they looked creepy as hell to both of us.

And to most American women. Not all. (And not to me.) The sensible ones will probably care more about the man it's attached to than about the foreskin or lack thereof, but why limit his choices? There are very few American women who prefer intact men to circumcised men.

I agree about the prevention of inflammation. Other considerations, such as harboring a nice load of smegma as well as protecting and defending a nice yeast infection to give her, are things that I'm concerned about. I don't worry about playing with his foreskin because it's generally in the process of disappearing when I do.

Now, abut this one:

From what I've read male circumcision can reduce risk of HIV transmission by 45% to 70%.

You may be referring to this report from 2005. It was roundly criticized (though the criticism wasn't much reported) for its poor design. The groups studied involved circumcised and uncircumcised men, but the two samples were self-selected. The circumcised tended to be practicing Muslims and Christians, or at least belonged to practicing communities, which have heavy restrictions against promiscuous sexual behaviour, while the uncircumcised belonged to animistic communities which have much looser restrictions against sexual variety. No one tried to put in controls on this difference, such as asking how many partners a man had had in the past five years or how many partners their partners had had. I don't know about you but it wouldn't surprise me if you found more HIV in a community with little to no condemnation of promiscuity than in a community that strictly forbids promiscuity.

--Diane