Why Circumcise Perfectly Healthy Penises?

Article here. Excerpt:

'A randomized control trial shows that circumcision in adult males can dramatically reduce HIV infection rates, and all my friends who opted for circumcising their baby boys are holding up the dozens of national news accounts of this saying to me, “See?! See?!” Like I just condemned my son to die of AIDS because I let him keep his foreskin.

Meanwhile, the subset of those friends who are Jewish keep hinting I might be anti-Semitic for suggesting that the Jewish ritual of neonatal male circumcision probably ought to end. Oy!

First things first: To state the obvious, circumcision doesn’t prevent HIV infection. A circumcised penis may be less effective at transmitting HIV, but it can still manage it. Anyone who thinks they are protecting their son from HIV by preemptive circumcision probably should also consider castration, since that significantly lowers the libido, and heaven knows libido is a serious risk factor for sexually transmitted diseases. Or you might just consider good sex education.

No one seriously thinks HIV risk is the reason to circumcise infants. This is just latched on to by folks who are looking for a reason to justify a pre-existing desire to circumcise perfectly healthy baby boys. Oliver Wendell Holmes pointed out that judges tend to know how they want to rule, and then they go on to figure out how to justify the ruling. Routine neonatal male circumcision seems to be a lot like that. People want to do it, and they fish around for a good reason.'

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