We parents will have to take care of our sons' penises for about 3 years while they are in diapers, but they are the ones that are using them for the next 80 years and the ones who will be affected by circumcision. It is their choice, not ours. It doesn't matter what we think about how their penises look. It is their body and their choice. What we find attractive is a moot point - we are not the ones using the penis.
All of the supposed benefits of circumcision can be had without circumcision. Boy has an infection? Antibiotics or yeast creams, just like for girls. Supposed prevention of STDs? Are you going to tell your son that he doesn't have to wear a condom b/c he is circumcised? Did it work for all the men who died of AIDS in America yet were circumcised?
Many of the boys who "had" to be circumcised when older actually did not have to be. One poster described her son's foreskin ballooning when he peed - this is TOTALLY NORMAL and one of the natural stages of foreskin development as it begins to separate from the head of the penis. Same with the opening of the foreskin being small and tight - it is TOTALLY NORMAL for the foreskin to not open up and be retractable until puberty. A doctor who tells you that these things are a problem is totally wrong, but sadly, this is common in the US, where between the 1950s and 1980s, 85% of baby boys were circumcised. They just don't know about foreskins, and, truth be told, there is a financial incentive to recommend circumcision - a 5 minute procedure that earns them about $400. In countries that do not routinely circumcise infants, only 6 men per million have to be circumcised later in life - this shows that when foreskins are normal and everyone knows how they develop and how to care for them, actual problems are very rare.
Today in America, only half of baby boys are circumcised, as more and more parents learn that it is definitely not necessary, not cleaner, and not easier to care for. Circumcised babies require special care to keep the surgical wound site clean, and then there is ongoing maintenance as the foreskin remnants try to heal to the head of the penis, causing adhesions. Intact boys require no special care whatsoever - you just wipe off the outside like a finger and then leave it alone. Some day your son will be able to retract it himself, and then you just tell him to retract it and swish it around in the water when bathing.
The procedure itself is not painless, either. The best way to lessen the pain is to apply a numbing cream around the penis to make it numb for the actual numbing shots. Anyone who has been to the dentist knows that after they apply to the numbing cream to your gums, they go away for 20 minutes to allow it to take effect. Then, once that is numb, they have to do a complete nerve block around the base of the penis to numb the dorsal nerve - but there is another nerve that supplies the penis called the vagus nerve, and this is not affected by the block, so even with this best anesthesia available, they still have some sensation. And all this prep work of anesthetisizing the penis takes 30 minutes, so if your son came back to you in 5 minutes, his circumcision was NOT painless.
Then the actual prep work begins - the foreskin is adhered to the penis like your nails are attached to your fingers, so they have to take a metal probe and shove it down between the head and the foreskin and go around the whole head. I imagine that it would hurt - isn't that why splinters under the fingernails are portrayed as the worst sort of POW torture? Then they have to cut down the foreskin to open it up and then around the whole thing to cut it off. If they use a Plastibell, they slide that down and use that as a guide to cut the foreskin off. There is simply no way to remove the foreskin without cutting it. If you are considering circumcision, you owe it to yourself to see how it is done and be there with your son when it happens - if you can't stomach it, then how can you subject him to it?
After the circumcision, babies are not given any pain relief, yet they are urinating and pooping on an open wound. On top of being gross, this must hurt, as any woman who has birthed vaginally knows - how awful is that first, stinging pee? Yet newborns cannot talk, so we can think that they are just fine. They actually have very few life experiences, so maybe to the circumcised boys, feeling pain in their penis is a normal sensation.
Circumcision removes the foreskin which has a special type of nerves found only in the foreskin, lips and fingertips - NOT the head of the penis. These fine-touch receptors provide the man with a special type of sensation that tells them how close they are to orgasm. It also makes them feel a better sensation, so they don't have to require such pounding stimulation to orgasm. Finally, during sex, the intact penis moves in and out of its own foreskin, which acts as a seal to keep the woman's own lubrication inside her vagina. The result is less chafing and need for lubrication, and a smooth, rolling pressure rather than straight friction for the woman. And to add insult to injury, circumcised men become impotent 7 years earlier than intact men. Viagra and lubricants are not nearly as popular in the majority of the world where men remain intact.
Finally, circumcision is actual surgery with serious risks. Babies can and do get infections from the circumcision (hospital-acquired MRSA is a serious risk), they bleed uncontrollably, and some die. Babies absolutely do not die if you don't circumcise them. Adult men continue to suffer from their circumcisions - many men are not left with enough skin to comfortably get an erection, and their skin splits when they do get erect. I just read a blog by a man who was left with a skin bridge for whom sex is very painful and he has a very difficult time orgasming at all. This would not have happened to him if he were intact, and you better believe that there is nothing wrong with him for being angry about being circumcised.
So think long and hard before you have your son circumcised. It is risky, it is painful, it doesn't cure or fix anything, and it is not your decision to make b/c you are not the one who is going to have to live with it. If God meant men to have foreskins, they would be born with them.