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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
Less than you have. And it takes zero action to not cut a babies dick. Whereas it takes a special kind of obsession to do so.
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.
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.
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.
Lmao the study done in Africa was terrible. The CDC themselves say they focus on it because it provides the best results for circumcision.
They also don’t actually respond to the two main points I take issue with, summarized nicely here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3255200/