A friend on FB just posted about watching her baby get the snip, how horrific it was for her, how he cried etc. The 30+ comments that followed were along the lines of "poor you!", "brave little boy" etc.

I'd forgotten this barbaric practice is considered normal here. Is there any reason beyond a few lines in the Bible?

Mr Kellogg, the cornflakes inventor, thought that circumcision discouraged masturbation so he promoted it widely and it caught on.

If you live in a desert wearing no more than a dress than I can see how sand under the foreskin is not desirable, but with regular washing and inventions such as underwear it is not necessary at all even in the desert states.

It gives doctors extra income, so it is pushed in some hospitals. There is a lot of literature around in some hospitals stating the benefits.

It's an obscene practice. There's a massive (understandable) outcry over female circumcision but for some moronic reason it's apparently ok to do it to males. If God is so great and created man with a dick with a foreskin why do religious ****wits feel it's his will to chop it off?

I (UK citizen) am in an awkward position. I am thoroughly against the practice, due to my links to the medical field and view on basic human rights. My wife (US citizen) has two sisters who routinely circumcised their kids, as is 'normal' here. She is adamant its fine and the child (just to be clear, son) will be bullied if we do not do it.

I do not want a huge Thanksgiving style row with her family over the matter, either. Not sure how to proceed. I feel I am fighting against a cultural norm. here, one that has no scientific reason (apart form reduced male to female HIV transmission rates, according to published literature).

The 'he'll be bullied...' argument is, to my mind, by far the weakest argument out there, especially given that US circumcision rates are only slightly more than 50%. Depending where you live, an uncircumcised penis could well be in the majority in the locker room.

Stick to your guns - please. I could never contemplate putting a child of mine through that horrendous procedure without any medical indication.

Masturbation.

And then they spent the next hundred years trying to find scientific evidence to support the practice. If you throw enough darts, some are bound to stick...

Besides, if you've got a bunch of people looking at your penis in the locker room then you've got bigger problems than whether you have a foreskin or not.

Its shocking. The best argument is that it will stop bullying, which is no better than blaming victims of bullying. When do these kids get to look? I dont think many schools have sports where they change in front of each other or take showers together any more.

Its her son's own knob, if, at some time, he wants or needs to be circumcised, it must be his decision, and his alone. I think there are some emergency conditions where circumcision is necessary, but I bet they are very rare these days, with better hygiene.

For what its worth, my sister (USC in Fl) point blank refused to let my nephew be mutilated - to some consternation from her obstetrician, who tried to push the procedure on them.

It's never once come up for my son as an issue, in two states (one of which was Arizona and included regular swimming classes as part of PE). Plus they don't even seem to do the sort of low grade, tiresome bullying that went on in his Swiss school - grabbing someone's hat and tossing it around the classroom out of their reach, say - and they are squirmingly prudish, so I can't possibly imagine them doing the sort of bullying that starts with admission of having looked closely at another boy's penis.

Agree, apart from that its our son. When he is 18 they can chose to follow or practice anything they want. Actually if I'm honest, from when they are 16.

Oh boy! This again.

What? Not up for a good lets-mutilate-the-kid thread?

Disgusting practice.

If female genital mutilation is frowned upon, then so should male genital mutilation.

Whenever my OH and I have children together, if we have sons, that's not happening, by a long shot.

I'd even go as far to say that the foreskin will be more beneficial for my would be son a few years down the line when he becomes of age and becomes sexually active...