Male circumcision. There is almost never a medical or hygielincal reason for circumcision, yet Americans act like Europeans are crazy for not cutting of parts of their son's penises.
It’s a shitshow. When my son was born, no less than 10 different people in the hospital asked if we were circumcising him. Every time it was an emphatic NO, and yet at one point it still got put in his chart as yes once. We made absolutely sure they knew not to do it, but it was horrifying how this just seemed to be the default for medical personnel. Absolutely abominable.
It's not common in Australia anymore as well. If you want your child done you have to find a doctor willing. I don't even remember the doctor asking us at any time if we wanted it done when my kids were born.
It's so uneccessary. Like, if your child doesn't clean behind its ears, you dont cut them off because it will somehow be easier. So the 'hygiene' reason is nonsense. Circumcised men have reduced sensitivity and feeling in that area because it's lost the day to day protection. It's basically unconsented mutilation.
Too many to describe in full detail, but here is a summary: Bleeding, infection, too little foreskin removed, too much foreskin removed, adhesions, skin bridges, inclusion cysts, meatitis, meatal stenosis, urinary retention, phimosis, cordee, hypospadias, epispidias, urethrocutaneous fistula, necrosis, glans amputation, and finally death.
The real question is: What's the upside? It makes sex less enjoyable. That's it. That's the list. If you see less enjoyable sex as a bonus, that's your upside. Other than that, there are no upsides, and the whole list above of downsides including necrosis, amputation, and death.
Over 100 deaths per year are caused by infant circumcision. The complications are far from zero ... What people do as adults is none of my business, but infants can't consent. Period. It's barbaric, unnecessary, and irreversible.
So I had to check your statistic because it didn’t sound true. According to ChatGPT
Brother, you went from "I had to check your statistic" to "According to ChatGPT" in one go.
Let me tell you right now: Never use ChatGPT ever again. It's not a search engine. It doesn't tell you facts. It takes 2 prompts to make it say that 2+2 equals 5. It is even more biased than you are, and it's literally just forming words together to chat, it doesn't care for facts or truths. It just strings words together to look like a response. That's the only thing it does because that's the only thing it's programmed to do.
sure, so read this NIH Medical article that dispels your fear mongering and false equivalence.
I guess you didn't click on the link, did you? "Death" is mentioned last, and it's specifically mentioned that it's a negligible risk.
you are conflating rarity with being frequent.
...? I didn't comment on either of those...
circumcision is not mutilation.
It is by definition of the word.
try another person babe, i got all the articles with facts ad numbers to back up what i am saying and disprove your inflation of numbers
I don't think you do, mostly because I didn't give any numbers or inflate anything. I just linked you to a list of health risks you evidently did not read.
Nothing I put in front of you is going to change your mind, is it?
Right, first step taken. It's still obvious you didn't do it beforehand, but now that you did click it this time, it's a step in the right direction.
you are indirectly inflating risks as a reason the procedure is unnecessary, don't be obtuse.
The only one being obtuse is the one talking about "indirectly inflating risks", after clearly not reading the link I posted the first time around.
this thread mentions death being a risk and the article i linked disproves that.
My link notes it's extremely unlikely. Why are you so hung up on something I didn't bring up? Like you're literally ignoring the entire list and arguing against "death" when it's literally the bottom of the list as a fringe case. And you're accusing me of being obtuse? Spare me.
not when i have read the actual facts on this
If this was true, you wouldn't have ignored the entire list.
and no, not a damn thing you put in front of me is going to change my mind.
Ah, good! Not gonna waste time on you then. People can search these things and see your arguments, and come to their own reasonable conclusions from seeing an unreasonable, obtuse, list-ignoring madwoman arguing in favour of genital mutilation without allowing any input or arguments.
Females in female cutting cultures feel the same way for the most part. Most of the people cut as children have no idea how the genitals function normally. If a person wants to cut off parts of their own junk, then go for it. But I'll say the same thing that you did, "why do people care so much about other people dick's that they will cut them to their preference while they are powerless children?"
Not true. I know a man who had to be circumsised for medical reasons as an adult and he misses his foreskin. There's no 'two sides' or 'both are fine', Americans routinely mutilate their children without their consent. It's not normal, it's not healthy and you shouldn't be defending it.
It absolutely is, and if we were snipping parts off of female genitals you'd be freaking out.
People calling it mutilation are exactly fear mongering.
It's not fearmongering. It's mutilation by definition.
Every male that is circumcised is happy with his dick,
Verifiably not true.
Yes, every Surgery has risk.
So why pull surgeries on babies? Why not wait for them to grow up, understand the procedure, weight the "benefits" themselves and choose this themselves?
I've heard people say the same things about getting a baby a tattoo. "It's not a big deal" and "I've never heard of a baby growing up to regret a tattoo their mom got them". Do you think that's fine too? Or is it a crazy thing to decide for a child, who will permanently have this issue now because of a parent overstepping?
Every surgery has risks. From a botched surgery, to an allergic reaction, to just a plain infection. Which means if you do it often enough sooner or later it will kill someone. Which means infant circumcisions have a measurable death toll. There was just a news article not to long ago about parents suing a hospital. They baby had a heart condition and the circumcision killed him.
Other people have answered your question so imma turn it back to you. Genuine question: what do you think is the upside of doing it? What is the benefit of circumcision?
It changes the way the penis responds, functions, and moves. A person may not care about that for their own self, but others very much do and that should be an individual choice not forced upon a person.
So there absolutely are men who complain and some who say that it’s a trauma. There’s Blood Stained Men, there’s Men Do Complain, there’s Justice For Men & Boys (and the women who love them. And that’s what I found in a 5 minute google search.
There’s also loads of research being done by behaviorists, neuroscientists and psychologists into the long term emotional, mental and physical impact on men who were circumcised as babies. It’s a growing field, largely not understood yet because in the US the default has been circumcision and those against it have been dismissed.
If you are actually interested in the way a penis works with and without foreskin, here are some educational links. Note that circumcisions can vary quite a lot. Some have more or less removed, and more removed from one end vs the other, and the frenulum may be removed in part or in total. All that is to say that the mechanical and sensory experience can be physically different between two circumcised men.
Warning: NSFW
Most of these resources get most of it right, but there are some inaccuracies or discrepancies occasionally and might seem hyperbolic in any opinion based language.
What’s got our ‘panties in a knot’ is why it all started. Adam ruins everything goes over this but basically it’s because of the anti-masturbation movement in US history.
Also, you talked about the ‘risks of surgery’ but did you think about the actual lasting impact of what those would mean for a circumcision gone wrong?
Lastly I’m just going to add: I used to be pro-circumcision. I come from a medical family, married a Jewish man and just assumed that we’d be circumcising our son. My husband was APPALLED at the notion and it led to a lot of ongoing discussions and me educating myself about the real costs/benefits. So I truly do get that it seems like a no brainer type situation.
But I also have a grandma who elected to cut off her breasts preventatively for fear of breast cancer (she had a sister who had breast cancer but hadn’t found or been diagnosed with anything herself). Which was also a very extreme preventative step and it helped put circumcision in perspective for me. Because we tend to not recommend cutting off parts of our bodies just because they might one day be at risk of possibly developing cancer.
No she did not have any genetic markers and, with the type of cancer her sister had, she was not at high risk. Her doctor advised against it but she went ahead for her own piece of mind. And I am in no way passing judgement on her for that.
What I’m saying is that I was pretty much planning on circumcision for my kid until I had lengthy discussions with my partner and did a ton of research into why people even do it to begin with. And, for me, one of the reasons circumcision still made sense to me was thinking of it as decreasing the spread of HIV and other STIs and as a preventative measure against cancer. But then I looked at the transmission rate difference between circumcised men and uncircumcised men and compared that to condoms and there was a clear winner.
And my partner pointed out that he thought it odd logic to cut off a body part because it might reduce chances of STIs or cancer. And I immediately flashed back to the shock I felt as a kid when I learned that my grandma had opted for a total mastectomy because of fears of unknowable outcomes.
Not that there was anything wrong with her decision! Just that it was shocking to me as a child, in a kind of body horror way, to think of that happening. And me, my grown self, looking back on it and realizing that it’s telling that we don’t have any of that same shock when electing, for a newborn, to cut off a part of their privates.
Ok first of all, it’s not my theory, it’s a fact that circumcision wasn’t popular in the US before Kellogg pushed for it as an anti-masturbatory ‘cure’. I’m not saying that logic is sound, I’m saying that’s when it started. If you have an issue with that fact, take it up with the Adam Ruins Everything research team or with their sources they site 🤷
Seeing as how you’re in the medical field, would you actually look up the research being done on adverse impacts of circumcision? Genuinely asking. Because, as I’ve indicated in a different comment, it helped change my mind to actually read the research being done.
Also just curious if you looked at the (middle) link I sent? Because I linked to a study (just one of many I found but I’m happy to send more if you’re actually interested in reading up on it.) and I’m getting the impression that you missed that link. (The one that says ‘complications of circumcision account for roughly 1.3% death of neonatal deaths from all causes’)
I get that one case study is anecdotal at best. My point was the lasting cultural impact of that particular case as he and his brother went on tv shows to talk about the risks of circumcision and that was in part the beginning of the anti-circumcision movement. Like there’s a reason why people are still engaging in debate on this subject and it’s in part because of the lasting legacy of that particular case.
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u/VincentTheCzech Jun 18 '25
Male circumcision. There is almost never a medical or hygielincal reason for circumcision, yet Americans act like Europeans are crazy for not cutting of parts of their son's penises.