Study: Circumcision Removes Most Sensitive Parts

Submitted by anthony on Mon, 2007-06-18 21:14

Article here. Excerpt:

'For circumcised penises, the most sensitive region was the circumcision scar on the underside of the penis, the researchers found. For uncircumcised penises, the areas most receptive to pressure were five regions normally removed during circumcision—all of which were more sensitive than the most sensitive part of the circumcised penis.
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Recent studies have also shown that circumcision can lower the risks of HIV infection by as much as 60 percent in sex between males and females.

But Robert Van Howe, a study team member at Michigan State University, thinks such claims are somewhat overblown. “The [health benefits] that have been consistently shown are very small, and there are less aggressive, less invasive, less expensive ways of dealing with the problems [circumcision] is supposed to address,” Van Howe told LiveScience.
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Some previous studies found that circumcision led to little, if any, decrease in penile sensitivity, but Sorrells and his colleagues say such findings are suspect because many are based on self-reports from men who were circumcised to correct medical problems.'

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The citation is missing from the linked article in Live Science; here it is:

Morris L. Sorrells, James L. Snyder, Mark D. Reiss, Christopher Eden, Marilyn F. Milos, Norma Wilcox, Robert S. Van Howe (2007)
Fine-touch pressure thresholds in the adult penis
BJU International 99 (4), 864–869.

If you have online access through Blackwell Synergy, here is the link.

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Submitted by OpEd on Wed, 2007-06-20 16:49

I would be very skeptical of claims like the following:

    Recent studies have also shown that circumcision can lower the risks of HIV infection by as much as 60 percent in sex between males and females.

The above statement may be true and yet the impact of circumcision can still be small. Imagine that 1000 men who were circumcised were compared to 1000 men who were not. They found that 15 of the circumcised men contracted HIV while 30 of the uncircumcised men contract the virus. They can claim from this that "twice as many men were infected with HIV without being circumcised" and they would be correct. However, the important data that is being omitted is that less than 3% of the males have been infected and that the surgical procedure of circumcision when performed in a hospital has over 3% complication rate. It is a classic OVERKILL of a solution not unlike having young girls get a mastectomy to reduce their chances of getting breast cancer. The only reason that people shake their heads that circumcision helps protect men from HIV is the misandry we have flowing in our drinking water.

Promote condom use.

Keep Oprah from making more money off of skin creams that harvest infant males foreskins.

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Submitted by Tom on Thu, 2007-06-21 01:57