NOTE: This thread is about male circumcision only. Do not bring up or attempt to discuss female circumcision. That subject is off-limits in this thread.
I started thinking about this because I had lunch the other day with my group of lady friends. We’re all in our early '70s. One of them said she observed when changing her new grandson’s diaper that he is not circumcised. She asked her daughter about it, and the mom said a lot of her friends are deciding not to have their baby boys circumcised.
I’m curious about whether Dopers know of such a trend among young families, maybe their own children, who are deciding not to inflict circumcision upon their baby boys. I know Jewish boys have to be circumcised for ritual and historical reasons. Fine. But does everybody? Is this something that’s going out of fashion? That’s my question.
Another one of the women at lunch said she had four brothers. The first three were circumcised. When the fourth one was born, the doctor said he didn’t need to have it done (can someone explain?), but their mom said she wanted it done so he wouldn’t look different from his brothers. At different times in the past, I believe it was common for boys to be naked together-- in sports, showering, swimming, camping, etc. Is that still common? I truly have no idea. Maybe if the trend is not to have it done so much in the future, to be or not to be circumcised won’t be so much of an issue any more?
I’m a woman, no siblings of either the male or female persuasion, no children likewise, so I don’t know a lot about the subject except that I think it’s barbaric to do this to a baby. To cause pain to an vulnerable and emotionally significant part of a little boy’s body-- not sure I could have this done to any baby of mine. (BTW in my younger, socially active days, I’ve only seen one penis that was not circumcised. I liked the look of it.)
In addition to the main question in the OP, discussion of male circumcision in general, including the history of the practice, is okay. I guess we can expect a certain unavoidable amount of puerile humor (after all, “puer” is “boy” in Latin).
Male infant circumcision is still the majority option in the United States at around 60%. However, location matters a lot; in the western US it has dropped to 40% while the Midwest and Northeast are closer to 70%. So a person’s perception will differ quite a bit if they are from Boston versus Phoenix.
Religious reasons aside, I believe is was thought at one point to be “healthier” for boys to be circumcised versus uncircumcised . I think that’s been debunked these days, so it’s pretty much up to what parents want. The baby has no say in the matter.
I am Jewish and my millennial son is uncircumcised. My wife and I felt it cruel and un-necessary, and I thought he was just perfect as he was and in no need of being marred. However, my good friend circumcised his son, under the belief it is “medically necessary to prevent infections and keeping it clean and other problems later in life”. He and I are from a generation where circumcision was pretty much universal in the USA, regardless of religion. Also, the whole “but he may wonder why he is different from dad/brother/team mates in the locker room” thing - we simply disregarded that as preposterous. Each to his own. He developed into a totally normal male adult and has had no “infections” or problems keeping his member clean, from what I can tell.
I wouldn’t say ‘debunked’. I’d say more ‘it has been proven that all the medical benefits of getting a penis cicrcumcised can also be gained by keeping the penis clean’. If you are talking a bout foreskins in a third world country, then circumcision would probably be healthier. If you are talking about the United States, just washing the penis thoroughly and often gets the same lowered risk of disease, infection and cancer.
Personally, as Jew, I do not see any reason Chritsians should be circumcised.Plus, if circumcision becomes rare I figure that heterosexual gentile women and homosexual gentile men will be curious and seek out a circumcised (and likely Jewish) penis to see what the difference is. This will lead to more gentiles discovering that Jews are better lovers and becoming addicted to the incomperable pleasure of a Jewish penis. We will then move ever closer to our conquest of the world- all without having to fire a single space laser.
Not really. Diseases caused by poor hygiene can be prevented by proper washing but other diseases such as cancer and STI transmission are more just factor of the membrane itself. You don’t have a greater risk of HIV because it’s dirty, you have a greater risk because the porous membrane is more prone to allowing the virus to enter.
You could, of course, just decide to always use other methods to help avoid diseases and decide that the prevalence of penile cancer is low enough to not worry about it. Thus the AMA’s general recommendation that it’s a net positive but not something that needs to be pushed past providing accurate information.
Just gonna scoot by with my super niche take that circumcision is bad for trans women who decide they want vaginoplasty: the more tissue a surgeon has to work with, the better. If your assigned-male kiddo turns out to be a girl and decides she wants bottom surgery, being circumcised can (can, not will for sure) lead to suboptimal results.
I’m a trans woman who doesn’t mind having her (circumcised) penis and has no plans to get rid of it. I don’t feel like I was horribly maimed or scarred for life by the removal of my foreskin. But I do think it’s super weird to go around chopping bits off a person who can’t consent to it without a very compelling medical reason to do so. All of my friends around my age (34) feel the same way, including my Jewish pals (who, to be fair, don’t have plans to reproduce at present.)
A possible factor is sort of related to the “he might wonder why he doesn’t look like his father” thing. Different ethnic groups have different rates of circumcision and interracial marriages have increased over time. It’s likely that if I had married a white man who was born in the US , we would have had any sons circumcised since the overwhelming majority of non-Hispanic whites born in the 60s were circumcised. It would have been what he was used to, what I was used to and I suspect that lots of people who were circumcised as infants see some advantage to it. But I didn’t marry a non-Hispanic white man. I married the son of Asian immigrants. Circumcision is not common among that group - and a good part of the reason my son isn’t circumcised is because my husband isn’t and he didn’t see loads of people suffering bad health effects because they weren’t circumcised. ( And of course, I didn’t have a strong esthetic preference in favor of circumcision)
I’m Jewish. I had my son circumcised. I would not have done it without the religious injunction, but i was relieved to learn that it’s a (tiny) net benefit on average.
Also, I’ve been to a lot of ritual circumcisions, including one done by a surgeon and the rest being done the “traditional” way. The traditional way is better. It’s much faster, much less traumatic to the infant, and leaves a little more foreskin behind. And frankly, there’s less room to mess up and damage more than you meant to. Our mohel was concerned about pain management, and had useful advice about how to minimize the after-effects. (Our mohel also didn’t do the ultra-conservative thing of sucking up a drop of blood with his mouth. Almost no one does these days, as there’s a real risk of infecting the baby boy.)
I think circumcision is becoming much less common these days, and that’s probably a good thing.
I’ve got no input on the actual thread topic; no parenting-age people in my circle. But it’s an interesting topic and if I stumble on any interesting info I’ll sure share it.
I second this. I unequivocally support making non-therapeutic circumcision of a boy not able / old enough to consent a serious criminal and civil offense (not a separate offense but enforcing existing assault and battery / assault causing bodily harm laws against it.)
Ah, yes. The good old American exclusivism. Old habits die hard. The USA was for a long time a bastion of this quackery and much of the medical community In Western Europe, NO ONE does routine circumcisions on baby boys for so-called “medical reasons” and no medical association worth their mettle would recommend it. For the record, I am uncircumcised and, at almost 45 years old, have zilch problems with the health and hygiene of the organ under discussion. (I am of an ethnic family from a country where no one does this to their children unless they’re Jewish or Muslim, and also I grew up in Canada where, while once popular, routine male circumcision is, AFAIK, no longer quite as common as in the USA (I don’t know if it was when I was a baby.)
This is a website run by men who are angry that they were circumcised as babies. This site should provide the necessary argumentation for my position.
The first few seconds of the video… gives me the feeling that there is a lot of overlap between themselves, Incels, and “men’s rights” on that Venn diagram.
Since millions and millions of men in Europe are not circumcised, I expect there is some sort of study that clearly shows that men in the U.S. have a lower rate of STI in comparison, and due to circumcision, and circumcision only.
More realistically, you won’t find some huge difference which is why the AMA position isn’t “Holy goblins, you MUST do this” but rather “We think there’s a net benefit but it doesn’t need to be pushed”
I’m nipped at the tip… and honestly I don’t even think about it. And generally I prefer cut guys over uncut… seems easier to check for cleanliness habits. I don’t know if you have ever gone down on a guy who for some godforsaken reason doesn’t roll back his convertible top and wash the entire thing every day…. Definitely will put you off with feta cheese or fish sauce in it for the next fortnight or two… along with making you cast a juandiced eye on any you cum across from thence on.
