CIRCUMCISION: "Just a Little Piece of Skin?"

We've all heard it. Whenever male infant circumcision is being talked about, somebody always has to trivialize the issue by saying "It's just a little piece of skin, I don't know what the big deal is." It's quite possibly the most common quip used to try and minimize the issue of male infant circumcision.

Since the foreskin is "just a little piece of skin," it's removal is trivial, of no consequence, and can be likened to the removal of any other dead, unfeeling body part, like the hair, fingernails or dried up umbilical cord.

But how much of this is true?

How do male infant circumcision advocates define "just a little piece of skin?"

Is it like peeling off a dead layer of skin cells?

How much is "little?"

How much would be "too much?"

What is "just the right amount?"

People say "It's just a little piece of skin" like it's really nothing, and the more I read about what the foreskin is, the more I see what circumcision is, what it does, what is actually removed, what is actually done to a child, the more it pisses me off.

Very recently, I've had the sad and depressing opportunity to see pictures of a child's severed foreskin. I'm looking at what is being removed and I think to myself, "How on EARTH is it justifiable to forcibly cut off a normal, healthy piece of flesh of this size off of anybody? 'Little piece of skin' MY ASS."

A nurse posted the following picture on Facebook:

The nurse salvaged a newborn's foreskin from a garbage can after an infant circumcision. On the left, the foreskin is shriveled up. On the right, the same foreskin is unfolded, with the inner mucosal surface exposed.

How on EARTH can anyone get away with saying that this is "just a little bit of skin?" This is no "little bit of skin," this quite a bit of flesh, and nerves and blood vessels.

If this "little bit of skin" belonged to a baby girl, there would be outrage.

It wouldn't matter that the baby girl would be "too small to remember."

It wouldn't matter that she was given proper pain management.

It wouldn't matter that it was done to fulfill a religious conviction.

The words on people's lips would be "genital mutilation," and rightly so.

Let's take a look at a picture of a baby girl's severed clitoris.

The following picture was taken from a blog written by a mother in Malaysia, who documented the "sunat" of her daughter, who was just a few months old, in her blog. She has since removed the post, as there was an outpour of international outrage in her comments section.

Original Text: "It happens so fast, with a bismillah and a snip,

a little bit blood and that's it, Zahra dah sunat!

She didn't cry even a drop, in fact giggling2 lagi.

I guess it wasn't painful for her, alhamdulillahh.."

The slit clitoris if you can find it (on the lower blade)

What looks more like "just a little snip" to you?

Keep in mind that as a child grows into a man, his foreskin grows too; it isn't so little by the time the child is an adult.

I'm just kind of tired that people throw the words "just a little piece of skin" around as if it were matter of fact.

The foreskin is not "just a little bit of skin." The foreskin is a complex, double-layered fold of flesh, laden in thousands of nerves and blood vessels.


The foreskin is not a birth defect.

Neither is it a congenital deformity or genetic anomaly akin to a 6th finger or a cleft.

Neither is it a medical condition like a ruptured appendix or diseased gall bladder.

Neither is it a dead part of the body, like the umbilical cord, hair, or fingernails.

The foreskin is not "extra skin." The foreskin is normal, natural, healthy, functioning tissue, with which all boys are born; it is as intrinsic to male genitalia as labia are to female genitalia.

Unless there is a medical or clinical indication, the circumcision of a healthy, non-consenting individual is a deliberate wound; it is the destruction of normal, healthy tissue, the permanent disfigurement of normal, healthy organs, and by very definition, infant genital mutilation, and a violation of the most basic of human rights.

Genital mutilation, whether it be wrapped in culture, religion or “research” is still genital mutilation, and it needs to stop NOW.