Circumcision Debate?

[lalicopa]

I'm probably opening up a *huge* can of worms here, but here goes:

My son is circumcised. We're Jewish. I was still against it all together, but agreed for several personal reasons. I do not believe in it and if I were to have another son, it would be a huge issue (considering all the people I've met and all the information I've gathered in the years since Laszlo was born.)

I was at the beach today and was talking to an expectant mom who I went to high school with. She has 2 daughters and found out that this is a boy. I asked if she's going to have him circumcised (she and her husband are Jewish as well.) She said she was. Then her stepfather started in, saying how all boys should be circumcised because it's not healthy to be intact. He said that the rates of cervical cancer in the wives/partners of uncircumcised men are much higher. I'm too tired to do actual research tonight, so I figured I'd open this up to you intelligent people.

He also said that his father owned a hospital around WW2 and that all the military were forced to be circumcised before they left for battle, no matter how old they were. Is this true???? Also, he said that the few men who were not, came down with urinary infections. This guy said to me, "It leads to higher rates of infections even in normal situations, imagine how bad it is in the trenches."

I know I'm naive about all of this, so forgive me. I just found this man to be a total moron, but I did not have the information to back up what I was saying, so I just said that there's a huge movement to leave baby boys intact and that there seems to be no problem with that at all. I was angry that I wasn't able to argue with him because he's a jerk and it would have been fun to put him in his place, but far be it from me to have an argument when I really don't know what I'm talking about!

So, what's the deal? Cancer rates increased? I know the infection thing is bullshit.

Comments

[custard-kisses.livejournal.com]

I haven't really looked to deeply into the circumcision thing as I live in a country that it's practically unheard of so I've never had need to. I can only really give my experience of males who are not circumcised, 1 father, 1 brother, 1 husband and 6 sons. My father served in Aiden and Yemen in the 60's for a few years while in the army, and my Grandfathers both in WWII and it was never a UK requirement to circumcise afaik...well they didn't cut there's off anyway lol
None of my sons have ever had an infection, I can't even ever recall any friends speaking of infections in their sons so I'm guessing that's just some urban legand to defend the practice.
I have heard the cervical cancer thing but it sounds kind of dubious to me. Cervical cancer is linked to the Human papillomavirus, and I don't think a foreskin would increase you chances of getting this, it's just a piece of skin. Many sexual partners can increase ones risk of getting the virus, as you are widening your base of contact, but I don't think one penis with skin or without will make any difference at all.
I haven't seen the study but there are a few well known risk factors such as smoking, use of oral contraceptives , young age at first sexual encounter and more than one sexual partner. If the study seperated out those risk factors and still found that a foreskin or lack of one increased their partners chances of having CC then that would be interesting read.

[lalicopa.livejournal.com]

see my other comment further down.