Suck on that title. Anyway, this is actually an important public health issue. Circumcision cuts your STD risk:
Circumcised males are less likely than their uncircumcised peers to acquire a sexually transmitted infection, the findings of a 25-year study suggest.
According to the report in the November issue of Pediatrics, circumcision may reduce the risk of acquiring and spreading such infections by up to 50 percent, which suggests "substantial benefits" for routine neonatal circumcision.
The current study is just one of many that have looked at this controversial topic. While most research has found that circumcision reduces the rates of HIV (the virus that causes AIDS), syphilis and genital ulcers, the results are more mixed for other STDs.
It also cuts your risk of invasive penile cancer, and there is nothing funny about penile cancer.
And it makes it look bigger. I wouldn't know though; I don't have that problem. (I am sure you all believe me.)
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We know how to not get syph already. That problem has a solution that doesn't involve the ritual dismembering of infants, which is a really weird thing to want to do and to seek to justify.
Right, there are many more convenient ways of avoiding STDs than getting rid of the very sensitive part of the very vital organ.
The incidence of penile cancer has to be on the order of the incidence of heart cancer. It's definitely something you don't hear about very often. From what I could find, it's somewhere between 1 in 100,000 and 1 in 200,000. I didn't even know such a thing existed.
Anyone know what causes it? Any theories? I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be HPV or something like it.
HPV might turn out to be the player, although the prevalence of penile cancer is much much lower than the prevalence of the HPV-related cancer in females (cervical cancer). the argument of those who propose circumcision to prevent the penile cancer is that smegma (what becomes of the ejaculated sperm that is retained between the foreskin and the head) is cancerogenic. i have no idea how strong that link is, but due to the low prevalence of the penile cancer i consider preventative circumcision so unjustified and stupid , specially since it is inflicted on kids who have no choice.
Strangely enough, these studies tend to be done in sub-Saharan Africa (where uncircumcised men are social pariahs and are occasionally attacked and mutilated in the street with broken bottles) and not the countries in Northern Europe, where circumcision is not only very uncommon but the rate of conditions like penile cancer is lower than it is in many places where circumcision is ubiquitous.