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Circumcision - Lets not Derail the UK Politics thread.


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I have not read anything in the previous thread so don't know what issues about circumcision were being discussed there.

But as for "basic hygiene" -- this depends on where in the world you live. There are a lot of people in poor undeveloped areas who cannot bathe regularly. This is not because they wouldn't wish to, but because they do not have ready access to clean water through a plumbing system. If most Europeans and Americans had to carry all the water they used in their household in buckets from wells or streams that were a mile or more away from their house, as is common for poor people in many parts of the world, they wouldn't bathe as often either.

That is probably why there is good scientific research showing that in Africa male circumcision does help prevent HIV transmission among heterosexually active men, with circumcised men being 60% less likely to become infected.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/male-circumcision-hiv-epidemic/

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-circumcision-helps-prevent-hiv-infection/

So as with most issues, this is a complex thing and the risks can be very different depending on one's personal circumstances and location in the world.

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18 minutes ago, Pebble said:

Now I'm curious but also rather afraid to ask.   

Do you mean impossible because of some physical limitations?  or because it was your experience that Girls find uncut yucky?

I just didn't understand it. I'd get my cock out at the bus stop and they'd just run away!

Nah it was a medical issue:

Slightly gross explanation:

Spoiler

My foreskin was extremely tight and didn't retract hardly at all. The opening didn't get much bigger than a 5 pence piece (not to brag but my penis is slightly bigger than that :smug:.) If I'd had tried to have penetrative sex, there'd have been tearing and nobody wants that. It was also a real bastard to keep things clean, and my head was unbelievably sensitive.

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the issues in the UK politics thread where, with reference to living conditions in the UK.

 

Pro Cut.    - You can't clean your junk properly, its unhygienic not to be circumcised (in the UK)

Anti Cut  ---   ^^^^ that is BS

and    - I don't understand why there are not laws banning non medical (as in the need, not who performs it) circumcision of children and infants.

 

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7 minutes ago, The BlackBear said:

I just didn't understand it. I'd get my cock out at the bus stop and they'd just run away!

Nah it was a medical issue:

Slightly gross explanation:

  Reveal hidden contents

My foreskin was extremely tight and didn't retract hardly at all. The opening didn't get much bigger than a 5 pence piece (not to brag but my penis is slightly bigger than that :smug:.) If I'd had tried to have penetrative sex, there'd have been tearing and nobody wants that. It was also a real bastard to keep things clean, and my head was unbelievably sensitive.

 

There is a chance that any son of your's won't inherit the same condition so this may not be an issue with them.

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2 minutes ago, Pebble said:

There is a chance that any son of your's won't inherit the same condition so this may not be an issue with them.

My dad had it, so did I. Could be a coincidence, but I don't think it is. I'd rather they not have to take that chance.

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overshare time: 

i got a bad one. mine has left me with slight scarring and desensitization.

the risk of your son having a bad one purely in the pursuit to have his dick meet your cultural, societal,  religious or aesthetic beliefs simply is not a good enough reason. 

it is deeply unsettling how people are so concerned with the genitals of their infant sons.

also i am pretty sure if you let your son make the choice at say 16 or so he is unlikely to be interested in having it done. 

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TBB: you're referring to phimosis. I have it: one of my brothers did, the others didn't, neither did my father or my son. It's sensible to wait and see if the operation is necessary before going ahead. There's no real risk to waiting, and no real benefit to doing it 'just in case'. And as MC notes, there can even be a risk, however small. I don't get why you think you'd be taking a 'chance'.

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4 hours ago, Ormond said:

I have not read anything in the previous thread so don't know what issues about circumcision were being discussed there.

But as for "basic hygiene" -- this depends on where in the world you live. There are a lot of people in poor undeveloped areas who cannot bathe regularly. This is not because they wouldn't wish to, but because they do not have ready access to clean water through a plumbing system.

As humans did not evolve and live in an environment with lots of water and regular bathing until quite recently, it cannot have been such a tremendous health problem. Otherwise would not the foreskin have tended to "vanish" (by evolutionary pressure) at least in some subpopulations and/or should far more cultures practice circumcision than actually do?

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As I recall one of the suspected reasons the foreskin to exist is precisely to protect from dirt and other things.

And about circumcisions and HIV prevention, maybe the studies being talked of in the Scientific American article are better, I don't currently feel up to playing follow the thread, but the article actually indirectly points out a problem with some of the original studies when it says

Quote

But with adult and adolescent males coming in for circumcision, doctors and nurses have the opportunity to give them information about condoms and other ways to reduce their risk of HIV, as well as to identify men who already have the retrovirus and get them started on treatment earlier in their illness.

Yeah, a lot of those studies had a circumcised group which was told about condoms and given health advice and a "control" group of uncircumcised people that weren't. Of course you need to do this with circumcised people cause an open wound is an invitation for an infection.

Also circumcision rates and HIV infection rates don't correlate at all, now this doesn't disprove circumcision's effect on HIV infection, but it does suggest to me the effect isn't truly that great.

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6 hours ago, MercurialCannibal said:

overshare time: 

i got a bad one. mine has left me with slight scarring and desensitization.

the risk of your son having a bad one purely in the pursuit to have his dick meet your cultural, societal,  religious or aesthetic beliefs simply is not a good enough reason. 

it is deeply unsettling how people are so concerned with the genitals of their infant sons.

also i am pretty sure if you let your son make the choice at say 16 or so he is unlikely to be interested in having it done. 

Sorry to hear that mate.

Seeing as we're sharing, I also got told my foreskin is too tight (I know two people who got circumcised as teenagers for this reason, so it must be fairly common?). The doctor told me I need to pull it back and forth to loosen it, or face the chop. There are worse treatments you can be prescribed, and it did the trick. 

I like my foreskin (no non weird way to phrase that), and while I know many circumcised guys are happy without one, some would at least prefer the choice, it just seems like basic body autonomy.

I would be interested to know what level of female circumcision male circumcision advocates support? Because the female procedure isn't always the brutal one we hear about, it varies, and can just be a symbolic small cut to the vulva. 

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I was circumcised as a child for medical reasons, but beyond that, I see no legitimate reason for circumcision in the UK. I’m not glad I am. It doesn’t really impact my life now, but before I started having sex I was very self conscious about my lack of foreskin. If you can wash regularly, there is no reason for circumcision as far as I’m concerned.

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1 hour ago, mankytoes said:

I would be interested to know what level of female circumcision male circumcision advocates support? Because the female procedure isn't always the brutal one we hear about, it varies, and can just be a symbolic small cut to the vulva. 

[mod] Please discuss male circumcision only. Thank you. [/mod]

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The cultural history of this is quite fascinating. The Greeks absolutely hated the circumcised look, in fact in their sports they used sometimes small strings to tie the foreskin to avoid accidentally exposing the glans which was deemed really obscene (somewhat like walking around with an erection in the gym). So in hellenistic times assimilated Jews faced a grave aesthetic problem and developed methods of stretching and what not to look more like their Greek friends.

There was also a debate in the very early church where apparently soon the position that this element of Judaism did not need to be preserved in Christianity prevailed.

It is also quite disturbing that for most of the 20th century a considerable portion of the Western World practiced infant circumcision without medical indication as a "standard" for very spurious medical/hygienic reasons. Even apart from questions of choice it is by no means risk free and the medical reasons are in general (that is, not actual problems with retraction, phimosis etc.)  extremely weak. There was some study in a part of British India that found smaller rates of penis carcinoma (which is very rare to begin with) among the muslim compared to the hindu population, and much later these HIV studies mentioned above. All very weak. Fortunately, the tide seems to have turned at least in Western Europe. Among my peers born in the early 70s (West Germany, it was very uncommon in the East) I guess 30-50% were circumcised as infants but it vaned already int he 1980s and as far as I can anecdotally tell from small boys of my relations/friends born in the last decade it is usually not done anymore (except for religious reasons or with concrete medical indication).

 

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IIRC from previous discussions here on this issue, the circumcision rate in the UK plummeted with the establishment of the NHS and actual health advice based on the health of the patient rather than the profit motive of the physician, alongside massively increased access to said medical advice.

The current rate of circumcision in UK boys is somewhere around 3%. The current (UK) rate of phimosis is somewhere around 0.03%.

As far as I'm aware (not my speciality) phimosis is an acquired condition, secondary to various skin infections such as psoriasis, excema candida etc (TMI time: mine is psoriatic). Of course, some of these conditions (like psoriasis) can run in households without needing a genetic link), but it would generally be more advisable to treat the infection than to circumcise "just in case". Phimosis is typically mild and can be dealt with by stretching it, and pulling it up over the glans and back - advice most teenage boys don't tend to need to be given twice. Phimosis does carry an increased risk of STD transmission as the skin can crack, allowing access for various microbiotics.

 

As far as hygeine is concerned, there's really no excuse in modern western societies, there is in water-poor areas, but it's only really water-poor AND sandy areas where circumcision makes any kind of sense for hygeine.

 

For STDs, on balance of the evidence i've seen (not my area of expertise, but I did hit Pubmed a few years ago when we last discussed this) most evidence in medical favour of circumcision were terribly designed, and typically just an exercise in bias confirmation, whilst those better designed studies in favour were very mildly in favour. Those finding "no better" did tend to be better designed, with better controls, but were often also fairly biased. Overall evidence was conflicting and biased; I would strongly suggest that the evidence is that presence or absence of a foreskin makes no damned difference to STD transmission. Where evidence in favour does exist, it's explicitly for HIV rather than STDs, and typically a combination of circumcision + sex education (often + free condoms, at least once explicitly married) as being better than not circumcising + not educating (often + no free condoms, at least once explicitly unmarried).

 

IMO reasons of aesthetics, dogma or tradition/cultural norm are not good enough to justify circumcision of a healthy baby; the individual can make his own mind up when he's old enough to. Reasons of hygeine (in a household with running water) is simply an example of wrong-thinking (typically confirmation bias based on cultural norms). Reasons of STD transmission don't have scientific backing, and again will mostly be examples of confirmation bias based on cultural norms.

 

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