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!
Except it has more upsides than downsides. In fact, except for extreme outliers there are no downsides. Not once in my life had I ever thought “I wish my parents would have not circumcised me as a baby”. From a US perspective, I think it looks better, most women think it looks better, and it saved me from cost, pain, and awkward teen years of waiting until adulthood to make the decision.
OP, you said it yourself, really. You aren’t unhappy to be circumcised. You know at least one guy in real life who hated not being circumcised. Do you know anyone in real life; not the internet where people with negative outlooks on an issue tend to be the most outspoken, and not from all the other countries with different cultures and norms, but that you actually know that was mad about being circumcised? I work in a field that’s very… Not shy about bringing up things like this. I’ve never met a guy who wished he wasn’t circumcised.
Nanook can go ahead and call it mutilation, trying to lump it in with a dangerous and sexual pleasure ruining practice done to women in a handful of places, but I’ll hard disagree. Mutilation is “a severe and disfiguring injury.” I don’t see circumcised as any of that, and neither do most people where OP or myself are from.
No.
You are wrong.
There are literally 0 upsides.
There are 0 medically valid reasons to fully or partially circumsize a penis that is not suffering from some kind of rather rare, actual congenital malformation.
The only things you list as upsides are aesthetic, fashion choices, they’re only ‘popular’ where you are … because they are common where you are.
It literally is a disfiguring injury.
It signifcantly changes how the thing looks, and works. Thats disfigurement.
No, it is not as severe as female clitoral removal.
But, the foreskin has a ton of nerve density in it, comparable to how many nerves your head/glans has in it, as opposed to the significantly lower nerve density on a cut shaft.
A circumcised XY male person literally is not physically capable of experiencing the same level and variation of sensation, of sexual pleasure, as an uncircumcised person.
It also removes the ability of the penis to ‘glide’ along the foreskin when inserted, which means it changes how it functions.
Automatic male circumcision at birth is literally a brutal, nonconsensual method of reducing the pleasure an XY man can experience from sex.
Thats what it is.
Thats a cultural norm in the US, mainly, and not so much anywhere else.
For the record:
Circumsized guy here, done at birth, then, I learned things.
The US is a brutal and delusion place by the standards of basically everywhere else.
We are the weird ones, we are the brainwashed ones.
We just happen to also make the most porn, and we invented the internet, so our cultural norms have had an outsized importance and level of influence.
Outside of the US, male circumcision is generally only done by fairly extreme religious groups, and for very rare but actually medically necesssary and valid reasons, like some kind of actual congenital abnormality/malformation of the penis that is present at birth.
You say their are literally 0 upsides, but then you name a couple of upsides. Lol.
Also, if you want to be a dick about it, there have been several scientific studies done showing that HIV and most other STI’s are significantly less at risk of contraction if you’ve been circumcised.
There is like, no upside its literally you making up reasons to justify your condition lol.
You’re doing the same thing, but hey, we can both start throwing links at each other to back up our points, if you’d like.
But you know what, lets just say for the sake of argument neither dick has any medical or hygiene or STI risk differences (because there’s loads of evidence showing uncircumcised people are at a greater risk of getting those)
I think it looks better, and most people in my country think it looks better. Personal preference? Sure. But personally, we got better looking dicks. The other medical benefits are just a bonus.
You’re not going to bring up the sensitivity arguments? Foreskin is a natural part of the body, the fact that it’s the norm is meaningless. If we were chopping off the tips of ears or male nipples would there be “no downsides” either? Why not just NOT do the thing? You can’t undo a circumcision.
Sensitivity arguments? Go check Google search trends and tell me if the searches for guys trying to last longer is larger than the searches for lasting too long.
Sure buddy, go play with your half dick
Smegma
Imagine arguing “I’m a child who can’t clean his own body” in public to justify mutilating children so their genitals are prettier
shower
The infection risk only becomes an issue when you’re old. I’m getting circumcised at 70, I’m keeping my dick whole until then. Your dick looks ugly, sorry not sorry.
Also, I’m happy you like your dick, I’m sure you’d also like it if your parents didn’t remove a piece.
I don’t know who told you it was only a risk when you’re old, but that isn’t true at all.
Something tells me this guy could talk about dicks all night slong.
All night schlong XD
There are a number of men who are upset about it, they’ve formed advocacy groups and some use therapies and procedures to regrow foreskin.
https://www.doctorsopposingcircumcision.org/
https://intactamerica.org/
For some balance, this isn’t very informative, but it does fairly frame the debate:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3255195/
I mean, there’s groups for everything. If just 1% of men in the US were unhappy about having been circumcised, while the other 99% were happy or indifferent about it, that’s still over a million people unhappy. It’s still a super minority of people.
If any other elective medical procedure had a 1% chance of extreme regret, it would be considered psychologically risky, in addition to the chance of complications.
Do we know the actual numbers for how men feel about the procedure? I think that’s important if we’re debating this on the merits of joy/regret.
I couldn’t find any good sources that surveyed adult men on their parents’ circumcision choice.