On August 27, 2012, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a revised circumcision policy statement saying:
Although health benefits are not great enough to recommend routine circumcision for all male newborns, the benefits of circumcision are sufficient to justify access to this procedure for families choosing it … Parents ultimately should decide whether circumcision is in the best interests of their male child.
As summarized at Science Based Medicine, the medical support for circumcision has always been shakey. There appear to be some minor benefits*, and some minor costs and risks, and the two are close enough in the balance scales that pediatric organizations around the world teeter around the “no recommendation” point – some recommending slightly against, some recommending slightly for, many neutral.
Surprisingly (at least to me) it seems that sexual pleasure is not affected one way or another by circumcision. It’s nice to see that’s actually being considered in these studies. But what’s not considered (at least not that I’ve been able to find) is masturbation. It’s easier when you’re uncircumcised. Most circumcised men need to use a lubricant to masturbate, the uncircumcised don’t. Masturbation is great, and simply ignoring this aspect of human life seems to be a major oversight.
Anecdotally, my gf likes that she can grab at me at any time. It’d be a pain in the ass if she always had to get some lube first, and a bit messy. I’d be upset if I ever had to give that up.
* to summarize: nearly all the health benefits can be achieved with simple hygiene. And you should be washing your dick anyway if you want other people to play with it. It appears to reduce how frequently you will catch STDs when having unprotected sex, but you’re gonna catch something if you’re having unprotected sex anyway, wtf is wrong with you?