For context, I’m circumcised and expecting a son and my wife and I are torn about the circ. We’re American so from a cultural standpoint circumcision is the default choice. Thing is, there’s no real benefit besides practicing a religion we don’t believe in, and I’m uncomfortable about cutting the tip of my son’s dick off.

On the other side, I’ve met a guy who was bullied in high school so bad for it he got a circ as an adult. Apparently crazy painful recovery. I’ve also talked to women who are generally grossed out by uncircumcised men. I don’t want to make him feel like something’s wrong with him his whole life because I was uncomfortable with the idea.

From a moral standpoint I’m against it, but from a social and cultural standpoint I feel like I should do it? It’s a crappy situation. If there’s any uncircumcised American men who want to talk about their penis I’m all ears.

Edit: I really appreciate everyone’s responses I never expected to hear from so many people. With the decision hinging on social and cultural norms it’s been really helpful to be able to take the temperature like this. I obviously need to talk to my wife, but given the overwhelming support of dick hats I don’t thing we’re going to do it. Thanks, lemmings!

  • NABDad@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1109·
    4 days ago

    Parents who perform unnecessary surgery on their children because society says they should are bad parents.

    That might seem harsh, but it’s true. You have a responsibility to make the right choices for your kids, and “society” doesn’t get a vote.

    I faced the same question, but found it to be a no-brainer. You don’t perform unnecessary surgery on a baby.

    The reason it is performed in the US is to stop boys from masturbating.

    Ignore any excuses for doing it that people have come up with since. That’s the only reason the US started doing it, and every other reason is just people trying to rationalize why they keep doing it.

    The “reasons” people come up with to explain it now are based on extremely unlikely events. All the serious issues that come up are avoided with proper hygiene. Unless they still have a stupid masturbation hangup, it all comes down to this:

    Parents feel icky about having to explain to their child how to wash their penis.

    If you can’t handle that, I’ll tell you right now that you’re going to have a hell of a lot tougher conversations.

    What I told them was to imagine they were wearing a hoodie in the shower. You’d need to pull the hood back before shampooing your hair. Same thing goes for the little head, but don’t use shampoo, that might burn.

    Not circumcising my kids only caused me one problem:

    My mom reacted like it was a direct personal attack on her, because I was circumcised. She saw it as me saying she was wrong. I found it difficult to convince her that I was not judging her. She didn’t have the same information available to her as I did. When I was born, she didn’t really have a choice.

    • pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip
      20·
      3 days ago

      Parents who perform unnecessary surgery on their children because society says they should are bad parents.

      That’s me you’re talking about. And yes. I agree 100%.

      Letting them do an elective surgery on my healthy child was a parenting failure I deeply regret.

      • NABDad@lemmy.worldEnglish
        11·
        3 days ago

        The other reality of being a parent is that regret comes with the job.

        You try to do the best you can do, and you deal with your mistakes as best you can. None of us is perfect.

        I was talking to a work colleague about how I was agonizing over mistakes I made. He said if I’m concerned about my mistakes, then I’m doing ok. He said his parents never thought they made any mistakes or they didn’t care if they did. His attitude was if you’re trying, you’re a good parent.

        Of course, I didn’t stop agonizing over my mistakes. After all, what does he know? He had shitty parents!

        • pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip
          7·
          3 days ago

          He said if I’m concerned about my mistakes, then I’m doing ok.

          That’s helpful to hear. Thank you for sharing it.

          Of course, I didn’t stop agonizing over my mistakes. After all, what does he know? He had shitty parents!

          Haha. Yes.

    • jobbies@lemmy.zip
      16·
      4 days ago

      but don’t use shampoo, that might burn.

      Eh?? If your shampoo burns you shouldn’t be using it anywhere on your body.

      And actually, I find non-soap-based products (e.g. shampoo) better for my bellend.

      • andros_rex@lemmy.world
        50·
        4 days ago

        Covering the organs with a cage has been practiced with entire success. A remedy which is almost always successful in small boys is circumcision, especially when there is any degree of phimosis. The operation should be performed by a surgeon without administering an anaesthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind, especially if it be connected with the idea of punishment, as it may well be in some cases. The soreness which continues for several weeks interrupts the practice, and if it had not previously become too firmly fixed, it may be forgotten and not resumed.

        John Harvey Kellogg - Plain Facts for Old and Young

        • porcoesphino@mander.xyz
          25·
          4 days ago

          He got around. I keep hearing of things related to him and a lot of it’s not great. I’m skeptical of it working well but nice quote

          I’m also skeptical the cultural reasons for circumcision have much to do stopping masturbation or Kellogg when I look at a map of where it’s practiced:

                • porcoesphino@mander.xyz
                  4·
                  3 days ago

                  True, and if you kind of remove the Muslim map from the circumcision map I think you’re roughly left with the US, Canada and Australia. I originally thought British colonies, but a lot of the commonwealth doesn’t circumcise much. It’s not even British colonies that are still christian, since the UK doesn’t seem to circumcise much.

                  Anyway, I wonder why it’s these non-Muslim countries. I don’t think the Kellogg-masturbation narrative would have had that strong a hold in Australia, but I’ve been wrong a lot before

          • Norah (pup/it/she)@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
            19·
            4 days ago

            I mean, there are people in this thread that were circumcised as a teen/adult and commenting on what that was like for them. That is, anecdotally, where my data comes from e:(as well as my own friends and acquaintances, and other threads like this online).

            The study you linked seems to be categorising quality of data, with a focus on sexual function first and foremost. Sexual function has nothing to do with pleasure or sensation, it is merely about ability to get an erection, penetrate something and ejaculate. Neither myself nor others in this thread are commenting on that. Where it talks about pleasure and sensation, the cited studies seem to only ask a binary question of whether there was pleasure or not. Not if it had decreased, subjectively rating it, or trying to objectively rate it.

            It also erroneously talks about the fact that sexual pleasure is attributed to the erogenous zones on the glans and underside of the shaft, not the foreskin. That seems to be hilariously slanted towards being pro-circumcision. I’ve never heard anyone, anywhere say that the foreskin is an erogenous zone, only that it protects them from desensitisation.

            Can we also talk about the fact they went to the rural parts of an African nation to do a randomly controlled trial where they circumcised over 2000 people, some as young as 15, “in the name of science”. What the fluff is up with presumably western, presumably white people doing “science” on black people?? Even if they paid them (which is its own methodological issue) this is just really really messed up.

            The study of RCT participants in rural Uganda by Kigozi et al involved sexually experienced males aged 15–49 years. Of these, 2,210 participants were randomized to a group that received immediate circumcision, and 2,246 were randomized to a control group to remain uncircumcised until after 24 months of follow-up. Participants completed a survey involving the IIEF tool. Sexual function, based on the ability to achieve and maintain an erection (99.7% vs 99.9%, respectively), difficulty with vaginal penetration (99.4% vs 99.9%), difficulty with ejaculation (99.7% vs 99.9%), and pain during or after intercourse (99.9% vs 99.6%), did not differ significantly between each group at the end of the 24-month evaluation.

            Letters commenting on the Uganda findings were mostly positive. Bowa, however, suggested that if the dorsal slit method had been used rather than the sleeve technique, then sexual function may have improved rather than having remained the same. In response, Gray and Kigozi mentioned that the other 2 RCTs (in Kenya and South Africa) had used the forceps-guided MC technique. Sexual function was studied in the Kenyan trial and reported no difference (see next paragraph). A letter by Daar suggested that because the sleeve technique used made a cut 0.5–1 cm from the frenulum, erogenous tissue may have remained to explain the results. However, a systematic review (detailed in the next section) of histological correlates of sexual pleasure attributed erogenous sensation to the glans and underside of the shaft, not the foreskin, with the erogenous sensations claimed to arise from the frenulum actually stemming from stimulation of nearby genital corpuscles in the glans and shaft rather than the frenulum itself. A mostly positive letter by Drenth pointed to the inability of participants in a circumcision RCT to be blinded to the intervention. Drenth also considered that there were statistical anomalies in the data. In a response, Gray, showed that Drenth’s latter criticism stemmed from an inadequate understanding of statistics.

            Krieger et al conducted personal interviews involving trained counsellors of RCT participants in Kenya the interviews, including 1,391 circumcised men and 1,393 control men aged 18–24 years. Participants were evaluated in detail at 1, 3, 6, 12, 18, and 24 months. Sexual function parameters and results at 24 months included inability to ejaculate (1.3% vs 1.2%, respectively), premature ejaculation (PE; 3.9% vs 4.6%), pain during intercourse (0.7% vs 1.2%), lack of pleasure during intercourse (1.8% vs 1.0%), difficulty achieving/maintaining erection (2.3% vs 1.4%), or any of these dysfunctions combined (6.2% vs 5.8%). No statistically significant differences were found in frequency of any of the parameters between the circumcised and uncircumcised men. None of the circumcised men had long-term penile deformities or complications from the surgery, and 99% of the men were satisfied with their circumcisions. In each group, men reporting at least one sexual dysfunction at baseline averaged 24.7%, and this decreased over the 24-month trial period to 6.0% at 24 months, possibly from increases in experience and confidence in these 18- to 24-year-old males with time, as well as the general psychological counselling and support provided to trial participants. None of the men received treatment for sexual dysfunction.

            • porcoesphino@mander.xyz
              4·
              4 days ago

              I’m going back to bed and I wouldn’t be super if it’s biased, it’s just what I found when I wondered how you would actually measure this. A minor point though: they didn’t go to Uganda, they reviewed a number of studies and in one of them some other people went to Uganda. (Or I’m failing to read.) Agreed that sounds like a messed up way to do a randomised study. The papers subtitle is “results from a randomized controlled trial of male circumcision for human immunodeficiency virus prevention” and that sounds more reasonable but I’m not going to dig any deeper tonight

              • Norah (pup/it/she)@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
                6·
                4 days ago

                I read that, and even talked about that in my comment. Please don’t be condescending. I clearly meant the original study’s* authors.

                The papers subtitle is “results from a randomized controlled trial of male circumcision for human immunodeficiency virus prevention” and that sounds more reasonable but I’m not going to dig any deeper tonight

                There’s a vaccine though, which we are already now giving to young boys as well.

                • porcoesphino@mander.xyz
                  3·
                  4 days ago

                  Sorry, it both wasn’t clear what you meant, and I thought read in a way other people might completely discount that study. I appreciate my reply pointing out I had asked someone else their experience was probably a bit condescending, but the comment here was just there for clarification since it didn’t read to me as being clear

                • ZMoney@lemmy.world
                  1·
                  3 days ago

                  Fun fact: a lot of these attempts backfired when circumcised men mistakenly thought that they were now immune rather than just less likely to get HIV, so they had more unprotected sex and the infection rates actually increased.