It is as safe as any similar procedure, and comes with inherent risk. There’s a reason people talk about “botched circumcisions” which do indeed happen.
The health benefits aren’t even a full percentage point difference. We are talking minuscule differences, and most of it is based on bad science. How can I know this? The studies were often done on grown adults, in third world countries. Disease is already rampant there, and considering rape is so prevalent in many of the areas that anti-rape condoms were created and distributed, there are no social barriers in place to prevent the spread of disease. And finally, they tested to see if there was disease spread almost immediately after the procedure had fully healed. Meaning the men who didn’t get circumcised had been fucking around for a much, much longer time than the circumcised men.
And FGM is a pretty good allegory. We are talking about Male Genital Mutilation, why wouldn’t Female Genital Mutilation be similar? Because it’s normalized in some first world countries? You’re removing double the nerve endings when you remove foreskin vs destroy the clit, I’d say they line up close enough.
Look at it this way, we all agree declawing cats is super safe and has health benefits. But it’s being outlawed all over the place because it’s barbaric. But we still cut baby dicks. It’s pretty fucked up.
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.
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.
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?
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.
oh, the parents? for the most part unknowing, the doctor on the other hand? ya, hate him
Supposedly is super safe and has health benefits, I once compared it to female genital mutilation and ooh boy was I corrected.
Edit: the above is far from an endorsement. Some of yall could use some practice critical reading.
It is as safe as any similar procedure, and comes with inherent risk. There’s a reason people talk about “botched circumcisions” which do indeed happen.
The health benefits aren’t even a full percentage point difference. We are talking minuscule differences, and most of it is based on bad science. How can I know this? The studies were often done on grown adults, in third world countries. Disease is already rampant there, and considering rape is so prevalent in many of the areas that anti-rape condoms were created and distributed, there are no social barriers in place to prevent the spread of disease. And finally, they tested to see if there was disease spread almost immediately after the procedure had fully healed. Meaning the men who didn’t get circumcised had been fucking around for a much, much longer time than the circumcised men.
And FGM is a pretty good allegory. We are talking about Male Genital Mutilation, why wouldn’t Female Genital Mutilation be similar? Because it’s normalized in some first world countries? You’re removing double the nerve endings when you remove foreskin vs destroy the clit, I’d say they line up close enough.
Look at it this way, we all agree declawing cats is super safe and has health benefits. But it’s being outlawed all over the place because it’s barbaric. But we still cut baby dicks. It’s pretty fucked up.
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.
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.
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.
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