Great reply, thanks.

nobody wants to be circumcised unless it’s all they’ve known

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

Not quite:

https://mander.xyz/comment/22680300

And I’m not confident that their aren’t more that I’m missing in a quick scan

Aligning on a purpose is important. I’d argue that being aware of how on board people are for that purpose is important too. I recently tried to say that the family chat should have less influencer posts since we don’t all agree on the positions and it causes friction. Boy was that a shit show

got personal stories about my loved one’s descent into MAGA

You and me both. It’s a bit terrifying how much of this has momentum outside the US. The supporters of South Korean president that ordered military rule wearing MAGA hats, or how often the talking points pop up outside the US, especially during US election cycles, from the “free thinkers”.

who does actually do a great job of prescribing the best advice for trying to engage in debate theatrics: Stop and move on.

Thinking of my personal experience, I get that, especially on the mental health front. Thinking of societal / political implications though, doesn’t that just give time to scatter information that’s hard to dislodge? A lot of what I’ve heard is the importance of prebunking, like what’s written in The Debunking Handbook (2020).

Let me know if you’d like to hear the synopsis in my own uneducated words, I in no way expect anyone to watch all that bullshit

I’ll save this post and get back to it. I also have a long boring flight coming up soon.

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:

• circumcised people are trying to legitimise an experience they went through since otherwise they may have lost something for nothing, or
• there are strong religious groups trying to push for the practice of circumcision.

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.

Do you have links to more effective strategies?

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

True, and if you kind of remove the Muslim map from the circumcision map I think you’re roughly left with the US, Canada and Australia. I originally thought British colonies, but a lot of the commonwealth doesn’t circumcise much. It’s not even British colonies that are still christian, since the UK doesn’t seem to circumcise much.

Anyway, I wonder why it’s these non-Muslim countries. I don’t think the Kellogg-masturbation narrative would have had that strong a hold in Australia, but I’ve been wrong a lot before

No, I clearly don’t know what it feels like for an uncircumcised person and nothing I have said has come close to that. I’m not pushing back on the idea that it might feel better for an uncircumcised person. I’m pushing back on an outspoken individual hoping to hear from more individuals on this thread

I honestly would be curious to see studies that people thought were trustworthy that showed it one way or another. Accounting for it in an adult is easy (ask before, ask after, large enough sample) but its not inconceivable that it’s different when done on children (they heal better in general and the practice is relatively widespread) and I think a study that managed to do demonstrate difference there would be difficult. That said, most of what I saw at a glance seemed to indicate little change and the voices on this thread seem to be shouting it’s a large change in feeling. It would be nice to be able to account for that difference. And I struggle a little with the idea that there is a large change in most individuals since that would imply it could be feeling a lot better and it already feels amazing enough that it already gets me into plenty of trouble.

Sorry, it both wasn’t clear what you meant, and I thought read in a way other people might completely discount that study. I appreciate my reply pointing out I had asked someone else their experience was probably a bit condescending, but the comment here was just there for clarification since it didn’t read to me as being clear

That’s a hell of a jump. I’m very ignorant on that topic and it’s a minefield. Which is what I suspect you’re aiming for here, baiting.

Back to where we started though… how would they know there is a difference if that’s their baseline experience? And it sounds like you learnt some individuals experiences, it can be risky expanding on those and assuming other people’s experiences are the same. But ironically… asking an individual what their experience was is exactly what I was trying to do when you jumped in

I’m going back to bed and I wouldn’t be super if it’s biased, it’s just what I found when I wondered how you would actually measure this. A minor point though: they didn’t go to Uganda, they reviewed a number of studies and in one of them some other people went to Uganda. (Or I’m failing to read.) Agreed that sounds like a messed up way to do a randomised study. The papers subtitle is “results from a randomized controlled trial of male circumcision for human immunodeficiency virus prevention” and that sounds more reasonable but I’m not going to dig any deeper tonight

I guess it’s probably the abrahamic religions:

My bad

And surprised that map doesn’t line up with this one:

He got around. I keep hearing of things related to him and a lot of it’s not great. I’m skeptical of it working well but nice quote

I’m also skeptical the cultural reasons for circumcision have much to do stopping masturbation or Kellogg when I look at a map of where it’s practiced:

Ahhh… how do you know how they feel?

Personally I don’t feel mutilated nor have I had any issues with sexual pleasure, alone or with other people. It’s news to me this could be an issue.

Looking at the other comments there is a good chance they will reply with something similar but damn you’re pushing a narrative and I think overstepping by speaking for someone here. Especially since you, as you said, already replied to me with the same message / assumption.

This study doing an analysis of the research doesn’t seem to agree:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7691872/

A lot of comments in this thread agree with you though. Where did you get your information to be so confident?

Why are you thankful?

How does it stop boys from masturbating?

Thanks! Mlem does what I’m after