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!
You only need to look a one fact: the only people defending the practice are people who it was done to.
When I read this, it seemed like an attempt at a pithy comment that included a logical fallacy but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I think I have it now.
If you take the position that’s basically the opposite of the posters and simplify you could end up with an imaginary world with features like: circumcisions cause no lasting pain and have no effect on sexual sensation. In that world, trying to make sure there are less circumcisions is still pretty reasonable, you’re cutting up a baby for no reason. But what behaviour would you expect to see from people in this thread? I’d expect to only see circumcised people saying that many of the comments in this thread didn’t reflect their experience and for people opposed to circumcision to take those comments as defending the practice. Only circumcised people saying that a lot of these comments don’t reflect their experience would also be a quality in worlds where:
The fact that only circumcised people are saying a lot of these comments don’t reflect their experience doesn’t give us information about which of these worlds we live in (or more realistically, how much of each is part of our world since the last two obviously have some effect)
People’s personal comments about their experiences before and after the operation do help differentiate, but that wasn’t part of the pithy comment.
It was. But I also think it boils the topic down pretty well. One thing you seemed to have skipped is that there are plenty of circumcised people expressing regret. So the resulting logic table is very straightforward.
People who went through the procedure at a time in life where they can remember both also corroborate this - while it’s generally not the end of the world, nobody wants to be circumcised unless it’s all they’ve known.
Great reply, thanks.
Yeah, that’s pretty solid. With what I’ve learnt in the last 24 or so hours (so I’m a clear expert) it seems like it could still be true that young children will not remember and that they heal differently so that there isn’t a diminishing feeling or the diminished feeling only happens with botched operations / poor healing or an unlucky few. None of those arguments seem solid though. I’m curious to see info on those points if anyone has it
It just seems odd for the practice to have started in independently, in multiple places around the world, and to still be done for different reasons if that were a fact and not just a bias in framing (since a lot of people here seem to be strongly/angrily pushing a message). And that isn’t me saying that the practice should exist, or that the effect doesn’t exist, just that the practice gained momentum independently multiple times and both cutting up your child and lowering sexual pleasure are usually something that would slow down or stop that momentum. I guess there are plenty of counter examples, it’s not hard to find cultural habits that run from weird to terrifying in other cultures so plenty have to exist in yours