Dick-slicers of the world, unite!

[puzzlegal]

Answering some questions from the FGM thread, to keep the circumcision stuff out of it.

@Norse

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Originally Posted by puzzlegal:
The parts of the world where male circumcision arose are dusty places, where intact men sometimes develop the same problem.
Cite?

History of circumcision

This says the earliest record of circumcision is from Egypt, and it’s also traditionally practiced by the Semitic peoples (who may have learned it from Egyptians) as well as the Niger-Congo speakers of Africa who seem to have come from “an area of the Cross River in modern Nigeria.” Also “a common practice among Australian Aborigines and Pacific islanders at first contact with Western travellers.”

Dusty places? Egypt and Australia are dusty, the Niger not so much.

@Norse

Originally Posted by puzzlegal
The US Army did a lot of emergency, medically necessary, circumcisions during the Iraq war.
(bolding mine)
Given the prevalence of male circumcision among American and Muslim men, I find this hard to believe.

Cite?

Here are two articles, one anti, one pro circumcision, that talk about problems uncircumcised soldiers faced:
https://www.circinfo.org/Circumcision_and_sand.html
http://www.medicirc.org/summary.html
It’s easier to find numbers for WWII than for Desert Storm. The anti site points out that the actual incidence of foreskin-related problems was low, and probably wasn’t high enough to indicate it would be useful to circumcise conscripts. That’s true. I have never claimed that male circumcision is so helpful that it ought to be done to everyone today. Given modern medicine and the availability of showers, that is an absurd claim, imo. That doesn’t mean that there might not have been significant benefits in the absence of modern medicine and hygiene.

@Norse

Originally Posted by puzzlegal
If you don’t have modern medicine, it’s a lot safer to circumcise infants and boys than to do it to adult men, especially adult men who have already developed dangerous inflammation.
Cite?

Seriously, you want a citation for that? Have you ever talked to anyone circumcised as an adult, or to the friends of such people? How about to parents of children circumcised as infants? Adults have three issues that babies don’t have:
they heal much more slowly (from everything)
they sometimes get large erections that yank on the ends of the cut foreskin
they need to do stuff – babies are helpless and need to be cared for no matter what. So there’s little cost if a baby is slightly less “able” for a couple of days.

Babies heal completely in 7-10 day, men are advised to avoid intercourse or masturbation for 4-6 weeks after circumcision.

What to Know About Newborn Circumcision

Adult Male Circumcision - What You Need to Know

And, you know, men who have already developed phimosis, or whatever — you think that wouldn’t increase any risks? Seriously?

@Norse

That’s almost certainly the historical reason the custom of male circumcision arose.
Cite?

this is my hypothesis, although it’s not original to me.

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@Norse

Certainly, if it’s done under non-sterile conditions with primitive tools and materials. However, comparing the risk of infection after massive female genital cutting in e.g. rural Somalia with a glass shard and using thorns to sew up the vagina afterwards, with male genital cutting done in a Western hospital under sterile conditions and with the access to modern antibiotics and then ascribing the difference to the sex of the child who is mutilated is pretty stupid.

You know, if a girl baby just has her foreskin cut off, I bet the risks are pretty similar to the risks for a boy baby. As I said in the other thread, that’s rarely what is done to girls. (and it’s rarely done when they are babies, I gather.) But I think it’s safe to say that it’s riskier to chop off the penis than to do a circumcision. So no, I’m not attributing the difference in health risks and outcomes to the difference in sex, but to the difference in what is done to girls and to boys.