p>The Misleading Call for Circumcision

By Otieno Mbare, PhD (Research Fellow)

I would not have ventured into this sensitive debate if it did not have direct consequences for my children, the posterity of the Luo nation and other non-circumcising communities around the world.

However, the debate has been fueled following a research that was carried out by some researchers in Kenya and Uganda and; consequently published in January 2008 in the BJU International.

Had it not acquired political overtones that sought to authenticate an otherwise a lop-sided research whose methodology, validity, plausibility and veracity are in doubt, I would have not wasted my precious time debating it.

Yet, this issue touches on the very nerves of the communities that are not practicing circumcision. It is an old time debate that has been misguidedly used to show cultural superiority and supremacy among different communities.

The same argument has sadly been used to stigmatize, lower the image and undermine the culture of the Luo community.

<

Scientific research as evidenced in the Mexico conference has rejected that line of thinking as a dead-end research. It will further give a false hope that a cure has finally arrived albeit with devastating consequences to our society.

It is therefore surprising that none other than my friend Hon. Raila Odinga (no disrespect intended!), who has suffered the wrath of these cultural purists, was the one who went out prescribing the new medicine for the “uncut”. This happened a few days after receiving with his in-laws from central Kenya.

I will not question Hon. Odinga’s wisdom but this is a very sensitive cultural issue that a person of his standing in Luoland and Kenya in particular, cannot afford to discuss it casually they way he did. I understand people have started saying derogatively that “Luoland sasa ni kichinjoni” because the PM has said so! The endorsement for circumcision in the Luo nation is totally unacceptable!

I don’t intend to argue here that our culture is pure and superior. But, let me make it clear that there are certain cultural practices that need to be eradicated without legislation.

Practices such as inheriting someone’s wife whose husband, probably died of aids and, other promiscuous habits. These are issues that have to be addressed and develop a common position not only for one community, but for the entire society.

Abstention and regular use of the condom is the sure way out of the current HIV quagmire. This is what elected leaders should be advocating instead advocating for something which is meant to demean and portray our culture as inferior!

It is for this reason that most members of the community have felt provoked by an assault directed at our culture.

Yet, the research is so hollow that there is no knowing whether the sample group and the control group had been subjected to a full-blown situation to validate their research finding! I do not want to dispute circumcision for those who are practicing it for it is seen as a rite of passage marking a boy’s entrance into adulthood.

Sometimes it was performed as a means of suppressing sexual pleasure, or used as an aid to hygiene where regular bathing was impractical.

At other times, it is performed as a means of differentiating a circumcising group from their non-circumcising neighbors, as a means of discouraging masturbation, or to increase a man’s attractiveness to women, or as a symbolic castration.

The Luos have since used and abandoned other cultural practices that marks the passage of a boy to adulthood. We have refused to embrace circumcision for various reasons; First, circumcision is not part of our culture.

It is foreign! Second, our other objection which is supported by the existing literatures and research is that circumcision changes physical sensitivity in the penis of a man.

A 2007 study funded by an organization which opposes circumcision, and published in the journal BJU International, found a difference in fine touch sensitivity between men who were circumcised and those who were uncircumcised (such that circumcised men had less sensitivity to fine touch in all but one area of the penis).

This same study also compared the sensitivity thresholds at various points on the penis and concluded that the most sensitive part of the uncircumcised penis was more sensitive than the most sensitive parts of the circumcised penis. The authors argue that the parts of the penis removed by circumcision represent the most sensitive parts of the penis.

Similarly, in a poll conducted by an anti-circumcision organization, 61% of men who were circumcised as infants reported decreased sensation over time, which they report resulted in sexual dysfunction.

And recently, a study by DaiSik Kim and Myung-Geol Pang on the “The effect of male circumcision on sexuality” found there was a decrease in masturbatory pleasure and sexual enjoyment after circumcision, indicating that adult circumcision adversely affects sexual function in many men, possibly because of complications of the surgery and a loss of nerve endings.

I do not want to speculate that some high-level conspiracy has been hatched to render Luo men dysfunctional. I will simply stick to the issue which can be corroborated through the overwhelming existing body of knowledge concerning the matter at hand.

Let me further buttress my argument by citing Erickson Paige 1978 article The Ritual of Circumcision, where she writes: “In the United States, the original reason for the surgical removal of the foreskin, or prepuce, was to control ‘masturbatory insanity’ (what the Luo would call, thelo-oyuma!) - the range of mental disorders that people believed were caused by the ‘polluting’ practice of ’self-abuse.’”

And here, she describes “Self-abuse” as a terminology commonly used to describe masturbation in the 19th century. According to Paige, “treatments ranged from diet, moral exhortations, hydrotherapy, and marriage, to such drastic measures as surgery, physical restraints, frights, and punishment.

But how was this conundrum conceived in the Bible. Because the Luo nation have always followed the bible and what was bequeathed to them by Ramogi at Go-Kwer!
The scriptures, which my late father, Jakwath Festo Mbare made his constant book of reference says that the Council of Jerusalem in Acts of the Apostles 15 addressed the issue of whether circumcision was required of new converts to Christianity.

Both Simon Peter and James spoke against requiring circumcision in Gentile converts and the Council ruled that circumcision was not necessary.

However, Acts 16 and many references in the Letters of Paul show that the practice was not immediately eliminated. Paul of Tarsus, who was said to be directly responsible for one man’s circumcision in Acts 16:1-3 and who appeared to praise Jewish circumcision in Romans 3:2, said that circumcision didn’t matter in 1 Corinthians 7:19 and then increasingly turned against the practice, accusing those who promoted circumcision of wanting to make a good showing in the flesh and boasting or glorying in the flesh in Galatians 6:11-13. In a later letter, Philippians 3:2, he is reported as warning Christians to beware the “mutilation”. These teachings and others reinforces the very beliefs we have upheld as a community.

Finally, the American Academy of Pediatrics (1999) stated “There are anecdotal reports that penile sensation and sexual satisfaction are decreased for circumcised males”. Boyle et al. stated that “the genitally intact male has thousands of fine touch receptors and other highly erogenous nerve endings—many of which are lost to circumcision.

They concluded, “Evidence has also started to accumulate that male circumcision may result in lifelong physical, sexual, and sometimes psychological harm as well.”

The caveat that I have to express is that circumcision has not, and will never be part of our culture. Who ever want to do it is free to do so without involving the community. But if you get circumcised, know that they are amputating your foreskin.

One should be informed that the sensitivity that you feel, not only in that skin, but the surrounding tissues, including the glands, will be drastically affected and diminished.

Researchers also allege that not only are the nerve endings gone with the foreskin, but remaining nerve endings are severed, blood flow permanently disrupted, and the shaft skin will be tight, possibly painfully tight.

Several months after this, the sensitivity remaining will begin to fade, and will continue to do so. The warning to our people is, “Circumcision will damage your penis and your sexual ability; that’s what it does”.

Even the British Medical Association has reported that “there is significant disagreement about whether circumcision is overall a beneficial, neutral or harmful procedure. At present, the medical literature on the health, including sexual health, implications of circumcision is contradictory, and often subject to claims of bias in research.”[