What's Wrong with Circumcision?

David Smith
(This page does not contain medical advice)

Last updated on 30th May 2007

NORM-UK is a charity originally formed by men who didn't want to be circumcised. We feel that our adult bodies are for us to make our own choices and decisions about, and that any intervention against our will, or when we were too young to understand the implications, was a profound violation of our rights.

NORM-UK now boasts a membership of men and women from a range of backgrounds including intact men (who have a lot to say about their foreskins), parents and people from various ethnic and religous communities.

At least 5 studies have shown that two thirds of therapeutic circumcisions conducted by the NHS are unnecessary. The BMA's Michael Wilks has admitted on the BBC that the majority of 'medical' circumcisions are 'unnecessary and premature'. If you're a man circumcised in the UK to resolve a medical issue, we estimate there is a 90% chance that you could have kept your foreskin by using some cream or doing some stretching exercises for a few weeks.

Studies have shown that the five most sensitive parts of the penis are removed during circumcision and that 27% to 38% of men circumcised as adults have reported harm to sexual function. Most of these men sought circumcision due to a penile problem and so this may underestimate the risk of sexual dysfunction to men circumcised as healthy babies. Aside from physical losses, there are psychological effects and intact men are often only too ready to tell us how much they enjoy their skin.

Regardless of all that, not many people would try to deny that circumcision completely changes the look and feel of a penis forever, so....

People make dozens of intellectual justifications for the circumcision of young boys, from claims that it prevents various diseases and improves sexual intercourse to insistence that it is a religous right or that parents must be allowed to whatever they like to their children.

Whether you want to believe any of these things or not, you cannot deny that the penis is a personal part of a man's body, and that it should be for that man and that man alone to make a properly informed choice about having it surgically altered. As the penis is an adult piece of equipment central to sexual activity, it follows that this choice can only be made when the man is old enough to fully understand the implications.

For more information please read what the British Medical Association and other bodies have to say.