Talk:Circumcision

Skip to table of contents

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Circumcision article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the subject of the article.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed Article policies Neutral point of view No original research Verifiability

Find medical sources: Source guidelines · PubMed · Cochrane · DOAJ · Gale · OpenMD · ScienceDirect · Springer · Trip · Wiley · TWL

Archives: Index, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86Auto-archiving period: 20 days

The contentious topics procedure applies to this article. This article relates to gender-related disputes or controversies or people associated with them, a contentious topic. Editors are advised to familiarise themselves with the contentious topics procedures before editing this page. Editors who repeatedly or seriously fail to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process may be blocked or restricted by an administrator.

Do not feed the trolls! This article or its talk page has experienced trolling. The subject may be controversial or otherwise objectionable, but it is important to keep discussion on a high level. Do not get bogged down in endless debates that don't lead anywhere. Know when to deny recognition and refer to WP:PSCI, WP:FALSEBALANCE, WP:WIKIVOICE, or relevant notice-boards. Legal threats and trolling are never allowed!

Discussions on this page often lead to previous arguments being restated. Please read recent comments, look in the archives, and review the FAQ before commenting.

Wikipedia is not censored. Images or details contained within this article may be graphic or otherwise objectionable to some readers, to ensure a quality article and complete coverage of its subject matter. For more information, please refer to Wikipedia's content disclaimer regarding potentially objectionable content and options for not seeing an image.

view · edit Frequently asked questions Page name Editors sometimes propose that the page should be renamed to male circumcision, male genital mutilation, or male genital cutting. Consensus has rejected these proposals, because they are used in only a small minority of reliable sources. Most reliable sources refer to circumcision as "circumcision"; thus, in accordance with WP:TITLE, Wikipedia does the same.

	Circumcision was one of the Natural sciences good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones Date Process Result February 3, 2013 Peer review Reviewed February 12, 2013 Good article nominee Listed March 14, 2022 Good article reassessment Delisted
Current status: Delisted good article

This  level-4 vital article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to multiple WikiProjects.

Men's Issues High‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Men's Issues, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Men's Issues articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks. High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale. Religion Mid‑importance Religion portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Religion, a project to improve Wikipedia's articles on Religion-related subjects. Please participate by editing the article, and help us assess and improve articles to good and 1.0 standards, or visit the wikiproject page for more details. Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. Sexology and sexuality Mid‑importance Human sexuality portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Sexology and sexuality, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of human sexuality on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks. Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. Medicine: Translation Low‑importance Medicine portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Medicine, which recommends that medicine-related articles follow the Manual of Style for medicine-related articles and that biomedical information in any article use high-quality medical sources. Please visit the project page for details or ask questions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine. Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. This article is supported by the Translation task force (assessed as Top-importance). Body Modification (defunct) This article is within the scope of WikiProject Body Modification, a project which is currently considered to be defunct. Human rights Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Human rights, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Human rights on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks. Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. Skepticism Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Skepticism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of science, pseudoscience, pseudohistory, conspiracy theories, and skepticism related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks. Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

This article has previously been nominated to be moved. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination. Move logs: Circumcision Male Circumcision Discussions: RM, Circumcision → Male Circumcision, No consensus, 18 June 2008, discussion RM, Circumcision → Male circumcision, No consensus, 13 August 2009, discussion RM, Circumcision → Male circumcision, Not moved, 20 July 2010, discussion RM, Circumcision → Male circumcision, Not moved, 10 October 2022, discussion

This article has been mentioned by a media organization: "Topics that spark Wikipedia 'edit wars' revealed". BBC News. 18 July 2013. Retrieved 18 July 2013.

Ideal sources for Wikipedia's health content are defined in the guideline Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine) and are typically review articles. Here are links to possibly useful sources of information about Circumcision. PubMed provides review articles from the past five years (limit to free review articles) The TRIP database provides clinical publications about evidence-based medicine. Other potential sources include: Centre for Reviews and Dissemination and CDC

Archives

Index 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86

Archive guide Sample PubMed

This page has archives. Sections older than 20 days may be auto-archived by Lowercase sigmabot III if there are more than 3.

request for the controversy and problematic nature of circumcision to be included on page.

routine infant circumcision is an increasingly controversial subject. it raises profound questions regarding human rights, medical ethics, religious freedom and consent. countries have considered bans on minors. none of this at all is reflected in your page on circumcision. please consider fixing this. 49.183.66.161 (talk) 03:11, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See Circumcision controversies and Ethics of circumcision. Bon courage (talk) 04:00, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, but these issues are not reflected in this article at all. This isn't normal. Moving all the criticisms to other articles is, in essence, a form of hiding and censoring them (WP:POV forking).--Anonymous44 (talk) 12:56, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe we do need one introductory line. Slatersteven (talk) 13:01, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not one line, but many, and not just introductory ones, but a section or two sections. The contents of the articles Circumcision controversies and Ethics of circumcision need to be properly summarised in this article, too. Currently, there isn't even a link to them in the text, not even in 'See also' - you have to look at the template at the bottom, which almost no reader will. Come on, this is as blatant POV forking as it gets. This turns the article into one giant advertisement for circumcision.--Anonymous44 (talk) 13:16, 6 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Seconding there should at least be a small section that summarizes controversies & ethics and links to both of those articles. Covering social, ethical, and legal issues is standard for other articles of this size. GlowingLava (talk) 20:03, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

May I add, why does this page say "The accumulated data show circumcision does not have an adverse physiological effect on sexual pleasure, function" yet it is a well known fact that circumcision dries out the glans penis from a lack of coverage, of which the glans penis page says it is "the human male's most sensitive erogenous zone and primary anatomical source of sexual pleasure". How can you lose sensitivity in the "most sensitive erogenous zone and primary anatomical source of sexual pleasure" yet lose no sexual pleasure? Greetmurk (talk) 18:36, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Because Wikipedia follows the reliable medical sources, and not unsourced rumors or 'well known facts'. MrOllie (talk) 18:54, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I can answer your question, 2A0A:A546:C812:0:8E4:63DA:92F5:94C6 (talk) 15:39, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

just read about Jake H waskett and gilgal society 2A0A:A546:C812:0:8E4:63DA:92F5:94C6 (talk) 15:39, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@49.183.66.161 I agree. This article is a sham and is obviously biased toward a favour of genital mutilation. It's a disgrace to Wikipedia's credibility. Artemiser32 (talk) 23:41, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 11 August 2025

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

The last edit in history [119] has nothing to do with the medical history of circumcision and reads like someone is just mad about Trump being President. It’s false information as president Trumps statement was about a waste for American taxpayers to spend the money on this. Their own government should be paying not American taxpayers. It has nothing to do with medical facts. For this reason alone I think it should be removed from this wiki. Ryanrw1984 (talk) 15:43, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This was the last edit [[1]] I see no mention of Trump. Slatersteven (talk) 15:45, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Under history but article [120] it’s not accurate. Ryanrw1984 (talk) 00:24, 15 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Closing request per User:Slatersteven's comment meamemg (talk) 17:32, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 15 August 2025

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Under history the last insert [120] about Trump is invalid. The article linked is about how he does not want to pay for foreign country’s medical practices. Please remove the last history insert. Ryanrw1984 (talk) 00:21, 15 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It is a reliable source and looks to be accurately summarized. You'd have to establish a consensus that the source is somehow inaccurate, which would need to be done before filing an edit request. - MrOllie (talk) 00:41, 15 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's evidently not WP:MEDRS-compliant. 2A06:5900:C09A:4800:3C0A:1E4A:C683:BDD3 (talk) 23:58, 15 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Information about history and/or politics does not need a MEDRS source. MrOllie (talk) 00:09, 16 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

The source does not support the claim that Trump or Republicans alleged circumcision is ineffective. It quotes Trump calling the funding a "scam", not disputing the science. Per BLP, serious claims like "misinformation" and "falsely alleged" must be clearly supported. This one isn't. 2A06:5900:C09A:4800:3C0A:1E4A:C683:BDD3 (talk) 00:25, 16 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done: Per above, please establish a consensus for this change before using the edit request template. UmbyUmbreon (talk) 01:01, 17 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@UmbyUmbreon per WP:BANREVERT, this edit ought to be removed. There was no consensus to add this to the article. 2A06:5900:C09A:4800:A99D:FA4:BFF8:62D2 (talk) 02:01, 22 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've handled this for now as an ambiguously helpful BMB revert. Of course, another editor is free to override this at any time if they feel I've made a mistake. Please discuss future reverts like this as you would any other talk page discussion or edit request, no need to directly ping me on this. - Umby 🌕🐶 (talk · contribs) 02:32, 22 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've put it back. We're allowed to revert banned users, we're not required to do so. It's not a technically the IP can use to remove stuff they don't like. MrOllie (talk) 02:55, 22 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@MrOllie Thanks. I was just about to undo this myself, given another closer look at the SPI thread. It doesn't look like they were confirmed to the sockmaster by a CU on two separate occasions (Confirmed to each other, yes, but not to the master), so would very likely not be considered banned under WP:3X anyway. Apologies for that. - Umby 🌕🐶 (talk · contribs) 02:57, 22 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@MrOllie you're restoring demonstrably false information. Please remove it. 2A06:5900:C09A:4800:A99D:FA4:BFF8:62D2 (talk) 03:00, 22 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@UmbyUmbreon Just to be clear, I raised this issue at Talk:Circumcision and HIV, while another editor (User:Ryanrw1984) independently raised it here. The concern is the same: the source does not support the claim that Trump or Republicans alleged circumcision is ineffective. That's a serious BLP violation unless clearly sourced. If no one can provide evidence for the claim, it shouldn't be in the article. 2A06:5900:C09A:4800:A99D:FA4:BFF8:62D2 (talk) 03:46, 22 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]