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.”
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.
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?
Some people believe in doctors, the CDC, the World Health Organization, and countless other institutions, and some people don’t. You’re the latter, and the last 4 years taught me that people in your camp are wrong about too many things, but also that you need to be told you are wrong before you get emboldened by your recklessness and idiocy.
It also showed me that you’re depraved sycophants that are almost always projecting some weird perv shit.
There’s more to science literacy than you are capable of, apparently. Otherwise, you know that there’s a biological purpose foreskin serves and the choice to remove it is weighed against risk factors that are very low and able to be mitigated.
Grow up, wash your dick, and use a condom. Get a circumcision if you want when you’re an adult. It’s not that hard for the vast majority of the world and history. You aren’t “right”, you’re just an asshole. Talking about genital mutilation in terms of camps, get over yourself.
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.”
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
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.
Some people believe in doctors, the CDC, the World Health Organization, and countless other institutions, and some people don’t. You’re the latter, and the last 4 years taught me that people in your camp are wrong about too many things, but also that you need to be told you are wrong before you get emboldened by your recklessness and idiocy.
It also showed me that you’re depraved sycophants that are almost always projecting some weird perv shit.
There’s more to science literacy than you are capable of, apparently. Otherwise, you know that there’s a biological purpose foreskin serves and the choice to remove it is weighed against risk factors that are very low and able to be mitigated.
Grow up, wash your dick, and use a condom. Get a circumcision if you want when you’re an adult. It’s not that hard for the vast majority of the world and history. You aren’t “right”, you’re just an asshole. Talking about genital mutilation in terms of camps, get over yourself.