This actual surgery generates more than a quarter of a billion dollars nationwide in unnecessary medical costs annually. Routine male genital mutilation, as presently practiced in the United States, began in the late l9th century to prevent masturbation. The current rationalizations for routine infant male circumcision are purely cultural and are not supportable by medical necessity or factual evidence. Routine circumcision is surgery for cultural, not medical, reasons. Routine circumcision continues in the United States because parents and physicians have not been given adequate information regarding the structure and function of the prepuce.
Parents mistakenly believe it is a medical issue and ask physicians for advice.
Physicians who likely have also been subjected to this ritual circumcision frequently wish to protect the status quo and financial self-interests, and therefore, do not, or cannot give adequate information to parents. One does not need to be a medical professional to amputate male prepuces. The North Dakota Attorney General has ignored requests to rule on whether any parent can amputate his or her son's prepuce with impunity at any age. The prepuce is specialized tissue, highly innervated, richly supplied with blood vessels, and uniquely endowed with stretch nerve receptors. The prepuce contributes significantly to the sexual response of the intact male which can be especially important for sexual satisfaction in the mature male.