Reblog if youre american
Reblog if youre american
387 comments
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Genital mutilation under the guise of “easier to clean” is stupid. Cutting off your legs also makes them easier to clean.
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What's even funnier to me is how people will full on rage when someone brings up female genital mutilation while in the same breath saying circumcision is fine
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People will defend the most batshit insane things just because they're used to it.
But I also think there's an element of (understandable) insecurity to it.
If they concluded that mutilating the penises of babies is wrong, then that makes their penis "wrong", and society is really weird and judgemental about penises. There's a huge amount of pressure applied to men about their genitals.
We constantly talk about big dicks and "big dick" energy. Casually saying someone has a small, soft, or ugly dick is seen as a scathing insult, we constantly mock people for it, both in life and in media. Comments about their penises is something used to build up or knock down men. It's used to make them feel powerful and manly, or weak and emasculated.
It's no wonder people rally so hard against those who want to see an end to male genital mutilation. The very victims of it typically don't want to feel like their dick is "wrong", because society at large has told them that if their dick is bad, they aren't real men.
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Dude, yeah. It’s so weird.
I refused circumcision for my son (25 years ago, US hospital), and had to remind the staff several times because it was just assumed it would be done. I stopped them 3 times during different shifts when they were about to take him from our room for the procedure.
Then when it came up in conversation when he was an infant, people would say to me ‘you should have done it’, because he would get infections (he never did), or he’d be bullied in gym showers (he never did to my knowledge), or whatever. My take was it should be his decision, not mine.
The pressure was really intense, though. It’s weird how interested people can be in someone else’s infant’s penis. We’ve never talked about it, but reading stories from other men, I assume he’s happy being uncut, and I’m glad I didn’t do it.
e: for anyone reading this days later, I did ask my son for his opinion prompted by this conversation, mostly because of responses I got elsewhere in this thread that made me question my decision:
Me: Hey man, so feel free not to answer this if it’s too personal, but I was having a debate about circumcision and another parent challenged me saying I’d made the wrong decision. So yes/no/I don’t want to talk about it cuz that’s weird, do you regret my decision?
Son: I don’t, and none of my partners have, either. I only get thumbs up and compliments. I hope that wasn’t too personal.
Me: Not at all. Thank you for giving me your and your partners’ review!
So yeah, it’s not just my assumptions. And no regrets.
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The main problem is that people tend to intuitively think of the least invasive form of male circumcision and the most horrific form of female genital mutilation.
For both genders, all kinds of forms exist
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I like mine cut tbh; I think it looks nice.
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That's fine, as long as that isn't used as a justification to normalize this procedure's continued use without medical necessity.
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I mean, people just like what they're used to.
If you never got circumcised, you'd likely be saying "I prefer uncut. Looks a bit weird with a piece missing."
I'm willing to bet if you surveyed, say, Israel or Saudi Arabia, on what looks better between chopped and natural, they'll say circumcised. And if you surveyed, say, Australia or Spain, they'll say uncircumcised looks better.
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First I agree with you. Need to say that first.
If you go back to the beginning of this procedure, how(/if) people cleaned themselves looks very different from. Our modern world.
Because of that it seems it being a health issue is a lot more likely for the origin of circumscision as a regular societal practice. Even if that was not the main reason but one of the supporting reasons people allowed it to become normalized. The history of hygiene(or the lack there of) is horrifying.
I mean Lysol was developed as a feminine hygiene product... We have done some very questionable things because of snakeoil practices even in relatively modern times (which i think religion is one of the OG snakeoils)
What are we doing today that will look as crazy to the people of the future as circumcision does to many of us right now I wonder?
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I've seen people lose their shit over babies with pierced ears and young children getting tattoos. There's all sorts of dental work you go through as a kid that you have functionally no control over.
Even had someone chew me out because a foster kid I was taking care of got a haircut (three years old and she'd literally never had one before).
At some point, it is the parent's duty to take care of the child, and that extends to medical decisions with profound long-term consequences. I get wanting to change the culture, but the degree to which people exaggerate the harm of circumcision struggles to eclipse the degree to which it is defended.
Cutting off your legs also makes them easier to clean.
There is some substantive utility to legs that doesn't extend to the bit of flesh around the tip of your dick.
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Yeah but as a dad, i don’t like legs. I want my kid to look like me. I was amputated voluntarily. Legs get dirty anyway.
Actually, why not just cut off the penis and replace it with a tube? That’s a lot cleaner and still functional!
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Honestly, can you elaborate on what would be a justified reason to do it?
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Being able to turn the end of my dick into a water balloon is all the substantive utility I require, sir.
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Foster kid is a different situation but in general seriously don’t bring someone else’s kid to their first haircut. Thats an important moment for parents. It’s a major milestone, especially with girls. That original in-utero hair behaves different.
Three years isn’t that weird. I know a girl who was 4 for her first. She had the most gorgeous, long curls. It was really hard for her mom to get rid of those.
Know a couple boys who were each three too. They look like totally different kids once they lost all their baby curls.
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As an American who’s uncut… there’s a scar?
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There is no scar.
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I don't really care. My dick works great, I wouldn't do this to my kids but my parents trusted the doctor. I still love my parents anyway.
E: also, this illustrated girl looks really weird, and this is a really weird conversation. Real women do not look like this, and I wouldn't get naked in front of a girl who looked like this. Eeesh.
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oh, the parents? for the most part unknowing, the doctor on the other hand? ya, hate him
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I don't hate the doctor either. It was a long time ago, and intent matters. I don't think the doctor wanted to hurt me, they likely bought into the studies and groupthink that were prevalent at the time.
The result is unfortunate, but it happened, and we all strive to do better with our own kids, especially now that we have things like the internet.
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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.
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Yeah, my parents didn’t do it, and I ended up getting phimosis in my early twenties and having to get it done then.
On the one hand I do appreciate that they left it up to me, but on the other hand it was intense pain for a couple of weeks and at the time I was really wishing that they had just gotten it out of the way.
For me, it’s a wash. That may or may not be typical but it’s probably slightly better that they left me the choice? Can’t put the foreskin back on the penis I guess.
My son was born with hypospadias, so I didn’t really have a choice with him. Had to get it done or he would be peeing out of the bottom of his dick forever, which saved me and my wife a difficult decision.
All of this said though, I personally prefer being circumcised. Cleaning is way way easier, and in my own personal experience I have a lot more sensitivity when doing anything fun with my hog. My partners have also preferred it, and some of them shared with me that they had previously gotten UTIs from uncircumcised partners.
Like I said, I appreciate that my parents left it up to me, but at the same time I think the genital mutilation trope is way overblown in the majority of cases. Not all of course.
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It should be an individual’s choice as to whether you chop off part of their dick, not society’s.
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No you’re getting it wrong: you LOSE sensitivity because the head of your penis is getting direct stimulation all the time. Because of the resultant loss of sensitivity the expectation would be that you would take longer to finish.
But sex is a complex thing that involves a lot more than just the physical stimulation, so it’s not 1:1 with regards to speed. It IS howeve impactful for the pleasure of the person with the penis. It’s more intense and pleasurable for people that aren’t circumcised. Sex is obviously still great even if you are circumcised but it’s a little like being colorblind if you were circumcised at birth: you don’t really know what you’re missing so it’s kind of ok and not really bothersome for the majority.
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It's a non-issue
Right to one's own body and doing cosmetic or religious surgery on kids: non-issue
Lol
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I remember idiots on reddit swearing it lowered my sensitivity by a lot but if that were true…
Certainly possible, but also not even necessarily a bad thing.
I should note that there's another big knock on benefit.
Circumcised men compared with uncircumcised men have also been shown in clinical trials to be less likely to acquire new infections with syphilis (by 42%), genital ulcer disease (by 48%), genital herpes (by 28% to 45%), and high-risk strains of human papillomavirus associated with cancer (by 24% to 47% percent)
Which, particularly back in the 60s-90s period, was a bfd given the stigma around contraception and other genital protection measures. Significantly less so now when condoms are so readily available. But even then...
It’s a non-issue but people have to be mad for something I guess (because there’s no other big reasons to be mad/s).
It does feel like people are looking for something to fixate on as a rabble-rousing issue that's a-political-ish. But the loudest anti-circumcision advocates tend to have truly awful surrounding politics. It feels like a... trojan issue.
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“I love my parents , even though they were too ignorant to think for themselves,” is how genital mutilation perpetuates. People need to be held accountable for not questioning inane rituals and traditions. Education, not mutilation.
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Always weird to be reminded that the World’s eminent superpower is obsessed with cutting bits off babies’ dicks. But then, maybe that’s the secret behind their economic strength?
After all, the Romans did some pretty wild stuff, like making their horses generals.
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I mean, the Middle East and Africa have even higher circumcision rates and it doesn't seem to be working out for them
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Could you still fuck a general? Asking for a hoplite.
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Perhaps the next natural step is joining that with their love of firearms. Circumcision by mass shootings or something.
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So glad that didn't happen to me.
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Me too, were the lucky ones
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Mine only stayed uncut because there was a protest going on outside the hospital where I was born, where dudes were demanding their foreskins back lol
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I am for one happy to be circumcised (i had a really awful, treatment resistant inflammation, circumcision on young people for no reason is shit)
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I love when this topic comes up because people definitely don't have a weird fixation on foreskin and totally have balanced discussions that calmly hears both sides.
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Not a fixation on foreskins but on personal freedoms and the right to choose what happens to your own body:
Are you an adult? Cut off what ever part of your body you want to. I don't care.
Are you an adult who wants to cut of body parts from others? No. Stop it. Let them decided themselves when they are old enough.
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I'm so glad it was done to me when I was a baby. 100% the proper way to do it.
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If you intentionally do not recognize it as a legitimate medical procedure with lots of science backed behind it, then you're purposefully spreading misinfo. That's just a fact. Just like how some people in this thread are saying it reduces sexual pleasure, scientific evidence states this is not true. It's also significantly safer and less risk when they're a baby. These are just peer-reviewed objective facts that have been extensively tested and confirmed.
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I think part of the problem with this discussion is that a lot of us who were circumcised without consent spend most of our early years thinking it's normal and there is nothing to be upset about. So when people point out the practice is generally very harmful, it is upsetting. It can be hard to process at first, and I think, unfortunately, some people double down on traditional rationalizations as a defense mechanism.
That being said, I am not a fan of people referring to my genitalia as mutilated/mangled or to me as damaged. It is completely valid to be upset about having your foreskin removed without your consent, but I feel sometimes people veer a little too far in projecting their own hurt onto others. Many people live fulfilling lives with circumcised penises, and some even do it by choice, so, speaking strictly for myself, I generally am glass half-full about it.
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Yeah, I think since the practice is based on organized religion and there's no consent when circumcised, the validity of circumcision is quite questionable.
But, medically speaking, is circumcision harmful?
That's a genuine question and I see a lot of uncircumcised people complain about phimosis and the skin flap getting tighter and more uncomfortable as they grow older, being cut sounds better.
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- Kids can't consent. Parents do it for them in every aspect. This is no different. Making medical decisions for your kids is normal.
- You have no reason to be bitter about a legitimate pre emptive procedure to prevent smegma and potential phimosis
- Male circ is a safe and sometimes necessary procedure.
- Why cant you people be honest? You're bitter we get it. But lying about circumcision is just stupid and doesn't convince anyone to not do it.
- Everyone should Google phimosis. Anti circ ppl love to lie about there being no medical reason or excuse it away.
- It's none of your business what other people do with their bodies.
- There is nothing harmful here at all. It's no different than removing a skin tag. Demonizing it is laughable.
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Why is this a both sides thing? Circumcision is a Jewish rite that became a larger thing because of a couple mentions in the Christian New Testament. It also has some medical application for individuals with certain conditions.
Doing it to all male babies doesn’t make rational sense unless you are a specific type of religious.
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This mf both sidesing cutting baby dicks, smdh.
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Mine was at 16 because my foreskin stopped growing. I honestly would have preferred to have it done at birth before I could remember the pain (like my brothers).
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I never learned to roll back my foreskin when I was a wee lad and so once when I was 8 it got infected and I had to apply ointment to it and keep gradually peeling it back from its swollen and cemented position like trying to squeeze a tennis ball out of a tight gym sock. it hurt to pee for a week. Still, Im glad to have my foreskin.
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I'm uncircumcised and after fapping when my head is still exposed i cannot wear underwear or pants omfg it's so fucking uncomfortable touching anything dry, IDK how circumcised people live, it's like constant pain.
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Kertinization. A layer of keratin forms around the head to protect it when circumcized.
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I love it, and I have no idea what you are talking about, it's never bothered by being in clothes.
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I think you might have syphilis
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THIS!! Why didn't anyone else tell him? I'm glad you did. He might not die of fantasy now.
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Same shit in the Philippines.
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We are united by our mangled penises
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Makes sense, Pilipinas was an American colony after all.
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*territory
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My poor penis.
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I just wish they weren't doing a 50% off special when I was born...
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you know I don’t get with no wormies
-Francine Smith
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Why is a child touching your circumcision scar?
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oh my god, too real 😂 except I was there, my scar is more brutal and I'm all the more stupid for letting it happen. I'll explain, and I'm going to do so in more detail than I ever have before.
I was living in China in 2017 and I got an infection on my guy. In hindsight because I had a new girlfriend, was having a lot of sex, and wasn't cleaning very much. My girlfriend takes me to the local hospital in this "small town" (different meaning in China), and I sit down in front of this miserable looking bloke with a fat, fancy golden wristwatch who says: "你有两个选择 。。。either take this medication and the infection will probably return, or 'peel skin' and be free of it forever."
I looked at my girlfriend with a grin and asked what she thought would be best. How bad could it be anyway if they do it to babies. Probably like getting your ears pierced.
She drags her thumb across her throat and screams "off with his head!" or more likely she calmly says "peel skin." All I remember is that she said it without hesitation. The slimy looking doctor slithers upstairs to the operating room and I get on the table where there's a large light above my head which, turned off, is acting as a mirror. I can see everything as his assistant passes him the syringe to knock out my guy and then the scalpel to begin the scalping. All I could see was a bloody mess when his phone rang in his pocket. I could smell the blood as his assistant removed the phone from his pocket and answered the call. "They want to speak to you" she said. So the doctor puts the phone between his ear and his shoulder and continues cutting and chatting away. "That's my dick you prick!"
The next day my guy is bandaged from head to toe. I tell my girlfriend to stop visiting because every time I get a erection I drop to the floor in writhing pain. Limping along the pavement a group of 80-somethings breeze past me. The pedestrian light goes green and I barely make it to the island in the middle of the road before it goes red again. I lie awake every night, plagued by spontaneous erections and excruciating pain. As the wound healed a grotesque scar formed as a reminder that the body is sacred.
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Appreciate your story. Sorry for the pain.
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pp look like clown noise
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Is they/them talking to a penis or a person? WTF is a reblog??
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Grandpa get off my computer
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Ok ok but first you help me with this Google machine and tictac youngsta
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Oh jesus christ can we please leave this stupid circumcision bullshit on reddit?
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Well, you didn't leave your dumbass comments there either so, pot calling the kettle black
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No
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Would you rather talk about the Genocide in Gaza?
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Sure; it's absolutely awful and I hope somebody intervenes soon. It's also embarrassing that as an American our money goes in part to fund it. What else would you like to say about it?
Oh right, you're just once again being a disingenuous douchebag who is trying to equate real world harm reduction voting strategy with implicit endorsement of a genocide as if the alternative wouldn't only exacerbate the situation, still refusing to actually use your own words but rather relying on the better words of others, only now in this totally unrelated thread.
Good job falsely assuming I have pro-zionist opinions just because I believe in practical application of real world policies and strategies though! I had to unblock you and the other dude from that thread temporarily so I could restore a removed comment; I appreciate the reminder to block you again.
Finally to your other point in the previous thread, I don't block opposition discourse, I block disingenuous bad faith actors. You know, like you.
For all necessary context, see the following thread in full: https://lemm.ee/comment/8402332
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It looks better cut than uncut. Change my mind.
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"the human form looks better in a certain color"
yes i realize this isn't inherently racist, im making a joke to point out how silly this is
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I'm in the minority here but I got it done to me as a kid (no choice, barely aware etc) and I'm grateful for it. Just way cleaner overall and no discernible difference - there's the rumor that it affects sensitivity but I'm just as horny as the rest of the damn men are. Also because I was so young (or maybe the docs at the hospital were skilled), the only scar is a tiny scab on the under side that doesn't affect anything. I wouldn't endorse it for children but I can't argue it was terrible either.
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It affecting sensitivity is not a rumour, it's a fact. There are nerve endings in the foreskin. Ergo, it must remove sensitivity. And this can be corroborated by many who get the procedure done as adults.
And the "way cleaner" thing makes zero sense unless you don't have access to running water. The world outside of the US + Middle East aren't walking around with dirty dicks, and if you don't have running water, all of you will be dirty regardless.
There are babies in the US that die each year from circumcision complications. It causes pain. It reduces sensitivity. Plenty of them are done "traditionally' - i.e. without any pain relief or sterilisation. It leaves scars. 5% of circumcisions are botched, sometimes causing pain and discomfort - particularly during sex - for the man's whole lifetime.
It's completely unnecessary, and barbaric.
The fact that we're in 2024 and there's still places out there cutting parts of the dick off of babies as a religious or quasi-religious (in the case of the US) ceremony is crazy.
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If you wash your dick the cleanliness isn't a problem
Also sensitivity has nothing to do with how horny you are.
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the reason he mentioned the horny bit was ironically the exact reason this was started in the first place, because the man who tried to make a cereal so boring it would kill morning wood, said it would make people less horny (well not just Kellogg but many others as well)
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I'm not saying cleanliness is a problem, it's just easier to clean. If you exercise often, it's easier to maintain a short hairstyle clean than a long one for example.
'Horny' may have not been the best term to use but I hope the message got across. If I was more sensitive before getting cc'd, then I must have had one hell of a hair trigger
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Lol how is it cleaner? You just wash your dick and it is clean anyways. You are juat trying to justify it because you dont want to blame your parents for cutting pieces off you to fit their aesthetic.
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I've had a foreskin all my life and it's just another part of your body that you learn to care for, like ears.
Also like ears, it takes a little bit of extra work to care for your foreskin, but it's worth it because not-unlike ears, foreskin heightens your sensitivity to stimuli.
Also, like ears, the idea of lopping it off is barbaric on its face. We in the west are happy to use the descriptive, and more emotionally resonant term 'genital mutilation' when we talk about the equally barbaric practice that is forced on females in other cultures, but we still hide behind euphemism and branding when talking about mutilating perfectly good penises.
Also, this is intelligent design? You leave at least two defects in the V1 production push, refuse to release a day 1 patch, and your hot fix for one defect is just to cut if off - eventually, meanwhile the appendix is just left to lurk.
Goods not as advertised.
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there's the rumor that it affects sensitivity
Just to offer a correction to this for you, it is not a "rumor" but physiological fact. Circumcision removes the frenar band, which is very densely innervated and a principal errogenous zone for those that are uncircumcised, additonally, the Meissner's corpuscles, which contain thousands of touch receptors and tens of thousands of endings that are biologically specialized for sexual pleasure are amputated.
I can't, personally, attest to the effect as being cut is all that I've ever known but, the evidence is undeniable about the fact that circumcision diminishes the male sexual experience.
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I got it done as an adult for medical reasons. I stand fully behind everything you said. But: I don’t have any scar whatsoever
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Getting it done as an adult is fine. You consented. I'm also fine with piercings or tattoos on adults but not on babies for the same reason. Though that's a bit of a false equivalence as genital mutilation is more dangerous and less reversible than those other two, so I guess I find them less objectionable, though still fucked up.
Getting it done out of medical necessity is also fine, for pretty obvious reasons.
Forcing it upon a baby for no reason isn't.
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Have you noticed any loss of sensation compared to before the procedure?
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Why do people downvote you for just sharing your experience in a manner? I’m circumcised too and glad that I am.
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Because he's A) talking nonsense, and B) making genital mutilation of babies sound like it's not that bad.
You want part of your dick cut off? Cool. Do it when you're old enough to consent to it. Genuinely. If that's what floats your boat, then do it. People should have the right to body autonomy. Slice your ear off as well if that's what you're into. Anything.
If this were about tattooing babies, or piercing them, or cutting off their earlobes, everyone would rightly be against it (even though all of these are less dangerous and less likely to have complications).
It's only because Americans, Jews, and Muslims are used to this practice that they accept it. If it were a new thing, it would be seen as the barbaric practice that it truly is.
I believe there's also the element of "well if I admit that circumcision of babies is wrong, that means there's something wrong with my penis. And I don't want there to be something wrong with my penis. Therefore I'm on the side of genital mutilation being ok."
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Because this particular internet conversation moved beyond any kind of rationality somewhere around 2002
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The more time I spend on Lemmy the more I realize people here are just the worst.
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Most people think this, however this is the Internet where minorities shout the loudest.
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Sometimes the majority be stupid. I know, I know, hard to believe. Remember the Geocentric model?
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387 comments
Yeah fuck circumcisions. Child abuse is what it is. I want my fucking foreskin back
My mother used to hate it when people would get baby girls' ears pierced. Called it child abuse and mutilation.
I'm circumcised.
Damn. That's pretty fucking shit.
Same here, some fucked up shit.
Doom music starts playing
Not sure how badly you want it back, but it is possible to restore. Non-sugically. Basically skin under tension causes Mitosis (skin cells dividing to make more skin) - think putting on weight, gaining muscle, getting pregnant, or ear gauges. You tug the skin long enough and eventually have your hoodie back. The results are surprisingly impressive. r/restoring_foreskin has a bunch of info
bruh. I don't necessarily want it back and was just angry about the fact that it was taken from without my consent in the first place. But thanks for the info anyway, tho not sure what I'm gonna do with it.
I basically did by accident
That's not gonna restore the nervous system bits associated.
Just make sure to double, triple, quadruple check any foreskin restoration advice you get. Some of the ways people suggest can be really dangerous.
Oh, I’ve seen that. It’s fascinating. There’s a ball with outer clamps and varying degrees of weights you can add on a dangly bit. You attach the contraption for some number of increasing minutes per day, and it stretches the skin surrounding the glans until it’s long enough to encompass the glans. After a while, the little ball will be encompassed by the new foreskin.
He says it’s not painful and I believe him, but not being the owner of a penis, it looks at least uncomfortable to me. Then again, I’ve never used gauges, either, and as you said, it’s pretty similar to that.
Grow It Back Again - foreskin restoration anthem from How To with John Wilson (HBO 2020)
(Piped mirror)
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Grow It Back Again - foreskin restoration anthem from How To with John Wilson (HBO 2020)
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Oh yeah I remember this guy. He has a good cause (anti circumcision) but had to ruin it with Bill Gates conspiracy theory nonsense. Also I love How to with John Wilson
edit: hmm actually there is some stuff about bill gates and circumcision so I should probably fact check myself here