To snip or not to snip

You wanna do what to my WHAT???

That’s the question we’ve been wrestling with since long before Milo was born – to circumcise or not to circumcise, to put our baby boy under the knife just so he can look like his dad and have a pretty penis for the girls (or boys, should he decide to swing that way), or to keep his one-eyed cobra hooded? Is a certain genital aesthetic worth the pain and suffering that he (and we) will endure if we go ahead with the procedure? Even if the answer is yes, do we really have the right to make that kind of decision for Milo, simply because we’re his parents?

Tough questions with no easy answers, damn it. Me, I tend to prefer the problems you can solve simply by consulting the answer key at the end of a textbook.

If we’d had Milo in the hospital, (and had given the go-ahead, of course), the circumcision would have been done as a routine part of his hospital stay. By now, his wound would already be long healed. But since we had him at home, we weren’t given the “easy-out” option, which means we have to do a lot more planning if we want to go through with the procedure.

That’s where the problems arise… Rob and I are notorious procrastinators, and neither of us feels particularly strongly about the issue one way or another. We’ve both been sitting on the fence so long I’m sure we’ll still be picking splinters from our butts when we’re sitting in our wheelchairs in a nursing home.

Right now, Rob’s leaning a little to the “let’s do it” side of the fence. He’s circumcised and so naturally would like his son resemble him. (“Aargh!” I hear him say in the privacy of his own mind. “We be the Emmerson men! Come, admire our rose-tipped bare bodkins!) My guess is that Rob doesn’t want Milo to look at him in the shower one day and say, “My GOD, Dad, what’s wrong with your wee-wee?” or even worse: “What’s wrong with MINE???”

Both sets of grandparents tend to be “pro-snip” as well, mostly because they had their children in a time when getting circumcised was the norm. I’ve already heard them voice the main arguments their doctors used with them: e.g., that circumcision is “cleaner” and prevents infection and penile cancer.

Apparently, however, most of these medical arguments no longer hold water. In fact, the Canadian Paediatric Society now recommends against routine circumcision, and a growing majority of newborn baby boys are leaving the hospital with their foreskins intact.

Recent studies show that uncircumcised men aren’t any more likely to suffer from infections or cancer than their circumcised counterparts, so long as they know how to clean themselves down there. Other studies show that circumcision reduces the risk of being infected with HIV or human pampiloma virus. And then there are those studies that contradict the findings of all the previous studies.

In the face of all this conflicting evidence, what's a confused and squeamish mother to do?

When I was a kid, most of the boys in my class were circumcised (don’t ask me how I know this). By the time Milo’s in school, the opposite will be true. And, as our doctor pointed out, who will he be more likely to compare himself to – his father or his classmates in the locker room?

As you might have figured out, I’m starting to lean toward the “let’s DON’T!” side of the fence here. I think the Canadian Paediatric Society’s anti-circumcision stance was the clincher. If there’s no medical reason for doing it, then why bother? Right now, it seems to me the only advantage is that Milo will one day be able to advertise himself as “8 inches, cut” in the classified ads, should he choose to become a male escort later in life. I’m not really sure that’s worth the grief I'll have to endure if I have to watch my baby boy be strapped down to a cot with full body restraints and scream with fear and confusion as a total stranger slices off a significant chunk of his most sensitive organ.

And yet, and yet… circumcised penises are just so darned pretty. Do I, as a mother, have the right to deprive him of one, just because I’m scared to see my darling baby suffer for any length of time? Maybe I’d just better toughen up; otherwise, how will I endure the broken bones and spouting gashes of childhood and adolescence?

So there’s our dilemma. If we keep stalling on making a decision either way, I suppose the “DON’T” side is going to win by default, and both of us will secretly be relieved.

Before it gets to that, however, Rob and I would both love to hear other people’s thoughts on the matter. What do YOU think? Has circumcision become an unnecessary, outmoded procedure with only minimal aesthetic benefits, or will our son thank us in years to come for permanently unsheathing his sword? Feel free to post anonymously, if that makes you more comfortable. Just please oh please make up our minds for us, because clearly we’re not doing that great a job making them up for ourselves.