Infant circumcision...No way!

Ignorance about the foreskin is everywhere in our modern society.

Most textbooks, magazines, movies and books depict the human penis, without explanation, as circumcised, as if it were so by nature.

Well, actually, foreskin has numerous protective, sensory, and sexual functions.

Here is what i found out:

Protection:

It protects the glans and keeps its surface soft, moist, and sensitive. It also maintains optimal warmth, pH balance, and cleanliness.

Immunological Defense:

The mucous membranes that line all body orifices are the body's first line of immunological defense. Glands in the foreskin produce antibacterial and antiviral proteins such as lysozyme.Lysozyme is also found in tears and mother's milk. Specialized epithelial Langerhans cells, an immune system component, abound in the foreskin's outer surface.Plasma cells in the foreskin's mucosal lining secrete immunoglobulins, antibodies that defend against infection.

Erogenous Sensitivity:

The foreskin is as sensitive as the fingertips or the lips of the mouth. It contains a richer variety and greater concentration of specialized nerve receptors than any other part of the penis.These specialized nerve endings can discern motion, subtle changes in temperature, and fine gradations of texture.

Coverage during Erection:

it becomes erect, the penile shaft becomes thicker and longer. The double-layered foreskin provides the skin necessary to accommodate the expanded organ and to allow the penile skin to glide freely, smoothly, and pleasurably over the shaft and glans.

Sexual Functions:

One of the foreskin's functions is to facilitate smooth, gentle movement between the mucosal surfaces of the two partners during intercourse. The foreskin enables the penis to slip in and out of the vagina nonabrasively inside its own slick sheath of self-lubricating, movable skin. The female is thus stimulated by moving pressure rather than by friction only, as when the male's foreskin is missing.

The sexual pleasure is enhanced when the foreskin slips back to allow the male's internal organ, the glans, to meet the cervix.

For more details, please visit The Case Against Circumcision

This video has been shown at the Fifth International Symposium on Sexual Mutilations in July of 1998 in Oxford, England; at the launch of Intact in October of 1999; at the American Men's Studies Association Conference in Buffalo, New York in March of 2000, and at the August, 1999 Meeting of Amnesty International's Executive Committee in Portugal. Stills from the video were also used in Amnesty International's Bermuda Section Human Rights Information Pack, distributed to over one hundred national Amnesty divisions.

http://www.intact.ca/vidintro.htm

Note: It gives you some background first, then you can proceed to watch it.

Please read The Case Against Circumcision for full details, bibliography and research:

• Circumcision denudes



• Circumcision desensitizes



• Circumcision disables



• Circumcision disfigures



• Circumcision alters the appearance of the penis drastically



• Circumcision disrupts circulation of blood



• Circumcision also severs the lymph vessels, interrupting the circulation of lymph and sometimes causing lymphedema, a painful, disfiguring condition in which the remaining skin of the penis swells with trapped lymph fluid.



• Circumcision harms the developing brain

• Female partners of circumcised men do not report a lower rate of cervical cancer,nor does circumcision prevent penile cancer.
  
  
• Circumcision does not prevent acquisition or transmission of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). In fact, the US has both the highest percentage of sexually active circumcised males in the Western world and the highest rates of sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS.



• Circumcision is always risky: Circumcision always carries the risk of serious, even tragic, consequences. Its surgical complication rate is one in 500.These complications include uncontrollable bleeding and fatal infections.There are many published case reports of gangrene following circumcision.Pathogenic bacteria such as staphylococcus, proteus, pseudomonas, other coliforms, and even tuberculosis can cause infections leading to death.These organisms enter the wound because it provides easy entry, not because the child is predisposed to infection.



• Circumcision harms the mother-infant bond



• Circumcision violates patients' and human rights: No one has the right to cut off any part of someone else's genitals without that person's competent, fully informed consent. Since it is the infant who must bear the consequences, circumcision violates his legal rights both to refuse treatment and to seek alternative treatment.

I don't know much about Islam or Judaism. But just like many other things which one religion or another claim to be God's will, I think circumcision is purely traditional.

As a parent,you are responsible for the physical and emotional well-being of your son, and NOT for other people's need for tradition.

Don't put your baby's welfare last.

http://www.noharmm.org/feminist.htm