"The Family Penis" - The meaning of this term, and the debate on circumcision and bodily autonomy
The Family Penis is not an abstract idea. It reflects a lived experience shaped long before any understanding or consent was possible. It sits at the centre of questions about self ownership, identity and bodily autonomy, and frames the deeper reality behind circumcision. What follows is not just analysis, but a personal examination of how those early decisions can carry lasting physical and psychological weight.
The following article has been contributed by Dr. Antony Lempert, and reflects his personal journey in addressing the issue of cultural identity and circumcision. All views presented are those of the author.
Circumcision, Identity, & Early Cultural Belonging
In 1978, as the months ticked down to the big day, my parents and I were locked in a battle over terminology. At twelve years old, I couldn’t understand why they kept speaking about the Bar Mitzvah. It wasn’t the Bar Mitzvah, I corrected them, but my Bar Mitzvah. I had been learning a portion of the bible for a year, in readiness to sing (daven) that section in the synagogue in front of my family and friends, after which I would be transformed from a child into an adult with full participation in Jewish community life. It is only now, decades later, that I fully comprehend why I was wrong to think that the Bar Mitzvah was mine.
Wars have been fought over less than language. This was one such war of words for me. What I didn’t appreciate at the time was the profound impact that an earlier traditional cultural practice would later have on me, a practice in which weapons had been drawn.
In the life of a male child born to Jewish parents, two major events are usually celebrated communally. Almost thirteen years before the Bar Mitzvah service, nearly all such boys are circumcised 8 days after birth. In Jewish eyes, circumcision represents a covenant with the Jewish God and serves as a mark of belonging to the Jewish community.
There are other lenses, though, through which to view the practice of circumcision, which is the permanent surgical removal of an intimate part of a baby’s body. I am not alone amongst men that the circumcision enacted upon my body has had long-term repercussions. These include enduring grief for what was taken at a tender age before we could defend ourselves, either in words or action, and importantly, before we could choose whether or not we wanted to belong to that community.
To choose a bodily mark of belonging is a powerful sign of deep commitment. Conversely, to have one’s genitals forever marked presumptively on your behalf is viewed later by some people not as a welcome mark of belonging, but as a manifestation of the community claiming ownership over an intimate part of their body, in other words, as a mark of a belonging.
It is only as adults that we can attempt to articulate what we were then unable to comprehend that decisions about permanent surgical, cultural or religious bodily markings are for no-one to choose but the person whose body is affected. The distress we experience is compounded by the fact that it was our loving parents who denied us the dignity of choice, and who not only failed to protect us but who themselves procured the injury, so that, even as adults, their children must bear a permanent mark on their genitals representing the beliefs of their parents, regardless of their own adult views.
The Language Problem in the Circumcision Debate
Accordingly, choosing appropriate language to describe the wounding, cutting, marking, branding or harm caused to children’s genitals consistently seems to lead to contention and conflict.
The use of certain words increasingly generates more controversy than the ritual cutting of children’s healthy genitals itself. The range of deliberate injuries enacted by adults on children’s genitals is considerable and crosses geographical, cultural and religious barriers. However, in the UK and elsewhere, the most frequent distinction that is made between the different genital cutting practices relates to the biological sex of the child rather than to other metrics such as the degree of harm caused.
The language used, male circumcision vs female genital mutilation (FGM), serves to emphasise the differences and to divert the attention from the numerous commonalities between all forms of deliberate, permanent, medically unnecessary wounding of a child’s genitals.
In a 2015 UK legal ruling, the judge noted that male circumcision is physically more invasive than some types of FGM. The judge’s caveat that, in contrast to FGM, male circumcision can be considered reasonable parenting, ensured that his ruling did not prove the exception to the general observation that when the two terms are used in the same context, it is commonly in an attempt to diminish the severity of the one type, male circumcision, as compared to the other type, FGM.
Male Circumcision and FGM Double Standards in Law and Language
At its simplest, one must use the word mutilation when discussing the ritual cutting of female genitals. To appear to minimise the harms of FGM by employing euphemisms such as female circumcision is a sure-fire route to obscurity, even cancellation. In contrast, one must not use the word mutilation when referring to the ritual cutting of male genitals.
Doing so risks offending and alienating not only the communities that continue the practice, but also those who staunchly defend their perceived right to continue it, even as they may simultaneously condemn the ritual cutting of female genitals as something fundamentally different and beyond the pale. Therefore, in this landscape, it is to be expected that few will pay heed to those who speak of the individual experience of a boy whose later views, beliefs and values cannot possibly be known at the time the cutting takes place.
The pre-emptive decision by the child’s parents to shape their child’s genitals irrevocably to reflect the parents’ own beliefs and values, is judged primarily on the basis of perceived (lack of) harm, rather than being grounded in non-discriminatory child protection principles.
In fact, the near-universal adoption of the term FGM by the 1990s arose despite significant opposition, mainly from within ‘FGM’-practising communities. Proponents of the term mutilation to describe this practice originated largely in developed nations, where medically unnecessary, culturally normalised wounding procedures on children’s genitalia are forbidden, except for male children and some children born with differences of sexual development (intersex).
Such groups are understandably horrified at any proposed downgrading of the term ‘genital mutilation’ to euphemisms such as female circumcision. However, at times this leads to unintended consequences in communities where cutting is the cultural norm. Alienated and upset by the labelling of a traditionally meaningful procedure as mutilation, people can struggle to hear a vital message: that children living in their community are suffering irreversible physical and mental harm, denied their right to bodily autonomy.
Even so, in this area it is widely accepted that cutting a girl child’s genitals leaves no scope for cultural relativism. This is reflected in UK FGM legislation which explicitly rules out ‘custom or ritual’ as a defence of the practice.
And yet, for children living in different communities where genital cutting is also culturally prevalent and the resultant harms normalised, the standards applied could hardly be more relativist. This is even down to the euphemistic description for foreskin amputation: male circumcision, about which two UK judges have recently expressed significant concerns that there is practically no regulation at all.
Those of us who advocate for protection of all children from having their genitals surgically assigned according to the religious or cultural preferences of their parents are treated differently according to the biological sex of the child. Regarding female children, our safeguarding work is lauded as vital. Conversely, where male children are concerned, child protection workers and politicians are reminded to be sensitive and open-minded to the sensibilities of members of the circumcising communities. Specifically, we are exhorted to respect a practice of deep religious significance to many Jewish and Muslim people. We are told that we must not impose our own values and beliefs on these communities. The irony seems lost that it is those very communities that are themselves imposing, not just values and beliefs, but a life-long mark on children’s genitals before the child could possibly consent, dissent or resist.
Religion, Culture and the Conflict with Child Rights
It is a curious phenomenon that requirements to respect a community’s values and traditional practices may overlook the cornerstone of respectful behaviour. This is the right of each person within a community to make important decisions about themselves for themselves.
There is a clear distinction between allowing consenting members of a community to practise their own traditions on themselves by removing unreasonable restrictions, and removing constraints from those wishing to perform traditional wounding practices on non-consenting people.
These are two entirely different phenomena, yet they frequently become conflated, as if certain communities were immune to the human phenomenon of diversity of opinion. Assuming uniformity of belief within a community is disrespectful and disregards minority perspectives within the community group. Basic human rights should remain the priority.
Consequently, there is every reason to listen to those who challenge the practice on human rights grounds, whether they speak from within the community or not. Moreover, when those who are challenging the practice, are people on whose genitals the ‘gift’ of belonging was etched without their consent, it is even more necessary to pay attention. Selective calls for sensitivity to be shown only towards religious advocates for male circumcision or towards only the affected females from the cutting communities, compounds the harm caused to men who have been adversely affected by the practice.
Safeguarding Principles and Medical Ethics
The silencing of the voices of survivors of male genital cutting and the lack of wider appreciation of the harms and trauma it can cause, may lead to disenfranchised grief.
Standard child safeguarding principles and procedures align with protecting children from all medically unnecessary and potentially harmful practices. Nevertheless, particularly in situations where male genital cutting is part of a religious tradition, counterarguments to the requirement to respect the practice, usually fall on deaf ears.
Neither the British government nor the UK’s professional medical bodies have expressed any inclination to consider a move towards also protecting boys. Instead, as I have written elsewhere, regulatory guidance seems actively designed to ensure that male children’s genitals will be forever moulded by the religious choices of his parents.
Moreover, child safeguarding professionals who attempt to shift the focus to the child undergoing surgery are rebuked if they use sex-equivalent terminology, such as the term Male Genital Mutilation (MGM). The standard line, unsupported by the evidence, is that male genital cutting is a simple, harmless procedure, whereas female genital cutting is always harmful. Ironically, we are told that such loaded terms as MGM will offend and alienate proponents from the affected communities and will therefore be counterproductive.
As medical professionals, we are taught safeguarding principles to guide our care for children’s health. In the context of safeguarding, the vulnerability of childhood is intrinsic and total. Children cannot understand what is happening or protect themselves. They have not yet formed their lifelong philosophies or beliefs and can have little to no awareness of the erotic and sexual import of their penile foreskin.
In this instance, the principles we are called on to set aside when considering male circumcision include maximising a child’s future choices, the necessity of using medical expertise only to treat or prevent illness, only using the most effective, least invasive methods, delaying medically unnecessary procedures on people who cannot consent, protecting the most vulnerable people from harm and always obtaining appropriate consent, particularly for medically unnecessary procedures.
It is difficult to see how those standard principles align with religio-cultural male circumcision of children. In this context, cultural relativism has not just set up home but has built a well-fortified city around the male foreskin.
Let me now return to the term ‘mutilation’, sited as it is, at the centre of the lexicological debate. The Chambers dictionary defines mutilation as ‘an injury that causes disfigurement or that deprives you of a limb or other important body part.’ Many people would agree that the genitals tend to be one of the most cherished and important body parts. The penile foreskin, covering the glans or the head of the penis, is scientifically understood to be functional, erogenous, specialised tissue, and the most sensitive part of the penis to light touch and to warmth.
Therefore, its removal without consent and without disease would appear to amply fulfil the definition of mutilation. Nevertheless, it is a brave or foolhardy person who uses the term mutilation during a debate with a proponent of circumcision.
The ‘m’ word, as applied to males, usually provokes rancour and an end to the debate – on the grounds of having used offensive terminology. A similarly strong response may be expected when anything but the ‘m’ word is applied to female genital wounding practices. Again, we may be curious as to how this distinction became embedded in widely accepted terminologies for genital cutting practices. How about the word cutting? This is a gender-neutral descriptive term that has been used by the UN, such as for childhood genital cutting (CGC).
My lexicological innocence was shattered in November when I learned during a roundtable event that some senior members of the Jewish community consider the ‘c’ word to be as offensive as the ‘n’ word. Shall we cross that one off, too?
Why the Debate Remains Stuck
As language is restricted and condemned, the possibilities for open dialogue diminish, and anyone who ventures into the troubled waters risks lifelong reputational damage. A recent extended essay on this topic, published in a reputable journal, was lambasted in several UK newspapers, including The Times.
The condemnation was on the basis of the term which the authors had arrived at following a search for a gender-neutral, consensual, inoffensive descriptor to encompass all types of genital cutting. Critics implied that ‘genital practices’ implied cultural relativism and a lack of concern for the awful practice of FGM. It is notable that the authors were also seeking to find a term that might encompass surgeries performed on the genitalia of consenting adults, such as cosmetic labiaplasty.
Notably, little journalistic comment was made about the authors’ views on male genital practices. The lexicological battlegrounds over female and male genital practices, if you will, seem to be situated on different planets. Resisting the gravitational polarisation seems unlikely to catch on any time soon.
Criticisms of other descriptors of the practice include: ‘ritual circumcision’ which is considered misleading as the procedure is not solely performed for ritual purposes; ‘religious circumcision’, which fails to include non-religious reasons; ‘routine circumcision’, because there is nothing routine about a medically unnecessary operation.
More uncompromising terms such as ‘assault and battery’, ‘child abuse’, and ‘parental over-reach’ are experienced as offensive to parents, as they call into question the parents’ perceived right to make such decisions for their sons. Descriptive terms like ‘foreskin amputation’ are likewise seen by some as excessively harsh and offensive.
For now, it seems as though we are stuck with circumcision and FGM as the dominant terms. Of course, the two are different, not least because the child’s original natural anatomy differs. And while there are evident similarities between the two practices, to attempt to weigh comparative harms is as unhelpful here as it is for most harmful activity.
Regarding child safeguarding, the child is ordinarily placed squarely in the centre. Safeguarding professionals are regularly reminded of tragedies caused by a distracting shift of focus away from the child and towards other considerations, such as the priorities or beliefs of the child’s carers or the community. Particularly in the context of known harms and documented deaths from the practice, it is curious how those who seek to protect all children from all medically unnecessary genital wounding procedures remain in the minority.
Despite the evident ethical and safeguarding similarities between all genital wounding practices, the regulatory environment remains overtly discriminatory, based on biological sex. Even when boys suffer serious injury or die, the narrative more often enfolds around circumcision’s inherent acceptability.
When a privately funded rabbi inflicted a mortal wound on the healthy penis of 28-day-old baby Angelo Ofori-Mintah in North London in 2011, the coroner described his death as “a tragic unforeseen accident”. When a family decision has been made to operate on a healthy child, regardless of their intention, the word accident is moot.
Physical, Psychological and Sexual Impact on Men - The Battle for the "Family Penis".
We return to the verbal battleground of the penis. To whom does it belong? In the Jewish community from which I originated, most families still choose to follow centuries of tradition and procure a religiously-mandated infant circumcision on their male children. Child safeguarding principles were unheard of when this practice originated – but more recently conversations in UK child safeguarding circles have begun to increase.
The standard line from the cutting community in which I was raised was that the removed foreskin had been “just a bit of useless skin.” It is entirely understandable why, in the absence of lived experience of foreskins, people within the community might believe this assertion. However, it is not a statement based in fact, and has been disproven by evidence-based research, and by testimony as to its value from men who retain an attached foreskin. The process of unlearning the community narrative leads many men with mounting horror to consider their own loss, and to reflect on what had been taken from them without their consent, before they could protect themselves.
As a parent myself, I know that most of us do our very best by our children and that we sometimes make mistakes. I appreciate when my children challenge me and so give me the opportunity to reflect on what I have said or done, which may lead to an explanation, sometimes to an apology and often to increased mutual understanding and accommodation where possible. Such conversations are not always easy, though.
And so I thought long and hard before raising the topic of circumcision with my then one remaining, loving parent. I felt sure that when they too learned what I had come to know, and when they understood that I didn’t blame them for a decision taken in all good faith, that they would be mortified to have harmed their son in this way. I hoped that they would understand that my advocacy work was about education and child safeguarding, not blame.
More importantly for me, I was keen to give them and our relationship every opportunity to flourish by being open about something I feel strongly about. And, certainly, I was hoping for the succour of knowing that had my parents only known the harm it might cause, they would then have protected me from it. I was to be disappointed.
Unfortunately, even from the beginning, my stated appreciation of their rationale did not result in a reciprocity of understanding nor any acknowledgement that I might have had some claim to an important part of my own body. I was repeatedly told that they had done the right thing, that they had no regrets and that they would do it again, as Jewish tradition mandated, should the circumstances have been possible. By this response, I inferred that they believed that the amputated foreskin had never been mine to own or experience, but that it had belonged to the family, for which a parental decision was entirely justified. And as I started to understand how the penis on my body had been claimed by my family, I also understood fully why the Bar Mitzvah had never been mine either.
This is a good thing, because I am not Jewish, culturally or religiously, whatever names Jewish people might call me… or my wife.
Offence, Silence and the Barriers to Open Discussion
And finally, back to the disputes and harms of terminology. In a recent political discussion with an otherwise like-minded, well-intentioned Muslim healthcare professional who was defending the practice of ‘circumcision’, I faced opposition from her to the principle of: ‘my body, my choice’.
Invoking personal experience, I said that I didn’t think that a child’s penis should be seen as ‘the Family Penis’. Months later, I learned that this term ‘The Family Penis’ had caused such offence to her that it had contributed to her disengagement from dialogue on this topic. I learnt that she and others believed that ‘The Family Penis’ represented offensive, culturally insensitive language that should not have been used, even by men who must bear the family belief on their genitals. Would that similar standards and considerations applied to the sensibilities of affected men.
There are further obstacles to open dialogue that I and others have encountered. When discussing or debating medically unnecessary penile circumcision of children, we are often castigated for apparently focusing too much on religious genital cutting communities, despite it being predominantly their traditional religious privilege to cut healthy children’s genitals that perpetuates the practice in the UK.
We are also told that we mustn’t talk about boys and girls in the round when discussing the protection of children’s genitals from deliberate wounding. We must use the correct, gendered terminology and the appropriate (male) euphemism. Failure to do so means we should expect few to listen to our arguments when speaking of the individual experience of a child whose later views, beliefs and values simply cannot be known at the time that his parents take a pre-emptive decision to shape his genitals permanently to reflect their own beliefs.
Thus, despite suffering the psychological trauma of knowing that their bodies are not whole, that their most intimate body parts have been impaired, it is those who have undergone genital cutting who must exercise the greatest care over the language they use. Many with lived experience consider ritual circumcision, as performed on them, to be a form of genital mutilation. Yet, in order to challenge it, it is they who must engage with the communities that continue to perpetrate this practice, and it is they who are regularly reminded to take every care not to offend the religious communities.
Towards a Child Rights Based Approach to Genital Autonomy
So where do we go from here? Should even those with lived experience of harm continue to tread on eggshells, using euphemisms for unnecessary surgeries on male genitalia, to avoid offending and thereby alienating religious communities? Is it acceptable that the sensibilities only of male genital cutting communities must be respected?
I suggest it would be more consistent to revert to a unified language of child protection, one that avoids sex discrimination. Whatever language we use, the priority must be to safeguard children adequately, regardless of their parents’ beliefs or culture. This would require adherence to basic ethical principles and safeguarding practice which is currently lacking.
We should state clearly that medically unnecessary procedures should not be performed on children’s genitalia without their consent. The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) directed the UK Government in 2016 to end all forms of medically unnecessary procedures on children.
Yet when I tried this approach within the structures of a political party, even this language was deemed too much. Religious representatives felt attacked. Supporters asked why I didn’t just focus on male circumcision, while others wondered why I didn’t mention only religious circumcision, and some felt I was unfairly focussing on religious circumcision. Many felt the safeguarding principles were fine – so long as there was an exception for male circumcision, due to its religious significance.
Denying free descriptive expression curtails discussion and is a powerful weapon in this debate. In the lexicological war over genital wounding, it is now practically impossible to choose language that won’t offend one group or risk cancellation. FGM is recognised and isolated as a terrible harm, and I agree with all but the artificiality of that isolation.
Male circumcision, meanwhile, is embedded as a religious and cultural practice that remains almost entirely unregulated in the UK and elsewhere; this is a travesty and difficult to challenge with appropriate language. And I have come to understand that language censorship in this contentious arena is one of the most effective tools for those who wish to defend their traditional privilege to impose their rites on their children’s genitals which they perceive as a right. Society, largely, has accepted the censored discussion. Where is the outcry at the many injured men- physically, sexually, psychologically-who are told to ‘man up’ or ‘button it’ if they try to articulate their grief and anger?
Instead, those who speak out against the current system, and its unique inconsistency with standard child safeguarding principles, are shot down in verbal flames, even by those who ordinarily uphold universal rights. If only they chose the ‘right’ language, and never challenged the lexicological structures that uphold this castle of sand that distinguishes harmful types of genital cutting not based on harm caused, but based on perception of harm caused, they might make more progress, they are told.
Advocating for those who cannot yet speak or defend themselves means opening up the discussion, ending the selective cancel culture around terminology, and holding true to child safeguarding principles and practice. It means not undermining universal principles by making a unique exception for boys whose parents adhere to male genital wounding practices.
The UK charity, the NSPCC, runs a campaign to help to keep children safe, which is called the Talk Pants campaign, spearheaded by a cartoon dinosaur, Pantosaurus, who delivers the message to children: ‘What’s in your pants is yours alone’. Pantosaurus makes an important point — children have sole ownership of their bodies — and no-one else, including family members, has any claim over them.
The NSPCC
15 Square has made multiple efforts over the years to approach the NSPCC. On occasions in which sympathetic staff have responded to our organisation alerting them that some individuals have been traumatised by circumcision, they have been instructed to stop talking with us, or left their roles that had them as a point of contact.
On other occasions they have been apologists for circumcision, despite previously referring to the practice on their social media as “MGM” (male genital mutilation) This tacitly demonstrates that they are aware that there are men and boys out there who feel mutilated. Their justification for defending the practice was; “physical, religious and social implications”. Interestingly, the FGM act 2010 explicitly rules out custom or ritual as a defence of the practice.
We hope that in the future they address the double standards in their position on circumcision, and demonstrate moral consistency. In their words: “What’s in your pants belongs only to you!”
Dr Antony Lempert
MBBS MRCGP
Trustee
Antony first became involved in challenging medically unnecessary penile
circumcision in 2008 via his role as coordinator, later chair of the (UK) Secular
Medical Forum (SMF).
The SMF works to protect patients from the imposition on them of other people’s religious beliefs- ritual circumcision being a prime example of such harm. In 2018, the SMF merged into the National Secular Society (NSS) on whose council of management Antony now sits.
The NSS has since designated circumcision as one of its campaign areas. In 2025, he retired from his GP
partnership to make more time for campaigning.
Antony chaired the Shropshire division of the British Medical Association (BMA) for 9 years from 2016 and was a BMA representative from 2009 to 2024.
His 2024 published peer-reviewed paper: Roadblocks to reforming UK guidelines on medically unnecessary penile circumcision: inconsistent safeguarding of bodily integrity – Antony Lempert, 2024 documents the considerable barriers he and others have faced from within the UK medical profession whilst trying to encourage doctors and others to apply standard child safeguarding and medical ethical norms to the practice of ritual circumcision.
He has also co-authored several related papers. He gives regular talks and has featured on TV and radio, including a BBC Newsnight interview in 2018 to discuss Iceland’s proposal to extend genital cutting protections to boys as well as girls. In 2024, he became chair of the Health Policy Working Group of the
(England and Wales) Green Party. Since 2019, Antony has taught postgraduate medical ethics to trainee GPs. He is a keen outdoor swimmer, cyclist and tennis player, grows some vegetables and sings with The Men from Off, a fairly close harmony group of blokes who unexpectedly found themselves singing together for pleasure and occasional performances.
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