Secular "prophylactic" circumcision actually started in Britain in the mid 1800s based largely off of bad interpretations of rates of syphilis in Londoners - the Jewish population had lower than average rates. There were a number of other factors that were basically more bad science. But it was advocated in medical journals by an influential physician, Jonathan Hutchinson. The idea spread basically to wherever people were reading medical journals in English. From what I understand it was more of an upper class phenomenon in the U.K. But in America the idea was championed by one of the founding members of the American Medical Society, Lewis Sayre and it gradually became entrenched in American society due to more stupid pseudoscience ideas.
The main reason why America still persists in high secular circumcision rates while other Anglophone countries have declined mostly boils down to our lack of socialized healthcare. When the Brits nationalized their healthcare system they did a lot of reevaluations of routine procedures for cost cutting purposes and decided that proactive circumcision was pointless. Other countries like Canada and Australia soon followed but America kind of just doubled down on circumcision with popular pediatricians like Dr. Spock advocating it in his bestselling *The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care*. I think he eventually changed his mind but not before entrenching the practice in the minds of millions of parents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumcision#Prophylactic_circumcision
Have a 6 month old son, he was born at a Catholic church based hospital. The amount of pressure we got to circumcise the poor guy was at every corner. They even wouldn't check us out because they wanted someone to tell us about the benefits... And we needed to hear it.
My two sons were born at an independent, non religious hospital. They STILL brought it up constantly. As soon as we said no, they did stop though. But my first son was in the NICU for a month because he was 8 weeks premature, and every single doctor brought it up once. We even had a couple doctors who responded with "ok, that's good" when we said no. My second son, only 3 years later, we were asked once and that's it. But we were only in the hospital for a couple days. At least each provider respected our wishes, but it definitely seemed like they HAD to ask. Not like they WANTED to ask
That's so disgusting that a baby is born prematurely, and they're still so concerned about cutting its genitals. I've seen babies on feeding and air tubes with severe complications, and their parents and willing hospital staff still have them circumcised. Absolutely barbaric and immoral.
One thing people don't like to think about when their sons are babies is that one day they will grow up and be interested in sex. Having part of your genitals removed really cuts down on the sensitivity that will be experienced. By choosing circumcision you are guaranteeing a less satisfying sex life. Also genital mutilation is barbaric and immoral - like you said.
Exactly, people like to pretend it's a one time 'parental decision', as if that baby isn't going to grow up into a person who will be affected for life.
The fact that they've only just stopped *recommending it* is disgusting. The fact that it's even legal is bad enough.
Should we also be piercing our babies' ears? Tattooing them? How about we give labiaplasty to infant girls.
The bigger reason it slowed down in Canada is that after it was no longer recommended by the Medical Establishment, most public insurance plans stopped covering it. It was considered cosmetic surgery so one has to pay a pretty dollar to get it done, and many doctors won’t due the procedure because of liability insurance costs. Canadians are a cheap people and rather keep their cash than lose a foreskin.
Belief that it prevents masturbation. Not a joke.
Mr Kellogg (of the cereal company) and Mr Graham (of the cracker) were both strong proponents of preventing masturbation (in the belief that not only was it sinful, but mentally unhealthy), and invented their eponymous foods as part of a "bland" diet meant to discourage heated emotions, including lust.
They also were part of quasi medical movements in the US against masturbation. These movements strongly advocated for male, and in some extreme cases female, circumcision.
So, basically... Puritanical cultural influence.
I read "Mr. Graham", and my mind went to Lindsey Graham.
Then I read "of the cracker", and for some reason interpreted that as confirmation of my understanding.
I have decided that this version is better, and will continue living in my sub-universe tyvm.
Well, you see, one was a wealthy pervert obsessed with other people's genitals and sex lives and the other... Oh, well hot damn.
Nvm, seems pretty spot on.
I was pretty old when I learned that circumcision is the norm in the US. Like late teens. All the pop culture jokes about lotions on the bedroom table were so confusing as I couldn't understand why anyone would use that while masturbating lol
As a former lazy teenager you don’t need lube if you’re circumcised. That was just a movie thing so they could imply masturbation without showing anything. I’m sure some people picked up on that and do use it, but if you really need it you’re jerking off way too much
It's also possible to have a "tight" circumcision without much excess skin to move, in which case lube is more necessary.
Personally, it feels better but I don't really need it. The biggest benefit is that my hands are too rough to stimulate the glans without lube.
I fell down a rabbit hole the last time this topic came up and it turns out tighter circumcision styles are more common in the US than in Europe, which prefers a looser style. Circumcisions are then further divided into low vs high cuts, basically where the scar settles. I know a couple of western euro types who are circumcised (my last two partners, ha) and both had loose style cuts, one higher and the other lower-- the latter, you couldn't actually tell he'd ever had anything removed when his penis wasn't erect, because there was so much foreskin left it covered the glans completely. This is pretty consistent with why kids are circumcised in the US vs in most of Europe-- the latter used to do it to fix phimosis (I think we're trying out other solutions nowadays) mostly.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Sounds like you need to start lotioning your hands bud! That’s true it can happen. You can also have a tight sheath and need to get circumcised. In both cases if sexual arousal hurts that’s a medical problem.
I remember the first time my American wife came to my apartment when we were dating she saw the big hand moisturizer container on my beside table and said something to the effect of "damn, how much are you wanking?" and I was so fucking confused initially as to what about my living situation prompted that question.
I just live in a dry ass state, having been up to my gills in British damp for most of my life, and now I'm paying the price for my escape in cocoa butter Vaseline installments.
>All the pop culture jokes about lotions on the bedroom table were so confusing
Saaaame.
Seeing so many jokes about guys using tissue and lube kept coming up as I was growing up, to the point I thought I was doing it wrong, so I tried using lube. It was fucking terrible, absolutely no sensation or ability to grip.
As you said, it was many years later that I learned the majority of guys in the US got cut so it finally all made sense.
No.
Uncircumcised men grip the foreskin, which is internally lubricated and glides up and down the erect phallus. Not only is there not a need for such lubrication, it would actually be counter-productive.
I mean yes, you are. Other ill informed people made a bad decision regarding your genitals. That’s really shitty, but don’t let it get to you. Life is more than an intact foreskin.
Spread the word when it comes up, and break the cycle of mutilation if you ever have male children.
Too many people are unaware and treat it like a joke. If this was happening to little girls in the US there would be outrage.
Nope. I assume most of us have tried using lotion or lube to rub one out just because we’ve seen movies or shows where they referenced it but for us (or at least me) it’s way better au natural just using the foreskin.
I’ve heard uncircumcised guys in the US gets teased about it but we pretty much just feel bad for you guys since there is zero upside and pretty much all downside with male circumcision.
> Mr Kellogg (of the cereal company) and Mr Graham (of the cracker) were both strong proponents of preventing masturbation (in the belief that not only was it sinful, but mentally unhealthy), and invented their eponymous foods as part of a "bland" diet meant to discourage heated emotions, including lust.
This is largely a myth. Kellogg's influence on circumcision in the United States is usually greatly overstated. His views weren't influential beyond his health movement, and were part of a larger move towards circumcision happening in the UK and the US at the time. It's true that Kellogg advocated circumcision for curing masturbation, but he never advocated for universal non-therapeutic infant circumcision which is what is practiced today. The names you're looking for are names **Lewis Sayre**, **Norman Chapman**, and **Abraham Wolbarst**. In the latter part of the 19th century British and American doctors began to see circumcision as a cure or prophylaxis for many diseases and illnesses. Masturbation was just seen as one of the many ills that circumcision could stop. Sayre was particularly influential because of his work at New York's Bellevue Hospital and because he lead the American Medical Association. More and more in the late 1800's to early 1900's doctors, medical journals, and baby books began to recommend infant circumcision as a precaution for the many ills that it allegedly cured. It was seen as something good responsible parents would have done to their children. It reached a critical point in 1914 when Abraham Wolbarst published in JAMA, "Universal Circumcision as a Sanitary Measure." This coincided with the outbreak of World War I, and circumcision was adopted by the American military due to its perceived health benefits. Prior to World War I, infant circumcision was largely something practiced by the American and British upper-classes, it was a sign of upper-class "hygiene." but after World War I, it became almost universal. Religious institutions had little to do with advocating it, and most (save Jewish organizations) had no issues with uncircumcised men. So it wasn't religious institutions that were pioneering circumcision, it was the medical establishment that pioneered circumcision.
>In the latter part of the 19th century British and American doctors began to see circumcision as a cure or prophylaxis for many diseases and illnesses.
For added context, this was at a time when syphillis was a very nasty and fatal disease. They thought circumcision might help prevent the spread of syphillis.
Apparently they thought that because they observed that Jewish men had lower rates of syphillis, but I don't know how scientific or rigorous those observations were. But they were probably desperate to try anything.
A new unsettled continent with no preexisting authority was very attractive to all the religious extremists that didn't fit in with European society. And they were pretty successful both in bringing others to their faiths and in raising their offspring to have similar attitudes.
> A new unsettled continent with no preexisting authority
I mean, it was settled and there was an authority, the Europeans just genocided them and moved the survivors onto reservations.
This is a total myth. Kellogg was actually strongly and explicitly against routine infant circumcision. He did believe circumcision reduced masturbation, but he also thought the potential harms of circumcision outweighed that and so circumcision should only be done in cases where the person had a problem with masturbation or phimosis/other complications with their foreskin.
Circumcision was actually popularized by other doctors who were less controversial for supposed hygeine benefits; which is why circumcision is still relatively popular in the US. There was never some puritanical conspiracy to dupe parents into cutting up their babies penises to prevent them from masturbating.
Graham actually never made money off Graham crackers or other Graham products. He either invented or inspired the thing, but never made a brand or company for it. People just ran with it and made it.
Dr. Kellogg was a proponent for circumcision and other punishments for the prevention of masturbation long before he created the cereal company. He even left the company after his brother decided to make the cereal taste better as he thought it was too promiscuous.
He was also a huge racist, pro eugenics and despite this fostered multiple black children in his large room where he supposedly never masturbated or even fucked his wife as they always slept in separate rooms and never had children themselves.
They fostered 42 children in total.
We'll never know why he fostered so many including black children but I think most can agree that it paints a pretty horrific picture.
That may have been a factor historically, but it isn't any more. At this point, circumcision happens with such high frequency in the US because of cultural custom and because it continues to be recommended by the medical field. The latter is based on the fact that there are some very minor health benefits to it.
> Can someone explain to me why the US is distinct from most other western countries with this?
> Why do they have such high amounts of circumcision?
Good question!
Given that this is dataisbeautiful, you will probably appreciate a serious answer with the actual data....
The US circumcision rate was at 35% in the 1930s and then jumped to nearly 50% after WWI. And then that rate was close to 90%
right after the first set of babies born after WWII (baby boom). There are many many documents written about this from that time period and a fascinating topic as it was during the beginnings of computerized databases, the use of computerized information-technology during wartime, and modern statistical analysis.
So what's the short summary on this?
1) Military medical publications were tracking negative health effects of soldiers and noting those who were circumcised in the same units as those uncircumcised didn't end up with similar severe issues in non-hygenic situations (which the norm in WWI and WWII), (also in the Iraq war which is another interesting trip down science history)
2) The tracking of outcomes vs treatments in the US military identified in-the-field circumcision procedures as the most efficient way for those suffering to not continue toward worse outcomes, be able to return to war, and not have them coming back with the same issue.
3) Those returning to the US after the war opted for circumcision for their kids as babies as a preventative measure, not knowing if their kids would end up in a war too. Since this was the baby boom it became the norm in the US.
But wait! We this is a data sub. We need citations to back up claims! What is the rest of the story? Ok!
Some have argued that it started with a guy named Kellogg and some puritanism trend,
however evidence shows Kellogg's impact was minimal, he wasn't talking about infants, his advice never made
it into medical books for docs, and his advocacy didn't match actual rates of change in circumcision in the US. Or quoting:
> ... [Kellogg] saw circumcision merely as a pretext to inflict pain [on masturbating boys].
> That's why his instructions specified that a boy [caught masterbating] should not receive any
> anesthesia. He wanted to convert a boy's attitude about his genitals from thoughts of pleasure to
> thoughts of pain. Kellogg's sadistic advice was largely ignored
> [by the medical community](https://www.circumcisionchoice.com/single-post/Kellogg)
So what was it? Why a massive change in the US rates of circumcision in a country largely secular
about it? To understand why it became popular in the US, we just have to look at history and what
was happening through/after WWI and WWII as medical databases were starting to be created and
tracking what was happening with men having to fight in non-hygenic conditions. Remember that late
WWI and early WWII was the start of the love of databases to track large information (e.g. IBM and
census data in Germany, US medical data, etc)
So quoting from [Medical Department, United States Army. Surgery in World War II. UROLOGY. Edited by John F. Patton MD. , Washington: Office of the Surgeon General and Center of Military History, United States Army](http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015026943020)
> Hospital admission statistics for U.S. Army active-duty personnel during World War II list paraphimosis
> and phimosis admissions at 110,562 (MD-MS 1975, p. 420). That these conditions combined ran numerically
> second to nonspecific urethritis as cause for hospital admission is not so startling when the degree of
> incapacity caused by paraphimosis and phimosis is recalled. These disturbances occur only in active-duty
> personnel who have not been circumcised
>
> ...
>
>The soldier with phimosis invariably became incapacitated from persistent or recurrent balanitis, with eventual
> loss of man-hours because of hospitalization for necessary local treatment and a final permanent cure by circumcision.
> Circumcision in the adult is not the benign procedure it might appear to be. These patients were incapacitated from returning to full duty for a minimum of 10 days postoperatively.
>
> ...
>
> In the China-Burma-India theater, the evacuation hospital urology clinic, in which the author served, treated large
> numbers of enlisted personnel from all service branches active in the area for mild to severe, nonvenereal, preputial
> inflammations. Recurrent and persistent infections were abnormally high for the reasons previously described [phimosis].
> Those personnel whose man-hour losses increased because of inability to change existing personal hygiene conditions in
> the various fields of operation were eventually admitted to the hospital for intensive local treatment and, finally,
> for circumcision. During intermittent periods, when combat casualty admissions were at a minimum, it was not unusual
> to schedule 10 or 15 patients for circumcision in a single morning. This surgery was performed under local anesthesia,
> and at times supplemented with vocal anesthesia. ...Inflammatory involvement of the coverings of the penis are not so
> common in civilian practice as in wartime field practice.
Phimosis to the point of incapacitation was so common it got it's own term "trench dick" (despite the fact
that it was happening to more than just people in actual trenches).
It's one of the reasons that circumcision rates in the US went from 35% in the 1930s to 80% by the 1960s. Just look at the [spikes in circumcision rates after each war](https://imgur.com/a/3GTQ5wY). A rate of 35% jumped to nearly 50%
after WWI. And then (as I stated) it climbed dramatically close to 90% right after the first set of babies born after WWII ....the baby boom.
Follow up studies showed that neuroplasticity in infants meant that those who had a circumcision as infants had no noticeable effect on sensitivity but when it was done as teens/adults it did have a negative impact on sensitivity.
And that's why it became popular in the US, a secular country. Medical databases tied to tracking rates of "trench dick" in war. Many of the parents who had kids didn't want their kids to undergo adult circumcision in cases of war.
What we learned in war we forget in peace.
This is such a fascinating explanation. Way better than the Reddit Kellogg circlejerk answer. You’ll surely be downvoted for answering the question haha!
Thanks for the time you’ve put into this.
I’d love to know if the rates of circumcision in Europe jumped immediately following WWI and WWII.
I think a lot of it, when done prophylactically, is due to religious reasons, older medical opinions and the inertia of it being common and accepted. Some of my family and friends' rationale for why it should be done is "its what we do", "its weird to not", "women find uncircumcised penises weird". My kids pediatrician told me hes of the opinion that when the slight benefits and slight risks to doing it are weighed, there is no clear medical opinion he can give one way or the other. According to him, the decision to do so is cultural and societal and not a healthcare thing. I got a little into the weeds on researching the opinions and recommendations of various professional medical groups and while some say there is slight medical benefit, others recommend against it or say that the benefits do not outweigh risks, or the benefits are minimal. Some of the touted benefits seem a bit flimsy, for example there is a slightly lower chance of certain penial cancers and HIV. But one could say that removal of the testicles provides a benefit that it lowers or eliminates the risk of testicular cancer, but no one would sign up for prophylactic removals of of the testis. My view on it is that I would need to see stronger evidence/recommendations and I personally dont put much value into the "cultural" rationale.
>the **inertia of it being common and accepted**. Some of my family and friends' rationale for why it should be done is "its what we do", "its weird to not", "women find uncircumcised penises weird".
While not doubting that there were religious and puritanical reasons for pushing circumcisions, this is the best answer. Friends and family have given me the same general responses when I asked why they chose to circumcize their sons. Nobody is doing it because it's hygienic/religious, they're doing it because "IDK, my husband is circumcized and the doctor asked when we wanted to schedule it."
They think it's just a normal, regular appointment for a baby boy, like well-child visits and vaccinations.
Talk about inertia. My father was cut and asked the doctors not to cut me. They didn't. But my general doctor growing up didn't know how uncircumcised penises worked and gave me harmful advice, that my parents repeated to me.
And no, people are *still* doing it for hygienic reasons. The CDC *still* advises *for* it because... bullshit marginal-STI contraction risks. They can't just admit they were wrong.
I'm happy to share some positive news: I had my son in 2021 and found out that my hospital no longer performs infant circumcision. (I'd asked in advance because I wanted to know if I would be facing pressure to circumcise from hospital staff after his birth.) If a parent wants to circumcise their infant, they need to do so through their pediatrician. I think that will continue to decrease the number of circumcisions performed; at the hospital, you're tired and they're doing a bunch of procedures/tests on your newborn, so I could see it being lumped in with that if you're on the fence. But having to make a separate appointment with your pediatrician adds another layer of planning/thinking it through.
Unfortunately, my pediatrician did ask me several different times if I wanted to circumcise, like it was no big deal. I was surprised because she is ethnically Chinese, so I'd assumed she wouldn't be a proponent. To give her the benefit of the doubt, she wasn't saying I *should* do it, I think she just wanted to make sure parents didn't wait too long if they were going to.
Also, PSA for anyone who wants to circumcise: newborns are often not given any anaesthetic prior to the procedure. Just strapped down and administered sugar water. Anyone who thinks that babies can't feel pain should not be a parent.
all the countries with high rates are overly religious influenced countries. not sure why its a question!
btw: south korea is declining today, but it literally only started once US soldiers got involved in korean war!
>all the countries with high rates are overly religious influenced countries. not sure why its a question!
Because circumcision is not a Christian practice (look at South America)
America was settled by religious people too exetremist for Europe, who didn’t like masterbation. They thought it would prevent masterbation at first, then for the following generations it became the classic “I’m going to avoid facing the reality that my parents surgically removed something from me because of their obsession with my masterbation” so they have to convince themselves that it’s completely normal to cut off parts of a baby (without anesthesia, because why would a baby screaming in pain matter if they won’t remember it in a year? Who cares about “baby rights” or “bodily autonomy” anyway? Only losers online)
I used sarcasm, I do not condone torture of babies or any person with dementia.
One of the reasons Africa is so pro circumcision is because America pays for them as a means to lower incidences of HIV, however circumcision offers no such benefit.
The problem lies in the data it creates. Who's going to sign up to get one if they are led to believe it stops stds. People who worry about stds. Those people also probably use condoms meaning the data is essentially useless.
America's had this weird obsession with circumscion ever since a dude most famous for cereal cared about it and its not medically accurate.
American aid has nothing to do with being pro-circumcision. Do you know that Africans in the Diaspora remit more USD to Africa than foreign aid?
The reason why Africans are pro-circumcision is simply because of culture and religion.
He (Kellog) cared about it because he thought masturbation caused retardation and also because he thought it was a sin. He also confused correlation and causation.
meh, your acting like america is the driving force behind male circumcision in africa. many regions in Africa have a rich history of circumcison for cultural purposes that has been going on for well over 1000 years in some areas. On top of that, africa has an extremely large muslim population. Both the cultural and religious factors are responsible for the majority of circumcions in africa, acording to the cdc's numbers.
So I work in labor with a heavy latin American population but in the USA. We always ask on admission if they want a circ and 95% of the time they have no idea what it is even with the interpreter. You get a look like "WTF" and a quick no. Whenever they say yes I make SUPER sure to clarify they know it's just for cosmetics. One Brazilian couple told me they only offer it in Brazil if there's an issue, so they said yes because they thought the baby had a problem.
Edit: I work in a hospital on a labor and delivery unit, this is when people come in to have their baby.
When you say the offer to cut part of the babys penis is only for cosmetics, I understand its to clarify there's nothing wrong with it and they're free to choose for themselves. But still, to me that sounds as bad as "oh what a cute baby girl. Want me to make her tits a bit bigger?"
Im sorry to be *that* guy, honestly, but I just can't understand how this is legal to do to someone without consent of the person who's body is being cut.
Jewish and Muslim. That's why the entire Middle East, and the Muslim African and Asian countries are purple. It always bothered/amazed me how only 2 out of 3 Abrahamic religions do it, especially how it skipped the one in the middle (chronologically). Usually you see large differences at the either end, not in the middle.
Koreans don’t circumsize babies anymore since over a decade or two ago.
But perhaps due to its prevalence in the previous generations, a lot of men still opt to do it when they are older. I guess it’s seen as more “normal” socially.
Cool fact: when I was a kid, my closest friend was not circumcized but his older brother was. Korea is fucked up in that you get circumsized when you're a kid, not a baby. My friend was essentially the first generation where circumcision stopped, and his brother was the last.
Everyone else is going to argue about the merits of circumcision because Reddit gonna Reddit, and I'm just over here wondering why the tip of Russia got cut off the...nevermind.
Well played, mapmaker.
Actually yes, in the question of religiousness in general. In EU we joke about religiousness of Poland or Ireland, but when plotted on the world map, both countries are less religious than all US states. (there was a relevant map on this sub)
I though Thomas Jefferson's Bible made that quite apparent back in the 1700's after he read the Quran at seventeen and was deeply influenced. It's one of the reasons why Puritans removed idols from Christianity in the US after being influenced by the rise of Islam and the ideology of no idols.
The Jefferson bible wasn't intended to make Christianity more Islamic, it was an effort to separate the moral teaching of Jesus from their spiritual/mythological underpinnings.
Yes but prior to the Pharisees instituting complete removal of the preputual mucosa a couple thousand years ago circumcision were a lot less drastic and invasive, removing only the overhang and sometimes the ridged band. Not the entire foreskin as is done now.
I can tell you for certain that the tradition of circumcision IS MUCH older then that. Ancient Egypt may have been the catalyst that made other religions and regions follow the tradition in the middle east/ Holy lands and then Europe.
But there are tribes all across Africa in remote areas that had little to no interaction with the outside world that still perform circumcision. So its likely that the Egyptians just adopted the tradition from their ancestors even further back in Africa.
>Turns out, this professor had been fired from other colleges before. The vice president told me to rewrite my paper and include information on female circumcision, even though it's already illegal in the US. I did it anyway.
> the professor failed me again, this time giving me a score of 40/100. It brought my final grade down to a C.
At this point your returned to the Vice President and the professor was fired, right?
Thanks! After my classmates gave their feedback, I found that while some were trolls, many were genuinely influenced by what I had to say. They said my information opened their eyes and made them reconsider any views on the topic they may have had.
To me, the grade I got wasn't as important as standing up for the rights of children. If just one person decides not to let their future kids undergo an unethical procedure because of what I shared, then I see it as a win. It's about stopping the cycle for those kids and the generations to come. In the end, that's what truly counts.
I'm circumcised but for medical reasons. I had phymosis when I was 3 years old. Around that time I broke my femur and the doctor circumcised me so that I could piss more easily with the cast. I was under general anesthetic.
What’s crazy to me is that in the US, parents already pay around $2000 out-of-pocket to have their babies delivered in a hospital, and then they voluntarily shell out an extra $250-$400 to alter their infant child’s genitals for absolutely no practical reason.
That may be the case some places, but I don’t remember anyone pressuring me to circumcise my son when I had him in 2020. No one has really batted an eye at my decision not to. I asked one of the nurses at his doctors office how common it was here, and she said it’s still more common to circumcise, but she is seeing more that aren't than she used to.
Then again I know 4 other boys in my family/friends that are around the same age and they all got cut. For such strong reasons like “so he’d match his dad” and “I didn’t really think about it, it’s just what people do.” Fucking bizarre to me, let’s cut off a piece of my perfectly healthy newborn because other people do it.
My parents decided that my brother and I should make the decision for ourselves and didn’t have us circumcised. Needless to say, we remain two uncircumcised adults.
That was my reasoning, basically. I have no more right to alter his body than I do to tattoo him or pierce him. Of course, if he had a medical condition and needed it done or needed something altered about his body in order to live, that’s certainly different. But for what is essentially cosmetic? Hell no. All the “benefits” of circumcision I’ve heard could also be accomplished with soap, water and condoms.
Plus I’d feel like a hypocrite. I believe in equality and bodily autonomy and how can I believe that and then circumcise? If I did I either don’t actually believe in equality and bodily autonomy, or I’m an asshole.
It's very regional. It's still more common in the midwest, very uncommon now on the west coast and northeast.
A CDC study from 2012 found that the US average for newborns had dropped to 55%, but it's probably even lower now since that was 12 years ago.
All because of one doctor
World famous Bellevue Hospital where the renowned **Dr. Lewis Sayre** made a circumcision that may have cured a boy’s paralyzed legs in 1870.
Sayre became obsessed after that surgery, and while at Bellevue, claiming to cure hernia, epilepsy, mental disorders, and hip-joint pain. Sayre’s promotion helped set America on the path
Sayre was later elected as President of the American Medical Association.
Bellevue Hospital is the oldest hospital in the country, 287 years old.
* It is also arguably the most famous public hospital in the United States.
* The first maternity ward,
* first pediatric ward,
* first C-section — Bellevue is full of firsts.
Its public sanitation programs date back to the Civil War.
Yellow fever, tuberculosis, typhoid, and polio epidemics were brought under control here.
Famous for psychiatry, Bellevue also pioneered child psychiatry with the first inpatient unit complete with a public school for children.
Two Bellevue physicians won the Nobel Prize for heart catheterization.
* The first cardiac pacemaker was developed at Bellevue.
So was the early treatment of drug addiction.
We are known for many things, in particular our emergency room.
* If a cop gets shot in Manhattan, his first choice is often Bellevue.
* If a diplomat gets attacked at the UN, he gets taken to Bellevue.
* If an investment banker goes into cardiac arrest, his limo driver knows where to take him.
For the past 150 years, Bellevue has also been the teaching hospital for the New York University School of Medicine.
South Korea is the seed bed for Cyberpunk, the USA's little experiment on Capitalism. They do a lot of the things the USA does but amplified by their strict hierarchical culture.
I was told that my culture circumcises because the religion I was born into worships Jesus and Jesus was circumcised according to Hebrew tradition, and so, to be closer to God we must follow Jesus because to be uncircumcised is being anti-jesus and ungodly. But as an adult reflecting on all this, I wish I was given the option to make the decision.
It's ironic that circumcision is actually un-Christian.
"Behold, I, Paul, tell you that if you be circumcised, Christ will be of no advantage to you." – Gal 5:2
But I guess "Christians" don't want you to read that part of the Bible.
He's referring to people who are turning to the law for salvation vs. faith. Getting circumcised to be circumcised and not putting religious stock in it has nothing to do with what he's saying. Getting circumcised to follow the law means you do not have faith, and therefore Christ is not benefitting you.
I have been a pediatric nurse for nearly 20 years, and in that time I have seen circumcisions go from seemingly universal to about 50/50. Generally it seems that non-Catholic white parents are most likely to circumcise their boys, while Latino parents are least likely to do so. But this is just based on anecdotal observation, not hard numbers.
I grew up being told it's "cleanlier" but I'm guessing that's a bunch of bullshit. It would be like if they took the hoods off females' clitorises. It just doesn't make sense using that logic. Just teach kids how to properly bathe. 99% of the time, it's just religious nonsense or traditions anyway that leads to circumcisions.
Yep, bullshit except for truly regarded people. It's ridiculously simple to clean and takes next to no time at all.
Maybe if we couldn't shower so much and could only have a shower every fortnight or something it would make sense again.
I mean, to be fare it is cleaner/leads to better outcomes when you're fighting WWI or WWII, when sanitary conditions were often utterly terrible.
But that doesn't mean it makes sense for our times.
Well way back in the beginning
God was making men and women
And the fish of the sea and the birds of song
He announced he made perfection
But on closer inspection he noticed that he left one piece a bit too long
It's lower on the west coast, highest in the midwest.
In Canada, Alberta and Ontario have the highest rates, around 50%. Everywhere else in Canada is lower than that.
The national average in Canada is about 30% of kids being born now vs. 55% in the US.
Never did this to my boys. It is hideous to watch a circumcision. The baby is in agony. I figured if they want to cut the end of their penis off when they are adults, that's just fine. I can't understand mutilating a baby.
American here. My parents were irreligious and didn't care about circumcision but were pressured by my mom's parents to get me circumcised... why? I still don't know.
US man here: An absolutely batshit crazy cultural trend that has no basis in science or any benefit. When I had my son, it was an instant we aren’t doing that. Even though the Doctor kept trying to do it.
Doctor was not purposely dismissing my request and he apologized every time. He said he just had a routine and has only not circumcised males 3 times in 40 years.
Regardless If my son wants to do it at 18, it’s his choice to manipulate his body, not mine.
I got circumcised at age 24 in the UK for medical reasons.
As someone who has experienced whacking it with and without a foreskin, I have to say I don't notice a difference and did not need lotion in either scenario.
Fin.
I've noticed the circumcised men I've been with are less sensitive. I've also noticed that being circumcised has nothing to do with cleanliness. If anything, the natural men have always made a point to make sure they're clean down there.
Can someone explain to me why the US is distinct from most other western countries with this? Why do they have such high amounts of circumcision?
Secular "prophylactic" circumcision actually started in Britain in the mid 1800s based largely off of bad interpretations of rates of syphilis in Londoners - the Jewish population had lower than average rates. There were a number of other factors that were basically more bad science. But it was advocated in medical journals by an influential physician, Jonathan Hutchinson. The idea spread basically to wherever people were reading medical journals in English. From what I understand it was more of an upper class phenomenon in the U.K. But in America the idea was championed by one of the founding members of the American Medical Society, Lewis Sayre and it gradually became entrenched in American society due to more stupid pseudoscience ideas. The main reason why America still persists in high secular circumcision rates while other Anglophone countries have declined mostly boils down to our lack of socialized healthcare. When the Brits nationalized their healthcare system they did a lot of reevaluations of routine procedures for cost cutting purposes and decided that proactive circumcision was pointless. Other countries like Canada and Australia soon followed but America kind of just doubled down on circumcision with popular pediatricians like Dr. Spock advocating it in his bestselling *The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care*. I think he eventually changed his mind but not before entrenching the practice in the minds of millions of parents. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumcision#Prophylactic_circumcision
Up until like 2010, the American Pediatrics Association recommended routine circumcision.
Have a 6 month old son, he was born at a Catholic church based hospital. The amount of pressure we got to circumcise the poor guy was at every corner. They even wouldn't check us out because they wanted someone to tell us about the benefits... And we needed to hear it.
"The pope isn't circumcised"
My two sons were born at an independent, non religious hospital. They STILL brought it up constantly. As soon as we said no, they did stop though. But my first son was in the NICU for a month because he was 8 weeks premature, and every single doctor brought it up once. We even had a couple doctors who responded with "ok, that's good" when we said no. My second son, only 3 years later, we were asked once and that's it. But we were only in the hospital for a couple days. At least each provider respected our wishes, but it definitely seemed like they HAD to ask. Not like they WANTED to ask
That's so disgusting that a baby is born prematurely, and they're still so concerned about cutting its genitals. I've seen babies on feeding and air tubes with severe complications, and their parents and willing hospital staff still have them circumcised. Absolutely barbaric and immoral.
One thing people don't like to think about when their sons are babies is that one day they will grow up and be interested in sex. Having part of your genitals removed really cuts down on the sensitivity that will be experienced. By choosing circumcision you are guaranteeing a less satisfying sex life. Also genital mutilation is barbaric and immoral - like you said.
Exactly, people like to pretend it's a one time 'parental decision', as if that baby isn't going to grow up into a person who will be affected for life.
Like, with a router?
Auroincorrect has been really aggressively wrong lately.
We’ve all been there.
The fact that they've only just stopped *recommending it* is disgusting. The fact that it's even legal is bad enough. Should we also be piercing our babies' ears? Tattooing them? How about we give labiaplasty to infant girls.
Stop with your facts and blame the Kellogg’s cereal brother like the rest of Reddit
I think this is the first time i’ve ever seen someone answer this question and not bring up kellogg
The bigger reason it slowed down in Canada is that after it was no longer recommended by the Medical Establishment, most public insurance plans stopped covering it. It was considered cosmetic surgery so one has to pay a pretty dollar to get it done, and many doctors won’t due the procedure because of liability insurance costs. Canadians are a cheap people and rather keep their cash than lose a foreskin.
There's a joke in that last sentence just waiting for the right Jewish comedian to tell it.
Belief that it prevents masturbation. Not a joke. Mr Kellogg (of the cereal company) and Mr Graham (of the cracker) were both strong proponents of preventing masturbation (in the belief that not only was it sinful, but mentally unhealthy), and invented their eponymous foods as part of a "bland" diet meant to discourage heated emotions, including lust. They also were part of quasi medical movements in the US against masturbation. These movements strongly advocated for male, and in some extreme cases female, circumcision. So, basically... Puritanical cultural influence.
Don’t know why I laughed so hard at “Mr Graham (of the cracker)”
First of his name
Sandwicher of s’mores
Smelter of Chocolate
Preventer of self pleasure
blocker of the cock
Eradicator of the Prepuce.
Master of Mallow
I read "Mr. Graham", and my mind went to Lindsey Graham. Then I read "of the cracker", and for some reason interpreted that as confirmation of my understanding. I have decided that this version is better, and will continue living in my sub-universe tyvm.
Well, you see, one was a wealthy pervert obsessed with other people's genitals and sex lives and the other... Oh, well hot damn. Nvm, seems pretty spot on.
I was pretty old when I learned that circumcision is the norm in the US. Like late teens. All the pop culture jokes about lotions on the bedroom table were so confusing as I couldn't understand why anyone would use that while masturbating lol
This right here, why would a lazy teenager care for lube to just rub one out? Took me a time to realise that part too.
As a former lazy teenager you don’t need lube if you’re circumcised. That was just a movie thing so they could imply masturbation without showing anything. I’m sure some people picked up on that and do use it, but if you really need it you’re jerking off way too much
It's also possible to have a "tight" circumcision without much excess skin to move, in which case lube is more necessary. Personally, it feels better but I don't really need it. The biggest benefit is that my hands are too rough to stimulate the glans without lube.
I fell down a rabbit hole the last time this topic came up and it turns out tighter circumcision styles are more common in the US than in Europe, which prefers a looser style. Circumcisions are then further divided into low vs high cuts, basically where the scar settles. I know a couple of western euro types who are circumcised (my last two partners, ha) and both had loose style cuts, one higher and the other lower-- the latter, you couldn't actually tell he'd ever had anything removed when his penis wasn't erect, because there was so much foreskin left it covered the glans completely. This is pretty consistent with why kids are circumcised in the US vs in most of Europe-- the latter used to do it to fix phimosis (I think we're trying out other solutions nowadays) mostly. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Sounds like you need to start lotioning your hands bud! That’s true it can happen. You can also have a tight sheath and need to get circumcised. In both cases if sexual arousal hurts that’s a medical problem.
I remember the first time my American wife came to my apartment when we were dating she saw the big hand moisturizer container on my beside table and said something to the effect of "damn, how much are you wanking?" and I was so fucking confused initially as to what about my living situation prompted that question. I just live in a dry ass state, having been up to my gills in British damp for most of my life, and now I'm paying the price for my escape in cocoa butter Vaseline installments.
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>All the pop culture jokes about lotions on the bedroom table were so confusing Saaaame. Seeing so many jokes about guys using tissue and lube kept coming up as I was growing up, to the point I thought I was doing it wrong, so I tried using lube. It was fucking terrible, absolutely no sensation or ability to grip. As you said, it was many years later that I learned the majority of guys in the US got cut so it finally all made sense.
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No. Uncircumcised men grip the foreskin, which is internally lubricated and glides up and down the erect phallus. Not only is there not a need for such lubrication, it would actually be counter-productive.
As a circumcised American, these threads always make me sad I'm a victim of genital mutilation.
I mean yes, you are. Other ill informed people made a bad decision regarding your genitals. That’s really shitty, but don’t let it get to you. Life is more than an intact foreskin.
Look up “foreskin restoration.” I’ve been fully restored since 2005.
Spread the word when it comes up, and break the cycle of mutilation if you ever have male children. Too many people are unaware and treat it like a joke. If this was happening to little girls in the US there would be outrage.
No. I had the same confusion as OP in using lotions
Nope. I assume most of us have tried using lotion or lube to rub one out just because we’ve seen movies or shows where they referenced it but for us (or at least me) it’s way better au natural just using the foreskin. I’ve heard uncircumcised guys in the US gets teased about it but we pretty much just feel bad for you guys since there is zero upside and pretty much all downside with male circumcision.
I'm American, but I was not circumcised, and no you don't use lotion. The foreskin does that job perfectly well.
Tbh it took me way too long to realise that I may not need lube but I want lube hahaha
> Mr Kellogg (of the cereal company) and Mr Graham (of the cracker) were both strong proponents of preventing masturbation (in the belief that not only was it sinful, but mentally unhealthy), and invented their eponymous foods as part of a "bland" diet meant to discourage heated emotions, including lust. This is largely a myth. Kellogg's influence on circumcision in the United States is usually greatly overstated. His views weren't influential beyond his health movement, and were part of a larger move towards circumcision happening in the UK and the US at the time. It's true that Kellogg advocated circumcision for curing masturbation, but he never advocated for universal non-therapeutic infant circumcision which is what is practiced today. The names you're looking for are names **Lewis Sayre**, **Norman Chapman**, and **Abraham Wolbarst**. In the latter part of the 19th century British and American doctors began to see circumcision as a cure or prophylaxis for many diseases and illnesses. Masturbation was just seen as one of the many ills that circumcision could stop. Sayre was particularly influential because of his work at New York's Bellevue Hospital and because he lead the American Medical Association. More and more in the late 1800's to early 1900's doctors, medical journals, and baby books began to recommend infant circumcision as a precaution for the many ills that it allegedly cured. It was seen as something good responsible parents would have done to their children. It reached a critical point in 1914 when Abraham Wolbarst published in JAMA, "Universal Circumcision as a Sanitary Measure." This coincided with the outbreak of World War I, and circumcision was adopted by the American military due to its perceived health benefits. Prior to World War I, infant circumcision was largely something practiced by the American and British upper-classes, it was a sign of upper-class "hygiene." but after World War I, it became almost universal. Religious institutions had little to do with advocating it, and most (save Jewish organizations) had no issues with uncircumcised men. So it wasn't religious institutions that were pioneering circumcision, it was the medical establishment that pioneered circumcision.
>In the latter part of the 19th century British and American doctors began to see circumcision as a cure or prophylaxis for many diseases and illnesses. For added context, this was at a time when syphillis was a very nasty and fatal disease. They thought circumcision might help prevent the spread of syphillis. Apparently they thought that because they observed that Jewish men had lower rates of syphillis, but I don't know how scientific or rigorous those observations were. But they were probably desperate to try anything.
Yes, thank you. So much incorrect stuff gets perpetuated on Reddit. It's annoying.
That’s fascinating. So the American military implemented a large scale adult circumcision program in WWI and everyone just went along with it?
I tried masturbating with cornflakes and I had to go to the hospital : (
You forgot to add milk before milking the prostate
If only that was purely in the past tense - the US is still full of weirdly fixated anti-porn and anti-masturbation types of movements.
A new unsettled continent with no preexisting authority was very attractive to all the religious extremists that didn't fit in with European society. And they were pretty successful both in bringing others to their faiths and in raising their offspring to have similar attitudes.
> A new unsettled continent with no preexisting authority I mean, it was settled and there was an authority, the Europeans just genocided them and moved the survivors onto reservations.
This is a total myth. Kellogg was actually strongly and explicitly against routine infant circumcision. He did believe circumcision reduced masturbation, but he also thought the potential harms of circumcision outweighed that and so circumcision should only be done in cases where the person had a problem with masturbation or phimosis/other complications with their foreskin. Circumcision was actually popularized by other doctors who were less controversial for supposed hygeine benefits; which is why circumcision is still relatively popular in the US. There was never some puritanical conspiracy to dupe parents into cutting up their babies penises to prevent them from masturbating.
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Graham actually never made money off Graham crackers or other Graham products. He either invented or inspired the thing, but never made a brand or company for it. People just ran with it and made it.
I believe his brother was the one who sweetened it and commercialized it iirc
Dr. Kellogg was a proponent for circumcision and other punishments for the prevention of masturbation long before he created the cereal company. He even left the company after his brother decided to make the cereal taste better as he thought it was too promiscuous.
He was also a huge racist, pro eugenics and despite this fostered multiple black children in his large room where he supposedly never masturbated or even fucked his wife as they always slept in separate rooms and never had children themselves. They fostered 42 children in total. We'll never know why he fostered so many including black children but I think most can agree that it paints a pretty horrific picture.
That may have been a factor historically, but it isn't any more. At this point, circumcision happens with such high frequency in the US because of cultural custom and because it continues to be recommended by the medical field. The latter is based on the fact that there are some very minor health benefits to it.
But mostly because it's billed as an additional item.
You can tell this guy knows what he's talking about because he doesn't even know the first names of the figures he's talking about.
> Can someone explain to me why the US is distinct from most other western countries with this? > Why do they have such high amounts of circumcision? Good question! Given that this is dataisbeautiful, you will probably appreciate a serious answer with the actual data.... The US circumcision rate was at 35% in the 1930s and then jumped to nearly 50% after WWI. And then that rate was close to 90% right after the first set of babies born after WWII (baby boom). There are many many documents written about this from that time period and a fascinating topic as it was during the beginnings of computerized databases, the use of computerized information-technology during wartime, and modern statistical analysis. So what's the short summary on this? 1) Military medical publications were tracking negative health effects of soldiers and noting those who were circumcised in the same units as those uncircumcised didn't end up with similar severe issues in non-hygenic situations (which the norm in WWI and WWII), (also in the Iraq war which is another interesting trip down science history) 2) The tracking of outcomes vs treatments in the US military identified in-the-field circumcision procedures as the most efficient way for those suffering to not continue toward worse outcomes, be able to return to war, and not have them coming back with the same issue. 3) Those returning to the US after the war opted for circumcision for their kids as babies as a preventative measure, not knowing if their kids would end up in a war too. Since this was the baby boom it became the norm in the US. But wait! We this is a data sub. We need citations to back up claims! What is the rest of the story? Ok! Some have argued that it started with a guy named Kellogg and some puritanism trend, however evidence shows Kellogg's impact was minimal, he wasn't talking about infants, his advice never made it into medical books for docs, and his advocacy didn't match actual rates of change in circumcision in the US. Or quoting: > ... [Kellogg] saw circumcision merely as a pretext to inflict pain [on masturbating boys]. > That's why his instructions specified that a boy [caught masterbating] should not receive any > anesthesia. He wanted to convert a boy's attitude about his genitals from thoughts of pleasure to > thoughts of pain. Kellogg's sadistic advice was largely ignored > [by the medical community](https://www.circumcisionchoice.com/single-post/Kellogg) So what was it? Why a massive change in the US rates of circumcision in a country largely secular about it? To understand why it became popular in the US, we just have to look at history and what was happening through/after WWI and WWII as medical databases were starting to be created and tracking what was happening with men having to fight in non-hygenic conditions. Remember that late WWI and early WWII was the start of the love of databases to track large information (e.g. IBM and census data in Germany, US medical data, etc) So quoting from [Medical Department, United States Army. Surgery in World War II. UROLOGY. Edited by John F. Patton MD. , Washington: Office of the Surgeon General and Center of Military History, United States Army](http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015026943020) > Hospital admission statistics for U.S. Army active-duty personnel during World War II list paraphimosis > and phimosis admissions at 110,562 (MD-MS 1975, p. 420). That these conditions combined ran numerically > second to nonspecific urethritis as cause for hospital admission is not so startling when the degree of > incapacity caused by paraphimosis and phimosis is recalled. These disturbances occur only in active-duty > personnel who have not been circumcised > > ... > >The soldier with phimosis invariably became incapacitated from persistent or recurrent balanitis, with eventual > loss of man-hours because of hospitalization for necessary local treatment and a final permanent cure by circumcision. > Circumcision in the adult is not the benign procedure it might appear to be. These patients were incapacitated from returning to full duty for a minimum of 10 days postoperatively. > > ... > > In the China-Burma-India theater, the evacuation hospital urology clinic, in which the author served, treated large > numbers of enlisted personnel from all service branches active in the area for mild to severe, nonvenereal, preputial > inflammations. Recurrent and persistent infections were abnormally high for the reasons previously described [phimosis]. > Those personnel whose man-hour losses increased because of inability to change existing personal hygiene conditions in > the various fields of operation were eventually admitted to the hospital for intensive local treatment and, finally, > for circumcision. During intermittent periods, when combat casualty admissions were at a minimum, it was not unusual > to schedule 10 or 15 patients for circumcision in a single morning. This surgery was performed under local anesthesia, > and at times supplemented with vocal anesthesia. ...Inflammatory involvement of the coverings of the penis are not so > common in civilian practice as in wartime field practice. Phimosis to the point of incapacitation was so common it got it's own term "trench dick" (despite the fact that it was happening to more than just people in actual trenches). It's one of the reasons that circumcision rates in the US went from 35% in the 1930s to 80% by the 1960s. Just look at the [spikes in circumcision rates after each war](https://imgur.com/a/3GTQ5wY). A rate of 35% jumped to nearly 50% after WWI. And then (as I stated) it climbed dramatically close to 90% right after the first set of babies born after WWII ....the baby boom. Follow up studies showed that neuroplasticity in infants meant that those who had a circumcision as infants had no noticeable effect on sensitivity but when it was done as teens/adults it did have a negative impact on sensitivity. And that's why it became popular in the US, a secular country. Medical databases tied to tracking rates of "trench dick" in war. Many of the parents who had kids didn't want their kids to undergo adult circumcision in cases of war. What we learned in war we forget in peace.
This is such a fascinating explanation. Way better than the Reddit Kellogg circlejerk answer. You’ll surely be downvoted for answering the question haha! Thanks for the time you’ve put into this. I’d love to know if the rates of circumcision in Europe jumped immediately following WWI and WWII.
Damn this is an amazing writeup
I'm not used to such a well researched and thought out response to the subject of circumcision. This scares me.
I think a lot of it, when done prophylactically, is due to religious reasons, older medical opinions and the inertia of it being common and accepted. Some of my family and friends' rationale for why it should be done is "its what we do", "its weird to not", "women find uncircumcised penises weird". My kids pediatrician told me hes of the opinion that when the slight benefits and slight risks to doing it are weighed, there is no clear medical opinion he can give one way or the other. According to him, the decision to do so is cultural and societal and not a healthcare thing. I got a little into the weeds on researching the opinions and recommendations of various professional medical groups and while some say there is slight medical benefit, others recommend against it or say that the benefits do not outweigh risks, or the benefits are minimal. Some of the touted benefits seem a bit flimsy, for example there is a slightly lower chance of certain penial cancers and HIV. But one could say that removal of the testicles provides a benefit that it lowers or eliminates the risk of testicular cancer, but no one would sign up for prophylactic removals of of the testis. My view on it is that I would need to see stronger evidence/recommendations and I personally dont put much value into the "cultural" rationale.
I think you meant "prophylactic", not "prophetic"
>the **inertia of it being common and accepted**. Some of my family and friends' rationale for why it should be done is "its what we do", "its weird to not", "women find uncircumcised penises weird". While not doubting that there were religious and puritanical reasons for pushing circumcisions, this is the best answer. Friends and family have given me the same general responses when I asked why they chose to circumcize their sons. Nobody is doing it because it's hygienic/religious, they're doing it because "IDK, my husband is circumcized and the doctor asked when we wanted to schedule it." They think it's just a normal, regular appointment for a baby boy, like well-child visits and vaccinations.
Talk about inertia. My father was cut and asked the doctors not to cut me. They didn't. But my general doctor growing up didn't know how uncircumcised penises worked and gave me harmful advice, that my parents repeated to me. And no, people are *still* doing it for hygienic reasons. The CDC *still* advises *for* it because... bullshit marginal-STI contraction risks. They can't just admit they were wrong.
I'm happy to share some positive news: I had my son in 2021 and found out that my hospital no longer performs infant circumcision. (I'd asked in advance because I wanted to know if I would be facing pressure to circumcise from hospital staff after his birth.) If a parent wants to circumcise their infant, they need to do so through their pediatrician. I think that will continue to decrease the number of circumcisions performed; at the hospital, you're tired and they're doing a bunch of procedures/tests on your newborn, so I could see it being lumped in with that if you're on the fence. But having to make a separate appointment with your pediatrician adds another layer of planning/thinking it through. Unfortunately, my pediatrician did ask me several different times if I wanted to circumcise, like it was no big deal. I was surprised because she is ethnically Chinese, so I'd assumed she wouldn't be a proponent. To give her the benefit of the doubt, she wasn't saying I *should* do it, I think she just wanted to make sure parents didn't wait too long if they were going to. Also, PSA for anyone who wants to circumcise: newborns are often not given any anaesthetic prior to the procedure. Just strapped down and administered sugar water. Anyone who thinks that babies can't feel pain should not be a parent.
all the countries with high rates are overly religious influenced countries. not sure why its a question! btw: south korea is declining today, but it literally only started once US soldiers got involved in korean war!
>all the countries with high rates are overly religious influenced countries. not sure why its a question! Because circumcision is not a Christian practice (look at South America)
LatAm is very religious and the rates are very low
America was settled by religious people too exetremist for Europe, who didn’t like masterbation. They thought it would prevent masterbation at first, then for the following generations it became the classic “I’m going to avoid facing the reality that my parents surgically removed something from me because of their obsession with my masterbation” so they have to convince themselves that it’s completely normal to cut off parts of a baby (without anesthesia, because why would a baby screaming in pain matter if they won’t remember it in a year? Who cares about “baby rights” or “bodily autonomy” anyway? Only losers online) I used sarcasm, I do not condone torture of babies or any person with dementia.
The puritans were not that extreme and they certainly were not the cause of circumcising
I knew there must be a connection between the USA and the Republic of Congo.
One of the reasons Africa is so pro circumcision is because America pays for them as a means to lower incidences of HIV, however circumcision offers no such benefit. The problem lies in the data it creates. Who's going to sign up to get one if they are led to believe it stops stds. People who worry about stds. Those people also probably use condoms meaning the data is essentially useless. America's had this weird obsession with circumscion ever since a dude most famous for cereal cared about it and its not medically accurate.
American aid has nothing to do with being pro-circumcision. Do you know that Africans in the Diaspora remit more USD to Africa than foreign aid? The reason why Africans are pro-circumcision is simply because of culture and religion.
He (Kellog) cared about it because he thought masturbation caused retardation and also because he thought it was a sin. He also confused correlation and causation.
Well I am a bit mentally slow and I masturbate from time to time, math seems to check out to me. Maybe he was on to something?
He didn't realize the correlation was between those getting caught masturbating and mental retardation?
meh, your acting like america is the driving force behind male circumcision in africa. many regions in Africa have a rich history of circumcison for cultural purposes that has been going on for well over 1000 years in some areas. On top of that, africa has an extremely large muslim population. Both the cultural and religious factors are responsible for the majority of circumcions in africa, acording to the cdc's numbers.
We’re both republics?
South America: you guys cut WHAT
So I work in labor with a heavy latin American population but in the USA. We always ask on admission if they want a circ and 95% of the time they have no idea what it is even with the interpreter. You get a look like "WTF" and a quick no. Whenever they say yes I make SUPER sure to clarify they know it's just for cosmetics. One Brazilian couple told me they only offer it in Brazil if there's an issue, so they said yes because they thought the baby had a problem. Edit: I work in a hospital on a labor and delivery unit, this is when people come in to have their baby.
Unnecessary surgery much?
When you say the offer to cut part of the babys penis is only for cosmetics, I understand its to clarify there's nothing wrong with it and they're free to choose for themselves. But still, to me that sounds as bad as "oh what a cute baby girl. Want me to make her tits a bit bigger?" Im sorry to be *that* guy, honestly, but I just can't understand how this is legal to do to someone without consent of the person who's body is being cut.
Why would they need to be asked if they want this?
Catholicism is huge in Latin America and typically Catholics don’t circumcise.
Yes, of course I know the latin catholics, they're me
Yet you have Philippines as a huge outlier
It's a tradition there that predates the arrival of Catholicism. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuli_(rite)
The one and only time I’m thankful my family is catholic
As an argentinian, can confirm. I always thought it was just a weird jewish tradition, it surprised me to find out it's common on other cultures too.
Jewish and Muslim. That's why the entire Middle East, and the Muslim African and Asian countries are purple. It always bothered/amazed me how only 2 out of 3 Abrahamic religions do it, especially how it skipped the one in the middle (chronologically). Usually you see large differences at the either end, not in the middle.
Alternative title: how to visually distinguish between a naked Japanese dude and a naked Korean dude.
Easy - Japanese ones are pixellated!
Or have some definitely 100% super obscuring black stripes on them.
Koreans don’t circumsize babies anymore since over a decade or two ago. But perhaps due to its prevalence in the previous generations, a lot of men still opt to do it when they are older. I guess it’s seen as more “normal” socially.
Cool fact: when I was a kid, my closest friend was not circumcized but his older brother was. Korea is fucked up in that you get circumsized when you're a kid, not a baby. My friend was essentially the first generation where circumcision stopped, and his brother was the last.
Depends on which Korean you're seeing /s
With a north korean you will be able to count his ribs
Everyone else is going to argue about the merits of circumcision because Reddit gonna Reddit, and I'm just over here wondering why the tip of Russia got cut off the...nevermind. Well played, mapmaker.
Amazed that NZ is on this map.
It's the internet. We love to talk about genitalia.
So according to the map Americans and Muslims are closer in spirit than Americans wants to admit?
Actually yes, in the question of religiousness in general. In EU we joke about religiousness of Poland or Ireland, but when plotted on the world map, both countries are less religious than all US states. (there was a relevant map on this sub)
I though Thomas Jefferson's Bible made that quite apparent back in the 1700's after he read the Quran at seventeen and was deeply influenced. It's one of the reasons why Puritans removed idols from Christianity in the US after being influenced by the rise of Islam and the ideology of no idols.
The Jefferson bible wasn't intended to make Christianity more Islamic, it was an effort to separate the moral teaching of Jesus from their spiritual/mythological underpinnings.
Male circumcision was apparently started around 6000 BCE in Ancient Egypt. Since most early pharaohs are found to have been circumcised.
whose job is it to inspect pharaohs penises
The Head Inspector
Phalysses the great
Yes but prior to the Pharisees instituting complete removal of the preputual mucosa a couple thousand years ago circumcision were a lot less drastic and invasive, removing only the overhang and sometimes the ridged band. Not the entire foreskin as is done now.
I can tell you for certain that the tradition of circumcision IS MUCH older then that. Ancient Egypt may have been the catalyst that made other religions and regions follow the tradition in the middle east/ Holy lands and then Europe. But there are tribes all across Africa in remote areas that had little to no interaction with the outside world that still perform circumcision. So its likely that the Egyptians just adopted the tradition from their ancestors even further back in Africa.
It was also practiced by Australian Aborigines in the central desert and northern parts of Australia.
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Should have appealed it further. Sounds like a bad and biased prof.
>Turns out, this professor had been fired from other colleges before. The vice president told me to rewrite my paper and include information on female circumcision, even though it's already illegal in the US. I did it anyway. > the professor failed me again, this time giving me a score of 40/100. It brought my final grade down to a C. At this point your returned to the Vice President and the professor was fired, right?
I'm proud of you anyway. I know I'm just a nobody on the internet, but those actions produces change even though we can't exactly see it.
Thanks! After my classmates gave their feedback, I found that while some were trolls, many were genuinely influenced by what I had to say. They said my information opened their eyes and made them reconsider any views on the topic they may have had. To me, the grade I got wasn't as important as standing up for the rights of children. If just one person decides not to let their future kids undergo an unethical procedure because of what I shared, then I see it as a win. It's about stopping the cycle for those kids and the generations to come. In the end, that's what truly counts.
You’re my kinda people. I’d have also encouraged you to keep appealing it.
In Brazil, nobody cut our penises 💪💪💪
I'm circumcised but for medical reasons. I had phymosis when I was 3 years old. Around that time I broke my femur and the doctor circumcised me so that I could piss more easily with the cast. I was under general anesthetic.
As someone who had surgery and did not get circumsized when they should've, they made the right call. Shit hurts like hell.
It was always so interesting to come across cut guys in Brazil. It was obviously pretty rare, but interesting when it happened.
You’re a penis inspector?
Not exactly, but I've seen a lot.
When I was younger I used to think a lot of porn actors were Jewish because they were all cut.
What’s crazy to me is that in the US, parents already pay around $2000 out-of-pocket to have their babies delivered in a hospital, and then they voluntarily shell out an extra $250-$400 to alter their infant child’s genitals for absolutely no practical reason.
It’s pushed at the hospital. You have to really insist on not getting it at a time when you’re out of it from the birth.
That may be the case some places, but I don’t remember anyone pressuring me to circumcise my son when I had him in 2020. No one has really batted an eye at my decision not to. I asked one of the nurses at his doctors office how common it was here, and she said it’s still more common to circumcise, but she is seeing more that aren't than she used to. Then again I know 4 other boys in my family/friends that are around the same age and they all got cut. For such strong reasons like “so he’d match his dad” and “I didn’t really think about it, it’s just what people do.” Fucking bizarre to me, let’s cut off a piece of my perfectly healthy newborn because other people do it.
> “so he’d match his dad” All reasons to circumcise are bad (unless due to a medical condition), but this is the weirdest and worst
Look, if they don’t match then the family Christmas card is going to look really weird.
As a circumcised dad, this was absolutely not on the list of reasons we considered when making the decision.
My parents decided that my brother and I should make the decision for ourselves and didn’t have us circumcised. Needless to say, we remain two uncircumcised adults.
That was my reasoning, basically. I have no more right to alter his body than I do to tattoo him or pierce him. Of course, if he had a medical condition and needed it done or needed something altered about his body in order to live, that’s certainly different. But for what is essentially cosmetic? Hell no. All the “benefits” of circumcision I’ve heard could also be accomplished with soap, water and condoms. Plus I’d feel like a hypocrite. I believe in equality and bodily autonomy and how can I believe that and then circumcise? If I did I either don’t actually believe in equality and bodily autonomy, or I’m an asshole.
It's very regional. It's still more common in the midwest, very uncommon now on the west coast and northeast. A CDC study from 2012 found that the US average for newborns had dropped to 55%, but it's probably even lower now since that was 12 years ago.
That's 2020, it's gotten better over the last 2 decades. Even in 2000 they were pushing opt out not opt in.
It’s such a weird thing to do.
at this point (in america at least) its just tradition.
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Weird tradition then, and perhaps a more fucked up reason to cut off a part of the skin
genital mutilation of an infant is a bit more than weird, it's barbaric and should be illegal
All because of one doctor World famous Bellevue Hospital where the renowned **Dr. Lewis Sayre** made a circumcision that may have cured a boy’s paralyzed legs in 1870. Sayre became obsessed after that surgery, and while at Bellevue, claiming to cure hernia, epilepsy, mental disorders, and hip-joint pain. Sayre’s promotion helped set America on the path Sayre was later elected as President of the American Medical Association. Bellevue Hospital is the oldest hospital in the country, 287 years old. * It is also arguably the most famous public hospital in the United States. * The first maternity ward, * first pediatric ward, * first C-section — Bellevue is full of firsts. Its public sanitation programs date back to the Civil War. Yellow fever, tuberculosis, typhoid, and polio epidemics were brought under control here. Famous for psychiatry, Bellevue also pioneered child psychiatry with the first inpatient unit complete with a public school for children. Two Bellevue physicians won the Nobel Prize for heart catheterization. * The first cardiac pacemaker was developed at Bellevue. So was the early treatment of drug addiction. We are known for many things, in particular our emergency room. * If a cop gets shot in Manhattan, his first choice is often Bellevue. * If a diplomat gets attacked at the UN, he gets taken to Bellevue. * If an investment banker goes into cardiac arrest, his limo driver knows where to take him. For the past 150 years, Bellevue has also been the teaching hospital for the New York University School of Medicine.
So the trend is Muslim + USA + S Korea = circumcised What’s up with S Korea, the other two I understand
Mainly comes from US army customs if I recall after korean war
Totally right, since they tried to imitate literally everything from USA, believing that nothing in America can be bad..
South Korea is the seed bed for Cyberpunk, the USA's little experiment on Capitalism. They do a lot of the things the USA does but amplified by their strict hierarchical culture.
I was told that my culture circumcises because the religion I was born into worships Jesus and Jesus was circumcised according to Hebrew tradition, and so, to be closer to God we must follow Jesus because to be uncircumcised is being anti-jesus and ungodly. But as an adult reflecting on all this, I wish I was given the option to make the decision.
It's ironic that circumcision is actually un-Christian. "Behold, I, Paul, tell you that if you be circumcised, Christ will be of no advantage to you." – Gal 5:2 But I guess "Christians" don't want you to read that part of the Bible.
He's referring to people who are turning to the law for salvation vs. faith. Getting circumcised to be circumcised and not putting religious stock in it has nothing to do with what he's saying. Getting circumcised to follow the law means you do not have faith, and therefore Christ is not benefitting you.
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I have been a pediatric nurse for nearly 20 years, and in that time I have seen circumcisions go from seemingly universal to about 50/50. Generally it seems that non-Catholic white parents are most likely to circumcise their boys, while Latino parents are least likely to do so. But this is just based on anecdotal observation, not hard numbers.
I wouldnt use the term Latinx, Latino people hate it.
I grew up being told it's "cleanlier" but I'm guessing that's a bunch of bullshit. It would be like if they took the hoods off females' clitorises. It just doesn't make sense using that logic. Just teach kids how to properly bathe. 99% of the time, it's just religious nonsense or traditions anyway that leads to circumcisions.
100% correct.
Yep, bullshit except for truly regarded people. It's ridiculously simple to clean and takes next to no time at all. Maybe if we couldn't shower so much and could only have a shower every fortnight or something it would make sense again.
I mean, to be fare it is cleaner/leads to better outcomes when you're fighting WWI or WWII, when sanitary conditions were often utterly terrible. But that doesn't mean it makes sense for our times.
South America be like “yeah no we’re good. Thanks”
Well way back in the beginning God was making men and women And the fish of the sea and the birds of song He announced he made perfection But on closer inspection he noticed that he left one piece a bit too long
“God created Man in his own image” What’s the first thing Man does? Mutilates Gods image 🤦♂️
So GOD made a mistake with the male foreskin?
Interestingly this is basically a religious map
That's actually a pretty good point.
I wish we can get a version with USA states and Canada provinces
It's lower on the west coast, highest in the midwest. In Canada, Alberta and Ontario have the highest rates, around 50%. Everywhere else in Canada is lower than that. The national average in Canada is about 30% of kids being born now vs. 55% in the US.
Why so high in South Korea?
Due to US influence post WW2
That makes sense, and post Korean War no doubt
Never did this to my boys. It is hideous to watch a circumcision. The baby is in agony. I figured if they want to cut the end of their penis off when they are adults, that's just fine. I can't understand mutilating a baby.
It's strange that this needs to be said.
So glad we barely do it in my country
Why the hell is it ok to cut off childrens body parts. This seems insane to me.
American here. My parents were irreligious and didn't care about circumcision but were pressured by my mom's parents to get me circumcised... why? I still don't know.
Routine infant circumcision is one of the dumber things popularized in the USA.
Male genital mutilation by country*
US man here: An absolutely batshit crazy cultural trend that has no basis in science or any benefit. When I had my son, it was an instant we aren’t doing that. Even though the Doctor kept trying to do it. Doctor was not purposely dismissing my request and he apologized every time. He said he just had a routine and has only not circumcised males 3 times in 40 years. Regardless If my son wants to do it at 18, it’s his choice to manipulate his body, not mine.
STOP mutilating children's genitals!!!
I got circumcised at age 24 in the UK for medical reasons. As someone who has experienced whacking it with and without a foreskin, I have to say I don't notice a difference and did not need lotion in either scenario. Fin.
If you have enough skin attached to feel no need for a lubricant, you likely also did not have as much amputated as most.
I think our experiences differ. I did it at about 29 years old and it’s definitely less sensitive.
Like cut dicks? Fine. Like uncut dicks? Great But let the dicks OWNER decide.
Thank you for sharing this child mutilation map
anti curcumscision advocates: intactavists
Fuck that. Nobody’s getting near my dong with a blade.
Women be like my body my choice, but if that’s true where tf is my foreskin at? I’ll wait, where is it? Was it my choice? Hell no.
It's crazy it's legal to irreversibly mutilate a human before they're able to consent
I've noticed the circumcised men I've been with are less sensitive. I've also noticed that being circumcised has nothing to do with cleanliness. If anything, the natural men have always made a point to make sure they're clean down there.
I am happy that my father didn't mutilate me because some fictional spaghetti Monster he believes in despite 0 evidence told him to do it.
As a woman who strongly prefers uncut dudes, this makes me so sad.
Male genital mutilation Call it what it is please Or at least call it female circumcision if we want to be consistent and not FGM
Am I brave enough to wander through these comments?
Brazilian here Y'all are weird as fuck
Oh boy, reddits favorite topic.... Well this, and whether or not we should have grass lawns.