As a big fan of foreskins, I think it would be a crime to get rid of yours.

Take a look at sunsmogseahorse's post. He just took a PhD in, I think, epidemiology, with a focus on AIDS. Has some interesting things to say.

I did and I responded there first before posting here...I read his blog regularly.

Maybe you should make a rule that only tops should be circumsized.

And we wouldn't want you to part with your foreskin. Woof! ;-)

Seriously, though, whatever happened to just advocating good old-fashioned condom use? It's much cheaper, easier -- and less, er, destructive -- than surgery.

What? You actually want people to be responsible or something? Don't know where that concept ever came from. :P

Speaking for the skinless

I've never felt like I was missing anything for not having a foreskin, and as long as there's no demonstrable health risk to the person or their partner from not getting cut, then it comes down to the individual, I imagine.

I know there are some folks out there who claim that circumcising babies is mutilation and abusive, but that is more than a little over the top to me. :)

What do you think the political issues are facing this? I'd think that they could have an effect on recommendations that follow the research rather than the randomized clinical trials themselves. A couple of effects I could see would be that NYC would be under great pressure to do something about the appalling prevalence of HIV in communities of color. It could also be sensitive to men like you having a strong reaction to the possibility that a health authority could suggest that you be circumcised. There's your politics right there, son.

I'm not sure I understand the second paragraph. Are you saying that uncircumcised men are somehow marginalized or looked at as dirty and that this report is somehow part of that? Which report do you mean, that of the randomized clinical trials or of the possibility of the NYDH recommending circumcision to men at risk?

keeping my skin

I think this is a load of garbage and will be keeping my foreskin thank you very much.

I also think it is a barbaric practice to circumcise a baby.

Thank you mom and dad for not doing that to me. Or as my dad put it once...
" If you didn't need it, God wouldn't have made you that way."

I would take a step back and depersonalize this. The evidence supporting circumcision as a prevention method is substantive.
To derive a personal judgement about one's status as an uncut man from the NYDH's recommendation is a leap, at best.

Please read what I said again. The evidence supporting circumcision in African heterosexual men as a preventive method is substantive. The evidence supporting that in American homosexual men is not.

I hear you, bud. I love being uncut, and would miss it if I didn't have it.

what a cute poochie in the pic! :)

Circumcision

I haven't kept up with the research on HIV and circumcision. But being circumcised is part of some religious beliefs and its a simple fact that research often "finds" outcomes that suit the ideological views of the researchers.

Neverthless this article http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/320/7249/1592
seems to argue for the efficacy of circumsion.

I personally believe that circumcision is tantamount to mutilation. Luckily, my family doctor left me with a modest amount of foreskin when he did the chop 60 years ago, but I would vastly prefer to have kept my full entitlement. I have seen (in the literature) some appallingly botched circumcisions which caused men pain and embarassment lifelong.

Whatever value circumcision might have for HIV protection, using a condom is superior insofar as it protects against a whole range of pathogens. I accept that some people have problems with keeping an erection when fitting a condom, and I accept that some people just won't use them for other reasons. But I simply don't believe that mutilating a man's penis is an appropriate public health policy.

Circumcision and ideology

See this link: http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/320/7249/1592#14719
containing some interesting critiques of the circumcision argument:

A couple of samples:

R T D Oliver,Professor of Medical Oncology, St Bartholomew's Hospital
"The authors failure to mention an issue that has long dogged debate on the protective effect of circumcision on incidence of cervix cancer and now increasingly prostate cancer 1,2, i.e. how much are improved hygiene and affluence confounding variables to the benefits of circumcision. This is exemplified by the lower incidence of cervix cancer in educated high caste women in India whose husbands were not circumcised than in the less educated Muslim women with circumcised husbands."

From Robert S. Van Howe, MD Minocqua, Wisconsin USA
"Although medicalized ritualistic circumcision appears to be an easy answer, as popularized by some Western researchers, this surgery is unproven and does not address the core behavioral issues that have fueled this pandemic. As a result, it will not alter the course of AIDS in Africa."

from John D Dalton Researcher and Archiver
"Western researchers have a clear idea of what they understand by "circumcision", but do not appreciate that "circumcision" in other parts of the world may refer to many differing procedures with differing characteristics and effects. The effects of one practice may not, indeed probably do not, read across to the others.

While some of those looking at the effects of circumcision on HIV in Africa are no doubt innocents drawn unwittingly into the fray, many "researchers" are seeking to use African data of spurious relevance to proselytise for their own form of "circumcision" in their own culture.

The recent Los Angeles Times article Spreading Islam With His Scalpel (Monday, May 21, 2001) shows that circumcisers consider they have a role in expanding the political and economic influence of their countries. Medical research should not be subverted by those with similar ambitions."

Tony Whelan
Canberra, Australia

Re: Circumcision and ideology

Agreed...especially on the point about how affluence and improved hygiene can be factors not being considered. That all goes to the argument of how gay men in New York are probably very different from heterosexual men in Africa--in terms of access to resources, running water or other things required to maintain good hygiene, and so on. While more research may eventually bear the circumcision advice out, it's still way too early to be making public policy recommendations on the matter.