Calling unnecessary circumcision of boys “genital mutilation” sounds frivolous because it makes it sound like you’re placing it alongside FGM in terms of its effects and severity. But it is nevertheless genital mutilation, by just about any definition you care to put forward. The men living in the non-circumcision-crazed countries of the world aren’t constantly having their blackened rotten cocks drop off from all the dick disease they’re allegedly exposed to by having an intact penis, so I don’t understand why you would feel the need to do this to your kid without a specific medical reason (of which there are very few that require surgical removal of the skin).
“But if you don’t wash it, it gets dickcheese!” and the solution to that is slicing the fucking skin off of it? The clue is in the warning: wash it. Teach your sons to care for their wilberts. Telling them to lather up their bellend in the shower is hardly something that needs prompting anyway.
Personal/intimate hygiene should be part of regular schooling. Not even as part of sex ex, just “how to care for your vessel” kinda shit. Don’t drink to excess, walk and move at least 10 minutes a day, stay away from illegal drugs, be careful with prescription drugs, and wash your bastard stinksausage.
Shit
Kinda fucked up how people basically ignore the fact that we do genital mutilation in America.
Its like 10 in² removed by circumcision. Not necessarily length or girth from your dick. But 10 in² of incredibly sensitive skin on your sex organ.
New imperial unit for area dropped.
I can’t speak for everyone but I am an average sized uncut USian, and mine foreskin is pretty tight when erect to the point I think it might be painful if I was cut. I wonder if there’s anyone who got circumcised post puberty that can chime in.
I’m a grower and pretty big. When I got to puberty basically every erection was painful. It took a couple years for the skin to stretch so it didn’t hurt. If I ever have a child in this fucked up world I will kill someone before I let them mutilate my child the way I was.
Yes. Cut male here. For the first five or so years of my sexually active time, when I would get a particularly vigorous erection the skin below my glans would literally tear in random places around the circumference. It was quite painful but has thankfully stopped now and Im left with just some scars.
When my son was born I refused to let him out of my sight until every staff member was able to assure me he would not be circumcised.
Parents: do NOT circumcise your children, it’s barbaric.
Do you know why UK men are rarely circumcized when it’s the norm in the U.S?
At some point the UK government decided that circumcision wouldn’t be covered by the national health insurance.
And just like that. It went out of fashion.
I’m sure the greedy U.S insurance companies would be more than happy to stop covering that service.
Fight fire with fire.
Get the insurance companies to stop covering it. And we can finally save boys from being mutilated.
Not just UK most of the world is uncircumcised, it’s only a thing in Abrahamic religions and USA
Yeah cause mutilating baby genitals is bad. Most people get that.
But also my example was to illustrate how the trend was changed in the UK and perhaps it’s a possible way to do the same in the U.S.
People is the US are just brain dead “christian” morons
I don’t think Christianity requires circumcising
Nothing requires circumcising
They do it anyways for sexual control
Watch 'em start trying to do it at home.
Well unlike making abortion illegal, making it so that insurance won’t cover it just means you would have to pay for it.
And I’m sure some still will.
But I can’t see too many people trying to do it at home.
amab genital mutilation makes bottom surgery more complicated for transfems
yes it’s also immoral and shouldn’t be done on infants of any gender who can’t give consent (and should be illegal, as should intersex genital mutilation, aka “surgical correction”)
Huh, didn’t even occur to me there would be trans complications as well.
Shit
(Did I follow the instructions in the title correctly?)
No one said post it after typing…
Nah you capitalized it
if you lost a whole inch from your circumcision, they did it wrong.
that said, when I was around 18 or so, I really had it out with my parents over circumcising me. at 47, I’m still unhappy about it.
Maybe you don’t lose an inch of penis length, but perhaps you do lose an inch of skin.
But I agree this is stupid because 99.99% of people are going to think “penis length.”
This is perhaps the dumbest circumcision awareness sign I’ve seen. And I support the cause.
It’s unconsentual genital mutilation of babies, a beyond cruel excercise - unless there is a clear medical reason
I don’t believe there is any medically justified reason beyond what would require anything to be amputated. All of the “medical reasons” people tout are thin bullshit. Anything people have claimed could be accomplished with much less invasive procedures. I’m furious and deeply hurt my parents did this to me. The whole reason is to reduce sensation during sex because sex is a “sin”. My parents had the fucking gall to tell me looking at porn will impact my relationships after doing this shit to me.
I didn’t even know I was circumcised at birth until like halfway through highschool and I didn’t really care after finding out. And having now seen penises that are uncircumcised, I’m kinda glad I was. From my perspective, it didn’t hurt and I didn’t even know until 17ish years later. Everything works perfectly normally.
All of that was a buildup to a genuine question of why do you feel so upset by it? I don’t mean to be argumentative or dismissive, just want to see the point of view from someone else
I mean, you lost a significant amount of your sensory nerves in your penis, but you do you.
Anyway, I fucking didn’t do it to my kids because it is unconscionable to mutilate a child’s (possibly) completely functional penis for aesthetic reasons.
BTW, You are bragging that you happened to be lucky. Many are not.
So the problem is a lot of Americans/Catholics think a circumcision is something responsible adults do to their children to help them avoid potential health problems. They also erroneously believe the foreskin serves no purpose and is one of those we evolved with it, but it is useless kind of things.
They dont know the truth that it actually has a large number of nerve endings and its removal was originally pushed for to reduce the pleasure boys felt from masturbation, in the hope they would not masturbate. Because sex should only be for reproduction according to those who originally pushed for circumcision… It is like what is done to some women in muslim communities. Difference being woman have even more nerve endings in the clitoris and men can still experience some pleasure without the foreskin, but much less. This is why circumcision is often considered mutilation, except for those rare medical exceptions. Parents are unknowingly removing their childs right to sexual pleasure under the guise it is for their health.
It really needs to end as simple hygiene is all that is needed for the health reasons.
As a circumcised man, who was once a teenage boy, I’m surprised that generation after generation of men who’d also been circumcised teenage boys never acknowledged “ya know, this doesn’t do a goddamn thing to keep’em from beatin’ their dicks”. But science and logic has never been religion’s strong suit.
Well, we don’t do it the way Dr. Kellogg first subscribed it. You’re supposed to do it as a punishment the first time you catch them in the act. It probably only stops them while they heal, but it will stop them.
You probably don’t want to know what he subscribed for girls in the same situation.
They only really stopped mutilating girls in the 1930’s, with holdouts doing it as last as the 40’s
we all have our own feelings about it. I’m not trying to say that the way you feel about your own circumcision is right or wrong, or how any man who decides - on their own, as an informed adult - is right or wrong to do so.
but I would vehemently argue that it is an adult man’s decision to make, not a parent’s decision to make for their infant son-- unless some medical condition makes it necessary to do so at that time (which are quite rare). and, yes, I understand that there are religious considerations, but, as an atheist, I’m not so sympathetic to that, either, as I classify all genital mutilation in the same category, regardless of age or gender: it is a decision to be made by the subject of the procedure, and only when they are a consenting, informed adult.
As a follow on, is your username supposed to be “Holmes” but you decided to wing it on the spelling test?
I’m also circumcised and find getting bent out of shape over it 18 years later to be… an unusual response.
Edit: Hey Lemmy Weiner police! Be sure to bitch out your parents if you haven’t, it will definitely be helpful in some way!
What a fucking weird opener. “Your username is a common usage word im gonna claim you meant something else and accuse you of mispelling”
🤷 it got you talking didn’t it?
aww, did that sound good before you posted it?
Yep! After too!
You were wrong, unfortunately
It’s like that sometimes 🤷
If we were a couple of dudes negging on each other in a bar over whiskey shots, I’d put up with this, because we’d end up hooking up in the end, but online? There’s no goddamn point.
Later
It’s true. Chatting about circumcision in a bar most often ends in showing each other your dicks.
Cya.
As someone who was circumcised for the ‘medical hygiene’ reasons when it was more popular I am sick and tired of seeing all circumcision lumped together as mutilation. Sure it was probably unnecessary as I am not aware of having a condition that made it necessary in my case, but it was well done and everything has been positive for me. Those that get it done for medical reasons being called mutilation would be offensive.
It certainly should end as a practice, especially as a religious practice done by non-medically trained people, but stigmatizing people who had it done as being mutilated is insulting.
Edit: your downvotes won’t convince me that I am a victim of mutilation because doctors were wrong about the hygiene benefits five decades ago
Circumcision is and should only be a medically necessary procedure. I’ve never heard anyone say medically necessary circumcision is mutilation, but I’m from Europe where most men aren’t circumcised, so there’s that. Whoever says it’s mutilation when it’s medically justified is ignorant.
Those that get it done for medical reasons being called mutilation would be offensive.
Right, because they weren’t mutilated, they had to have a procedure done for a medical reason.
Any non-medically necessary surgery to a child’s genitals is mutilation. They have no way to consent, and anything short of a medical necessity is the parent making massive changes to their child’s life based on their preferences. To make the point crystal clear:
- If I have a kid and the arm ends up gangrenous, we would remove it as it would be medically necessary for the child’s well-being
- If I have a kid and think it’s cool to have one arm, I would be trying to mutilate my child by removing it for no reason
How is performing a medically unnecessary surgery on a child’s genitals not mutilation? Again, you’re changing their body surgically without their consent for no reason aside from ignorant beliefs.
I dislike the ‘mutilated’ label being applied and take it as an insult because of the negative connotations despite not personally having any downsides. It is like claiming that everyone who is overweight based on BMI is unhealthy despite many athletes having a high BMI due to having a lot of muscle.
Plus the person I was responding to said adults who voluntarily chose to get circumcised are mutilated themselves. With that logic ear piercings and voluntarily removing annoying, but not medically probematic moles is mutilation. My point is that you can’t just ignore the negative connotations and use a broad brush to describe people while claiming it is technically accurate.
No, it should not be done to babies without a medical necessity. That doesn’t mean calling everyone who has been circumcised mutilated won’t come across as insulting.
The negitive connotations are justified in this case
Even if it was ‘well done’, you have literally lost nerves and sensitivity in the region leading to an objectively worse experience.
The solution is obvious, don’t chop kids genitals for no legitimate reason. Doesn’t matter if you came out okay or whatever nonsense.
Religion is not an excuse for child abuse
Without arguing either for or against the practice, losing feeling is an outdated idea. It’s been studied and shown that circumcised men are just as sensitive as uncircumcised
How does that even make sense?
That is non-figuratively impossible. You can’t feel anything with nerve endings that have been removed.
The brain is weird and whacky the way it works. It has a sort of auto-gain. The less nerve stimulus over time leads to a higher sensitivity of remaining nerves. Often when people lose a limb, they still feel pain in it - the lack of nerve signals causes the remaining nerve endings to be amplified so much that despite not even having pain receptors, the noise signals are perceived as pain. So a human growing up with a cut forskin simply adapts and the brain perceives more sensitivity from the other nerves to produce the same levels of sensation.
Uh, no kidding dude.
I get a mutilated finger lopped off its a procedure to save my life / improve its quality.
But cutting off a healthy one because religion / aesthetics is just fucking bananas
I am sick and tired of seeing all circumcision lumped together as mutilation
it’s the definition of the word. sure, it carries a lot of negative connotations that may not have affected you the same way, and you may have, personally, appreciated your circumcision, but that doesn’t invalidate the feelings of others. this isn’t some zero-sum situation where other people being upset about it somehow invalidated your experience.
Many people can feel different ways about things. That’s called society. A key part of civilization is our ability to all live together with many different people feeling different ways about things. In fact, a huge advance in civilization - no shit - is that, several thousand years ago, we stop killing each other over this very issue. REALLY.
In a much more contemporary context, it’s just not necessary. Most recently, as recently as the late 1970s and early 1980s, a now-debunked study pushed the idea that it was, at least “more hygienic” to circumcise males, but that was based on shaky and now-debunked studies. In modern medicine, circumcision is no longer recommended at birth except in rare cases of medical necessity of urinary or other birth defects. Exceptions also exist in some religions, Judaism most prominently, not for medical necessity, but as an alignment with a belief based on ancient mythology, not unlike the genital mutilations some women undergo in Islam — also widely/globally denounced.
There are several possible reasons why other men might be upset, although your own equipment still works perfectly normally:
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Just like women’s sexual responses differ, men’s sexual responses may differ, as well. I’ve learned from a friend, who’s had many male partners, that some men get intense pleasure from manipulation of their foreskin. Some can even reach orgasm that way. I’ve learned from several (intact) men on Reddit and Lemmy that their primary source of sexual sensation is their foreskin, rather than their glans. Losing a major source of pleasure could be upsetting.
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This same friend also reports that, in his experience, intact men have better awareness of their own state of arousal, and better control of it. In brief, they can “last longer.” This is anecdotal, of course, but I seem to recall reading some research to back that up. That’s part of the reason why he’s upset by his being circumcised.
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“Circumcision” is not just one thing. It ranges from the traditional bris (a small snip at the tip of the penis, so that the tip of the glans just peeks out) to amputation of the entire mobile skin system of the penis (about 15 sq. in. of adult tissue gone). I would imagine that men who have drum-tight skin on their penises, and must use lube to facilitate penetration or masturbation, might not like it, whereas a man whose glans was still covered when his penis was flaccid might not notice much difference.
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The dorsal nerve of the penis can be severed during the procedure, removing sensation from the glans almost entirely, leading to erectile and performance issues, as well as greatly reduced enjoyment of sex.
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The healing of the circumcision wound can go not-quite-perfectly, leading to adhesions, assymetry, tight frenulums, phantom pain, and scarring. Journalist Gary Shteyngart wrote an essay about the odyssey of pain that he was thrown into when a skin bridge (an adhesion) on his penis became infected. Worse, I recall a letter published in Savage Love from a man whose circumcision scar was so thick and inelastic that it caused the end of his penis to go ischemic, then necrotic, and then fall off when he was an infant. He’s left with a stub of a penis, and a pretty good reason to be upset about circumcision, I’d say.
ETA: I did not think of this, but @theleadensea@sh.itjust.works pointed out that removal of the foreskin complicates bottom surgery for trans women, I would guess because it gives the surgeon less tissue to work with.
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Obviously most circumsised people have no issues with their dicks. And a lot probably sees it as a positive. I have heard a people claim that they look better.
Doing plastic surgery on babies is still a bit weird to me.
Because sometimes there are scars. Sometimes they cut WAY too much and the skin left is too thin.
Nature designed that weiner, no need for cosmetic customization.
Its removing pieces of your child for no damned good reason. You’re not as ok as you think you are if the mere sight of a natural penis grosses you out.
Never said it grosses me out, just that I think my penis looks nicer than others. Thanks for forming my opinions and diagnosing my mental health for me though
So, if you’ve every had to clean out the inside of your son’s penis, you might feel a little bit differently. Circumcision was considered a standard hygienic practice for decades. There are some marginal benefits to health and safety, particularly wrt transmission of STDs. But given the modernizations in health and safety (particularly condoms and milder skin-friendly soap) it definitely feels archaic.
I’m circumcized. I don’t think it’s a big deal. My son isn’t (largely at the objections of my wife who was much more anti-circumcision than I am). So far, he hasn’t seemed to mind having a foreskin. It strikes me as something people just like to get mad at. It has no discernible impact either of our lives, except in the case where I’m giving him a bath.
Compared to, say, the consequences of laws around abortion or modern contraception or vaccination, this seems trivial to the point of being a deliberately engineered distraction.
I’m uncircumcised and my son is uncircumcised. Really goes a long way on understanding how to deal with a normal uncircumcised penis. Cleaning it doesn’t take any extra effort.
Unfortunately for you the information on how to care for a normal uncircumcised penis on a younger child is not easily available because of the expectation that all American children are circumcised.
You are not supposed to retract the foreskin until later in life. When? Well it’s different for everyone but can be as late as age 10 or more. Until that time it’s “self-cleaning” just wash the outside. Tell the kid to keep trying to gently retract it when he pees or baths, if it doesn’t pull back easily it’s not ready.
You don’t need to get soap up in there until it starts retracting on it own, the skin begins to naturally separate. If you force it, you can cause scaring and damage, you’re literally ripping the skin from the glans. Once it retracts, pull the foreskin back wash the glans and ta dah… clean dick.
It’s made out to be this big inconvenience and believed by men with their foreskin removed. It’s not at all an inconvenience. You also don’t have any idea what your missing out on by having a circumcised penis.
Anyway thought I’d share before you mess up your kids dick. Lot of doctors I’ve talked to I had to correct on the proper way to take care of an uncircumcised child’s penis, it’s very unsettling and you might have got incorrect information yourself.
Lucky for me a have the proper equipment to know what I was talking about.
So, if you’ve every had to clean out the inside of your son’s penis, you might feel a little bit differently. Circumcision was considered a standard hygienic practice for decades. There are some marginal benefits to health and safety, particularly wrt transmission of STDs. But given the modernizations in health and safety (particularly condoms and milder skin-friendly soap) it definitely feels archaic.
It feels archaic because this is archaic bullshit. it takes about a second to pull back the foreskin and wash it with the rest of the penis/pubic area during a normal bath the bathing a baby/toddler, and teaching a child this very normal habit is very simple and easy. The vast majority of human males on Earth handle this very normal task, and have done so for the entire existence of humanity.
Just because the misinformation you just repeated was pushed by the American medical establishment for a few decades doesn’t make it fact, and it has been widely repudiated by the medical establishments everywhere else, and even here in the US in recent decades.
It is no longer widely recommended, even in the US.
And your personal preference isn’t really medically relevant.
The vast majority of human males on Earth handle this very normal task, and have done so for the entire existence of humanity.
Go ask around the medical community and you’ll discover quite a few didn’t handle it well. Kids don’t do a good job of washing. That area is easily infected, even setting aside STDs. The procedure was created precisely in response to these perfectly normal human conditions, along with a litany of other - now largely archaic - practices for avoiding illness and infection.
It is no longer widely recommended, even in the US.
Even that fact varies state-by-state. It is no longer automatically covered by health insurance, which has resulted in a large drop-off in the practice domestically. But then that’s been the US standard for medicine going on 50 years.
And your personal preference isn’t really medically relevant.
It’s highly relevant, since parents are the ultimate arbiters of their childrens’ health and well-being.
I think you are misinformed.
Published by Nature in 2023.
“What is the medical evidence on non-therapeutic child circumcision?”
We conclude that non-therapeutic circumcision performed on otherwise healthy infants or children has little or no high-quality medical evidence to support its overall benefit. Moreover, it is associated with rare but avoidable harm and even occasional deaths. From the perspective of the individual boy, there is no medical justification for performing a circumcision prior to an age that he can assess the known risks and potential benefits, and choose to give or withhold informed consent himself.
Go ask around the medical community and you’ll discover quite a few didn’t handle it well. Kids don’t do a good job of washing.
I have, and this isn’t true. it’s also not supported by the medical documentation available. Instructing kids, especially when you start from an early age, to develop proper hygiene habits is pretty easy. I’ve even borne witness to it many times personally, although I’m not necessarily offering my personal experience as proof.
It’s highly relevant
not when you’re making claims about everyone everywhere. what matters there is evidence to back up your claims, which you have yet to provide.
so, since you were the one who initially made such claims… please back them up from reliable sources such as the AMA, for example.
I have, and this isn’t true.
I’ve got a friend who is a PA that has given me some very unpleasant stories about infected foreskins.
Instructing kids, especially when you start from an early age
Sure. People can do lots of things if they are instructed well at an early age. But then people aren’t instructed well. And that’s where you run into problems.
I’ve even borne witness to it many times personally
Fascinated to hear all the times you watched someone else wash their dick
not when you’re making claims about everyone everywhere
Yes. These are universal problems for the male population. And circumcision is one solution so popular and so common that it’s practiced the world over.
you were the one who initially made such claims
I assure you that I’m not the first person to suggest the benefits of circumcision.
OK kid come back when you have some actual evidence to back up your claims, lol
Your anecdotal claims amount to a pile of nothing but personal preference in Internet story time. And while you are perfectly welcome to your personal opinions, you are not entitled to spread claims of “truth“ without backing it up with actual evidence from trusted sources.
Your anecdotal claims amount to a pile of nothing.
Tell it to the guy with infected penis skin.
It’s highly relevant, since parents are the ultimate arbiters of their childrens’ health and well-being.
Precisely. Parents should protect their children from genital mutilation.
And, unfortunately, for decades, particularly in the United States, parents were misled with medical misinformation that told them it was medically necessary (or “recommended”) to circumcise their babies. Thankfully, that is no longer the case. Unfortunately, it is still culturally reinforced, although that is fortunately fading.
But it will likely be several more decades before that misinformation and cultural force finally fades completely.
here are some marginal benefits to health and safety, particularly wrt transmission of STDs.
Bullshit.
Doesn’t mind having a perfectly natural unmutilated body?!
I certainly mind having the body I got.
You are probably old enough to consent to changes and to take responsibility for your decisions for the rest of your own life.
I wasn’t when I was forced into this body.
Naturalistic fallacy aside, I missed that mark when I got corrective surgery for scoliosis. I’ve also got a few tattoos and piercings that any proper orthodox Jew would find abominable.
My son spent three months in the NICU and had I don’t even know how many medical interventions during that time. His “perfectly natural unmutilated body” would have been a 1.5oz corpse.
We’re both way past circumcision as the defining issue of our lives.
You just compared a normal.body part to a deformity
But the point is you wouldn’t tattoo your child before he is of age and without consulting him. This practice is not necessary
you wouldn’t tattoo your child before he is of age
I would not wait for my son to turn eighteen if he needed a medical alert tattoos to avoid an EMT accidentally killing him.
Maybe you would. That’s your call as a parent.
One is medical necessity and one is religious bullshit inflicting pain and assuming consent. Go do something productive with your life… Vote or something.
Its OK to move past the trauma, it’s not OK to assume everybody should go through that progression just because you did.
It has no discernible impact either of our lives,
Then why would you chop it off?
Just for starters, you’re not “chopping” anything.
Past that, again, it’s for a marginal benefit in hygiene.
You should probably cut your earlobes off too then, you don’t really need them and it’s possible they could get infected at some point in your life. And I’m sure you shave your and your children bald regularly, right? You don’t need hair and it removes the possibility of lice which can carry blood-born diseases.
I think you’ve got a very weak argument for it. It seems sensible to me that elective procedures should have clear benefits to outweigh the corresponding risks of performing it; there are always risks with performing medical procedures.
And w.r.t. you comment on no chopping — it’s a piece of skin that is attached to a human body, it doesn’t just fall off by itself. You do have to cut it. Choppy choppy.
you aren’t supposed to use soap on genitals
What do you call a discount circumcision?
A ripoff.
deleted by creator
I want my foreskin back. I’m thinking about restoring mine.
from all of the research I’ve done into the matter, it’s a huge amount of work/effort for not much of a payoff. there are a lot of options/paths to go down, and - admittedly - it’s been almost a 15 years since I really looked into it, so there may have been some worthwhile advances since then, but, given the state of things at the time, I doubt it.
but I don’t mean to discourage you, and what I might have deemed “worth it” or not, you might feel differently. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
We will never get the nerves back. It’s not just a lump of unfeeling skin that covers the glans. That’s what stops me from trying. Like yeah I can stretch it to cover the glans when it’s soft but I will never get the sensation back. That was stolen from me by people who were meant to care for me, and I will always have the scars.
I could not, would not, with a mohel
Would not, should not, with hot oil
What do they want, a refund?
To stop the cultural practice of male genital mutilation and break the norms that doom their sons?
Full respect if you were speaking sarcastically
Oh 100% sarcastic.
I agree genital mutilation that is not medically necessary is bad. They just could have made the point/their aim clearer.
They just could have made the point/their aim clearer.
I appreciate the attempt to still make a pun, even after getting a bit of a smack
I honestly wasn’t trying to be punny, that’s just how it came out. But I’ll take it.
With interest.
Gimme that fiveskin.
Could’ve at least saved it for a little foreskin calamari is all.
Half off
Hedwig approves. His inch is still very angry.
upvote for the reference
I once met John Cameron Mitchell in a bar in the East Village in 2009. Total sweetheart.
that’s awesome!
I remember, trying to be friendly, I offered to buy him a shot or a drink or something, and the bartended (who was also quite a character) was very offended that he would ever charge “Johnny” for a drink in the first place, lol. we had a good laugh and round of shots about it :)
shit
