I don’t really care. My dick works great, I wouldn’t do this to my kids but my parents trusted the doctor. I still love my parents anyway.
E: also, this illustrated girl looks really weird, and this is a really weird conversation. Real women do not look like this, and I wouldn’t get naked in front of a girl who looked like this. Eeesh.
I don’t hate the doctor either. It was a long time ago, and intent matters. I don’t think the doctor wanted to hurt me, they likely bought into the studies and groupthink that were prevalent at the time.
The result is unfortunate, but it happened, and we all strive to do better with our own kids, especially now that we have things like the internet.
The health benefits are overblown and the evidence is largely from flawed studies. While not as debilitating as clitoris circumcision, it’s still genital mutilation and it’s regularly done in the US for no good reason beyond cultural pressure.
Same. Don’t let anyone make you feel bad for not doing it. I don’t know how old your son is, but mine’s 25 and I’ve never heard any complaints. He never got an infection, and never got bullied over it.
It’s a simple procedure they can get done as an adult if they’re unhappy with their penis, and at that point it’s their choice, which imo it should be.
eta for anyone on the fence: they can always remove the foreskin if they want, but growing it back is another matter.
There’s health benefits to removing the appendix and tonsils too - so why isn’t it done wholesale on every kid born?
Because it’s fucking barbaric chopping bits of you up without necessity.
On top of that as science has progressed - guess what? They think both the tonsils and appendix have a purpose. They’re important for immunity.
But there was never a fucking doubt that the foreskin has a purpose in human beings. So the removal of it for “health benefits” really is scraping the fucking barrel.
No. It’s not done because it’s invasive surgery. Like, are you for real?
Ask anyone who had their appendix rupture if they wish it could have been removed while they were barely aware of the world and had nothing else going on in their life.
It’s a major surgery. But I’ve worked with a guy who had his removed preemptively after watching his brother’s rupture. It’s rare, though, because again, it’s major surgery to remove that ticking time bomb.
There is strong evidence that it causes long term trauma. Just because you can’t remember something doesn’t mean it doesn’t have an effect on you. They literally strap you down, rip open the skin, and chop it off without any kind of pain management.
It is absolutely insane. Go watch the procedure on YouTube or something to understand what actually happens. Then take into consideration you’re likely seeing a “best case” outcome.
Pain is only shown in the control group with zero management.
Behavioral tests were animals exclusively, with no pain management.
The fact that there are people online upset about their dicks doesn’t necessarily relate to circumcision and could be multiple factors like mate rejection, erectile disfunction, sense of lack of control in the rest of their lives.
The reasons go on and on for what could make a person blame something they perceive as outside themselves for the bad in their lives.
Ex: “My dick doesn’t work not because of work stress and substance abuse! It must be because I was circumcised!”
After the 4th bit of bad science in a row, I stopped reading their article because it was only going down hill from there as more conclusions got based on the initial studies. The author also called into question the validity of the study done in Africa, but this is rebutted by the CDC last year in their open letter regarding criticism of their stance.
If you were uncircumcised now, would you choose to have it done at your current age? No. Then, why do it to a baby without their consent? It’s a bodily autonomy issue.
I chose to when I was 13 because ejaculating felt like my urethra was going to rip in half. If I somehow made it like that another thirty years I would absolutely have it done again.
My father had to have his removed for the same reason (I know this because we had a conversation when I was pregnant with my son and said I wasn’t going to have him circumcised). That can happen, and I’m sorry it happened to you.
I still didn’t have my son circumcised, and would make the same decision today because those issues are comparatively rare. It sucks a lot if you have to go through that, but preemptively removing the foreskin seems harsh considering how rare complications are.
I don’t disagree with you at all. I have two sons, first one is circumcised due to medical advice from our doctor and our second one isn’t. I try to inform myself as much as possible but ultimately depend on medical professionals that I trust to help me make the best decisions I can. I’m certain I’ll never get them all correct but I do my best to be informed. I’m fairly certain the online narrative of vitriol towards circumcising isn’t aimed at medically advised procedures but the loudest voices seem to be the most ignorant towards the realities of life’s nuances. While it is mostly black and white their is still some gray area that gets lost in what I assume is well meaning commentary.
Sorry that happened to you. It may have been God’s way of telling you to stop masturbating. /s All jokes aside, it should always be the individual’s choice.
I agree it should be the individuals choice and when medically necessary. Sometimes I feel the narrative swings too far the other way as there are medically necessary reasons.
For context I don’t recognize uncircumcised penises when compared to my own even as a young teen. The head of my dick extended beyond the foreskin before I was circumcised. I had three strands of skin that connected between the head and skin around top of the shaft. One of the thinner strands tore once when I got an erection. The other two were significantly larger strands and would stretch and pull the head of my dick to the side when I got an erection. That bent angle hurt like hell inside when I ejaculated and just getting a boner would hurt from the strands of connective skin.
All that to say the doctor told me I was getting a circumcision but other than those strands of skin I already appeared circumcised to my knowledge. I was left with scars on the head and shaft tissue from where they were cut off though.
Not a real comparison. A baby is given some sugar water and already lives in diapers. They don’t even bleed after it’s done, and you just put some jelly on the front of the diaper for the first few weeks. They experience no discernable discomfort.
An adult male has gone through puberty and has a life that doesn’t involve sleeping through 18 hours of it and getting changed every couple of hours. The risk of infection is greater because you are an adult who doesn’t get the luxury of having every single need met 24/7 and getting to rest through your entire recovery.
That’s not the criteria for making medical decisions for your child, though. You have a kid, you know this. We make decisions that might have lasting physical ramifications for them for years.
I believe in vaccines and vaccinated my kid, but if someone felt the risks of them were too high, we don’t call it child abuse. And if someone delayed vaccinations, that’s not child abuse either.
We can phrase things in extremes like abuse all day, but it doesn’t make it true. Injecting babies with modified hepatitis c in the first 12 hours of their life sounds like assaulting a child unless you know those words just mean they got a vaccine.
I think the reason people don’t give a shit about online circumcision protesting is because most of them are cringe sycophants, using the worst language possible to alter someone’s opinion on the issue.
Watch a video of a circumcision and get back to me. If it’s not necessary, it shouldn’t be done. When my son was born, circumcision shouldn’t have even been an option. The “cringe sycophants” are the religious and miseducated nurses that asked me if I wanted it done.
I’ve seen it live. No video was needed. It’s not a decision to be made in the room, though. We were asked at the 20-week appointment by our doctor. She went through the merits and downsides. She was also younger than my wife and I, so it’s not just old-school doctors who ask or think there’s merit. She didn’t push either way, though.
Who’s more obsessed, those who leave well enough alone or those who perform drastic, unnecessary, life-altering surgery as soon as a baby enters the world?
Removing the foreskin has real ramifications for not only looks but sexual pleasure (which, by the way, was why it was popularised by puritan Christians in the US – the original point was to stop teenage boys from masturbating by making it less pleasurable).
Cutting off the foreskin at birth takes something from a man that he can’t really restore later, whereas doing nothing gives him the bodily autonomy to make that decision later. You can always remove it if you want, but once it’s gone, you can’t just grow it back.
A baby is at your mercy and has no choice in the matter.
No, you only have a short window to make it a nothing surgery vs. a week+ recovery time.
A baby will always be at their parents’ mercy. And if a parent feels the medical benefits outweigh the risks, they get to make that choice.
Also, I don’t get why people keep bringing up Kellog and his ilk. It’s irrelevant. WHO and the CDC both cite benefits. That’s relevant enough for a person today without pretending the reasoning has to be based on old information.
Yes, I’m aware it’s a week of recovery time later. I made the decision not to circumcise my son after talking to my father who had the procedure in his teens after he developed a condition. He told me exactly what it was like. (My father is 88 and was born before circumcision was common.)
You can do almost anything to an infant and they won’t remember the trauma. Infants have been subjected to near-fatal child abuse, including having their femurs broken, and they don’t remember it. That doesn’t make it right.
Having your wisdom teeth removed takes at least a week of recovery and we do that in late teens or early twenties. There are lots of things that take a week to recover from, and having to have your foreskin removed because it’s causing issues is far, far more rare. That’s not a reason to take that choice away.
Like I said, they can always have that procedure later if they want to, but once it’s done, that choice is basically gone.
Also like I said, I’m not trying to make people feel bad for having done it when we didn’t really know better. I’m not shaming anyone. It’s just what we did until recently. Going forward, though, it’s not justified and we shouldn’t be advocating for it now that we know better.
eta: and Kellogg isn’t irrelevant. That’s exactly why the practice has been embedded in American culture, so when we’re talking about why we do it, he’s extremely relevant.
It is as safe as any similar procedure, and comes with inherent risk. There’s a reason people talk about “botched circumcisions” which do indeed happen.
The health benefits aren’t even a full percentage point difference. We are talking minuscule differences, and most of it is based on bad science. How can I know this? The studies were often done on grown adults, in third world countries. Disease is already rampant there, and considering rape is so prevalent in many of the areas that anti-rape condoms were created and distributed, there are no social barriers in place to prevent the spread of disease. And finally, they tested to see if there was disease spread almost immediately after the procedure had fully healed. Meaning the men who didn’t get circumcised had been fucking around for a much, much longer time than the circumcised men.
And FGM is a pretty good allegory. We are talking about Male Genital Mutilation, why wouldn’t Female Genital Mutilation be similar? Because it’s normalized in some first world countries? You’re removing double the nerve endings when you remove foreskin vs destroy the clit, I’d say they line up close enough.
Look at it this way, we all agree declawing cats is super safe and has health benefits. But it’s being outlawed all over the place because it’s barbaric. But we still cut baby dicks. It’s pretty fucked up.
Yeah, my parents didn’t do it, and I ended up getting phimosis in my early twenties and having to get it done then.
On the one hand I do appreciate that they left it up to me, but on the other hand it was intense pain for a couple of weeks and at the time I was really wishing that they had just gotten it out of the way.
For me, it’s a wash. That may or may not be typical but it’s probably slightly better that they left me the choice? Can’t put the foreskin back on the penis I guess.
My son was born with hypospadias, so I didn’t really have a choice with him. Had to get it done or he would be peeing out of the bottom of his dick forever, which saved me and my wife a difficult decision.
All of this said though, I personally prefer being circumcised. Cleaning is way way easier, and in my own personal experience I have a lot more sensitivity when doing anything fun with my hog. My partners have also preferred it, and some of them shared with me that they had previously gotten UTIs from uncircumcised partners.
Like I said, I appreciate that my parents left it up to me, but at the same time I think the genital mutilation trope is way overblown in the majority of cases. Not all of course.
It’s certainly close enough that we shouldn’t be trying to butt into other people’s lives over it.
You should need a strong reason to have the state invade people’s lives. This ain’t it. I wouldn’t pierce my baby’s ears either, but I’m not looking to put anyone in prison over it.
No you’re getting it wrong: you LOSE sensitivity because the head of your penis is getting direct stimulation all the time. Because of the resultant loss of sensitivity the expectation would be that you would take longer to finish.
But sex is a complex thing that involves a lot more than just the physical stimulation, so it’s not 1:1 with regards to speed. It IS howeve impactful for the pleasure of the person with the penis. It’s more intense and pleasurable for people that aren’t circumcised. Sex is obviously still great even if you are circumcised but it’s a little like being colorblind if you were circumcised at birth: you don’t really know what you’re missing so it’s kind of ok and not really bothersome for the majority.
Preconception is a powerful drug. There’s really no way you could have worded that in a way they wouldn’t get emotionally charged over. It’s just the simple fact they have a strong opposing view point so they’ll read something completely different so it makes sense with their thinking.
Circumcised men compared with uncircumcised men have also been shown in clinical trials to be less likely to acquire new infections with syphilis (by 42%), genital ulcer disease (by 48%), genital herpes (by 28% to 45%), and high-risk strains of human papillomavirus associated with cancer (by 24% to 47% percent)
Which, particularly back in the 60s-90s period, was a bfd given the stigma around contraception and other genital protection measures. Significantly less so now when condoms are so readily available. But even then…
It’s a non-issue but people have to be mad for something I guess (because there’s no other big reasons to be mad/s).
It does feel like people are looking for something to fixate on as a rabble-rousing issue that’s a-political-ish. But the loudest anti-circumcision advocates tend to have truly awful surrounding politics. It feels like a… trojan issue.
But the loudest anti-circumcision advocates tend to have truly awful surrounding politics.
Maybe in the US? But Europeans reading about circumcision just find you all a bit weird for the practice and will comment accordingly that they think it’s barbaric and/or weird.
There is indeed an upside, though in my opinion, it does not justify the amputation of healthy, functional tissue in infants who clearly cannot consent to it and condoms are readily available even for these with allergies to natural latex rubber.
The most recent studies that I’ve read did elucidate a likely mechanism too. Making the glans an external organ, rather than be protected by the foreskin, causes the development of keratinous tissue (literally called “horny” tissue) on the glans in order to protect it from the environment, rubbing against clothing, etc. Effectively, it becomes callused. The horny layers are composed of dead and denucleated cells, creating a physical barrier that bacteria and viruses must pass in order to infect the underlying cells.
Note, though, that there were three studies conducted in Africa on the impact of male circumcision that was/is cited on HIV prevention that are so blatantly terrible tha PLoS Med and the Lancet, along with whatever IRB was in charge ought to see reparitive and punitive fines brought against them. The studies show extraordinarily poor study design, data collection, data analysis, and alarming degrees of multiple biases. The issues include, among others:
All HIV infections were assumed to be sexually transmitted and the result of heterosexual intercourse (bizarre assumptions). Conservative estimates from follow-up research puts the percentage at only 43.1% of the infection from all three studies being sexual transmission, with no extant data or tracking on partners involved. Due to not accounting for the vector of infection, it is impossible to draw the causative relationship that the researchers claim.
Improper controls: The test group were given sexual education around STI transmission and proper condom use. The control group were not.
Lead-time bias: Data collection began immediately, despite researchers instructing the study group not to have intercourse for 6-8 weeks and likely discomfort with intercourse and increased condom use occuring in some who undergo adult male circumcision up to 12 weeks following the procedure.
Attrition bias: Significantly more subjects dropped out of the studies than became infected, which was not accounted for appropriately, corrupting the dataset used for analysis.
Duration bias: The PLoS Med study was planned to take 21 months of data but only ran for 14 months. The Lancet studies (near identical to each other) lasted 24 months. Neither is sufficient to either remove tye statistical significance of the lead-time bias, nor to provide objective long-term efficacy rates for an irreversible treatment.
Expectation bias: A number of principal investigators involved in the studies had previously publicly called for mass circumcision campaigns. This alone is a major red flag that should have resulted in more critical review of the study protocols and required that they, at the very least, mak, clear disclosures of their personal biases but, to have actually trustworthy results, they should have had no role in data analysis due to clear lack of objectivity.
Referenced studies:
PLoS Med 2: e298. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0020298
“I love my parents , even though they were too ignorant to think for themselves,” is how genital mutilation perpetuates. People need to be held accountable for not questioning inane rituals and traditions. Education, not mutilation.
ambivalence
noun
am·biv·a·lence am-ˈbi-və-lən(t)s
1
: simultaneous and contradictory attitudes or feelings (such as attraction and repulsion) toward an object, person, or action
felt ambivalence toward his powerful father
ambivalence toward marriage
2
a
: continual fluctuation (as between one thing and its opposite)
b
: uncertainty as to which approach to follow
ambivalence about their goals
Dude… You’re acting like you’re a wrench short of a full toolbox. Obviously meant he doesn’t care that he personally was circumcised. But he does care enough that he won’t do it to his kids.
I.E. He’s accepted the fact that what happened was in the past and he can’t change it, so no use crying about it especially when it has not effected the use of his member in any negative way. But he can change what happens in the future for his kids by not doing that to them and letting them have a choice when they’re older.
If the guy was actually ambivalent he would just go along with continuing to allow his own kids to be circumcised and/or have no opinion of the procedure. Or he would dislike the procedure but allow it to happen anyways because of tradition or something.
Stop being obtuse and ignorant. Though having said that I now feel like you’ll come at me with the mathematical definition of obtuse to try and use petty semantics to make yourself feel better
I don’t really care. My dick works great, I wouldn’t do this to my kids but my parents trusted the doctor. I still love my parents anyway.
E: also, this illustrated girl looks really weird, and this is a really weird conversation. Real women do not look like this, and I wouldn’t get naked in front of a girl who looked like this. Eeesh.
oh, the parents? for the most part unknowing, the doctor on the other hand? ya, hate him
I don’t hate the doctor either. It was a long time ago, and intent matters. I don’t think the doctor wanted to hurt me, they likely bought into the studies and groupthink that were prevalent at the time.
The result is unfortunate, but it happened, and we all strive to do better with our own kids, especially now that we have things like the internet.
Supposedly is super safe and has health benefits, I once compared it to female genital mutilation and ooh boy was I corrected.
Edit: the above is far from an endorsement. Some of yall could use some practice critical reading.
The health benefits are overblown and the evidence is largely from flawed studies. While not as debilitating as clitoris circumcision, it’s still genital mutilation and it’s regularly done in the US for no good reason beyond cultural pressure.
Thanks. I researched circumcision extensively when my son was born. These comments are from people who have literally “no skin” in the game.
Same. Don’t let anyone make you feel bad for not doing it. I don’t know how old your son is, but mine’s 25 and I’ve never heard any complaints. He never got an infection, and never got bullied over it.
It’s a simple procedure they can get done as an adult if they’re unhappy with their penis, and at that point it’s their choice, which imo it should be.
eta for anyone on the fence: they can always remove the foreskin if they want, but growing it back is another matter.
There’s health benefits to removing the appendix and tonsils too - so why isn’t it done wholesale on every kid born?
Because it’s fucking barbaric chopping bits of you up without necessity.
On top of that as science has progressed - guess what? They think both the tonsils and appendix have a purpose. They’re important for immunity.
But there was never a fucking doubt that the foreskin has a purpose in human beings. So the removal of it for “health benefits” really is scraping the fucking barrel.
No. It’s not done because it’s invasive surgery. Like, are you for real?
Ask anyone who had their appendix rupture if they wish it could have been removed while they were barely aware of the world and had nothing else going on in their life.
Weird that they don’t remove appendixes after birth tbh. /s
It’s a major surgery. But I’ve worked with a guy who had his removed preemptively after watching his brother’s rupture. It’s rare, though, because again, it’s major surgery to remove that ticking time bomb.
There is strong evidence that it causes long term trauma. Just because you can’t remember something doesn’t mean it doesn’t have an effect on you. They literally strap you down, rip open the skin, and chop it off without any kind of pain management.
It is absolutely insane. Go watch the procedure on YouTube or something to understand what actually happens. Then take into consideration you’re likely seeing a “best case” outcome.
No. Everything you said is wrong or unproven. Just stop making shit up or floating around these bizarre internet cults.
Here is an article summarizing a number of sources, and providing the sources summarized: https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/moral-landscapes/201501/circumcision-s-psychological-damage
Lotta bad science in there.
The reasons go on and on for what could make a person blame something they perceive as outside themselves for the bad in their lives. Ex: “My dick doesn’t work not because of work stress and substance abuse! It must be because I was circumcised!”
After the 4th bit of bad science in a row, I stopped reading their article because it was only going down hill from there as more conclusions got based on the initial studies. The author also called into question the validity of the study done in Africa, but this is rebutted by the CDC last year in their open letter regarding criticism of their stance.
If you were uncircumcised now, would you choose to have it done at your current age? No. Then, why do it to a baby without their consent? It’s a bodily autonomy issue.
I chose to when I was 13 because ejaculating felt like my urethra was going to rip in half. If I somehow made it like that another thirty years I would absolutely have it done again.
My father had to have his removed for the same reason (I know this because we had a conversation when I was pregnant with my son and said I wasn’t going to have him circumcised). That can happen, and I’m sorry it happened to you.
I still didn’t have my son circumcised, and would make the same decision today because those issues are comparatively rare. It sucks a lot if you have to go through that, but preemptively removing the foreskin seems harsh considering how rare complications are.
I don’t disagree with you at all. I have two sons, first one is circumcised due to medical advice from our doctor and our second one isn’t. I try to inform myself as much as possible but ultimately depend on medical professionals that I trust to help me make the best decisions I can. I’m certain I’ll never get them all correct but I do my best to be informed. I’m fairly certain the online narrative of vitriol towards circumcising isn’t aimed at medically advised procedures but the loudest voices seem to be the most ignorant towards the realities of life’s nuances. While it is mostly black and white their is still some gray area that gets lost in what I assume is well meaning commentary.
Sorry that happened to you. It may have been God’s way of telling you to stop masturbating. /s All jokes aside, it should always be the individual’s choice.
I agree it should be the individuals choice and when medically necessary. Sometimes I feel the narrative swings too far the other way as there are medically necessary reasons.
For context I don’t recognize uncircumcised penises when compared to my own even as a young teen. The head of my dick extended beyond the foreskin before I was circumcised. I had three strands of skin that connected between the head and skin around top of the shaft. One of the thinner strands tore once when I got an erection. The other two were significantly larger strands and would stretch and pull the head of my dick to the side when I got an erection. That bent angle hurt like hell inside when I ejaculated and just getting a boner would hurt from the strands of connective skin.
All that to say the doctor told me I was getting a circumcision but other than those strands of skin I already appeared circumcised to my knowledge. I was left with scars on the head and shaft tissue from where they were cut off though.
Not a real comparison. A baby is given some sugar water and already lives in diapers. They don’t even bleed after it’s done, and you just put some jelly on the front of the diaper for the first few weeks. They experience no discernable discomfort.
An adult male has gone through puberty and has a life that doesn’t involve sleeping through 18 hours of it and getting changed every couple of hours. The risk of infection is greater because you are an adult who doesn’t get the luxury of having every single need met 24/7 and getting to rest through your entire recovery.
Exactly. Babies can’t consent to have their bodies altered. Unless it is medically necessary, it should not be performed.
That’s not the criteria for making medical decisions for your child, though. You have a kid, you know this. We make decisions that might have lasting physical ramifications for them for years.
I believe in vaccines and vaccinated my kid, but if someone felt the risks of them were too high, we don’t call it child abuse. And if someone delayed vaccinations, that’s not child abuse either.
We can phrase things in extremes like abuse all day, but it doesn’t make it true. Injecting babies with modified hepatitis c in the first 12 hours of their life sounds like assaulting a child unless you know those words just mean they got a vaccine.
I think the reason people don’t give a shit about online circumcision protesting is because most of them are cringe sycophants, using the worst language possible to alter someone’s opinion on the issue.
Watch a video of a circumcision and get back to me. If it’s not necessary, it shouldn’t be done. When my son was born, circumcision shouldn’t have even been an option. The “cringe sycophants” are the religious and miseducated nurses that asked me if I wanted it done.
I’ve seen it live. No video was needed. It’s not a decision to be made in the room, though. We were asked at the 20-week appointment by our doctor. She went through the merits and downsides. She was also younger than my wife and I, so it’s not just old-school doctors who ask or think there’s merit. She didn’t push either way, though.
You are profoundly uninformed and clearly huffing copium to deal with the fact that you chose to mutilate your own newborn sons penis. Great work bro.
I trust the doctors over internet weirdos obsessed with kids penises.
Who’s more obsessed, those who leave well enough alone or those who perform drastic, unnecessary, life-altering surgery as soon as a baby enters the world?
You seem pretty obsessed to me. You keep bringing it up.
It’s a totally valid comparison.
Removing the foreskin has real ramifications for not only looks but sexual pleasure (which, by the way, was why it was popularised by puritan Christians in the US – the original point was to stop teenage boys from masturbating by making it less pleasurable).
Cutting off the foreskin at birth takes something from a man that he can’t really restore later, whereas doing nothing gives him the bodily autonomy to make that decision later. You can always remove it if you want, but once it’s gone, you can’t just grow it back.
A baby is at your mercy and has no choice in the matter.
No, you only have a short window to make it a nothing surgery vs. a week+ recovery time.
A baby will always be at their parents’ mercy. And if a parent feels the medical benefits outweigh the risks, they get to make that choice.
Also, I don’t get why people keep bringing up Kellog and his ilk. It’s irrelevant. WHO and the CDC both cite benefits. That’s relevant enough for a person today without pretending the reasoning has to be based on old information.
Again, cite sources?
Yes, I’m aware it’s a week of recovery time later. I made the decision not to circumcise my son after talking to my father who had the procedure in his teens after he developed a condition. He told me exactly what it was like. (My father is 88 and was born before circumcision was common.)
You can do almost anything to an infant and they won’t remember the trauma. Infants have been subjected to near-fatal child abuse, including having their femurs broken, and they don’t remember it. That doesn’t make it right.
Having your wisdom teeth removed takes at least a week of recovery and we do that in late teens or early twenties. There are lots of things that take a week to recover from, and having to have your foreskin removed because it’s causing issues is far, far more rare. That’s not a reason to take that choice away.
Like I said, they can always have that procedure later if they want to, but once it’s done, that choice is basically gone.
Also like I said, I’m not trying to make people feel bad for having done it when we didn’t really know better. I’m not shaming anyone. It’s just what we did until recently. Going forward, though, it’s not justified and we shouldn’t be advocating for it now that we know better.
eta: and Kellogg isn’t irrelevant. That’s exactly why the practice has been embedded in American culture, so when we’re talking about why we do it, he’s extremely relevant.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/newsroom/docs/factsheets/MC-for-HIV-Prevention-Fact-Sheet_508.pdf
https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/130/3/585/30235/Circumcision-Policy-Statement?autologincheck=redirected
https://www.who.int/teams/global-hiv-hepatitis-and-stis-programmes/hiv/prevention/voluntary-medical-male-circumcision
It is as safe as any similar procedure, and comes with inherent risk. There’s a reason people talk about “botched circumcisions” which do indeed happen.
The health benefits aren’t even a full percentage point difference. We are talking minuscule differences, and most of it is based on bad science. How can I know this? The studies were often done on grown adults, in third world countries. Disease is already rampant there, and considering rape is so prevalent in many of the areas that anti-rape condoms were created and distributed, there are no social barriers in place to prevent the spread of disease. And finally, they tested to see if there was disease spread almost immediately after the procedure had fully healed. Meaning the men who didn’t get circumcised had been fucking around for a much, much longer time than the circumcised men.
And FGM is a pretty good allegory. We are talking about Male Genital Mutilation, why wouldn’t Female Genital Mutilation be similar? Because it’s normalized in some first world countries? You’re removing double the nerve endings when you remove foreskin vs destroy the clit, I’d say they line up close enough.
Look at it this way, we all agree declawing cats is super safe and has health benefits. But it’s being outlawed all over the place because it’s barbaric. But we still cut baby dicks. It’s pretty fucked up.
Same
Strong “my parents beat me and I turned out okay, so I beat my kids” vibes.
You’re comparing a one-time event to a childhood of trauma
They made a bad comparison, I agree. But a lot of things are “one-time events” that have lifelong implications. That’s a garbage argument.
Wrong. I’m not comparing. I’m saying there is a lack of critical thinking and education in both instances.
ok boomer
Ok tsese
typical boomer
Strong “I judge others for even disciplining their kids” vibes
You are correct. Society should judge parents who abuse their children. I will never regret that judgement, because I live in this society too.
Sure, but there wasn’t any abuse listed in this discussion, so it’s strange you brought it up.
Yes, strange…
Yeah, my parents didn’t do it, and I ended up getting phimosis in my early twenties and having to get it done then.
On the one hand I do appreciate that they left it up to me, but on the other hand it was intense pain for a couple of weeks and at the time I was really wishing that they had just gotten it out of the way.
For me, it’s a wash. That may or may not be typical but it’s probably slightly better that they left me the choice? Can’t put the foreskin back on the penis I guess.
My son was born with hypospadias, so I didn’t really have a choice with him. Had to get it done or he would be peeing out of the bottom of his dick forever, which saved me and my wife a difficult decision.
All of this said though, I personally prefer being circumcised. Cleaning is way way easier, and in my own personal experience I have a lot more sensitivity when doing anything fun with my hog. My partners have also preferred it, and some of them shared with me that they had previously gotten UTIs from uncircumcised partners.
Like I said, I appreciate that my parents left it up to me, but at the same time I think the genital mutilation trope is way overblown in the majority of cases. Not all of course.
It’s certainly close enough that we shouldn’t be trying to butt into other people’s lives over it.
You should need a strong reason to have the state invade people’s lives. This ain’t it. I wouldn’t pierce my baby’s ears either, but I’m not looking to put anyone in prison over it.
Oh, so you’re good with female circumcision then? Since we shouldn’t be trying to butt into other people’s lives?…
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It should be an individual’s choice as to whether you chop off part of their dick, not society’s.
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Sorry. Didn’t realize you were uncircumcised.
What is foreskin if not part of your dick?
No you’re getting it wrong: you LOSE sensitivity because the head of your penis is getting direct stimulation all the time. Because of the resultant loss of sensitivity the expectation would be that you would take longer to finish.
But sex is a complex thing that involves a lot more than just the physical stimulation, so it’s not 1:1 with regards to speed. It IS howeve impactful for the pleasure of the person with the penis. It’s more intense and pleasurable for people that aren’t circumcised. Sex is obviously still great even if you are circumcised but it’s a little like being colorblind if you were circumcised at birth: you don’t really know what you’re missing so it’s kind of ok and not really bothersome for the majority.
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Though rare, some people have had to have the procedure done as an adult, so they know the difference.
You know, some have had it done as adults
Right to one’s own body and doing cosmetic or religious surgery on kids: non-issue
Lol
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Preconception is a powerful drug. There’s really no way you could have worded that in a way they wouldn’t get emotionally charged over. It’s just the simple fact they have a strong opposing view point so they’ll read something completely different so it makes sense with their thinking.
It was just an incredibly poor phrasing or word choice if they didn’t want to call it circumcision a non-issue. Happens.
What did you mean was a non-issue if you weren’t talking about the circumcision done on kids?
Certainly possible, but also not even necessarily a bad thing.
I should note that there’s another big knock on benefit.
Which, particularly back in the 60s-90s period, was a bfd given the stigma around contraception and other genital protection measures. Significantly less so now when condoms are so readily available. But even then…
It does feel like people are looking for something to fixate on as a rabble-rousing issue that’s a-political-ish. But the loudest anti-circumcision advocates tend to have truly awful surrounding politics. It feels like a… trojan issue.
Maybe in the US? But Europeans reading about circumcision just find you all a bit weird for the practice and will comment accordingly that they think it’s barbaric and/or weird.
No politics is involved.
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There is indeed an upside, though in my opinion, it does not justify the amputation of healthy, functional tissue in infants who clearly cannot consent to it and condoms are readily available even for these with allergies to natural latex rubber.
The most recent studies that I’ve read did elucidate a likely mechanism too. Making the glans an external organ, rather than be protected by the foreskin, causes the development of keratinous tissue (literally called “horny” tissue) on the glans in order to protect it from the environment, rubbing against clothing, etc. Effectively, it becomes callused. The horny layers are composed of dead and denucleated cells, creating a physical barrier that bacteria and viruses must pass in order to infect the underlying cells.
Note, though, that there were three studies conducted in Africa on the impact of male circumcision that was/is cited on HIV prevention that are so blatantly terrible tha PLoS Med and the Lancet, along with whatever IRB was in charge ought to see reparitive and punitive fines brought against them. The studies show extraordinarily poor study design, data collection, data analysis, and alarming degrees of multiple biases. The issues include, among others:
All HIV infections were assumed to be sexually transmitted and the result of heterosexual intercourse (bizarre assumptions). Conservative estimates from follow-up research puts the percentage at only 43.1% of the infection from all three studies being sexual transmission, with no extant data or tracking on partners involved. Due to not accounting for the vector of infection, it is impossible to draw the causative relationship that the researchers claim.
Improper controls: The test group were given sexual education around STI transmission and proper condom use. The control group were not.
Lead-time bias: Data collection began immediately, despite researchers instructing the study group not to have intercourse for 6-8 weeks and likely discomfort with intercourse and increased condom use occuring in some who undergo adult male circumcision up to 12 weeks following the procedure.
Attrition bias: Significantly more subjects dropped out of the studies than became infected, which was not accounted for appropriately, corrupting the dataset used for analysis.
Duration bias: The PLoS Med study was planned to take 21 months of data but only ran for 14 months. The Lancet studies (near identical to each other) lasted 24 months. Neither is sufficient to either remove tye statistical significance of the lead-time bias, nor to provide objective long-term efficacy rates for an irreversible treatment.
Expectation bias: A number of principal investigators involved in the studies had previously publicly called for mass circumcision campaigns. This alone is a major red flag that should have resulted in more critical review of the study protocols and required that they, at the very least, mak, clear disclosures of their personal biases but, to have actually trustworthy results, they should have had no role in data analysis due to clear lack of objectivity.
Referenced studies:
😎👉👉
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“I love my parents , even though they were too ignorant to think for themselves,” is how genital mutilation perpetuates. People need to be held accountable for not questioning inane rituals and traditions. Education, not mutilation.
Shut the fuck up, low quality clown. Education is me not doing this to my kids.
Please learn how to read.
It doesn’t read that way. It reads as ambivalence to circumcision. Maybe learn how to write.
“I don’t care”, followed by: “I won’t do that to my kids”
Clown: “ambivalent, learn how to write”.
Coupla corn dogs short of a circus, there.
ambivalence noun am·biv·a·lence am-ˈbi-və-lən(t)s 1 : simultaneous and contradictory attitudes or feelings (such as attraction and repulsion) toward an object, person, or action felt ambivalence toward his powerful father ambivalence toward marriage 2 a : continual fluctuation (as between one thing and its opposite) b : uncertainty as to which approach to follow ambivalence about their goals
I don’t care; sounds like ambivalence to me.
Dude… You’re acting like you’re a wrench short of a full toolbox. Obviously meant he doesn’t care that he personally was circumcised. But he does care enough that he won’t do it to his kids.
I.E. He’s accepted the fact that what happened was in the past and he can’t change it, so no use crying about it especially when it has not effected the use of his member in any negative way. But he can change what happens in the future for his kids by not doing that to them and letting them have a choice when they’re older.
If the guy was actually ambivalent he would just go along with continuing to allow his own kids to be circumcised and/or have no opinion of the procedure. Or he would dislike the procedure but allow it to happen anyways because of tradition or something.
Stop being obtuse and ignorant. Though having said that I now feel like you’ll come at me with the mathematical definition of obtuse to try and use petty semantics to make yourself feel better
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Words matter.