Male Circumcision Pros and Cons
Possible Advantages
- Easier to clean penis (a male saves a few seconds a day)
- Reduction in human papillomavirus (HPV) infection rate (but the Gardasil 9 vaccine is very effective against HPV, and doesn’t require amputation of a body part. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends Gardasil 9 for all boys and girls at ages 11 to 12.)
- Lower risk of penile cancer (which is so rare that a man has a greater chance of being struck by lightning)
- Less chance of phimosis (meaning the foreskin doesn’t retract), but this is rare and usually treatable without resorting to circumcision
Possible Disadvantages
- Excruciating pain when the foreskin is cut, comparable to torture (effective anesthesia is rarely used). The typical circumcision instrument crushes the foreskin with a force that is 4 times as strong as the bite of the Australian crocodile, which has the highest bite force ever recorded. After 1 month, the infant’s brain still manifests the effects of severe trauma.
- Decreased sexual pleasure
- Lower orgasm intensity
- Increased risk of erectile dysfunction
- Scarred and hardened penis causes more friction, less pleasure, for women, increasing the risk of painful sex by 4 times.
- Increases chance of urinary tract problems by 21 times
- Bleeding, which can lead to serious complications or even DEATH. For example, the cases of Celian Noumbiwe, Angelo Ofori-Mintah, and Goodluck Caubergs
- Other types of circumcision deaths
- Cancer induced by circumcision
- Masturbation difficulties
- Increased risk of autism spectrum disorder
- Reduced immune function
- Discomfort wearing clothes
- Meatal stenosis (too small a peehole), which can be painful. This happens to 10% of circumcised boys.
- Insufficient foreskin removed on one side, which could lead to a lopsided appearance, or worse, might create scarring and/or phimosis
- Too much skin removed, which could lead to painful erections
- Adhesions (skin in the wrong spot)
- Gangrene
- Hernia
- Fistula (a passageway between body cavities, where there shouldn’t be one)
- Infected pus-filled cysts could form, which could require additional surgery.
- Hypospadias or episadias. Both terms refer to the meatus (pee hole) being in the wrong spot, in other words, not ending up on the tip of the penis.
- Vomiting during the surgery
- Bladder perforation
- Obliteration of the corona (the rim around the penile head)
- Amputation of the entire penis – see this example
- Acute glans (penile head) ischemia (loss of blood supply)
- Increased long-lasting (and possibly permanent) overall sensitivity to pain
- Increased incidence of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)
- For circumcised post-adolescents, higher rate of PTSD than returning Iraq war veterans