I was circumcised at birth. Now, as an educated, sexually active, 27-year-old adult, I wish it had not happened. I won't say anything about the pain and suffering of the physical event, because it's true that I don't remember it (though anyone who has witnessed one can tell you the baby is in horrific pain throughout the process). What I am going to talk about is how I feel now. I feel a sense of loss for the fact that a physical part of me is permanently missing without my ever having known it. More painful than that is a sense of violation. Something was unnecessarily done to me as a baby that I would not have chosen to have had done if I had been given the choice as an informed, consenting adult. (And yes, I do know it to have been unnecessary because I have been able to discuss the issue with my father. He confirms that he and my mother were undecided about it and asked the doctor for advice. The doctor said that everything appeared healthy, but that he recommended it anyway for the cosmetic and societal reasons. It was this preferential, non-medical recommendation that led to my mutilation at birth, and many other baby boys in the 1980's and other decades.) The only thing I can do about it is to undergo foreskin restoration, either a surgical or mechanical process. I am choosing to do that, but I also know from my research on the subject that it is not a reversal of my circumcision, but only a physical simulation which may or may not be successful in fully amending the altered appearance and function of my penis. I have heard it said that many women prefer circumcised men. I have been with many women and found through my own sexual experience that I prefer women with natural pubic hairstyles and small nipples on medium-large breasts of a certain shape. I have respect for my sexual partners and feel that I can either accept a woman's body or find someone else who better fits my preferences. I would never ask a woman to change the way she grooms her pubic hair or expect her to surgically amend her breast shape or nipple-to-breast ratio. And I hope a woman would have more respect for herself than to change her body to please a man who felt his preferences outweighed her body's natural form. I was appalled to see a woman's contribution on Circlist where she proudly recounted consistently nagging her boyfriend to be circumcised, and his subsequent compliance despite initial strong refusal to do so. I wish I had been his friend so I could influence him to see that he deserved better than a woman who would criticize his body, and I wonder whether she would have been willing to change herself if he had imposed a preference on her that didn't match who she was physically. So I don't think the old "women prefer circumcised men" argument holds up. Every individual in the world is different and has different preferences about the appearance of sexual partners. Imagine how we would look if, when we were infants, our parents had surgically altered everything about us that they suspected our future sexual partners might not "prefer." Another concern I've heard is that circumcised fathers want their sons to look like them. My father is uncircumcised, and when I occasionally saw him undressed as a child, I didn't think anything of the fact that his penis looked different from mine. And I imagine that if I had thought anything of it, the presence of a foreskin wouldn't have even made the Top 10 list of differences between a 34-year-old's penis and a pre-schooler's. Now that we are both fully-grown men, we have not seen much, if any, of one another's penises in many, many years. As someone whose penis did not (and still probably doesn't) look much like his dad's, I have the experience to say with full knowledge and authority that that particular question is a complete non-issue. Then there's the hygiene argument. I just ran my theory by my uncircumcised roommate, and he confirmed that an uncircumcised penis does not develop odors, accumlated smegma, or an inability to be retracted healthily if its owner invests a few seconds a day in quickly cleaning it in the shower. Unless I'm the only circumcised guy in the world who washes his penis in the shower, that doesn't sound like an added burden in any way. This is the perspective of one circumcised man who wishes he were not. I know that a lot of guys who have been circumcised don't mind that they are (some report a sense that they "got it over with" without having to remember it, but of course circumcision isn't an inevitable event that you must submit to sooner or later, so I don't know where that frame of mind comes from). Anyway, I'm glad that many them don't mind, because I know from my own experience that it's a very painful thing if you do mind. I'm glad they don't have to face those feelings. But the fact that many men are fortunate in that respect doesn't mean that it should continue - what if the next baby boy who undergoes routine infant circumcision grows up to feel the way I do instead? I would rather not take the risk of letting that happen. If a man reaches adulthood with his foreskin intact and decides he doesn't want it, let him choose to have it removed. Options are far more limited for men who reach adulthood without it and wish it hadn't been taken away. (Question: are there any health insurance plans that treat infant circumcision, or even adult voluntary circumcision, and adult foreskin restoration the same way?) If I'm fortunate enough to become a father, no son of mine will be circumcised. That's for him to decide, and I will not rob him forever of the opportunity to make that choice for himself as an informed adult capable of making it. Kevin, by email on December 19, 2010