The age of resistance

Over the years, I've heard or read a number of times about the same story:

A little boy has a tight foreskin, but suffers no inconvenience from it (no difficulties in urination, no infections, nothing). At a certain age, no more than 6, sometimes earlier, a physician presses parents to intervene, citing possible future inconveniences in case the condition is left alone. Often, the first line of intervention is for the physician, nurse, parent or boy to try to retract the foreskin by force or, in a more human and modern way, by using some softening steroid cream (sometimes this first line of intervention is skipped). Then if this fails within a few months, the physician advocates circumcision, claiming it has no inconveniences. By the age of 7, the boy has his foreskin removed.

What puzzled me is that insistence on solving the issue at the age of 6 or 7 at most. These boys suffered no inconvenience, and it could be hoped that as they aged, experienced erections and played with themselves, the condition may improve by itself. The urgency of surgical intervention was unclear to me.

A first explanation I thought of was that it would have been difficult for physicians to tell parents to just let nature take its course, including letting the boy play with himself. Masturbation is still taboo and was even more so 40 years ago when I was growing up. But it did not quite explain the urgency.

My theory is that, if surgery must be done, it is easier to do it when the child is at most 7 because at those ages children don't quite understand things yet (in fact, age 7 is often called the "age of reason"). An older boy, say a 10 or 11 year old, would ask questions: "what exactly do you want to do to me", "what is the use of it". He could resist: "I don't have any problem down there", etc. Neither physicians nor parents want to drag a boy kicking and screaming to the hospital. So physicians advise intervention at ages when the boys won't realize what is going to happen.

What do you think of this theory?

I have another argument in its favor. I've read a few testimonies of men who had been circumcised at later ages during another surgical intervention. In all cases they had only been told about the main intervention (appendectomy, tonsils…) but not about the circumcision, and had a huge bad surprise to find bandages on their penis when waking up. This seems to indicate that older boys would be reluctant to be circumcised, and even resist if told explicitly.

My thoughts are that parents and doctors who insist on such a physical intervention and force a circumcision on a very young child, know deep down that they are performing an injustice and an unnecessary medical procedure. They are doing it for malicious reasons, like getting back on someone/society for being circumcised themselves (a sort of diluted notion of misery loves company) or maybe out of some kind of unconscious, (mild) sadistic tendency.

Parents may be influenced by tradition, social mores or even notions of religion, but doctors should know better than to buy into such ideas.

The urgency with which many act of course has to do with the irreversible nature of circumcision. Once done, there is no going back. So, since most of their reasons for cutting are illogical and medically unnecessary, the hurry is indeed to get it done before the young person in question can ask logical questions and expect reasonable and logical answers.

That is also why subterfuge and surprise circumcisions are performed. The parents and doctors know that otherwise consent would never be given, so they perform it like sneaks, on the sly. And this happened often enough in the military, when the persons in question were adult.

It seems that there is a correlation between circumcision and religious belief, in that several major religions insist on it. I fear that this kind of illogical insistence evokes quite the emotional response: namely that everyone must be circumcised. The idea and notion of circumcision seems to have that compelling effect on many people.

@agracier I'm not claiming that true medical reasons for foreskin surgeries do not exist. But, certainly, a boy who has had so far 0 infection down there is not at terrible risk of balanitis or UTIs in the forthcoming few years… this is why I don't get the urgency unless it's motivated by consent issues.

(Another related question is why physicians do not propose alternative surgeries to circumcision, unless parents ask for them. Most parents don't know these surgeries exist.)

(Another related question is why physicians do not propose alternative surgeries to circumcision, unless parents ask for them. Most parents don't know these surgeries exist.)

I would think that even a partial circumcision, such as removing only a fraction of the tip of the foreskin might be sufficient. Sufficiently so that the procedure may not even result in the the foreskin looking circumcised, but just as a short foreskin.

Or even making a small lateral incision to widen the opening.

I think such things are not proposed because there is a compulsion with many people to circumcise fully and completely, as a sort of subconscious punishment of sorts.

I wonder for instance how often that boys are threatened with having their penis cut off for misbehavior by a parent? Or for not being sufficiently masculine or being thought a sissy.

That seems to me to be a related matter.

I think this problem is complicated. But there is a lot of truth in the fact that children who do not fully understand what awaits them or cannot defend themselves are often subjected to circumcision. Therefore, circumcision is often performed after birth in infants.

This is explained by the fact that it is healing well and the boy will not remember anything. It is not taken into account that the boy will not consciously remember anything, but a painful trace will be left in his subconscious. Painful because children of this age are not anesthetized. The child can be easily immobilized and subjected to a painful procedure.

I once read that boys put a pacifier in their mouths because it supposedly makes them calmer during the procedure. I think that the pacifier is not intended to soothe the baby but to gag it. The child cannot scream, so those performing the procedure have the illusion that the child does not feel pain.

Boys aged 10-11 enter puberty. They start to rebel. Circumcision may be subconsciously associated with castration. Moreover, a boy at this age feels more and more independent. Suddenly he learns that it is his parent who decides about his body. That his parents can consent to his mutilation.

That's also my understanding / suspicion.

From what I’ve found, most doctors use a local analgesic or anesthesia for baby circumcisions. Either topical or via a shot. A pacifier wouldn’t keep a baby from screaming unless you taped it over his mouth.

Same story in my country, only the age is sometimes 3 and sometimes 6. Usually 6 though.

Which makes no sense. If you were picking the age by which the foreskin should retract by any scientific method, that would be literally the worst age to pick. Look at any graph of penis size in children ( like https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Atila-Rondon/publication/259490922/figure/fig1/AS:601701568499719@1520468241621/Distribution-of-penile-size-values-plotted-on-a-graph-of-percentile-curves-for-ages.png ) and it's obvious it grows a bit the first few years after birth, then nothing, then again during puberty. There's absolutely no biological reason anything about the penis should change around 6 years of age.

My only plausible explanation is that this number is a "compromise". Some children can retract from the early years and some only after puberty starts. Look at a graph of how many boys can retract by age (like https://www.doctorsopposingcircumcision.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/the-development-of-retractile-foreskin-in-the-child-and-adolescent-portrait.pdf ). So some idiot doctor took an average, came up with 6 and it stuck.

It's clear there's a natural progression and the foreskin becomes wide enough for most boys to retract with age on its own. But millions of boys are forced to undergo unnecessary and irreversible surgery because many doctors don't seem to understand this.

There's absolutely no biological reason anything about the penis should change around 6 years of age. (...) It's clear there's a natural progression and the foreskin becomes wide enough for most boys to retract with age on its own. But millions of boys are forced to undergo unnecessary and irreversible surgery because many doctors don't seem to understand this.

I agree with this because it sounds logical. For some boys, this may change around age 6, for some later—before puberty—and for others during puberty. The solution is that at this age the child does not fully understand what is going on and it is easier to convince him to undergo the procedure.

I had partial phimosis, which I wasn't aware of. I underwent circumcision as an adult, after the age of 30. I believe it was too late. However, the best time is 18. At that age, phimosis is unlikely to reverse. The decision is made by the young man, not his parents. He understands the consequences and significance of circumcision.

I underwent a conservative preputial surgery when I was around five years old. It was probably done with the idea that at that age you wouldn’t remember the procedure afterwards.

However, I have to say that, in my case, this isn’t entirely true, as I still have some very vivid images of those moments that I believe traumatized me. Compared with what others have written, I sometimes wonder whether simply allowing natural development to take its course might have prevented all of this.

Same story in my country, only the age is sometimes 3 and sometimes 6. Usually 6 though.

Medical opinions on the issue vary across different providers and regions. What may be an accepted approach in one country might not be the standard course of treatment in another. I have heard many doctors advocate for surgical intervention to treat physiological phimosis as early as a child turns 1 or 2 years old, while most American doctors would suggest performing a complete circumcision as soon as possible, even if the prepuce can easily be retracted.

Many other factors should also be considered.