• UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    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.

    • MTK@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Honestly, can you elaborate on what would be a justified reason to do it?

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        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.

        • el_abuelo@lemmy.ml
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          10 months ago

          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?

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            CDC has a whole thing on it

            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.

            • el_abuelo@lemmy.ml
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              10 months ago

              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.

        • MTK@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          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.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            CDC has a whole thing on it

            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.

            • MTK@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              Still not really reasonable, especially considering that for the most part this decision can just wait until adulthood

        • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca
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          10 months ago

          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.

    • 𝕯𝖎𝖕𝖘𝖍𝖎𝖙@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      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!

      • Hello Hotel@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        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.

        • 𝕯𝖎𝖕𝖘𝖍𝖎𝖙@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          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.

          • Hello Hotel@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            female genital mutilation

            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.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Yeah but as a dad, i don’t like legs.

        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.