Seven Sons

Would an adult male ever choose to be circumcised, even in the face of “overwhelming evidence” of health benefits? Should encouraging parents to have their sons circumcised be a public health policy?

Fortunately for all of us a good deal of time and effort has been spent on studying the effects of circumcision on male sexual sensitivity and disease transmission rates. When you have a newborn baby boy, you can Google for all sorts of data to help make the decision about whether to elect the surgery, and I won’t rehash the evidence or arguments here. Without a moral objection to circumcision, parents might feel that for a little cost and effort, they can do a little something to help out their future sexually active teenager. But let me present a little thought experiment, a perspective that I haven’t seen elsewhere: What if circumcision was a decision left up to the adult individual, to be elected sometime after they reach sexual maturity and can evaluate the data themselves? What man, considering a possible reduction in AIDS and HPV transmission rates during all that unprotected sex they plan to have, would choose the surgery? I’m guessing the same men that would have their tonsils and appendix pre-emptively removed.