• UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    So, if you’ve every had to clean out the inside of your son’s penis, you might feel a little bit differently. Circumcision was considered a standard hygienic practice for decades. There are some marginal benefits to health and safety, particularly wrt transmission of STDs. But given the modernizations in health and safety (particularly condoms and milder skin-friendly soap) it definitely feels archaic.

    I’m circumcized. I don’t think it’s a big deal. My son isn’t (largely at the objections of my wife who was much more anti-circumcision than I am). So far, he hasn’t seemed to mind having a foreskin. It strikes me as something people just like to get mad at. It has no discernible impact either of our lives, except in the case where I’m giving him a bath.

    Compared to, say, the consequences of laws around abortion or modern contraception or vaccination, this seems trivial to the point of being a deliberately engineered distraction.

    • homes@piefed.world
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      2 days ago

      So, if you’ve every had to clean out the inside of your son’s penis, you might feel a little bit differently. Circumcision was considered a standard hygienic practice for decades. There are some marginal benefits to health and safety, particularly wrt transmission of STDs. But given the modernizations in health and safety (particularly condoms and milder skin-friendly soap) it definitely feels archaic.

      It feels archaic because this is archaic bullshit. it takes about a second to pull back the foreskin and wash it with the rest of the penis/pubic area during a normal bath the bathing a baby/toddler, and teaching a child this very normal habit is very simple and easy. The vast majority of human males on Earth handle this very normal task, and have done so for the entire existence of humanity.

      Just because the misinformation you just repeated was pushed by the American medical establishment for a few decades doesn’t make it fact, and it has been widely repudiated by the medical establishments everywhere else, and even here in the US in recent decades.

      It is no longer widely recommended, even in the US.

      And your personal preference isn’t really medically relevant.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        The vast majority of human males on Earth handle this very normal task, and have done so for the entire existence of humanity.

        Go ask around the medical community and you’ll discover quite a few didn’t handle it well. Kids don’t do a good job of washing. That area is easily infected, even setting aside STDs. The procedure was created precisely in response to these perfectly normal human conditions, along with a litany of other - now largely archaic - practices for avoiding illness and infection.

        It is no longer widely recommended, even in the US.

        Even that fact varies state-by-state. It is no longer automatically covered by health insurance, which has resulted in a large drop-off in the practice domestically. But then that’s been the US standard for medicine going on 50 years.

        And your personal preference isn’t really medically relevant.

        It’s highly relevant, since parents are the ultimate arbiters of their childrens’ health and well-being.

        • homes@piefed.world
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          2 days ago

          Go ask around the medical community and you’ll discover quite a few didn’t handle it well. Kids don’t do a good job of washing.

          I have, and this isn’t true. it’s also not supported by the medical documentation available. Instructing kids, especially when you start from an early age, to develop proper hygiene habits is pretty easy. I’ve even borne witness to it many times personally, although I’m not necessarily offering my personal experience as proof.

          It’s highly relevant

          not when you’re making claims about everyone everywhere. what matters there is evidence to back up your claims, which you have yet to provide.

          so, since you were the one who initially made such claims… please back them up from reliable sources such as the AMA, for example.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            I have, and this isn’t true.

            I’ve got a friend who is a PA that has given me some very unpleasant stories about infected foreskins.

            Instructing kids, especially when you start from an early age

            Sure. People can do lots of things if they are instructed well at an early age. But then people aren’t instructed well. And that’s where you run into problems.

            I’ve even borne witness to it many times personally

            Fascinated to hear all the times you watched someone else wash their dick

            not when you’re making claims about everyone everywhere

            Yes. These are universal problems for the male population. And circumcision is one solution so popular and so common that it’s practiced the world over.

            you were the one who initially made such claims

            I assure you that I’m not the first person to suggest the benefits of circumcision.

            • homes@piefed.world
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              2 days ago

              OK kid come back when you have some actual evidence to back up your claims, lol

              Your anecdotal claims amount to a pile of nothing but personal preference in Internet story time. And while you are perfectly welcome to your personal opinions, you are not entitled to spread claims of “truth“ without backing it up with actual evidence from trusted sources.

                • homes@piefed.world
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                  2 days ago

                  What? Some guy you could’ve easily just made up to try to make a point in some anonymous Internet forum?

                  That’s the point of verified scientific studies from trusted scientific institutions. I don’t have to take your word for it. I can take their word for it. And you still haven’t provided any actual evidence to back up any of your claims.

        • elucubra@sopuli.xyz
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          1 day ago

          It’s highly relevant, since parents are the ultimate arbiters of their childrens’ health and well-being.

          Precisely. Parents should protect their children from genital mutilation.

          EDIT: also, parents are NOT the ultimate arbiters. Judges and social services are, and can and should remove children subject to genital mutilation.

          • homes@piefed.world
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            2 days ago

            And, unfortunately, for decades, particularly in the United States, parents were misled with medical misinformation that told them it was medically necessary (or “recommended”) to circumcise their babies. Thankfully, that is no longer the case. Unfortunately, it is still culturally reinforced, although that is fortunately fading.

            But it will likely be several more decades before that misinformation and cultural force finally fades completely.

        • daannii@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          I think you are misinformed.

          Published by Nature in 2023.

          https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2022&q=circumcision+benefits&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C14#d=gs_qabs&t=1776109496893&u=%23p%3De-tlmZfRSqAJ

          “What is the medical evidence on non-therapeutic child circumcision?”

          We conclude that non-therapeutic circumcision performed on otherwise healthy infants or children has little or no high-quality medical evidence to support its overall benefit. Moreover, it is associated with rare but avoidable harm and even occasional deaths. From the perspective of the individual boy, there is no medical justification for performing a circumcision prior to an age that he can assess the known risks and potential benefits, and choose to give or withhold informed consent himself.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Naturalistic fallacy aside, I missed that mark when I got corrective surgery for scoliosis. I’ve also got a few tattoos and piercings that any proper orthodox Jew would find abominable.

        My son spent three months in the NICU and had I don’t even know how many medical interventions during that time. His “perfectly natural unmutilated body” would have been a 1.5oz corpse.

        We’re both way past circumcision as the defining issue of our lives.

        • nomad@infosec.pub
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          One is medical necessity and one is religious bullshit inflicting pain and assuming consent. Go do something productive with your life… Vote or something.

          Its OK to move past the trauma, it’s not OK to assume everybody should go through that progression just because you did.

        • timestatic@feddit.org
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          2 days ago

          But the point is you wouldn’t tattoo your child before he is of age and without consulting him. This practice is not necessary

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            you wouldn’t tattoo your child before he is of age

            I would not wait for my son to turn eighteen if he needed a medical alert tattoos to avoid an EMT accidentally killing him.

            Maybe you would. That’s your call as a parent.

            • timestatic@feddit.org
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              1 day ago

              What the hell? Why are you suggesting I would let my child die if they needed medical treatment. You might have your own opinions about circumcision but lets keep discussion civil. I’m just saying that most circumcisions done right after birth aren’t done out of medical necessity and I would alter the body of my child because they wouldn’t be able to reverse it if they ever wanted to

    • MeatPilot@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      I’m uncircumcised and my son is uncircumcised. Really goes a long way on understanding how to deal with a normal uncircumcised penis. Cleaning it doesn’t take any extra effort.

      Unfortunately for you the information on how to care for a normal uncircumcised penis on a younger child is not easily available because of the expectation that all American children are circumcised.

      You are not supposed to retract the foreskin until later in life. When? Well it’s different for everyone but can be as late as age 10 or more. Until that time it’s “self-cleaning” just wash the outside. Tell the kid to keep trying to gently retract it when he pees or baths, if it doesn’t pull back easily it’s not ready.

      You don’t need to get soap up in there until it starts retracting on it own, the skin begins to naturally separate. If you force it, you can cause scaring and damage, you’re literally ripping the skin from the glans. Once it retracts, pull the foreskin back wash the glans and ta dah… clean dick.

      It’s made out to be this big inconvenience and believed by men with their foreskin removed. It’s not at all an inconvenience. You also don’t have any idea what your missing out on by having a circumcised penis.

      Anyway thought I’d share before you mess up your kids dick. Lot of doctors I’ve talked to I had to correct on the proper way to take care of an uncircumcised child’s penis, it’s very unsettling and you might have got incorrect information yourself.

      Lucky for me a have the proper equipment to know what I was talking about.

        • MediumGray@lemmy.ca
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          2 days ago

          You should probably cut your earlobes off too then, you don’t really need them and it’s possible they could get infected at some point in your life. And I’m sure you shave your and your children bald regularly, right? You don’t need hair and it removes the possibility of lice which can carry blood-born diseases.

        • horn_e4_beaver@discuss.tchncs.de
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          I think you’ve got a very weak argument for it. It seems sensible to me that elective procedures should have clear benefits to outweigh the corresponding risks of performing it; there are always risks with performing medical procedures.

          And w.r.t. you comment on no chopping — it’s a piece of skin that is attached to a human body, it doesn’t just fall off by itself. You do have to cut it. Choppy choppy.

    • 0x0@lemmy.zip
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      2 days ago

      here are some marginal benefits to health and safety, particularly wrt transmission of STDs.

      Bullshit.