THE LAST WORD ON CIRCUMCISION
Cecil continues to get denunciations from opponents of routine infant circumcision (January 28, March 25) who feel that if you’re not adamantly against this procedure you’re in favor of it. Cecil despairs of making any headway against this attitude, but will say yet again that in his view, and so far as he can tell in the view of the medical establishment, no compelling argument can be made either way. Done properly, routine infant circumcision is a minor medical procedure involving small risks and offering small benefits. There is no strict need for it and it persists mostly as a matter of cultural ritual. If the thought of having your kid snipped horrifies you and you don’t want to do it, OK by me. On the other hand, if you do have it done, you’re hardly a human rights violator.
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Cecil will also cheerfully concede that while the immediate risk of complications from circumcision is low, there have been few if any long-term follow-ups. Some opponents of the procedure are inclined to blame every sexual problem they have ever had on circumcision, but others do have specific, and, on the face of it, legitimate complaints, mainly in the area of skin tightness, adhesions, etc. It also seems plausible, though again there is little data, that circumcision results in a loss of sensitivity in the tip of the penis due to abrasion from clothing. If research, and not merely anecdotal accounts, were to demonstrate that circumcised males have significantly more sexual problems than uncircumcised ones, Cecil would speedily revise his opinion of the practice.
The foreskin is not “basically ordinary skin,” as I wrote; the inner layer is mucocutaneous tissue, which is found in junctions between the inside and outside of the body. Dermatologist R.K. Winkelmann (1960) says the mucocutaneous nerve-end organ is the primary organized sensory ending of the body. Winkelmann’s view of the primacy of the mucocutaneous end organ is idiosyncratic. The role and importance of the various types of cutaneous nerve endings are still a matter of conjecture. In any case the glans penis (tip) is also mucocutaneous tissue.
