False beliefs predict increased circumcision satisfaction in a sample of US American men

Abstract

Critics of non-therapeutic male and female childhood genital cutting claim that such cutting is harmful. It is therefore puzzling that ‘circumcised’ women and men do not typically regard themselves as having been harmed by the cutting, notwithstanding the loss of sensitive, prima facie valuable tissue. For female genital cutting (FGC), a commonly proposed solution to this puzzle is that women who had part(s) of their vulvae removed before sexual debut ‘do not know what they are missing’ and may ‘justify’ their genitally-altered state by adopting false beliefs about the benefits of FGC, while simultaneously stigmatising unmodified genitalia as unattractive or unclean. Might a similar phenomenon apply to neonatally circumcised men? In this survey of 999 US American men, greater endorsement of false beliefs concerning circumcision and penile anatomy predicted greater satisfaction with being circumcised, while among genitally intact men, the opposite trend occurred: greater endorsement of false beliefs predicted less satisfaction with being genitally intact. These findings provide tentative support for the hypothesis that the lack-of-harm reported by many circumcised men, like the lack-of-harm reported by their female counterparts in societies that practice FGC, may be related to holding inaccurate beliefs concerning unaltered genitalia and the consequences of childhood genital modification.

Résumé

Les critiques des mutilations génitales non-thérapeutiques chez les garçons et chez les filles dans leur enfance soutiennent que cette pratique est néfaste. Aussi est-il surprenant que des femmes et des hommes « circoncis(e)s » ne considèrent pas, d’une manière générale, qu’ils ont souffert de ces mutilations, malgré la perte de tissus sensibles prima facie. Concernant les mutilations génitales féminines (MGF), une solution couramment proposée pour cette énigme est que les femmes dont la vulve a perdu certains tissus avant leurs premiers rapports sexuels « ne savent pas ce qu’il leur manque » et peuvent « justifier » leur statut de femmes vivant avec des organes génitaux modifiés en adoptant des croyances inexactes sur les avantages des MGF, tout en stigmatisant les organes génitaux non-modifiés en les qualifiant de peu attrayants ou de sales. Existe-t-il un phénomène similaire parmi les hommes circoncis dès la naissance ? Cette enquête conduite auprès de 999 Américains nous a révélé qu’une forte adhésion à des fausses croyances sur la circoncision et l’anatomie pénienne prédit une grande satisfaction liée au fait d’être circoncis ; tandis que chez les hommes non circoncis, la tendance est opposée : une forte adhésion aux fausses croyances prédit une moindre satisfaction liée au fait d’avoir des organes génitaux intacts. Ces résultats apportent un soutien préliminaire à l’hypothèse selon laquelle l’ignorance du préjudice subi rapportée par de nombreux hommes circoncis, semblable à celle des femmes dans les sociétés où sont pratiquées les MGF, peut être liée aux convictions inexactes concernant les organes génitaux non modifiés et les conséquences des mutilations génitales dans l’enfance.

Resumen

Los detractores de la ablación genital masculina y femenina infantil no terapéutica afirman que este tipo de práctica es perjudicial. Por tanto, es desconcertante que en general las mujeres y los hombres circuncidados no consideren que han sufrido daños debido a la ablación, pese a la pérdida de un tejido sensible y prima facie valioso. En el caso de la ablación femenina, una solución habitualmente propuesta a este enigma es que las mujeres que habían tenido una extirpación de una parte de la vulva antes de su primera relación sexual “no saben lo que se pierden” y pueden “justificar” su estado genital alterado adoptando falsas creencias sobre las ventajas de la ablación femenina, estigmatizando a la vez los genitales no modificados como algo poco atractivo y sucio. ¿Podría ocurrir el mismo fenómeno en hombres con una circuncisión neonatal? En este estudio en el que participaron 999 hombres estadounidenses, observamos que un mayor apoyo de falsas creencias en torno a la circuncisión y la anatomía del pene predice una mayor satisfacción de ser circuncidado, mientras que en los hombres no circuncidados ocurre una tendencia en el sentido inverso: un mayor apoyo de creencias falsas predice menos satisfacción en hombres con los genitales intactos. Estos resultados ofrecen un apoyo aproximado a la hipótesis de que el hecho de algunos hombres circuncidados no indiquen que sufren efectos negativos, al igual que ocurre con las mujeres en las sociedades donde se practica la ablación femenina, podría estar relacionado con mantener creencias erróneas con respecto a los genitales no alterados y las consecuencias de la modificación genital en la infancia.

Keywords:

• Circumcision
• sexual experience
• bodily integrity
• FGC
• FGM
• USA

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Peter Chusid for research assistance, and to three anonymous reviewers for constructive criticism on an earlier draft. Portions of this paper were presented at the 23rd Congress of the World Association for Sexual Health in Prague, May 2017, as well as at the Society for the Study of Social Problems’ Annual Conference in Montreal, August 2017. Helpful feedback was also given by members of Marianne LaFrance’s Sex and Gender lab at Yale University during the autumn semester of 2017.

Notes

1. Reliable figures are hard to come by, but a recent YouGov poll concluded that 10% of circumcised US American men wish that they had not been circumcised (Moore 2015); in the present sample, this figure was 13.6% (see Earp and Darby 2017 for further discussion).

2. There is a growing body of scholarship disputing the Western near-consensus that the risk of sexual and health-related harms associated with FGC is as great as is commonly portrayed in that discourse (see, e.g., Ahmadu and Shweder 2009; Catania et al. 2007; Johnsdotter 2013; Obermeyer 1999, 2003, 2005). Scholars in this camp note that FGC falls on a spectrum, with some forms being comparatively minor (such as a ‘prick’ to the clitoral hood that does not remove tissue); that it can be carried out in more or less hygienic conditions, and is, in fact, increasingly being carried out by trained medical professionals in sterile settings; and that even the most invasive forms of FGC remove only a small portion of the (external) clitoris since most of the structure is subcutaneous (Abdulcadir et al. 2016), thus leaving sufficient tissue for sexual pleasure and orgasm in many if not most cases (Catania et al. 2007). For a critical discussion of some of these points, see Earp (2016b), especially the Appendix.

3. According to Hauser and Schwarz (2016), MTurk workers have been found to be more attentive to instructions than collegiate samples. Moreover, according to Silberman et al. (2015), MTurk workers lean heavily toward being US-based, which was the population of interest for this study. For more information on the demographic characteristics of our sample, please see the Appendix to this article, which can be found in the Supplementary Materials.

4. For a post hoc power analysis (Faul et al. 2007, 2009) and related discussion, see the Appendix.

5. Previous research has shown that many men do not know whether they are circumcised, or incorrectly identify their circumcision status (Risser et al. 2004). To address this issue, an additional measure of circumcision status adapted from Bossio (2015) was administered: see Appendix. Re-running analyses using the second measure resulted in similar findings to those reported in the main text.

6. A fourth question was initially included in the survey, namely, ‘How happy or unhappy are you with being circumcised?’ However, due to a programming error, some participants did not see this question. Therefore, we were not able to include it in the final scale. Dropping versus including this question does not substantially affect the main findings in the study.

7. We note that many intersex individuals come to express similar negative feelings upon learning of the medically unnecessary genital surgeries to which they were subjected in early childhood in an effort to conform their ambiguous genitals to a perceived gender binary. See the references collected in Earp and Steinfeld (2017).

8. Among gay men and other men who have sex with men, one question worth exploring is whether the extent and quality of one’s experience with sexual partners of the same/different circumcision status affect one’s satisfaction with one’s own status. Moreover, investigation of the attitudes and experiences of the sexual partners of circumcised and non-circumcised men (in terms of their sexual satisfaction and its relationship to their endorsement of false beliefs) should also be undertaken. We thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting these ideas as possible avenues of further investigation.