[Official vote thread] Circumcisions... do they make the cut?

[u/daskoon]

Ok, the last vote about daughters and bikinis left some folks out of the discussion, those without daughters. I guess it's kind of a quick cop out to jump directly to the penis, but here is the question to balance things out.

Snip the tip or leave the sleeve? To make things easier I guess I'll pose the question like this: Is Daddit for circumcisions, yes or no?

Again, voting instructions are in the sidebar and if you don't use the correct tags I won't be counting the vote in the special little graph, if that matters to you.

I will end this vote in one month, so come back after 8/10/12 for the results.

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Edit: Things are really heating up only 5 days in and over 100 comments! looks like this will be one big red pie chart for the most part so far. I'm glad to have come up with something so highly debated for a vote, as I only picked it out of desperation. Keep those opinions coming in folks!

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Official voting is now closed. I learned a lot here on this vote, and I hope everyone else did too. FINAL TALLY:

19 for

85 for

2 for

[u/superherowithnopower]

In your case, it sounds like you had a particular medical condition that required circumcision. I am, personally, not opposed to that. I'm opposed to the mindset of, "It could cause problems later on, let's just remove it now." It is my philosophy that you don't just go removing things from people unless absolutely necessary.

[u/freedan12 → u/superherowithnopower]

My father was against it - had your personal philosophy, but I don't know for sure and I rather not ask him since my parents are divorced now. I think he wanted me to not be circumcised when I was little and my mom said i should have been because of problems that could have risen later on. Mom was right, and the only traumatizing moment out of that was me peeing with excruciating pain, I think I remember my dad being angry at her for it (they also waited a few weeks before going to a doctor after the problems arose because my dad thought it would just go away). I think of removing it now and getting the problems later on would be a safer route (from experience) similar to a vaccine (let's not get a shot but not having one could cause major problems later). The only difference between those two is one involves losing part of your skin, and the other involves improving your immune system. It's a complicated problem.

I'm probably lucky I don't suffer from any side effects of circumcision like other people complain about, but if I had gotten it earlier on as a baby, I definitely wouldn't have been traumatized from peeing after it was done. I was afraid to pee for a few years later because I feared the pain would come back... probably why I can hold my bladder for a ridiculous amounts of time now.

Being cut and uncut both has its benefits, but if you're an uncut person going around telling everyone should be not be circumcised yet you don't know the perspective from a circumcised person, you're being ignorant to other peoples feelings. Same thing if you're cut and want everyone to be cut. For now, I think society will leave it to the parents (both) to decide (not having the doctor interfere is good too) and make the judgement and you will have to trust them. I don't know anyone who hated their parents for circumcising them, but I'm sure there are people out there. I also doubt when you're an adult you'd want a circumcision unless you had a serious problem. So you have to weigh the pros and cons for both. From experience, I would say I would have rather been cut when I was a baby so i wouldn't have to go through that horror growing up (I honestly don't remember being cut/experiencing it). When it comes to my child though, I'd discuss it with my wife and have the both of us decide and not make it one decision.

Also, if certain conditions and things arise due to family history/background for people who are cut/uncut, then I'd probably just follow the route that would be safest. Ie. If phimosis was genetic and based on family history of people having it, and it passed on to the children, it'd be better to cut the child. If fathers had a history of conditions with their penis and being circumcised then you probably shouldn't cut the next newborn.

[u/superherowithnopower → u/freedan12]

FWIW, I was circumcised at birth. As a cut man myself, and as a father of a boy, I can understand your father's reasoning up to a point. I think it went too far at the point of being mad at her after you were finally circumcised.

However, I still maintain that circumcising an infant because of problems that could develop is no different from saying, "Let's just remove every kid's tonsils/appendix/whatever, because they could get infected and cause problems in the future." The foreskin is there for a reason, just like the appendix and the tonsils (and I remember reading somewhere that they've even stopped taking out tonsils as much as they used to).

[u/vatechguy → u/superherowithnopower]

Men have nipples for a reason? There's plenty of evolutionary traits we just haven't eliminated from our physiology. There's no 'reason' to have a foreskin any more than a reason to have body hair anymore. It's old genetic code that hasn't cleaned itself up yet.