Adult Circumcision: No Sex Woes Seen

(WebMD)  Adult male circumcision doesn't hamper sexual satisfaction or sexual function, a Ugandan study shows.

Previous studies have shown that circumcision may curb men's risk of contracting HIV by half, and, if widely practiced in Africa, might prevent 3 million deaths over 20 years.

Now, in the new Ugandan study, few men -- circumcised or not -- reported sexual problems. 

The study included more than 4,000 sexually experienced Ugandan men aged 15-49 who didn't have HIV.

After rating their sexual satisfaction and function, the men were split into two groups. One group of men got circumcised immediately; the other group didn't.

The men completed follow-up surveys six months, one year, and two years after the study started.

Virtually all of the men in both groups -- at least 98 percent -- noted no problems with their sexual satisfaction and sexual function in any of those interviews. And six months after circumcision, almost 99 percent of men reported no difficulty with vaginal penetration, compared to 98 percent among those men before circumcision.

The researchers -- who included Godfrey Kigozi, MD, of the Rakai Health Sciences Program in Entebbe, Uganda and Professor Ronald Gray, MD, of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health -- report their findings in Sexual Medicine.

(Do you agree with this study? What is your opinion? Discuss it on WebMD's Sexuality: Friends Talking message board .)



By Miranda Hitti
Reviewed by Louise Chang
©2008 WebMD, Inc. All rights reserved

[hli75]

With respect to hygiene, how many women do you know that clean under their (clitoral) foreskins? How dirty do you think they are? They cannot as readily clean under their foreskins. Interestingly, I do not hear much about them being dirty, smelly, etc.

[hli75]

I was circumcised as a baby. The guilty parties: my parents and my mothers OB. As my parents later became more educated, they realized that infant circumcision is mutilation. Is my life preoccupied with this? Hardly, for the same reasons my uncle does not dwell on the loss of his leg in an accident, or my friend does not dwell on the loss of his eye sight due to diabetes. I can%u2019t change the fact that half of my erogenous tissue was ripped off and sold by the hospital for profit. But my parents and I made sure the OB knows that we know he is no better than the savages down in Africa that perform female circumcisions. Needless to say, my sons are all intact, the way God and nature intended them to be.

[hli75]

Previous studies have shown that circumcision may curb men''s risk of contracting HIV by half, and, if widely practiced in Africa, might prevent 3 million deaths over 20 years. ------ These studies are known to have been very severely flawed. Only ignorant people still quote them today for justification of circumcision.

[hli75]

Adult male circumcision doesn''t hamper sexual satisfaction or sexual function, a Ugandan study shows.----- This reminds me of my cousins from former East Germany say that they were quite satisfied with their Trabis, as satisfied as we were with our BMWs, even when they knew that their cars couldn%u2019t even come close to ours. Today they own Mercedeses and can%u2019t believe they ever felt that way about their Trubis.

Previous studies have shown that circumcision may curb men''s risk of contracting HIV by half, and, if widely practiced in Africa, might prevent 3 million deaths over 20 years. ------ These studies are known to have been very severely flawed. Only ignorant people still quote them today for justification of circumcision.

[rf35]

rushman71
Whether they remember the pain or not, it is still genital mutilation. I find it barbaric because there is no valid reason for it to be done. I don''t subscribe to religion, but if you must invoke religion, a religious expert (he had a PhD in theology) in one study I read a few years ago stated that Jesus was the last baby who needed to be circumcised for religious reasons. So unless you''re non-Christian, the religious reason argument holds no water. As far as cleaning, it%u2019s no harder than washing under your arms. If you can smell it when walking by, I would imagine they are deficient in every aspect of personal hygiene, not just down there. If we are removing things for health reasons, why not remove the appendix at birth to prevent appendicitis? Or remove a girl%u2019s beast tissue to reduce the risk of breast cancer? Get rid of tonsils to avoid the possibility of infection? Go on, cut off all you can so those parts don%u2019t eventually go bad! I%u2019ve seen plenty of research on the problems that occur with circumcisions. Some pretty horrible deformities result if the doctor performing the procedure is just a few millimeters off. Not to mention the results of infections that can occur after even a %u201Cperfect%u201D operation. Which is barbaric, removing something that might be inconvenient to keep clean or cutting off a body part because that%u2019s just what we%u2019ve always done?

[leedsv]

And to the women who say uncirc is unclean - from experience I can tell you that a women who doesn''t clean regularly can be just as disgusting down there (if not more so) If your going to call a fore.skin a ''cesspool of germs'' you might as well call a va.gina an even bigger cesspool of germs. Let''s get real.

People who say its more painful when its done later are missing the point --- It hardly EVER even needs to happen at all. Why give 100 kids an operation so that one man doesn''t have to go through the exact same operation - except only a little more inconvenient for him?

[leedsv]

There is a lot of ignorance and empty rationalizations being posted here. The reality is that there is nothing unhealthy about the natural male body.

Most uncirc males have zero problems, and the problems that might come up are no worse and no more likely than the ones women will have if they don''t clean themselves properly... which doesn''t require surgery. The only reason people believe it is healthier is because they find that belief comforting.

It''s a really bizarre phenomenon that almost every educated country in the world has either never adopted circumcising boys, or have turned away from it years ago, except for the USA.

It''s funny how many people are so educated (reciting old wives tales) about the perils of not circumcising when they have absolutely no experience of the alternative. All these health paranoias are a non issue to most men of the world and they seem to get along just fine without feeling any need to do this to their children.

The medical organizations of the world have all been recommending against circumcising healthy children for years, decades even. I think I''ll trust the professionals instead of believing in middle american folk myths about health.

[rushman71]

rf35: You need to re-read what we were talking about. Define what you call "barberic". There is absolutely nothing wrong with circumcision on a new born baby. It is more painfull, though, for an older child or a grown man, and the pain last for a time. And as far as God is concerned, He commanded the Israelites to circumsize their babies on the 8th day of their birth. Tell me, do you remember getting shots when you were under the age of 1 years old? I didn''t think so. So how would you remember the "barbaric" pain this would cause a new born baby? And besides you, there are plenty of men in this world, unfortunately towards women, who don''t keep themselves clean. You could probably smell a foul odor of them walking right by.

[rf35]

I can''t believe you people on here condoning the barbarism of circumcision. It evolved that way for a reason. Or, for the religious nuts, God made it that way for a reason (God made man in His own image...was He circumcised?). Anyone who can''t keep it clean is lazy. I have never had a complaint from a lover (but a few liked it better that the "cut" guys). I can''t say that it provides more satisfaction since I have never not had foreskin, but I can''t see how losing several thousand highly sensitive nerve endings would not reduce the pleasure.
Wake up. The procedure is another few hundred bucks that the medical business (because it is a for-profit BUSINESS) can squeeze out of your pocket or your insurance provider''s pocket. I''d bet my eye teeth these "doctors" stand to make some nice money off of spreading the practice of routine infant circumcision in Uganda. Every independent study in that last 35 years has shown no benefit to infant circumcision, but several drawbacks. And with the number of other botched procedures, I sure wouldn''t want one of these guys fiddling around with my manhood.
For you jackasses who plan to mutilate your sons, I have nothing to say that this site will allow. If an 18 year old wants to go have his foreskin cut off, fine, but don''t force the decision on a defenseless baby.

[erasmus6]

"Only in the United States and Israel is this practice done on a large scale." posted by Baileycc

And Canada also.


"Dr''''s will put a needle (immunization) into your little baby at birth with..." posted by Gaye5

Wow, never heard of that before! They don''t do that here in Canada.