The Male Circumcision Thread

And now, Mally, in your honor, a thread were we can debate and discuss (see also: RAEG and wank) about the topic of male circumcision.

You all know the issue.

Where do I fall? Well, I'm a circumcised male, and I really don't give a fuck. I don't feel like not having a foreskin has detracted from my life at all. My sex life is normal and healthy, and my girlfriend is satisfied. So I really don't see the issue. Sure, you could say that the foreskin is very sensitive and adds to sexual pleasure and blah dee blah dee blah. But from my uncircumcised friends, I've also heard that it's a bitch to keep clean. So I figure I haven't really lost out all that much.

I guess you could argue that it's a violation of the childs rights. But, Jesus Christ, with all the other human rights violations going on in the world, you're going to whine about circumcision? It's a fairly standard medical procedure that removes a flap of skin which is next to damn useless. And it's performed on babies who won't even remember the operation until they're older.

Should children have the right to choose if they get circumcised or not? Maybe. Is it a violation of the childs rights? Yeah, I guess. Will I get my own child circumsized? I don't know yet. It just seems like such a minor issue to me, that I really haven't thought about it. Maybe this thread will get me to think about it more. Maybe it will get me to change some of my opinions. But for now, I'm pro-circumcision. If only because none of the arguments from the anti-circumcision camp is able to get my blood boiling.

PS: Another blow to the anti-circumcision camp, is that all the circumcised guys I know IRL really don't give a damn and have healthy sex lives, and healthy lives in general. The only men I hear getting all up in arms against circumcision are on the internet, and many of them talk like they also spend a lot of their E-Lives on Love Shy.

I've met a few uncircumcised guys before who were equally as blase about their penises and satisfied with their love lives as you are. It's just a matter of being happy with what you've grown up with.

I would, personally, never circumcise my son (if I were to have one,) specifically because there's really not a good enough reason for me to do it. If they want to when they're older, fine, but it's not my penis or my decision to make.

dicks itt

congrats dilz your wait is over

I've always wondered how we even got started with the whole circumsizing thing.

When dicks are mentioned, it's only a matter of time before Nihilist starts jerking someone off. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Lapin wrote:

I've always wondered how we even got started with the whole circumsizing thing.

about 7000 years ago in mesopotamia most likely

Mr.Doobie wrote:

And now, Mally, in your honor, a thread were we can debate and discuss (see also: RAEG and wank) about the topic of male circumcision.

Dude, no offense taken, but please don't call me that since it reminds me of Mikey. >_o Thanks a bunch for starting this thread, though; I really mean that.

Quote :

It's a fairly standard medical procedure that removes a flap of skin which is next to damn useless. And it's performed on babies who won't even remember the operation until they're older.

Anatomically speaking, it's not really a 'flap of skin' (flap implying something that is flat and one-dimensional, and, well, flaps). It's more like a fold of skin, with two sides, a shaft-skin side and a mucosa-membrane side, and it's part of the overall penile shaft skin itself. It doesn't fold back when the penis is erect, it just tends to slide back, revealing the glans and mucosal side of itself. Behold! (It does look cooler in a moving image, though.) Here's some of the best photos I've seen on how a restored foreskin works... it's pretty much the same as a natural one.

Also, doing something painful to someone who can't/won't remember it isn't really much of an argument for said action. I'm not saying you're trying to make that into one, just that... it isn't.

Quote :

PS: Another blow to the anti-circumcision camp, is that all the circumcised guys I know IRL really don't give a damn and have healthy sex lives, and healthy lives in general. The only men I hear getting all up in arms against circumcision are on the internet, and many of them talk like they also spend a lot of their E-Lives on Love Shy.

Gotta disagree with you there... I'm on an intactivist forum and I'd say that most of the guys there are married (some for decades) or in relationships with girlfriends... in fact, with most of them being middle-aged, they chose to do foreskin restoration to improve sex with their SOs/spouses, and they say it's been a good thing for both them and their partners.

I have seen some LS-type stuff in intactivism, but at least on the place I'm on, it's actually fairly minimal, and I always point out that it's wrong and unfair when I do see it.

Also, since Lapin asked, here's how the practice got started en masse in America, and why. Basically, it's 19th-century quackery that doctors swore up and down would cure every manner of ill from epilepsy to hip problems....

Quote :

In cases of masturbation we must, I believe, break the habit by inducing such a condition of the parts as will cause too much local suffering to allow of the practice being continued. For this purpose, if the prepuce is long, we may circumcise the male patient with present and probably with future advantage; the operation, too, should not be performed under chloroform, so that the pain experienced may be associated with the habit we wish to eradicate.

Quote :

There can be no doubt of [masturbation's] injurious effect, and of the proneness to practice it on the part of children with defective brains. Circumcision should always be practiced. It may be necessary to make the genitals so sore by blistering fluids that pain results from attempts to rub the parts.

Quote :

Measures more radical than circumcision would, if public opinion permitted their adoption, be a true kindness to many patients of both sexes.

Quote :

Finally, circumcision probably tends to increase the power of sexual control. The only physiological advantage which the prepuce can be supposed to confer is that of maintaining the penis in a condition susceptible to more acute sensation than would otherwise exist. It may increase the pleasure of coition and the impulse to it: but these are advantages which in the present state of society can well be spared. If in their loss increase in sexual control should result, one should be thankful.

cocks

Nihilist wrote:

This thread is now about how Malganis loves cocks.

Hey I can't help it if I do

I'm not planning on doing it to my future/hypothetical son. I just don't see the point. It's kind of barbaric, in my opinion, even if it is done in the safety of a sanitized hospital.

He'll just have to learn to clean under there. It shouldn't be too bad.

Nihilist wrote:

I'll just sit over here and wait for someone to start touching mine.

*poke*

Mr.Doobie wrote:

It's a fairly standard medical procedure that removes a flap of skin which is next to damn useless. And it's performed on babies who won't even remember the operation until they're older.

When. You mean when.

Now, I don't feel particularly strongly on the topic of circumcision, but I do abhor this particular argument. By that logic, you could argue that it's fine to, say, saw off somebody's arm without anesthetic, if you planned to erase their memory afterwards.

(No, not comparing circumcision to hacking off an arm. Just pointing out the inherent flaw in the argument. And the fact that the logical extreme is: "if it's okay to operate on a baby's penis simply because they won't remember it, what else is it okay to do if they won't remember it?")

Once again I will restate my issue with routine circumcision of babies: there is no good reason to do it. Any of the reasons put forward can wait until the person is old enough to make the decision.

I am a strong believer in people having autonomy over their bodies. This applies even to usually minor cosmetic procedures that probably won't have any ill effect.

Adagio wrote:

Mr.Doobie wrote:

It's a fairly standard medical procedure that removes a flap of skin which is next to damn useless. And it's performed on babies who won't even remember the operation until they're older.

When. You mean when.

Now, I don't feel particularly strongly on the topic of circumcision, but I do abhor this particular argument. By that logic, you could argue that it's fine to, say, saw off somebody's arm without anesthetic, if you planned to erase their memory afterwards.

(No, not comparing circumcision to hacking off an arm. Just pointing out the inherent flaw in the argument. And the fact that the logical extreme is: "if it's okay to operate on a baby's penis simply because they won't remember it, what else is it okay to do if they won't remember it?")

Yes I did mean when. But I don't think the argument was that flawed. When I mentioned that, I was thinking about how, in the FGM thread, Malganis was putting up videos of children getting circumcised in, what I believe, to be an attempt at shocking and appalling us into agreeing with her. Kind of like those Pro-Lifers that squeak "Mommy? Why did you kill me?" at women who have gotten abortions.

But the issue is, the kid isn't even going to remember it. And it's not going to inhibit his life that much, like sawing off an arm or a leg or whatever other logical extremes you can throw at me. To me, it seems like removing the childs appendix at birth. I wouldn't think it's a big deal. The kid won't remember the operation, and they're getting rid of a useless hunk of flesh.

The argument works in a case such as this. Naturally it doesn't when you take it to logical extremes.

The thing with the appendix is that once again it's completely pointless to do it routinely on babies, just in case there might be problems later.

ZoZo wrote:

The thing with the appendix is that once again it's completely pointless to do it routinely on babies, just in case there might be problems later.

Exactly. Either I never posted this when I think I did or no one reads my posts anymore, but I thought I posted an example about my brother. You know what phalanges look like without nails, right? Kinda weird/sick. Feet are ugly enough, why make it worse, yada yada. My brother has problems with his toenails growing ingrown. They get swollen, infected, and its not pretty, so one toenail he already had removed. Now, years and years later, his other toenail has started to do it. Now he likely has to get get another removal.

Now, why didnt we just remove both (it's the big toes) toenails when he was young? Easy. No real point. There was no indication that he WOULD have trouble with it. It was perfectly fine until now. It may just be a hunk of keratin and whatever else the nails are made of, but there was no reason to get the operation done to him just because there's a slim chance he might have issues with it later, and just because he wouldn't remember it. Now that its giving him issues, we can deal with it and that can be the end of it. No harm, no foul.

Thinking about that got me thinking about wisdom teeth. Wisdom teeth give loads of people problems later in life--a lot more than an appendix or a foreskin or toenails, etc.

By that token, surely one should remove the buds of these teeth at birth, before the kid is old enough to remember it?

Again, I personally would not advocate it; it's a decision to be made when older. Plus, preemptive removal doesn't really have any benefits when done to adults, so doing it to babies based on "possible problems" is thoroughly pointless.

Anyway, after that I searched the Cochrane Library for work on circumcision. For those who don't know, Cochrane reviews are the "gold standard" for clinical evidence. They take all the studies on a certain area and combine the findings to have a look at what actually works. There was only one that is particularly relevant here: Male circumcision for prevention of heterosexual acquisition of HIV in men

And it works. Circumcised men are less likely to catch HIV. Of course, a condom could also help prevent that. And the circumcisions were done on older men rather than babies.

So that's the best evidence we have about circumcision: an aggregate of lots of studies showing circumcised men are less likely to catch HIV in Africa when they've been circumcised as adults.

Will somebody please show me some evidence in support of circumcising babies routinely?

ETA: Also found a few studies showing that circumcised men have higher rates of other STIs as are more likely to engage in risky sexual behaviours. I'll withold judgment on that till I find a meta-analysis.

ETA again: No meta-analyses, boo. What does exist suggests that circumcision is also protective against ulcerative STIs (e.g. herpes, syphilis), but not against non-ulcerative ones (e.g. chlamydia, gonorrhoea, hep C). So if you're circumcised and her vagina is covered in sores, go right in. Uncut guys, you might want to skip out on that.

I have a better example. Why don't we remove hymens at birth? Nobody can figure out what the point of that is, either.

But then how will we know if the woman is PURE AND MARRIAGEABLE?

grmblfjx wrote:

I have a better example. Why don't we remove hymens at birth? Nobody can figure out what the point of that is, either.

Actually, why don't we remove hymens at birth? It'd make sex easier the first time, certainly.

myeerah wrote:

grmblfjx wrote:

I have a better example. Why don't we remove hymens at birth? Nobody can figure out what the point of that is, either.

Actually, why don't we remove hymens at birth? It'd make sex easier the first time, certainly.

You just answered your own question, you do realize that, right? :/

This thread is useless without pictures.

Mr.Doobie wrote:

Yes I did mean when. But I don't think the argument was that flawed. When I mentioned that, I was thinking about how, in the FGM thread, Malganis was putting up videos of children getting circumcised in, what I believe, to be an attempt at shocking and appalling us into agreeing with her.

I honestly wasn't trying to shock anyone, like - "ZOMG SO GROSS BLOOD EVERYWHERE A BABY SCREAMING!" I was just... seeing if anyone else watching it would feel the horror I felt seeing it. I couldn't even watch the whole thing - I just started feeling like I could cry, and turned down the audio because I, who can look at all sorts of gurochan and rotten.com shit without even blinking, felt sick from it.

Quote :

But the issue is, the kid isn't even going to remember it. And it's not going to inhibit his life that much, like sawing off an arm or a leg or whatever other logical extremes you can throw at me.

Okay... David Reimer lost his penis from circumcision, and then was castrated and raised as a girl (he later took back his male identity).

Shane Peterson (link here) suffered very painful erections for years, ever since he hit puberty, because he basically had the entire shaft skin on his penis removed, to the degree that skin had to be drawn up from his balls to cover his penis, so it was pulling his penis askew and twisting it whenever he got an erection.

Here's a guy who lost his entire glans from circumcision, and finds masturbating to climax to be essentially impossible without further stimulation

I'd say their circumcisions inhibit their lives quite a bit.

Are these extreme cases? Yes. Do all circ'd men have shit like this happen to them? No. But then, we don't really know how many American guys are walking around now with unsightly adhesions from circumcision, or who have erections that are a bit too tight for complete comfort, because their circumcisions removed too much of their penile shaft skin -- which is what the foreskin is. It's not a flap and saying that it is inaccurate. It's part of the penile skin and to whatever degree you remove it, you remove part of that movable skin system.

And really, when you choose to circ your son, you're gambling with his health. You don't know that he's not going to be one of the ones who ends up with a horrible infection, or a tight circumcision that causes pain later on, or adhesions, or a lost glans. Or maybe he'll dodge all of that and just won't like how his cut penis looks when he's an adult. You don't know, so I think it's a bit arrogant to assume that he is going to like it.

I think America has this really weird thing about circumcision. I know TMZ is a shitty, bottom-feeding show already, but when Sandra Bullock adopted her little son, they actually joked about him being circumcised. I just stopped when I heard that and I thought "They're joking about a child being strapped down and having part of his genitals removed... how sick is that?" How sick is our nation when a show can do that on national television, about any human being, and not be firebombed with complaint calls?

It reminded me of this video, which yes, I've posted before, but there's a part in there where the doctor doing the cutting says, "He's got himself all worked up", or something like that... referring to the infant who's screaming in pain because of what the doctor's doing to him. It's not something that the child's doing on his own, he's screaming and shaking like he is because something's being done to him.

And again, both that and the TMZ thing reminded me of this one guy on the intactivist site I visit, who was telling about watching, along with his parents, the videotape of himself being born, and his parents were saying on the tape how much they loved him, and he had all these conflicting angry feelings towards them while he was watching. And then when the video comes to where he's been circ'd and he's being handed back to his mother and is visibly in pain and upset, his father joked about "He's not happy - he just got his little weenie whacked." And the son was so upset and angered by his father joking about his obvious pain that he got up and left the room.

It just smacks of this massive denial that something is being done to another human being. It's like people just seem to assume that it's just something that 'happens', and it's acceptable to either sweep it under the fucking rug or to joke about it. And I think it happens in individuals, and frankly I think it's in our nation as a whole to a large degree. Obviously not in everyone here in America, but why else is this practice continuing if it's not imbued in our culture to a great degree?

Knorg wrote:

This thread is useless without pictures.

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there you go

The only strong feelings I can muster either way is that 'intactivists' are sometimes lulz-inducingly stupid.