• @[email protected]
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    -5810 months ago

    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.

    • 𝕯𝖎𝖕𝖘𝖍𝖎𝖙
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      5910 months ago

      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!

      • Hello Hotel
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        10 months ago

        If this is /s its verry funny and asys somthing interesting, im frustrated that the thread has fallen into a false dichotomy,

        Its not ‘not okay’ in the same way its ‘not okay’ to cut off someones leg because thats unamniguiosly being crippled. (Good spoof though!) its amniguiosly immoral.

        • 𝕯𝖎𝖕𝖘𝖍𝖎𝖙
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          410 months ago

          Yeah a better analogy would probably be female genital mutilation but americans generally aren’t familiar with that.

          The real issue is consent. I get that parents consent for their children, but that doesn’t mean the parents are correctly predicting the kid’s preferences.

          It’s just a strange practice that we do in america, not due to religion, but due to … reasons? Cleanliness? “I want my son’s cock to look like mine?” it’s weird as hell, but accepted for some stupid reason.

          • Hello Hotel
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            10 months ago

            female genital mutilation

            okay… wow.

            circumcision is a harder to understand, wrapped in the cloak of medical hospitality to be blunt, its a different form of female genital mutilation.

            I believe its a remnant from old Christianity (Judaism?), where it would mark and/or purify the child in some way. If I’m not mistaken, the god of Abraham communicated that things like sacrificing lambs and other rituals isn’t useful as a sign of good will.

            but yet this literally unholy practice remains to this day.

            to be absolutely fair, mom said yes, telling me the doctors said there was some kind of health benefit, somthing about infections.

      • @[email protected]
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        -3110 months ago

        Yeah but as a dad, i don’t like legs.

        Correlating ear-piercing with decapitation, and holding a picket in front of “Forever 21” with a big sign that reads “STOP MURDERING CHILDREN” and a picture of a tunnel drill going through a baby’s forehead.

      • @[email protected]
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        -3410 months ago

        I mentioned in another comment how circumcision dramatically reduces the rate of spread of STDs. That is, at least from my perspective, the primary (and original) incentive to circumcise. Significantly less of an issue now, because you can just get a condom. But in areas where access to a consumer profilactic isn’t readily available or one in which STD infection is high, it would make a great deal of sense to perform the surgery as a preventative measure.

        Same as giving your kid vaccine shots or putting them in the NICU for the first few weeks of their life or demanding that they wash their hands regularly.

        • @[email protected]
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          10 months ago

          circumcision dramatically reduces the rate of spread of STDs

          Source? Most of the world doesn’t circumcise, and they don’t have a higher prevalence of STDs than places that do. As long as you practice good hygiene, there should be no issues.

          That is, at least from my perspective, the primary (and original) incentive to circumcise

          No it wasn’t. It originated thousands of years ago as a Jewish religious ritual, that had no biological or scientific basis. It was popularised in the US about 100 years ago as a way to reduce sensation in the penis in order to stop teenage boys from masturbating – by Dr Kellogg, for the same reason he invented cornflakes. He was hyper-religious and fixated on stopping boys corrupting themselves by masturbating. The hygiene myths came later and have been debunked.

          It’s an outdated practice based on bad science and beliefs that should stop. That’s not to say anyone should feel bad for having done it when we didn’t really know better, but there’s no reason to continue doing it now.

          e: missed a word

          • @[email protected]
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            -210 months ago

            I agree with all that except for one thing. Kellogg did not invent corn flakes to stop people from masturbating. He did mention once that a bland diet could be used to deter masturbation, but there is no coorelation to corn flakes.

            • @[email protected]
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              10 months ago

              He did, though. I currently live less than an hour from his museum in Battle Creek, Michigan, and there are lots of things about him that aren’t widely shared on the internet.

              Did you know that one of his biggest accomplishments was a foster home for orphans that was destroyed by fire? Running that foster home was what inspired his obsession with a bland diet and with circumcision. He was very strict with their diet, believing certain grains would purify the soul (first oatmeal) – the original, unadulterated grains that were mentioned in the bible. The boys in his home weren’t accepting of his extreme version of Christianity, and he thought that was mostly because they were corrupting themselves bodily. He thought all boys weren’t receptive to Christianity because they were too into their own desires, and he could fix that. First by diet, and when that didn’t work, by cutting off the part of their penis that distracted them by making them feel good, thus tempting them from god’s word. He was a doctor, so people listened.

              This is all Wikipedia dedicates to that part of the story:

              Kellogg was outspoken about his views on race and his belief in racial segregation, regardless of the fact that he himself raised several black foster children.

              So it’s understandable people are downplaying that part of his life. If you live near here, you know the details the internet has mostly forgotten.

              We really need to stop chopping up infant boys based on the ideas of a bigoted religious fundamentalist.

              e: clarity

        • @[email protected]
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          1710 months ago

          I’m sorry, cutting off a newborn’s foreskin is the same as washing their hands?

          Did you eat a lot of paint chips growing up?

        • @[email protected]
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          710 months ago

          As far as I am aware there is only one study done in Africa that showed that there is a correlation between circumcision and a reduced chance to get HIV.

          But that is the only study and only HIV, not all STIs.

          Also this is moot in most of the world where you have access to condoms.

          • @[email protected]
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            210 months ago

            CDC has a whole thing on it

            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)

            By all means, you should still wrap that shit. But if you’re living in a rural community or one that has a strong stigma against contraception, or you’re just in a place where the disease is rampant and you need a secondary precautionary policy, this will have a meaningful impact on disease spread.

            • @[email protected]
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              310 months ago

              Still not really reasonable, especially considering that for the most part this decision can just wait until adulthood

        • @[email protected]
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          510 months ago

          Not so dramatically you can not wear a condom. So given you’re going to strap up anyway, what’s the benefit to having surgery on your genitals?

          • @[email protected]
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            110 months ago

            CDC has a whole thing on it

            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)

            By all means, you should still wrap that shit. But if you’re living in a rural community or one that has a strong stigma against contraception, or you’re just in a place where the disease is rampant and you need a secondary precautionary policy, this will have a meaningful impact on disease spread.

            • @[email protected]
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              710 months ago

              The majority of US citizens do not fall into those categories, and for that reason I see it as an unnecessary procedure that is more cultural than scientific.

              • @[email protected]
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                110 months ago

                The majority of US citizens do not fall into those categories

                They did once, and they very well might in the near future, depending on how we handle legal contraception going forward.

        • @[email protected]
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          -210 months ago

          I don’t think this is the original reason, but it has been found to happen. Also, your risk of penile cancer goes to almost zero, as well as fewer and less serious complications related to the foreskin (or its absence). Going fully nude while circumcised is a dangerous game, though.

    • @[email protected]
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      710 months ago

      Being able to turn the end of my dick into a water balloon is all the substantive utility I require, sir.

    • @[email protected]
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      510 months ago

      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.