I love when this topic comes up because people definitely don’t have a weird fixation on foreskin and totally have balanced discussions that calmly hears both sides.
If you intentionally do not recognize it as a legitimate medical procedure with lots of science backed behind it, then you’re purposefully spreading misinfo. That’s just a fact. Just like how some people in this thread are saying it reduces sexual pleasure, scientific evidence states this is not true. It’s also significantly safer and less risk when they’re a baby. These are just peer-reviewed objective facts that have been extensively tested and confirmed.
I’ve been reading your comments, it’s amazing how someone can link an article to 37 grown men voluntarily circumcising themselves and use that as evidence towards why children would like to be circumcised.
I think part of the problem with this discussion is that a lot of us who were circumcised without consent spend most of our early years thinking it’s normal and there is nothing to be upset about. So when people point out the practice is generally very harmful, it is upsetting. It can be hard to process at first, and I think, unfortunately, some people double down on traditional rationalizations as a defense mechanism.
That being said, I am not a fan of people referring to my genitalia as mutilated/mangled or to me as damaged. It is completely valid to be upset about having your foreskin removed without your consent, but I feel sometimes people veer a little too far in projecting their own hurt onto others. Many people live fulfilling lives with circumcised penises, and some even do it by choice, so, speaking strictly for myself, I generally am glass half-full about it.
I’m circumcised and happy about it because of conversations I’ve had various women about dicks in general and my dick in particular with a few of them. That being said if I ever have a son, he won’t be circumcised. Unless his mom is Jewish I guess. But I don’t understand the anger around the subject at all.
But I don’t understand the anger around the subject at all.
It’s simply a subject of personal autonomy and body integrity.
Imagine being a grown man or just a teenager and being forced to perform that operation without your consent nor any explanation (as it’s mostly useless out of social norms and potentially harmful). I guess you’d be furious, at least.
But it’s not happening to grown men or teenagers against their will. It’s happening to people when they won’t remember it and the idea is it prevents minor annoyances about being a man. Archaic and unnecessary? Definitely. But getting mad at people isn’t going to change their mind and doesn’t help people understand it’s unnecessary. That said, being someone who has a mentally unhealthy aversion to bathing, I’m really glad I don’t have to even think about “smegma” I didn’t even know it was a thing until I was fully grown.
Edit: to be clear, I don’t think anyone should do that to their kids. If you can’t teach your kid to clean themselves you probably shouldn’t have them to begin with. I just think it’s more helpful for future kids if their parents aren’t circumcising them because they don’t want to agree with the annoying angry people online. It would be more helpful to spread knowledge without judgement or making people feel shameful for something they thought was good. That’s how you get people to double down.
I’ve seen people lose their shit over babies with pierced ears and young children getting tattoos. There’s all sorts of dental work you go through as a kid that you have functionally no control over.
Even had someone chew me out because a foster kid I was taking care of got a haircut (three years old and she’d literally never had one before).
At some point, it is the parent’s duty to take care of the child, and that extends to medical decisions with profound long-term consequences. I get wanting to change the culture, but the degree to which people exaggerate the harm of circumcision struggles to eclipse the degree to which it is defended.
Cutting off your legs also makes them easier to clean.
There is some substantive utility to legs that doesn’t extend to the bit of flesh around the tip of your dick.
Correlating ear-piercing with decapitation, and holding a picket in front of “Forever 21” with a big sign that reads “STOP MURDERING CHILDREN” and a picture of a tunnel drill going through a baby’s forehead.
If this is /s its verry funny and asys somthing interesting, im frustrated that the thread has fallen into a false dichotomy,
Its not ‘not okay’ in the same way its ‘not okay’ to cut off someones leg because thats unamniguiosly being crippled. (Good spoof though!) its amniguiosly immoral.
Yeah a better analogy would probably be female genital mutilation but americans generally aren’t familiar with that.
The real issue is consent. I get that parents consent for their children, but that doesn’t mean the parents are correctly predicting the kid’s preferences.
It’s just a strange practice that we do in america, not due to religion, but due to … reasons? Cleanliness? “I want my son’s cock to look like mine?” it’s weird as hell, but accepted for some stupid reason.
circumcision is a harder to understand, wrapped in the cloak of medical hospitality to be blunt, its a different form of female genital mutilation.
I believe its a remnant from old Christianity (Judaism?), where it would mark and/or purify the child in some way. If I’m not mistaken, the god of Abraham communicated that things like sacrificing lambs and other rituals isn’t useful as a sign of good will.
but yet this literally unholy practice remains to this day.
to be absolutely fair, mom said yes, telling me the doctors said there was some kind of health benefit, somthing about infections.
I mentioned in another comment how circumcision dramatically reduces the rate of spread of STDs. That is, at least from my perspective, the primary (and original) incentive to circumcise. Significantly less of an issue now, because you can just get a condom. But in areas where access to a consumer profilactic isn’t readily available or one in which STD infection is high, it would make a great deal of sense to perform the surgery as a preventative measure.
Same as giving your kid vaccine shots or putting them in the NICU for the first few weeks of their life or demanding that they wash their hands regularly.
I don’t think this is the original reason, but it has been found to happen. Also, your risk of penile cancer goes to almost zero, as well as fewer and less serious complications related to the foreskin (or its absence). Going fully nude while circumcised is a dangerous game, though.
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)
By all means, you should still wrap that shit. But if you’re living in a rural community or one that has a strong stigma against contraception, or you’re just in a place where the disease is rampant and you need a secondary precautionary policy, this will have a meaningful impact on disease spread.
The majority of US citizens do not fall into those categories, and for that reason I see it as an unnecessary procedure that is more cultural than scientific.
As far as I am aware there is only one study done in Africa that showed that there is a correlation between circumcision and a reduced chance to get HIV.
But that is the only study and only HIV, not all STIs.
Also this is moot in most of the world where you have access to condoms.
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)
By all means, you should still wrap that shit. But if you’re living in a rural community or one that has a strong stigma against contraception, or you’re just in a place where the disease is rampant and you need a secondary precautionary policy, this will have a meaningful impact on disease spread.
What’s even funnier to me is how people will full on rage when someone brings up female genital mutilation while in the same breath saying circumcision is fine
The main problem is that people tend to intuitively think of the least invasive form of male circumcision and the most horrific form of female genital mutilation.
the most horrific form of female genital mutilation.
Is there any other kind in regular discussion? When people refer to FGM, they’re not talking about labiaplasty (which would be a more appropriate comparison).
labiaplasty (which would be a more appropriate comparison).
How are you coming to this conclusion?
The foreskin has more nerve endings than the glans, and double that of the clitoris. The labia in contrast has much fewer nerve endings, which is why sexual stimulation is not easily accomplished with simply stimulating the labia. Possible? Yes. But not nearly to the same degree as clitoral stimulation.
Edit: Given the lack of elaboration, I’ll have to assume the conclusions reached by a gut reaction of “skin is skin” which is not at all how this works.
A labiaplasty is not equivalent to removal of the foreskin. It would be like removing the clitoral hood. Educate yourself before sharing your thoughts please.
I refused circumcision for my son (25 years ago, US hospital), and had to remind the staff several times because it was just assumed it would be done. I stopped them 3 times during different shifts when they were about to take him from our room for the procedure.
Then when it came up in conversation when he was an infant, people would say to me ‘you should have done it’, because he would get infections (he never did), or he’d be bullied in gym showers (he never did to my knowledge), or whatever. My take was it should be his decision, not mine.
The pressure was really intense, though. It’s weird how interested people can be in someone else’s infant’s penis. We’ve never talked about it, but reading stories from other men, I assume he’s happy being uncut, and I’m glad I didn’t do it.
e: for anyone reading this days later, I did ask my son for his opinion prompted by this conversation, mostly because of responses I got elsewhere in this thread that made me question my decision:
Me: Hey man, so feel free not to answer this if it’s too personal, but I was having a debate about circumcision and another parent challenged me saying I’d made the wrong decision. So yes/no/I don’t want to talk about it cuz that’s weird, do you regret my decision?
Son: I don’t, and none of my partners have, either. I only get thumbs up and compliments. I hope that wasn’t too personal.
Me: Not at all. Thank you for giving me your and your partners’ review!
So yeah, it’s not just my assumptions. And no regrets.
I actually think about the ignored psychological effects of dealing with that level of physical pain so soon after being born a lot.
Birth is already a traumatic experience for both mother and infant. But to then immediately, with no anesthesia, cut an extremely sensitive part of the infants body off? That has to leave some kind of mental scarring.
I was born with a genetic condition affecting my collagen (Ehlers Danlos), which meant my bones were overly soft and, since I was breach til moments before birth, my legs were bowed pretty severely. This was in 1971, and the treatment at that time was the doctors literally bent my legs into position manually and then braced them for my first few years. That’s not how they deal with it nowadays, because they learnt it was horribly painful.
I don’t remember that initial experience, obviously, but my mother tells me several years later when I was a young child and having problems walking, she took me to the doctor and they finally worked out that I was in excruciating pain all the time. They asked why I hadn’t said anything and I told them it was because everyone was always in excruciating pain, but nobody else was complaining about it, so I shouldn’t either. I’d been in pain since birth, and just figured it was normal.
That experience prevented me from getting proper care and made my early childhood hell. I still have emotional trauma from it. So yeah, early pain is not benign.
If you never got circumcised, you’d likely be saying “I prefer uncut. Looks a bit weird with a piece missing.”
I’m willing to bet if you surveyed, say, Israel or Saudi Arabia, on what looks better between chopped and natural, they’ll say circumcised. And if you surveyed, say, Australia or Spain, they’ll say uncircumcised looks better.
That wasn’t the original reason. It was to stop masturbation. The whole cleaning thing was a later rationalization when they realized how fucked up it was.
If you go back to the beginning of this procedure, how(/if) people cleaned themselves looks very different from. Our modern world.
Because of that it seems it being a health issue is a lot more likely for the origin of circumscision as a regular societal practice. Even if that was not the main reason but one of the supporting reasons people allowed it to become normalized. The history of hygiene(or the lack there of) is horrifying.
I mean Lysol was developed as a feminine hygiene product… We have done some very questionable things because of snakeoil practices even in relatively modern times (which i think religion is one of the OG snakeoils)
What are we doing today that will look as crazy to the people of the future as circumcision does to many of us right now I wonder?
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.
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.
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.
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.
We weren’t asked until after birth. I was prepared and it had been discussed. But I’m sure many are unprepared. That’s why I’m advocating on here. Know before you go. Don’t look back in hindsight and think “oh well.”
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?
Some people believe in doctors, the CDC, the World Health Organization, and countless other institutions, and some people don’t. You’re the latter, and the last 4 years taught me that people in your camp are wrong about too many things, but also that you need to be told you are wrong before you get emboldened by your recklessness and idiocy.
It also showed me that you’re depraved sycophants that are almost always projecting some weird perv shit.
There’s more to science literacy than you are capable of, apparently. Otherwise, you know that there’s a biological purpose foreskin serves and the choice to remove it is weighed against risk factors that are very low and able to be mitigated.
Grow up, wash your dick, and use a condom. Get a circumcision if you want when you’re an adult. It’s not that hard for the vast majority of the world and history. You aren’t “right”, you’re just an asshole. Talking about genital mutilation in terms of camps, get over yourself.
I read just fine. You just can’t accept that lots of people disagree with you. The person calling a medical procedure done in a hospital mutilation is obviously lying. You lie and exaggerate because telling the truth would mean you don’t get to look down on people from the internet.
Our bodies having parts doesn’t make them inherently useful or purposeful or superior to life without. We still have tail bones, we grow teeth that don’t fit it our mouths, babies have razor-sharp nails that they slash their faces with, and we get auto-immune diseases. Our bodies are a minefield, constantly finding new and inspired ways to die or fail in spectacular fashion.
Repeated childhood infections that can be reduced to zero are hard to measure as people whose children suffer from repeated infections arr loath to self report for risk of being investigated for negligence.
The advice to wash your dick is a sure sign that you weren’t heavily involved in raising a child. Getting them to brush their damn teeth, wash their hands, and just generally not be gross is hard enough without necessitating a genital check as well.
If that can be achieved with a common and safe procedure that has extra perks and downsides that are largely assumed instead of proven, all the better.
You think it’s really important to perform an unnecessary procedure. That’s fine for you, but it doesn’t make it necessary. It’s a cultural practice.
Circumcision isn’t mutilation in and of itself, but performing an unnecessary surgery on somebody without consent is.
The advice to wash your dick is a sure sign that you weren’t heavily involved in raising a child. Getting them to brush their damn teeth, wash their hands, and just generally not be gross is hard enough without necessitating a genital check as well.
My kids do all of those things. You’re just bad at parenting, which explains a lot, actually.
Imagine cutting off a part of your child because you aren’t capable of getting them to clean it.
The advice to wash your dick is a sure sign that you weren’t heavily involved in raising a child.
That’s quite an arrogant statement.
My son is 25, and happy with my decision not to have him circumcised. I know because I asked him based on this discussion.
He never once got any sort of infection, because I taught him basic hygiene.
Our bodies having parts doesn’t make them inherently useful or purposeful or superior to life without. We still have tail bones
The foreskin is not a vestigial trait. It’s a 100% relevant and useful organ today. (eta: I know about vestigial traits because I have one: Darwin’s tubercle. I’d also not have appreciated having my ears docked at birth.)
Ask anyone who has a foreskin. That’s a profoundly ignorant comparison.
we grow teeth that don’t fit it our mouths
That’s an adaptive trait that serves us quite well, because our hominid ancestors fed their young the most high-energy fruits, which also increased the risk of cavities in our young. Being able to shed and replace juvenile teeth meant we were able to commence adulthood without the risk of starving. Our wisdom teeth weren’t a problem until very, very recently, because the evolution of our bodies haven’t had time to catch up with our modern diet. That’s nothing like the foreskin, where our sexual activity has not changed in millions of years. You should learn some paleo-anthropology before making comparisons like that.
and we get auto-immune diseases.
I have very severe autoimmune disease. Many recent studies point to environmental causes, which are recent and our evolution cannot account for.
None of that has anything whatever to do with the continued and relevant importance of the foreskin to sexual pleasure.
I am a mother who decided not to circumcise my child (who is now 25 and is happy to have his foreskin), a decision I made after talking to my father who had to have his removed in his teens after developing a rare condition. I know more about this topic than many people, and certainly more than you.
The reasons this procedure is commonly done in the US are questionable at best. We have learned better, and this archaic practice should not be advocated any longer.
If you had it done to you and/or had it done to your child, I’m not here to shame you. Until recently, it’s just what we did, but going forward, we should do better for our children and our species based on what we’ve learned. And we shouldn’t be a dick when presented with information that goes against our cultural norms (pun intended).
e: link to my 4 month old comment about my vestigial trait. I had to scroll through nearly a thousand comments to find it, whew.
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.
As a rampant homosexual who’s done lots of dick-focused study - there’s a scar and it has different levels of noticability. Some are faint, some jagged, some with mismatched colours, some bright red, etc.
Let’s just say there is a definitive line where what once was my foreskin now just is a smooth piece of skin connected by another. I wouldn’t call it a scar because like I said I had no idea it was not normal. There’s definitely a noticeable difference between the top part and the rest of it. I’m not sure how else to put this delicately. Honestly, I would just google it.
Not sure how badly you want it back, but it is possible to restore. Non-sugically. Basically skin under tension causes Mitosis (skin cells dividing to make more skin) - think putting on weight, gaining muscle, getting pregnant, or ear gauges. You tug the skin long enough and eventually have your hoodie back. The results are surprisingly impressive. r/restoring_foreskin has a bunch of info
New nerves do grow. Muscly/fat/pregnant people have the same skin senstitivity. But there are special function bits that are lost. The Rigid Band has special nerve endings, gone forever. Frenellum too
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