Stop all infant genital mutilation.
Not just circumcision but also de-intersex-ification.
When a baby is born with both types of genitals what usually happens is that the male ones are immediately removed and the person is raised as a woman. This is unethical. The infant cannot consent to being mutilated, it is an infant. Ban this barbaric practice.
Best we can do is punishing adults doing stuff consentually. Its the consent that makes it unethical.
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.
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.
All of the “medical reasons” people tout are thin bullshit.
“it gets gross if you dont wash it” THEN FUCKING WASH IT IDIOT
In my twenties I’ve caught a fungus down there. It caused some scarring on the foreskin. Basically it got tighter, so much so that undoing (what’s the term??) it during erections was painful.
The doctor said I needed to be circumcised, so I got the surgery. Healing was not too bad and I can’t say it had any lasting impact (in sensitivity or otherwise).
EDIT:
I lie. There is a lasting impact — I can no longer wank without lubrication. With foreskin I had no need for it.Balanitis, doctor told me the same thing. I said fuck that, managed to stretch the skin back into functioning properly. Painful as fuck but worth it.
Good for you
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
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 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
I was circumcized as an infant without my consent, and my mutilated dick wants you to stop downplaying the severity of its fate.
A piece of me is literally missing, and you want to say I’m not mutilated because that would offend you? Why, do you have uncomfortable feelings about your own situation that you refuse to examine?
Me not wanting to be labeled as mutilated doesn’t invalidate your identification as mutilated.
If you consider yourself mutilated, then yes, you are mutilated. I am not mutilated because we see our personal experiences differently.
Yes but it shouldn’t be done to infants because they did not and cannot consent.
You can’t know whether the infant will come to see it as mutilation. And it is irreversible.
Yes but it shouldn’t be done to infants because they did not and cannot consent.
I have already expressed 100% support of banning non-medically necessary circumcisions.
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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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Good to see these young heros fighting the good fight
Kinda fucked up how people basically ignore the fact that we do genital mutilation in America.
Really fucked up that if you call it genital mutilation or the sexual assault of a child people will push back against it and defend the act.
Not having kids, but it was done to me and I’m fine with it.
I’ve been in a relationship for ages now, but before that all the womem I asked said that preferred cut over uncut. Literally. All. Of. Them. It was at least a dozen.
But hey, don’t let me disrupt this whole… Uhh… Thing you guys got going on this thread.
Literally no thoughtful or reasonable sexual partner is going to say they prefer the type of penis it’s impossible for you to have, so that data is wildly biased.
I’m a woman and I’ve been with both. I don’t really care either way (and I feel confident most women who have actually been with both don’t really care) but my best lasting lover by far was uncut. I will not circumcise any sons I have.
it’s wild to me how many let this one thing dominate their entire identity and rail against their parents for it.
Our parents are fallible. Its okay to point out the fucked up shit they did to us and say “this shit is fucked up”
yeah they should have beaten more kids so they wouldn’t have time to winge about this garbage
Yeah but it’s to boys so who cares? /s
Its actually hurtful to watch the strong opposition to cirumcision involving girls yet barely any opposition involving boys. It looks like another take on sexism and like one commenter said, it makes it more difficult for trans people.
Circumcision for both genders should only be a medical decision, not a thing you or your parents decide just because.
Yeah, men aren’t allowed to talk about it. If we do, we’re questioning doctors, so we look stupid, and we’re questioning women, who all (in my experience) say they aesthetically prefer it, so we look sexist. We’re never going to win with that opposition. That’s why it’s not even a topic of discussion. It’s been decided for us, and we didn’t get a vote.
That why they do it to us as babies, so we can’t fight it. If they waited, we’d NEVER do it.
religion is a poison
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)_/¯
I’ve mostly restored mine and am very happy with it that way, took years although I would get lazy and take breaks often. Not the same as never having done it but definitely glad I put the effort in. Nice to be able to go all day with it covered and it does improve sensitivity and function in a lot of ways. I was happy with my penis before too, just wanted to get the most out of it.
One of the reddit communities I miss is foreskin restoration, got quite a few good tips there. Maybe something like that could happen here.
quite a few good tips there
o_o
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.
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.
It’s interesting that the pro circumcision crowd who rant about hygiene don’t support girls having their labia cut off to prevent grime from accumulating between the folds. Circumcision should be reserved for actual medical reasons, like phimosis, and if possible at age of consent.
and if possible at age of consent.
While I agree with the majority of the argument, I don’t agree with this point. Age of consent is mainly a political thing, disregarding the actualities involved with teenagers and sexual life, and discrediting those who have problems before that set age.
Biologically, pubescence which is around 13 is where this decision should be undertaken, as this is the point where the individual is sexually mature.
Medical problems start before the age of consent so the individuals which are sexually mature should have the option to treat this condition.
The age of consent is not the age of sexual maturity for a reason. Girls as young as 6 can start their periods and can get pregnant, but they’re not mature enough to make informed decisions about their reproductive health, or really anything in general.
Yes that is correct, but you’re misinterpreting my initial argument. As by sexual maturity I mean the average age of sexual maturity which as implied within my statement was 13.
But, alas. It is a problem on my end with my argument not being clear enough on that - I can thank you on pointing that error out.
I still think you have a misunderstanding of what the age of consent is. It’s simply the age where a person is deemed mature enough to consent to having sex with an adult.
It’s not disregarding teen sexualities as it doesn’t punish two people under the age of consent for having sex, and it has nothing to do with reproductive health issues a child might experience. It is to punish adults for taking advantage of a child.
No one is saying that parents shouldn’t be able to approve medically necessary circumcision. They’re saying that parents shouldn’t be able to approve it for cosmetic reasons, and that the child should be the ones making that decision when they’re old enough to do.
The age of consent just happens to be when we deem children old enough to make their own decisions about sex, so it makes sense to restrict cosmetics circumcision until at least then.
I still think you have a misunderstanding of what the age of consent is. It’s simply the age where a person is deemed mature enough to consent to having sex with an adult.
I am aware of that fact. The point here is that people below the age of consent shall be able to decide what they want to do as opposed to waiting till the age of consent, as stated within my first argument.
In essence, teenagers should have a degree of say, because they are capable of understanding medical decisions and shouldn’t be restricted towards the age of consent - which usually is used for sexual consent with another person. In addition, age of consent already does one thing, which is sexual consent to others. It shouldnt dictate what you do to yourself.
The age of consent in most of the US is 16, which I think is a reasonable age to allow the decision.
If you don’t wash behind your ears, bacteria will grow and cause it to smell. By their logic, they should be chopping off ears as well.
The purpose of circumcision is to make maturation and sex less pleasurable as it removes about 1/3 of sensory nerves and meant to make it more difficult to masturbate because you can’t just pull on tight skin. You can still perform the basic acts of sex and masturbation, but it’s not as pleasurable. Likewise, one can still hear without ears even if it’s not as good as those with intact ears.
Just goes to show how insane these people are.
Jeez, if you make masturbation MORE pleasurable, teenage boys will never get anything done. It would single-handedly (pun not intended, but I’ll take it) crash the gaming industry.
I’ve never understood it, even for religious reasons. It’s not medically necessary, and it weakens your sex organ’s ability to do the thing it is supposed to do.
It actually is medically necessary if the foreskin is too tight (phimosis). I had it done on the doctor’s recommendation and my sex life life greatly improved. But this was as an adult, so not really the same thing.
Yeah, but that’ super rare. Only around 0.6% of boys experience it before they’re 15. Even if you’re born with true pathological phimosis, circumcision is usually a last resort because topical steroids are safer and have a pretty high success rate.
“The incidence of pathological phimosis is 0.4 per 1000 boys per year or 0.6% of boys are affected by their 15th birthday.”
penis != boy
better terminology could be used.
If we were talking about adults yeah, but the study is mentioning 14 year old boys…
In this context age is not relevant as I am using the “synonym of man” definition of “boy”
I am talking about the fact that there are non-boys with penises (Such as myself, I am AMAB agender) and boys without penises.
There are better terms that could be used here. In this particular case, for example:
“The incidence of pathological phimosis is 0.4 per 1000 boys per year or 0.6% of boys are affected by their 15th birthday.”
“The incidence of pathological phimosis is, counting only people who have penises, 0.4 per 1000 people per year; 0.6% are affected by their 15th birthday.”
Less concise but accuracy>conciseness in this context
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
With interest.
Gimme that fiveskin.
I see that there are very little cases where it is needed.
I think its also very telling that this post gets so much traction with dudes acting like its a mayor cultural abuse of men while scarcely connecting to other genital mutilation happening to women or even the fact that most medical edvances are still focust on mens health with some medication having serious sie effects for women like for example a pill to stop pregnancies that alot of men just expect to take even though it fucks up the hormonal balance.
I just wish the men on lemmy could see how we all could benifit from targeting the baseline problems partriachy brings us.
All this energy in the comments could be so usefull.
As a bi Guy, I just think they look better without the foreskin. That being said, I’m not going to advocate for having the skin cut off just for aesthetics or handwavey notions of hygiene
