For context, I’m circumcised and expecting a son and my wife and I are torn about the circ. We’re American so from a cultural standpoint circumcision is the default choice. Thing is, there’s no real benefit besides practicing a religion we don’t believe in, and I’m uncomfortable about cutting the tip of my son’s dick off.
On the other side, I’ve met a guy who was bullied in high school so bad for it he got a circ as an adult. Apparently crazy painful recovery. I’ve also talked to women who are generally grossed out by uncircumcised men. I don’t want to make him feel like something’s wrong with him his whole life because I was uncomfortable with the idea.
From a moral standpoint I’m against it, but from a social and cultural standpoint I feel like I should do it? It’s a crappy situation. If there’s any uncircumcised American men who want to talk about their penis I’m all ears.
Edit: I really appreciate everyone’s responses I never expected to hear from so many people. With the decision hinging on social and cultural norms it’s been really helpful to be able to take the temperature like this. I obviously need to talk to my wife, but given the overwhelming support of dick hats I don’t thing we’re going to do it. Thanks, lemmings!
I’d never sacrifice 50% of the feelings for the sake of a shriveled tip to please some invisible sky daddy.
Male genital mutilation should be as outlawed as female.
And… Kids bullying others over their foreskin? I don’t think I ever saw any classmate’s dick in my life. Why is that even a thing?
Don’t mutilate your kid. If there’s a medical reason go ahead, otherwise leave it be.
Your son can’t put it back if you remove it, but he can remove it if you leave it. Let it be his choice over his body.IMO circumcision is genital mutilation and that’s always wrong in general. In the very few cases where it actually has health benefits you can still do it later in life, it’s not a big problem. You’re not missing out on anything if you don’t do it.
Parents who perform unnecessary surgery on their children because society says they should are bad parents.
That might seem harsh, but it’s true. You have a responsibility to make the right choices for your kids, and “society” doesn’t get a vote.
I faced the same question, but found it to be a no-brainer. You don’t perform unnecessary surgery on a baby.
The reason it is performed in the US is to stop boys from masturbating.
Ignore any excuses for doing it that people have come up with since. That’s the only reason the US started doing it, and every other reason is just people trying to rationalize why they keep doing it.
The “reasons” people come up with to explain it now are based on extremely unlikely events. All the serious issues that come up are avoided with proper hygiene. Unless they still have a stupid masturbation hangup, it all comes down to this:
Parents feel icky about having to explain to their child how to wash their penis.
If you can’t handle that, I’ll tell you right now that you’re going to have a hell of a lot tougher conversations.
What I told them was to imagine they were wearing a hoodie in the shower. You’d need to pull the hood back before shampooing your hair. Same thing goes for the little head, but don’t use shampoo, that might burn.
Not circumcising my kids only caused me one problem:
My mom reacted like it was a direct personal attack on her, because I was circumcised. She saw it as me saying she was wrong. I found it difficult to convince her that I was not judging her. She didn’t have the same information available to her as I did. When I was born, she didn’t really have a choice.
Parents who perform unnecessary surgery on their children because society says they should are bad parents.
That’s me you’re talking about. And yes. I agree 100%.
Letting them do an elective surgery on my healthy child was a parenting failure I deeply regret.
but don’t use shampoo, that might burn.
Eh?? If your shampoo burns you shouldn’t be using it anywhere on your body.
And actually, I find non-soap-based products (e.g. shampoo) better for my bellend.
How does it stop boys from masturbating?
Covering the organs with a cage has been practiced with entire success. A remedy which is almost always successful in small boys is circumcision, especially when there is any degree of phimosis. The operation should be performed by a surgeon without administering an anaesthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind, especially if it be connected with the idea of punishment, as it may well be in some cases. The soreness which continues for several weeks interrupts the practice, and if it had not previously become too firmly fixed, it may be forgotten and not resumed.
John Harvey Kellogg - Plain Facts for Old and Young
It was never actually effective, but by making it much less pleasurable. Turns out boys will do it anyway ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This study doing an analysis of the research doesn’t seem to agree:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7691872/
A lot of comments in this thread agree with you though. Where did you get your information to be so confident?
I mean, there are people in this thread that were circumcised as a teen/adult and commenting on what that was like for them. That is, anecdotally, where my data comes from e:(as well as my own friends and acquaintances, and other threads like this online).
The study you linked seems to be categorising quality of data, with a focus on sexual function first and foremost. Sexual function has nothing to do with pleasure or sensation, it is merely about ability to get an erection, penetrate something and ejaculate. Neither myself nor others in this thread are commenting on that. Where it talks about pleasure and sensation, the cited studies seem to only ask a binary question of whether there was pleasure or not. Not if it had decreased, subjectively rating it, or trying to objectively rate it.
It also erroneously talks about the fact that sexual pleasure is attributed to the erogenous zones on the glans and underside of the shaft, not the foreskin. That seems to be hilariously slanted towards being pro-circumcision. I’ve never heard anyone, anywhere say that the foreskin is an erogenous zone, only that it protects them from desensitisation.
Can we also talk about the fact they went to the rural parts of an African nation to do a randomly controlled trial where they circumcised over 2000 people, some as young as 15, “in the name of science”. What the fluff is up with presumably western, presumably white people doing “science” on black people?? Even if they paid them (which is its own methodological issue) this is just really really messed up.
The study of RCT participants in rural Uganda by Kigozi et al involved sexually experienced males aged 15–49 years. Of these, 2,210 participants were randomized to a group that received immediate circumcision, and 2,246 were randomized to a control group to remain uncircumcised until after 24 months of follow-up. Participants completed a survey involving the IIEF tool. Sexual function, based on the ability to achieve and maintain an erection (99.7% vs 99.9%, respectively), difficulty with vaginal penetration (99.4% vs 99.9%), difficulty with ejaculation (99.7% vs 99.9%), and pain during or after intercourse (99.9% vs 99.6%), did not differ significantly between each group at the end of the 24-month evaluation.
Letters commenting on the Uganda findings were mostly positive. Bowa, however, suggested that if the dorsal slit method had been used rather than the sleeve technique, then sexual function may have improved rather than having remained the same. In response, Gray and Kigozi mentioned that the other 2 RCTs (in Kenya and South Africa) had used the forceps-guided MC technique. Sexual function was studied in the Kenyan trial and reported no difference (see next paragraph). A letter by Daar suggested that because the sleeve technique used made a cut 0.5–1 cm from the frenulum, erogenous tissue may have remained to explain the results. However, a systematic review (detailed in the next section) of histological correlates of sexual pleasure attributed erogenous sensation to the glans and underside of the shaft, not the foreskin, with the erogenous sensations claimed to arise from the frenulum actually stemming from stimulation of nearby genital corpuscles in the glans and shaft rather than the frenulum itself. A mostly positive letter by Drenth pointed to the inability of participants in a circumcision RCT to be blinded to the intervention. Drenth also considered that there were statistical anomalies in the data. In a response, Gray, showed that Drenth’s latter criticism stemmed from an inadequate understanding of statistics.
Krieger et al conducted personal interviews involving trained counsellors of RCT participants in Kenya the interviews, including 1,391 circumcised men and 1,393 control men aged 18–24 years. Participants were evaluated in detail at 1, 3, 6, 12, 18, and 24 months. Sexual function parameters and results at 24 months included inability to ejaculate (1.3% vs 1.2%, respectively), premature ejaculation (PE; 3.9% vs 4.6%), pain during intercourse (0.7% vs 1.2%), lack of pleasure during intercourse (1.8% vs 1.0%), difficulty achieving/maintaining erection (2.3% vs 1.4%), or any of these dysfunctions combined (6.2% vs 5.8%). No statistically significant differences were found in frequency of any of the parameters between the circumcised and uncircumcised men. None of the circumcised men had long-term penile deformities or complications from the surgery, and 99% of the men were satisfied with their circumcisions. In each group, men reporting at least one sexual dysfunction at baseline averaged 24.7%, and this decreased over the 24-month trial period to 6.0% at 24 months, possibly from increases in experience and confidence in these 18- to 24-year-old males with time, as well as the general psychological counselling and support provided to trial participants. None of the men received treatment for sexual dysfunction.
I’m going back to bed and I wouldn’t be super if it’s biased, it’s just what I found when I wondered how you would actually measure this. A minor point though: they didn’t go to Uganda, they reviewed a number of studies and in one of them some other people went to Uganda. (Or I’m failing to read.) Agreed that sounds like a messed up way to do a randomised study. The papers subtitle is “results from a randomized controlled trial of male circumcision for human immunodeficiency virus prevention” and that sounds more reasonable but I’m not going to dig any deeper tonight
I read that, and even talked about that in my comment. Please don’t be condescending. I clearly meant the original study’s* authors.
The papers subtitle is “results from a randomized controlled trial of male circumcision for human immunodeficiency virus prevention” and that sounds more reasonable but I’m not going to dig any deeper tonight
There’s a vaccine though, which we are already now giving to young boys as well.
Sorry, it both wasn’t clear what you meant, and I thought read in a way other people might completely discount that study. I appreciate my reply pointing out I had asked someone else their experience was probably a bit condescending, but the comment here was just there for clarification since it didn’t read to me as being clear
It doesn’t
It doesn’t.
Have I ever wished someone had genitally mutilated me as a baby?
Male circumcision is genital mutilation, and I think it’s pretty gross that it’s still so common. I’m grateful that I’m American and my parents didn’t mutilate my dick when I was a baby.
I’m glad you’re asking and taking people’s opinions with validity because it’s important that you don’t do that to your baby.
I have no idea where this American obsession with male circumcision comes from. It is an unnecessary medical procedure that you only share with Jews, but they at least can cite their ancient religion as an excuse.
Anyone else in the world just shake their heads about this.
Nope, never.
I live in the UK, I’m in my 40’s and I’ve only ever known a single person who needed to be circumcised for medical reasons.
Beyond medical reasons, which are honestly pretty rare in reality, there’s no need.
I’ve literally never heard an uncircumcised person express a desire to be circumcised.
The idea that you would cut off a part of your kids genitalia just so they could ‘fit in’ culturally is kinda blown away by the fact that it is now less common to be circumcised than being natural, even in the USA. By the time your kid is old enough to care, it will be a complete non-issue, and they can always get one as an adult if they want. Don’t take that agency away.
https://www.medpagetoday.com/pediatrics/generalpediatrics/117464
The idea that it has a population-level health benefit is completely debunked. It is medically advisable in only a tiny fraction of kids (sub 1%). The fact that %60 of the US population is circumcised is all thanks to religious hooey from puritans who don’t want children to masturbate, and think chopping a sensitive part of their genitals off to make it harder to enjoy is the best way to go - thanks to education and a wider exposure to the rest of the world via the Internet, US parents are finally realising this which is why it’s in decline.
Nope. Heavens no. It’s a feel-good part of the body, hell no.
The only requirement is to keep it clean. Parents shouldn’t shy away from educating your boys about this and have some open conversations about it.
Might as well ask if you wouldn’t mind having one fingertip shaved off at birth, the difference being you’d know what you were missing because you have the other fingers to compare it to.
Never even crossed my mind.
women who are generally grossed out by uncircumcised men
And this must be an American thing, because I haven’t met one and from what I’ve been told, most women find uncirc more attractive.
And as for bullying, in my school, if anything, the circumsised would have been bullied for having “half dicks”. Not that I ever saw anyone be bullied over their dicks, that’s just fucking weird.
Absolutely barbaric practice. Obviously not in favour of genital mutilation.
You’d be removing a lot of sexual function for masturbation (now you need lube) and a lot of nerve endings that give pleasure are now chopped off. Dried out numb penis head/gland. Less sliding when having penetrative sex so it’s also worse for women.
For what? In honor of weirdo American puritan? Kellogg brother who hated masturbation? No,it’s bullying. What a rancid country the USA is.
Nope. Don’t mutilate your child.
Why is Christianity always so obsessed with little boys penises? It’s fucking gross.
Don’t mutilate your child. Just remember to teach them to retract the foreskin and wash under it, by the time they are 10, it should be unfused from the glans.
Also for people without foreskin who are having a chld, do not retract it back on your child. It’s not ready to pull back for many many years and you will most likely rip their skin.
I dont remember having to do anything special. Its just separated, there is plenty of it lol.
It’s mainly about teaching hygiene.
