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?
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 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.
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
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.
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’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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Genital mutilation under the guise of “easier to clean” is stupid. Cutting off your legs also makes them easier to clean.
First I agree with you. Need to say that first.
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?
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.
Jokes on them. Masterbation has never been in higher demand.
Yeah instead of doing it at birth they should have done it as a punishment for people who masturbate. That would have worked much better
I like mine cut tbh; I think it looks nice.
I mean, people just like what they’re used to.
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.
High five to uncut team
That’s fine, as long as that isn’t used as a justification to normalize this procedure’s continued use without medical necessity.
I ain’t going around telling anyone how to raise their kids.
what does hacking an infant’s wiener up have to do with raising children?
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
Dude, yeah. It’s so weird.
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:
So yeah, it’s not just my assumptions. And no regrets.
It’s not though. They’ll never be able to go back and have it done as an infant. Time machines don’t exist.
The procedure is much, much easier as an infant than it is as a boy or teenager or adult.
I respect whatever decision you made. There are reasons for both. But no, he didn’t have the option to go back and have it done easily.
And sorry about the pressure. You shouldn’t have to go through that, and I hope/expect that aspect is better after 25 years.
every slice and dice would be easier as an infant as you wouldn’t remember it anyway. you’re an idiot
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 can actually speak to this.
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.
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.
For both genders, all kinds of forms exist
Is what’s in these discussions.
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).
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’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.
There is some substantive utility to legs that doesn’t extend to the bit of flesh around the tip of your dick.
Being able to turn the end of my dick into a water balloon is all the substantive utility I require, sir.
A perk of living in a modern world.
Honestly, can you elaborate on what would be a justified reason to do it?
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.
Not so dramatically you can not wear a condom. So given you’re going to strap up anyway, what’s the benefit to having surgery on your genitals?
CDC has a whole thing on it
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.
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.
Source?
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.
CDC has a whole thing on it
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.
Still not really reasonable, especially considering that for the most part this decision can just wait until adulthood
Yeah but as a dad, i don’t like legs. I want my kid to look like me. I was amputated voluntarily. Legs get dirty anyway.
Actually, why not just cut off the penis and replace it with a tube? That’s a lot cleaner and still functional!
If this is
/sits 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.
okay… wow.
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.
A benefit that no one can seem to articulate, to this day.
Yeah, pretty sus
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.
Are you confident you understand what gentials are?
What about your understanding of consent?
Its when you’re not jewish.
Yes, you are correct. Only jewish people have genitals. Thank you for playing.
I think they’re trying to make a pun based on how the word “gentile” (which literally means not jewish) sounds very similar to “genital”.
Yeah, I got it thanks. I wish my autocorrect wouldn’t interject itself into conversations but here we are.
Good laugh. 10/10 would laugh again.
I’m sorry, what’s up bro?
Besides autocorrect spelling genitals gentials, not much, bro.