Good thing your mother had you done, Kingsley, or you would have no one but your self for your lack of success, or pleasure, sexually.

I was done so long before you they probably used a sharpened rock, but it did not stop me having a highly enjoyable sex life. They tell me it's not what you've got, but the way that you use it.

Just as well I didn't enjoy it any more, or I'd have Ludwig after my scalp for cluttering up the planet with even more kids.

Perhaps if you lightened up a bit, things may be more fun.

From a medical perspective: Circumcision is more a business than a health issue. Parents PAY to have their male infants 'trimmed'. The practitioner gets a monetary benefit, parents believe their child has recieved some sort of health or other benefit and the infant, unless he is one of the unfortunate few who suffer complications that include death, loss/partial loss or disfigurement of the penis, anaesthetic reaction, post operative haemorrhage and infection, will usually grow up to be blissfully unaware of any trauma or loss.

Of course some Doctors promote it. Most don't! I agree with the Author - There are no health benefits which are not heavily outweighed by risks, nor is it a fair thing to do to a child.

The only time I see circumcision as a real positive is when a man is unable to attend to his own care and hygiene - as in severely intellectually and or physically disabled. Elderly gents in nursing homes requiring full care is a good example. Every nurse you will ever know who works in one would prefer circumcised.

But I still say - leave baby boys be. Let them decide to have their foreskins removed at an age where informed consent can be given. There will probably be very few who give a fig about "not looking like Daddy" which seems to be the main driver among those seeking the procedure outside the religious/cultural groups.

As a practicing GP, who was circumcised as a neonate, I opposed having my 2 sons circumcised, regrettably my ex wife won that debate regarding "her" sons. My assessment of the medical data is that any benefits do not outweigh the risks.

Ethically however, I cannot condone performing elective genital mutilation on a male infant who is unable to give informed consent to the procedure any more than one could condone labial circumcision of a female infant , irrespective of what social, religious or other justification you might wish to use.

Circumcision of a male or female infant or minor, consented to by the parents, is child abuse in my view.

"Hasbeen, Monday, 16 January 2012 5:53:25 PM"

Troll.

For everyone else...

"I couldn't cope with any more sensitivity than I have now.":
http://www.circumstitions.com/Sexuality.html#more

I can still orgasm:
http://www.circumstitions.com/Sexuality.html#still

Uncut is better - personal account:
http://www.circumstitions.com/Sexuality.html#woof

First-person accounts:
http://www.circumstitions.com/Sexuality.html#men
http://www.circumstitions.com/Sexuality.html#women

A man circumcised as a baby has no experience of having an intact penis so any claim that sex is no different or fantastic means he is an idiot, a troll or just engaging in macho BS (the full word is "profanity") <sigh>.

Depending on the amount of tissue removed circumcision takes between 20,000 and 30,000 nerve endings and up to 15 square inches of highly erogenous tissue that reduces the penis from a mechanical machine to a dildo. Then there is the keratin layer that forms on the exposed glans that further reduces sensitivity of the remaining 4000 nerves.

Not all men suffer the same degree of sensitivity loss but if it's done as a baby the effect will be much more severe than for an adult circumcision.

If it didn't create a problem there wouldn't be over a million men world wide using skin expansion (initially developed by Jews in the time of the Greek empire) to try to recreate a semblance of a foreskin to cover their glans so they can regain some of their sensitivity and there would be no need for the non profit Foregen that exist to fund research to help heal men with tissue engineering.

My personal experience may be atypical but it is in keeping with what Rabbi Moses Maimonides said was the real purpose of circumcision.

http://www.jewsagainstcircumcision.org/jewish.htm

I can't see how 'lightening up' will make a difference.

I wonder how much of this whinging is due to the emasculated generation that we now have. Unbelievable that people can get so upset about something so trivial. We are breeding sooks.

To respond to various comments in no particular order:

Halduell writes: "Two years ago I read on the informative website www.circinfo.org/ that the bit of skin removed “...is now known as the frenular delta and is understood to support one of the body’s densest concentrations of fine-touch nerve receptors, whose specific function is to detect and transmit pleasurable touch.”"

What is astonishing is that Halduell seems to believe this without questioning it or asking for proof. No such proof exists.

Kingsley Bugarin writes:

"Depending on the amount of tissue removed circumcision takes between 20,000 and 30,000 nerve endings and up to 15 square inches of highly erogenous tissue that reduces the penis from a mechanical machine to a dildo. Then there is the keratin layer that forms on the exposed glans that further reduces sensitivity of the remaining 4000 nerves."

It is remarkable how much fiction there is in those few words. First, no study to date has ever counted the number of nerve endings in the foreskin: the figures quotes have no basis in evidence. Second, two studies have measured the surface area of the foreskin. One (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19770623) found a surface area of 5.7 square inches, the other (http://journals.lww.com/plasreconsurg/Abstract/1998/09040/The_Prepuce_Free_Flap__Dissection_Feasibility.24.aspx) 7.2. Finally, it was shown in 2000 (http://www.circs.org/index.php/Library/Szabo) that "keratinisation" of the glans does not occur.