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Emotional_Engi@lemmy.zip 5 days agoTotally agree with you.
I am a circumcised guy (I was cut when I was 8). I don’t remember what it felt like to be intact, as I was still very young. But I absolutely remember the process and the aftermath. Even though I had an idea what was going to happen, I was still scared when the doc wanted to see my penis, and then the horror got worse when I was being circumcised, even though I was silent. The aftermath was a lot worse, I couldn’t pee for hours on the very first day because pee burned the scars so much that the pain was unbearable for me. After a week my mom told me that I was circumcised and I was so brave because I didn’t make a scene, SMH.
Now I’ve started to restore my foreskin and I recommend it to everyone who are circumcised. There isn’t any significant community in Lemmy (only c/foreskin_restoration@lemmynsfw.com but there’s only one post), but there is much more information all around the internet. I’m also alright that if you’re okay with being circumcised and don’t want to feel bad about it, just don’t practice it on your own sons.
I’m seeing some comments that it can be done under certain medical conditions. Sure, there some certain medical conditions that make circumcision is the only option, but with most American doctors, you can’t trust them on that. There are bunch of American academic and clinical studies praising circumcision, telling that foreskin has no “real” use in sex, it’s “unhygienic” and it’s “unhealthy”. And there are lots of doctors that cut the foreskin not even asking the parents, or even if they ask they always tell you that it’s for health purposes. As for phimosis, there are extreme cases, such as pinhole phimosis, but those are rare. And if it doesn’t seriously affect urination, cause you pain or consistent inflammation, circumcision is unnecessary. Even in case of pinhole phimosis, there are other solutions, such as stretching or using a steroid cream. And even with pinhole phimosis, there are bunch of guys grew up with it and doesn’t affect their life that much. You can look around the internet and read about their experiences. Of course in the end, it’s still up to the people who are adults and can consent a circumcision if they have complaints about their foreskin or phimosis. It’s just not normal cutting children’s foreskins since they can’t consent.
I should also add that unless it’s an extreme case of phimosis, all children until puberty (or at least the ages near puberty you can check here under the first section “The natural history of the foreskin”) can’t retract their foreskins as inner skin is attached to the glans. I also remember that before I got circumcised I couldn’t properly pull back my foreskin. Sure, it could be a phimosis (I don’t think so) if I could reach puberty being intact but I couldn’t, and yet it shouldn’t get “treated” with circumcision.
And even if general practice of circumcision were banned (except under certain medical conditions) in the US, most doctors would just abuse that extreme condition reason and tell “Your infant son has pinhole phimosis, he can’t urinate so it’s absolutely necessary to circumcise him.” Then in that case, suddenly pinhole phimosis statistics ridiculously skyrocket, and every boy gets diagnosed with pinhole phimosis. It would still better than nothing to ban general practice of circumcision, but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t work as expected, as most parents can’t know if the doctor is lying and circumcision isn’t necessary at all. The best thing you can do to look around the internet and do a proper research (I’m biased towards European studies, but it is what it is.), have some knowledge about foreskin, circumcision, and even in restoration and find a doctor/clinic that won’t make up a story and circumcise your son.
TL;DR: please read all of it. I’ve told about my experience too.
I’m begging you TL;DR: European doctors are good, American doctors are bad. Foreskin restoration is a thing, you can do that. And most phimosis cases can be solved without circumcision.