its their body and they should be able to make the choice when they’re old enough. Its not legal to cut off any other part of the body without medical necessity before the age of consent for males or females. It is wrong to try to invalidate the feelings of people who wish they weren’t circumcised, they should have had the choice, and no one should have the right to alter someone else’s body without their permission.
Circumcision may or may not help prevent a handful of conditions that, as the article cites, are rare to begin with. But I think it begs the question – there are probably a lot of surgical modifications we could make to nonessential parts of our bodies to stop them from causing problems, so where do you draw the line? Removing appendixes? Tonsils? Etcetera?
This isn’t something I’m particularly passionate about, but see circumcision as little more than a barbaric practice rooted in religion and tradition. It’s ridiculous, and it’s time for people to see past their visceral reactions that are mostly based on ineducation.
Amazing piece, Laura! You have taught me things I never knew before.
Not to mention that it’s a well-researched, even-handed story. As one who has done similar work in the past, I know how much organizational ability, research, and just plain sweat and tears this must have taken.
You deserve all of the plaudits you get!
“But this idea that circumcision was this horrific violation comparable to sex abuse, and that you were deprived of something extraordinarily valuable? Having had a lot of sex both ways, I can say no. I find it ridiculous.”
That comment does not particularly help Schwyzer’s argument considering his questionable views regarding sexual abuse against boys.
Setting aside Schwyzer’s extreme views, there is a practical point to be made: it should be the boy or man’s decision. Circumcision is in the vast majority of instances unnecessary. It is done mostly to children for religious or cosmetic reasons without the child’s consent. So as inconsequential Schwyzer may consider it, the difference between what he did and what occurs in most cases is that he made the choice. If someone wants to trim down the cartilage of their nose, as odd as that would be, they should have the right to do so. They should not, however, be allowed to do that to an infant, and certainly not because they think it would be difficult to teach the child how to blow his nose or trim his nose hairs.
Considering that we do not allow parents to tattoo their children, bind their heads or feet, scar their faces, remove vestigial organs, or do anything but the most superficial altering of a child’s body (ear piercing, hair cuts, etc.) without a valid medical reason, this should be a no-brainer.
That is what makes those like Schwyzer’s opposition so odd (aside of the peculiarity of a feminist opposing someone’s right to choose what to do with their own body). They do not present any substantive argument for continuing male circumcision. It really seems to stem from protecting barbaric religious practices, maintaining cultural practices, or abject indifference towards any violation of boys, because one can rest assured that if anyone suggested trimming an infant girl’s clitoral hood for aesthetic or religious reasons those like Schwyzer would object to it and they would balk at the request to discuss “the pros and cons” of infant female circumcision. It would be a patently ridiculous suggestion that no one would support, and for good reason.
So yes, there are instances in which medically a circumcision is necessary. However, medical necessity should be the only reason any child of either sex is circumcised without their consent. It should otherwise be their choice to make. Again, this should be a no-brainer.
Bravo TS
I couldn’t agree more TS, well said!
What would people think of parents getting their girls labiaplasty for cosmetic reasons?
warning NSFW http://www.labiaplastysurgeon.com/labiaplasty-photos.html
Thanks for fairly accurate and balanced coverage with just a few glaring problems.
First, smegma IS NOT an excretion. It is merely the accumulation of sloughed-off skin cells. We all lose about 1000 cells per minute from all over the body. Wherever they are allowed to accumulate they can build up and dissolve into a natural beneficial emollient, most notably found in female genitals and the folds on plump infant arms, legs, and necks. Don’t like smegma? Your best solution is washing, not amputation.
Second, no compassionate person would begrudge your re-circumcised man his right to make HIS OWN adult choice, but he should first be referred for a psychiatric consultation. The desire to have your healthy normal parts amputated has a name – Bodily Integrity Identity Disorder – and some sufferers can find happiness without going through with amputations. Would we be as casual discussing a women who wished to volunteer for the worst form of female mutilation?
You report that last week a Ugandan team found some protective effect against HPV from circumcising women’s partners. It is irresponsible to not ALSO mention that the same team reported in 2009 that circumcising Ugandan men made them 50% MORE likely to infect their partners with deadly HIV.
Your Dr. Piser can’t see his own unethical stance for what it is. He objects to outlawing non-therapeutic non-consenual circumcising, saying: “why would you make it so that someone else couldn’t do it if they wanted?” He doesn’t see that his view of what should be legal ALSO steals someone’s choice? (It steals the choice of the ONLY person who has to actually live with the outcome.)
The article refers to a false equivalence between male circumcision and female genital mutilation. But the most common form of female genital cutting affects the hood only, and so it is EXACTLY analogous to male circumcision. And just like with male circumcision, the victims are some of the loudest proponents of continuing the practice. There is no culture cutting females that does not also cut males. The main difference between male and female genital cutting is that 94% of the world’s females live under laws forbidding even a ceremonial pin-prick to draw one ceremonial drop of blood with no religious exemption.
Piser calls infant circumcision a “valid, valuable medical procedure” but NOT ONE national medical association on earth endorses routine circumcision. The most recently updated national policy is from Holland. Google “KNMG circumcision policy” to read in English how they have considered even all the recent supposed evidence about African research, and their policy states: “KNMG is calling upon doctors to actively and insistently inform parents who are considering the procedure of the absence of medical benefits and the danger of complications.”
Actually, this is wrong. The Malian people practice FGM, but they do not circumcise their males. In third world countries, the most common form of FGM is equivalent to cutting off the head of the penis. They then sew up the vaginas, let them scar over, and when it’s time for the women to have sex, they cut open the scar.
In fact, the Malian people consider circumcising males to be genital mutilation and can’t believe that it’s common in America.
Hi,
I guess I was thinking that the Dogon culture (cutting both males and females in childhood) as representing all of Mali. Regardless, Mail protects neither gender from non-therapeutic genital cutting.
The MOST COMMON form fo FGM is practiced throughout Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, and it affects the hood only.
An excellent article. I agree with SMR, this is journalism “at its best.” The history given of circumcision and foreskin restoration is extensive and interesting. I especially appreciate the candor of those interviewed. A great piece by a a great writer!
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It’s almost like a countdown on threads like this: men’s rights activists appearing to insist that FGM and male circ are really equivalent in three, two, one…
It’s like arguing with Holocaust deniers, I swear.
That is most impressive. It usually takes more than two posts for someone to break Godwin’s Law. Now that misandrous insults and hyperbolic ad hominems are out of the way, may we “have a reasoned discussion” like someone above suggested?
Yeah, calling me an extremist is surely not an ad hominem. Sheesh.
When it comes to what parents can and can’t do to their children, we permit parents considerable leeway where there is no enduring harm. We permit vaccines for example — and we permit parents to opt out of vaccinations. The pro-vaccine crowd often condemns the conscience exemption for parents who don’t want to give shots to their kids, arguing that these parents are putting kids at risk by withholding the needle. The state wisely takes the middle ground, permitting parents to have painful needles stuck in their kids, even though a number of physicians question the medical benefit — while not mandating those vaccines either. (Not talking about the autism study.)
There is no medical benefit to FGM. None. There continue to be reputable studies, as Laura Novak’s piece shows, that contend substantial benefit from circumcision both for men and their sex partners. The legitimacy of these studies may be contentious, but the medical community is not ready to do with male infant circ what they are ready to do with FGM, which is declare it unnecessary and without any redemptive benefit.
This isn’t sentiment or religion, it’s science. And as with vaccines, parents are best positioned to make the decision for their sons.
It may well be that circumcision will grow rarer and rarer, and I wouldn’t necessarily grieve that. I’m not an advocate for infant male circumcision. I’m an advocate against blowing it up into something bigger and crueler than it really is.
Yeah, calling me an extremist is surely not an ad hominem.
No, I called your views extreme, and that does not constitute an ad hominem.
There is no enduring harm to removing a child’s tonsils, yet we do not preemptively do so. We do not preemptively remove a child’s wisdom teeth because of potential health benefits either. The situation is not the same as getting a vaccination. The vast majority of men who are uncircumcised do not experience any increased health risks as a result of having foreskin. Such health risks are very rare. Most of the benefits circumcision supposedly creates can be done by men wearing condoms and having good hygiene, and there are studies contradicting the specious ones presented above and studies showing the complications circumcision can cause. Likewise, the vast majority of circumcision are performed for religious, cultural or aesthetic reasons, not for health reasons.
Whether you support circumcision or not is irrelevant. The issue is that barring an outstanding medical reason, circumcision is an unnecessary mutilation. If a male wants to do it, that should be his choice. As for the act being “[blown] up into something bigger and crueler than it really is,” given your views it would appear we have a very different position of what constitutes cruelty.
“Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity.”
- George Bernard Shaw
people in FGM-plagued countries still continue to spout that it decreases the risk of HIV infection. IIRC, there was at least one study that “proved” as much.
i feel sorry for your kids, hugo. you’re so blind to objectivity that you can’t see that MGM and FGM are the same thing.
2+2=5 …
who wants to put bets that the only reason hugo is trying to downplay the negativity of circumcision is that he and/or his children are cut? denial isn’t just a river in egypt as they say.
oh, i didn’t even see hugo’s part of the article. what a shocker. i was right.
hugo, you say MGM doesn’t rob a man of his “essence” …
… why are their scientific studies that show the foreskin/frenulum is/are the most sensitive part(s) of the penis?
there is one erroneous study the ignorant cite about how there is no difference. unfortunately, said study only tested parts that cut and uncut guys had in common. NOT the foreskin (obviously).
why does an intact glans look smooth and shiny? why does the cut glans look rough and calloused?
why does the british medical journal of urology state that after extensive research the foreskin is the most sensitive, pleasure-packed part of the penis?
why does the journal of health psychology state that somewhere around 50% of men circ’d as infants suffer emotional trauma. we didn’t get to choose like you did. someone literally tied me to a table as a newborn and cut my foreskin off (and did a terrible job given the scarring on my penis). with no anesthetic mind you (96% of infant circs are done without any anasthesia since the baby is so small, it’d be dangerous.)
why do stats show that more baby boys die from circumcision than SIDS?
why are there various reports that circumcision scars are incredibly prone to fostering penile cancer (the exact OPPOSITE of what the pro-circ club says)?
You make a valid point that male circumcision can cause some psychological trauma for the boys. However, this is does not in any way mean that female genital mutilation is the same as male circumcision. In a book called Empathy and Rage: Female Genital Mutilation in African Literature, one woman describes her agony and pain during her “female circumcision”.
“When my turn came, I burst into tears. I was scared but froze instead of running away. Still, I screamed as they approached me, I shrieked, ‘I don’t want to!’ But that didn’t help at all. They grabbed me, dragged me to the box that had once held oranges, and sat me down on it. They imprisoned me, tossed my skirt aside, pulled my legs apart, and that was the moment when one of the neighbor women burst into song”
Another experience in Cutting the Rose: Female Genital Mutilation: The Practice and Its Prevention
“She had not menstruated for several months, and had not had intercourse, but her abdomen was swollen and sensitive, with the signs of a uterus in labor. She was infibulated with a minuscule opening. Dr. Ollivier performed a de-infibulation (opening of the scarred vulva) and released 3.4 liters of blackish foul-smelling blood”
I do not believe that any man has experienced this type of pain for a mere cultural ritual. Please do not try to put FGM and MGM into the same category. They are not and will not ever be the same.
Alisha, please don’t make the assumption that anyone’s saying the 10% of FGMs that are the most heinous should be compared to the average male circumcision. But google “circumcision damage” and you’ll see hideously deformed male genitals that would not even be logged anywhere as complications of circumcision because they manifest for the most part after puberty. The average male circumcision is much worse than people generally accept.
I don’t think that any male intactivist will say that FGM and MGM (male circumcision) are exactly the same. Obviously, they are not. The point that you and those who insist on minimizing the damage done by male circumcision need to understand is that while there is a difference in the “degree” of damage, FGM and MGM are both the same “kind” of procedure. They share much in common, e.g. removal of genital tissue, decrease in sexual sensation, sexual functioning is impaired, performed without the consent of the child, etc. For you to state that the two procedures cannot be compared because they are completely different is simply not the case
On the same point, to support laws that forbid even a needle stick to draw a single drop of blood from a girl’s clitoris (this is considered FGM) but to turn around and say that is all right to remove up to one half of the skin from the penis of an infant male, including the most sensitive part of the penis, is the most blatant kind of gender discrimination I can imagine. Yes, protect the genitals of all girls, but my God, why can’t the genitals of boys be equally protected. Are female genitals more valuable than those of males?
What of the botched circumcisions? What redeeming quality is there to having your penis removed or death from complications?
“It’s almost like a countdown on threads like this: men’s rights activists appearing to insist that FGM and male circ are really equivalent in three, two, one…
It’s like arguing with Holocaust deniers, I swear.”
Except it’s people who insist that FGM and MGM aren’t equivalent that are the “deniers.”
There are many kinds of FGM, some that may be equivalent, some that may actually be in fact less severe than male circumcision.
The fact of the matter is that which ever you think is “worse,” ALL forced genital cutting violates the same exact principle.
You would never be acquescient to the kind of female circumcision that is equivalent, or less severe than male circumcision.
Bottom line is, it’s ALL wrong.
Unless there is a medical or clinical indication, doctors have no business performing non-medical surgery on healthy, non-consenting infants, much less giving parents any kind of a “choice.”
It is professional abuse to be presenting parents with the bogus dilemma of “the big decision” where there is no medical decision to make in healthy children.
Will all you urologists and obstetricians who are circumcised and promote routine infant circumcision please go have lots of unprotected sex with HIV positive people? Pretty please??
Any takers? Okay, sarcasm aside, HIV/AIDS is not prevented by circumcision. But obviously the American circumcision industry has taken a page or two from Orwell to keep the proles in line.
I was circumcised at birth in 1968, and it boils my blood every time I read about African-HIV-circumcision studies. I know that I’m not protected from AIDS by my circumcision, so why the hell is this misinformation being used to con parents into RIC today? One word: Money.
Excellent points/questions. What is really bothering me is that the U.S. is paying the bills to mutilate African men. That is outrageous. And these mutilation pushers always fail to mention that one of their studies showed that cut men in Africa pass HIV to women at a rate of more than 50% more than natural penis men. This is a heinous enterprise.
Good article. I did a foreskin restoration a number of years ago. Getting back what was taken is a journey more and more men are wanting to take. I would have liked to have kept my penis intact as God made me. But having missed that opportunity I have tried to do the next best thing, while talking to my children and grandchildren about my understanding that circumcision is not healthy for children and other living things.
One correction that should be made: Tally’s website is RestoringForeskin.org; the link goes to the right place, but there’s no site at foreskinrestoration.org.
^^ there’s no site at foreskinrestoration.org ^^
Maybe they got confused by http://Foreskin-Restoration.net/forum since it has so many more members.
Asking a physician/mohel for his opinion about circumcision is like asking a drug addict if marijuana use should be made legal. The good doctor is way too invested in keeping infant circumcision legal and commonly available to provide any unbiased medical information. Would anyone expect someone whose religion holds, as one of its main doctrines, that all males must be circumcised, and whose livelihood depends on performing surgery, to take an objective position and admit that circumcision is medically unnecessary and offers only potential, limited benefits at best?
More like asking a tobacco CEO if he thinks smoking should be banned.
“It’s hard to get a man to understand something, when his livelihood depends on his not understanding.” ~Upton Sinclair
I am 53 years old, almost fully restored. Have never liked being cut, love being “intact/WHOLE”. Thank you for a great article and treating a very serious Male issue with good information and dignity. Circumcism is wrong-the Med Tech LAbs know it. We are being harvested like livestock-it’s absolutely sick. And now the CDC will be pushing this crime to feed the foreskin industry in the name of fighting HIV-and O’Bama has approved the CDC program as a whole-he’s on the CDC site singing it’s praise! Hope you do an article on “where” our foreskins go and for what! (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-cut-above-the-rest-wrin) I think this would truly wake-up the folks that “think” Males don’t suffer. It’s not only physical grief and pain but emotional when we think of how we were not protected at our most vulnerable time in out lives by those we know love us and yet allowed it to happen,…, what a 2 edged sword to live with! In the USA, Females are protected under the law from this very same mutilation, Males should protected too! Again-Thank you!
By virtue of being a mohel Joel Piser suffers from a conflict of interest. It is unlikely in the extreme that a mohel will understand and state for the record that there are sexual advantages to having a foreskin, even a restored one. A restored foreskin does not have the rich ennervation of the real thing. Also, circ often damages or destroys the frenulum and frenular delta, and restoration does not recreate these structures in any way. That said, a restored foreskin is better than no foreskin at all, for reasons that restoration enthusiasts have discussed in detail for years.
People, talk to women who have had intercourse with both kinds of men. Talk to the spouses of men who have completed restoration. They have a lot to say about the value of restoration, value of a kind that Piser seems completely oblivious to.
“It’s hard to get a man to understand something, when his livelihood depends on his not understanding.” ~Upton Sinclair
The foreskin is not just a “a little piece of skin.” It is a five layered structure and an integral part of the natural penis. It contains most of the fine touch and stretch receptors on the penis. It is the most sensitive part of the penis. Its removal clearly changes the sexual experience for both males and females. Extensively quoting a mohel on that which he knows little to nothing about does not improve this deficient article. Nor does quoting a man who was circumcised for unusual reasons, to say the least, prove anything. The hard, cold scientific and anatomical fact is that the the removal of the foreskin amputates the most sensitive part of the penis and by removing that tissue it of necessity changes the sexual experience. No amount of argument or cant can change fact. And saying that it is a “personal choice” ignores the fact that the infant victim has no choice in the matter.
As is usually the case with articles written in circumcised societies, this article reveals more about the insecurities of the author and of the circumcised than it does about the facts.
Have an STD? you are not alone. Find others with same STD at site named pozmingle. you may be upset and think your life is over. However, once you settle down and learn the facts, you’ll realize that having STD is not the end of the world, and it’s not the end of your social life.
Courageous, balanced reporting, Ms. Novak. Likewise, Dr. Piser struck me as courageous and sincere, given the predictable attacks on his motivation and even his knowledge.
Dr. Piser is a pitch-man for a surgery he gets paid to perform and that is medically unnecessary for the health and well-being of the infant.
Performing a circumcision on any child that does not have a deformity or disease requiring the surgery is medical malpractice since it violates both his physician’s oath of “first do no harm (performing painful and unnecessary surgery is harmful) and medical ethical standards (amputating healthy tissue when there is no disease present that requires amputation). Religious custom and parental desires for cosmetic body modification are not legitimate reasons for a physician to perform surgery on a minor.
RE; Dr. Piser’s knowledge. If he was educated in a medical school in the U.S., he was probably never taught about the anatomy of the male foreskin or the functions that it performs. Even the textbooks that are used in medical schools illustrate a circumcised penis when describing the male genitals. If the foreskin is mentioned at all in the text, it is usually referred to as flap of skin covering the glans at birth that is normally removed by circumcision. This has to change. As long as most doctors are circumcised and they don’t learn about the anatomy or function of the foreskin in medical school, the ignorance that has perpetuated this unnecessary surgery will continue. Also, many doctors never see a mature foreskin since so many men in this country have been circumcised. They don’t make the connections that the small piece of infant foreskin that is removed in circumcision grows into a large amount of beneficial penile shaft skin in a adult male.
Why is it that medical associations have task forces to study the medical benefits of circumcision (an invasive surgical procedure), but don’t bother to investigate the function and value of the foreskin, a natural part of every male’s penis? If every male is born with a foreskin, how can it be seen as a useless flap of skin, rather than a necessary and useful structure that is the product of millions of years of evolution?
A deeper question;
Why is it that the American Academy of Pediatrics has created a “circumcision task force” specifically to oversee circumcision?
Was there ever any “circumcision task force” for girls?
Where was the “circumcision task force” and extensive debate before female circumcision was banned in 1996?
Yes, circumcision of females was quite legal in this country as late as that, and insurance companies like Blue Shields payed for them.
Is there a reason why “researchers” perform all this “extensive and rigorous study” surrounding the destruction of genital tissue in BOYS, but not in GIRLS?
This “research” has got to be some of the most backwards research in existence.
“Research” that places primacy on necessitating the deliberate DESTRUCTION of healthy, normal tissue is devoid of any logic, reason, and ethics.
Dare I say, that studying the merit of the deliberate destruction of the human body is sheer QUACKERY.
Pisner suffers from two conflicts of interests:
Circumcising babies is his profession, and circumcision happens to be a ritual central to his ethnic, religious and cultural background.
There are a lot of strong debates going on, and that’s healthy. Conversation is good. 10 years ago, these products and foreskin restoration methods were mostly just a whisper among forums. Now, the topic has reached the spotlight and people are talking about it everywhere.
For those who are skeptical about the benefits of the foreskin— those who don’t think it has any effect on the sensitivity of the penis— I have a simple and realistic solution for you.
Buy a ManHood, the product discussed on Page 3. Wear it on your penis every day for a couple of weeks. Then, try going without it for a day. Suddenly the cotton fabric of your underwear will be too scratchy, too uncomfortable to endure.
What’s happening? The head of your penis, the glans, is regaining some of the sensitivity it lost after years of exposure to the harsh elements. Suddenly you’ll understand, from your own experience, how beneficial it is to have a foreskin.
I ordered the ManHood product back in 2008 and I’ve been a customer ever since. I can’t imagine going anywhere without it on. Randy is very helpful to newbies, and he’ll even give advice. I’ve noticed a significant increase in sensitivity since then.
It’s not as good as having a real foreskin, obviously, but it’s a quick and easy solution for now.
Thank you for your article.
Since infant circumcision is the surgical excision of a healthy, normal tissue, there is no immediate medical necessity, and it is done on a non-consenting individual, I find it difficult to understand why anybody would approve of it. Even if it were to dramatically prevent the dissemination of STD’s and cancer, baby boys are not sexually active, and should be left to decide when they reach the age of consent.
The suggestion that increased sensitivity brought about by foreskin restoration is mostly psychological cannot be decided by someone who is not restoring.
By the way, I believe I am the 80 years old man Tally mentioned.
Best regards,
freddys.