The Guys not talking about Guy Stuff Thread

[Eaquae Legit]

You probably would if it involved snipping bits off. Most westerners (male and female alike) are pretty bothered about female genital cutting. Just sayin'... it's not a "wash behind the ears" kind of hygiene matter.

Personally I'm neutral on the subject for guys, so either way doesn't bother me.

Actually, it does bother me a little that the residents I used to work with were circumcised because the staff would have to do the cleaning otherwise. With the guys who wore diapers, I can understand it more easily because there is a certain point where it's just a losing battle, but for the non-diapered guys "the staff are icked out" (a.k.a. convenience) doesn't seem a good enough reason permanently physically alter someone. But then again, is a short surgery they may not even care about better or worse than a lifetime of someone else handling their penis like that 3-5 times a day (and sadly I can say not everyone thinks being gentle is a priority)?

[neo-dragon]

You probably would if it involved snipping bits off. Most westerners (male and female alike) are pretty bothered about female genital cutting. Just sayin'... it's not a "wash behind the ears" kind of hygiene matter.

I hear what you're saying, but if the bits in question are ones that my significant other is a lot more familiar with than I am, to say the least, I'd still figure that she's more qualified to make the final call, although I would certainly give an opinion.

Of course, we're talking about male circumcision which in all likelihood won't cause major problems in the boy's life either way. If we were talking about the female equivalent which as I understand it is nothing short of mutilation, then I would be more adamantly opposed. But so would any woman I'm likely to be having kids with.

[powerfulcheese04]

While I hope that no future child of mine will be exposed to HIV, there is a documented 60% reduction in risk of acquiring HIV in circumcised v. uncircumcised men, so I plan to circumcise any male children, assuming no strong opposition from the father.

(Sadly, the reports that it also reduces the risk of M to F transfer seem to be false.)



Source of data: http://data.unaids.org/pub/Report/2007/ ... ons_en.pdf

[steph]

I always assumed if I had boys, they would be circumcised because everyone I knew was. When I was making the decision for my boys, I read all the research I could find and there was no evidence strong enough on either side of the argument to sway me to their POV. (The HIV study hadn't come out yet.) In Colorado, 50% of babies are circumcised, so there wouldn't be "fitting in in the locker room" problems, whichever decision we made. I was pretty neutral on the subject. So I had Brian make the call. Since he is circumcised, he decided to have his sons circumcised. I don't regret the decision one bit.

[mazer]

While I hope that no future child of mine will be exposed to HIV, there is a documented 60% reduction in risk of acquiring HIV in circumcised v. uncircumcised men, so I plan to circumcise any male children, assuming no strong opposition from the father.

(Sadly, the reports that it also reduces the risk of M to F transfer seem to be false.)



Source of data: http://data.unaids.org/pub/Report/2007/ ... ons_en.pdf

You see I am have the opposite view of this I will circumcise all my female children

[Gravity Defier]

I'll let the father of my children decide, I think.

Now, I will say I scanned that study instead of giving it a thorough reading but it seems to me condoms and some sex ed would do better in the fight against AIDS than cutting off the tip of your child's penis. If they're having sex with a partner whom they trust, then ideally the discontinuance of the condoms after an agreed upon time should be acceptable; trust is key there.

It seems that in Africa, where the study was done, there is a far greater need for the circumcisions than here in the US because as far as I know, they have even less access to birth control/condoms and sex education all around.

[powerfulcheese04]

mazer: I don't get your argument/joke. The report shows that there is a 60% decreased risk of a circumcised male contracting HIV. There used to be a rumor that a circumcised male was less likely to transmit HIV to a female partner. This appears not to be true.

Alea: While there is more access to condoms, there's less access to good sex ed/STD discussion here than in Africa. At least the part of Africa I was in... they talk about safe sex at all the hospitals, even for routine non-sex related kinds of things. Right along with talking about clean water. They also have ads all over the place about safe sex and where to get condoms.

Also, while there is more access to condoms here, that doesn't mean people will always use them, even when they don't totally trust a partner. Not everyone is super responsible, and I'd rather reduce risk wherever I can, especially when there's no good reason not to. Also, the people most at risk for acquiring HIV in th US are those already engaging in other "risky" sexual behaviors.

[neo-dragon]

I'd rather reduce risk wherever I can, especially when there's no good reason not to.

I guess that depends on what you call a "good reason not to".

In the spirit of "if it ain't broke don't fix it", I opt for keeping all functional body parts attached.

[Gravity Defier]

there's less access to good sex ed/STD discussion here than in Africa.

Sounds to me like that is the problem. But see, the people in charge of kids having access to a good sex education are the parents. If parents step it up there (I kind of like pushing for more responsibility from parents), that statement is not a valid argument for the procedure.

ETA: Let me stress this particular part because outside of just being argumentative for the sake of arguing, I have no interest in telling anyone (outside of my family) how to raise their children. --->Of course, do as you will with your child.

Also, while there is more access to condoms here, that doesn't mean people will always use them, even when they don't totally trust a partner. Not everyone is super responsible

True. But the people who tend to engage in said risky behavior are probably repeat offenders, at which point the question isn't if that little snip will fail them but rather when.

All in my ever so humble opinion of course. I have nothing to back any of those claims up. Good day.

[locke]

here's an interesting question, how do we, the first teenagers of the net generation address our kids access to the internet and pornography down the road? I'm just old enough to remember how highly prized a playboy or penthouse was in elementary school or how awesome a friend was if his parents were kind enough to buy HBO/showtime/cinemax and you were able to catch some skinemax programming late saturday night and get to see (omg) boobies. middle school was still a bit innocent for my generation (not so I imagine for the younger pweb set born in the late eighties early nineties) but by high school porn was easily accessible over the internet, though you had to click to a single picture and wait for the image to load 'top down' ever so slowly over your 28.8 baud connection. now todays fourteen year olds have access to streaming video showing just about everything you could think of (or didn't want to think of) and share porn over their phones. so how are we men going to address our boys and girls access to the internet since it's inevitable our boys and girls are going to go looking for pornography at some point (I'd be more worried if my kids weren't trying to, theoretically) and are we, as a culture, going to have to come up with a new dialogue about this topic?

porn is potentially very dangerous if we don't have an open dialogue about it, imo, and I think with our generation having the first really easy and vast access to hard pornography we'll have a responsibility to our children to create a way of talking about it and about the need to develop a healthy sense of sex and sexuality apart from the representations they will see. I don't think pornography has to be devastating to our culture, no more so than masturbation is (but not that benign/healthy, lol), but the need is there, I think, to acknowledge we will have to do more in light that there is more out there.

[locke]

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/ne ... 233878.ece

about that point about needing to open up the dialogue in modern society. and better and earlier sex education and pregnancy prevention. :-p

granted, it is the sun, so here's a couple pounds of salt too.

[neo-dragon]

here's an interesting question, how do we, the first teenagers of the net generation address our kids access to the internet and pornography down the road?

That's a tough question. I wish I knew how to answer it. It is kind of amazing to think about how easy the internet has made it for anyone to access porn, and I wouldn't depend on parental blocks to take care of things.

[elfprince13]

here's an interesting question, how do we, the first teenagers of the net generation address our kids access to the internet and pornography down the road?

That's a tough question. I wish I knew how to answer it. It is kind of amazing to think about how easy the internet has made it for anyone to access porn, and I wouldn't depend on parental blocks to take care of things.

a) enable site logging on your router (most support this)
b) don't let your kid administrate the network
c) check the logs a couple times a week, if you see anything suspicious, its time for a talk
d) don't let them have a laptop when they're 8, its unnecessary. They can use the family computer, and it can stay in a public place
e) on a related note, Google Desktop (or Spotlight on a Mac)

[neo-dragon]

a) enable site logging on your router (most support this)

I didn't even know that you could do that. In my day all you had to worry about was clearing the browser history.

[locke]

clear the history and delete the suspicious looking cookies. oh and since we were in AOL, don't browse through the AOL browser but launch Internet explorer separately.

and install the nanny software yourself so that you can turn it off since you have the administrator passwords and your parents think they do. then uninstall it when you dad says he can't go to some of his 'completely innocent' sites and never have to worry about the software again. :-p

[elfprince13]

even if you delete history and cookies, frequently the last 500MB or so of internet browsing are stored in cache, and if you're really paranoid there's form history too. Nanny software tends to be pathetically easy to subvert/disable (use the processes tab in the Task Manager, or Process Explorer). The school I went to tries to filter the internet to prevent kids from going on facebook, and there's at least 5 ways around it. You can't protect your kids from seeing what you don't want them to see if they're looking for (though Adblock plus and keeping a blacklist in your hosts file can help protect them from inadvertent glimpses), so the solution is monitoring. Granted, this can usually be worked around too, with a little bit more difficulty, but at least the first time you catch your kid by surprise and you can initiate a discussion with them. On the flipside of this is you can't possibly have an open relationship with your kid if you use a keylogger to monitor everything they do (and write) on the computer and they know you don't trust them.

[neo-dragon]

But of course, being the first teens of the net generation means that for most of us we knew a lot more about how to track a person's activities online than our parents did. Even now my parents wouldn't know how to check a browser history unless I told them.

[elfprince13]

But of course, being the first teens of the net generation means that for most of us we knew a lot more about how to track a person's activities online than our parents did. Even now my parents wouldn't know how to check a browser history unless I told them.

I think thats the point......weren't we kinda discussing this?

how do we, the first teenagers of the net generation address our kids access to the internet and pornography down the road?

[neo-dragon]

Yeah, I know. I was just saying that in our day you didn't have to try very hard to cover your tracks, because most parents were clueless.

So yes, the issue is what will we do as the first generation of parents who will be a match for our children with regards to knowledge of the net, and you've provided some pretty good strategies. Of course, I guess we should also talk to our kids about what's out there and why we want to restrict their access to it.

[elfprince13]

Yeah, I know. I was just saying that in our day you didn't have to try very hard to cover your tracks, because most parents were clueless.

So yes, the issue is what will we do as the first generation of parents who will be a match for our children with regards to knowledge of the net, and you've provided some pretty good strategies. Of course, I guess we should also talk to our kids about what's out there and why we want to restrict their access to it.

Like I said you don't restrict their access (beyond some basic protection against lewd advertising), but you monitor what they're up to, so you know when it's the right time to have the conversation If you have it too early, you're gonna get "eww gross, I'd never do that" and if you have it too late you won't have any impact at all. Wait until you see some good signs of them getting curious.

[Wil]

Ahh, the old cut vs. uncut debate! It's a wonder it took so long for it to make its way here.

From a health stance: If a guy is not explicitly told to do a complete cleaning often, when he is not cut, then chances are he would not know to do it. I imagine, and could very well be wrong, that up until that time that they are told they must be cleaning there (what, maybe 13 or 14 or 15 if done right?), that it is very possible it could get to be quite dirty under the... foreskin.

The aids thing has already been mentioned; that since the foreskin is gone less "rubbing" occurs and this lessens the chance that the skin on the penis will break, allowing for aids transmission. I wonder, though, that if condoms lessen your chance against aids what would happen if you used BOTH! *shrug*

Either way, the penis looks disgusting. And this is a guy saying that! Seriously! It's just a weird body part! And whenever I see one, I can't help but to think GONZO. >.>


As for the pornography thing... that's a really tough thing. I personally feel that you shouldn't shelter a child from it. If a kid of eight or nine sees some boobs in a movie, you shouldn't go "BILLY, COVER YOUR EYES!". But, you really shouldn't go out of your way to make it accessible either. I imagine most children, if while watching a movie or something, see it, they probably wouldn't give it much thought. The act of trying to hide something like that is what makes them search it out. If you've hidden it, then if they get the opportunity they will try and find it at some point.

Now, that doesn't really cover as they get older, and as they make those dumb friends in school. At that point, it might be worth discussing it with them and explaining it to them. I question whether or not you should just completely lock it away, because you get the same problem as above, but you don't necessarily want to give them unlimited access to it either. As was said above, you could place the computer in a public place in the house while they are still young. If you do get them their own computer, then really there is only so much you can do. Check the router logs, block the obvious ones, etc...

Yeah, that's all I got.

[Syphon the Sun]

In the spirit of "if it ain't broke don't fix it", I opt for keeping all functional body parts attached.

Except the only real, legitimate function is to protect the penis in-utero. Once they're born, it doesn't really serve a function.

(While there are some studies indicating other functions, the functions aren't all that significant. Even if the functions were significant, though, the studies are inconclusive at best, given the multitude of contradictory studies.)

[neo-dragon]

Still, it ain't broke. And studies or not, it's gotta provide some protection for the head.

[elfprince13]

Still, it ain't broke. And studies or not, it's gotta provide some protection for the head.

The only really convincing argument I've heard for keeping it is that the nerve endings in the foreskin are a lot higher density then in most of the rest of the penis.

[Wil]

So if someone smacks the tip of your foreskin covered penis it'll hurt a lot more than if all those extra nerve endings had been chopped off!

Wait, I mean, that way you'll be able to orgasm faster during sex!

Wait, I mean... wait. Why are we not chopping this off again?

[neo-dragon]

Still, it ain't broke. And studies or not, it's gotta provide some protection for the head.

The only really convincing argument I've heard for keeping it is that the nerve endings in the foreskin are a lot higher density then in most of the rest of the penis.

This is where we seem to have fundamentally different views. I say that keeping it (or any other part of one's anatomy) is the default option. I'd need convincing arguments for cutting it off.

[Wil]

But, they have given arguments for this. Namely, the fact that is generally a useless addition to ones own anatomy. I imagine that having something to cover the sensitive tip of the penis was probably an issue before we wore pants so often. Now, as it stands, cutting it off not only provides the benefit of less cleaning but also a reduced risk of getting aids (plus the silly, non-important reasons I gave above!).

People have provided fairly decent reasons for having it removed but I have yet to see a reason to keep it besides "Well, we are born with it so we should keep it". *shrug*

[neo-dragon]

The lack of an apparent use isn't a reason, which is kind of my point. Easier cleaning? I've never found that very convincing either. You're in the shower, surrounded by soap and water... for all the fuss cleaning it properly really isn't more difficult than any other part of your body. In fact, I'd say that it requires a lot more work to wash your hair properly. Reduced chance of AIDS? Wear a condom! Know who you're sleeping with! No surgery required. In this day in age, in this part of the world, common sense will reduce your chances of getting STDs to a degree that makes any benefit gained by circumcision insignificant.

From my point of view no one's given any convincing arguments either way, so if I had to make a choice for a son right now, I'd say leave it by default.

[Wil]

Sure it is a reason! We've cut off/out things before we didn't think we needed! Like, tonsils! My father tells me that there was this whole phase of life where they would just cut those things out despite people not having trouble with them! In fact, for him, the doctor came by, asked if anyone wanted their tonsils out, and the doctor did it right there on the kitchen table. Crazy, crazy people.

And yes, easier cleaning. But by that I specifically meant people that DON'T know how to clean properly. I imagine there is a LITTLE effort involved, having to pull back said foreskin to get a complete washing, as opposed to with a circimsized penis already being flap-free, as it were, and thus can pretty much take care of itself as there are no nooks and crannies of skin folds for things to catch in/grow/whatever.

I always wondered though; what with a baby wearing a diaper, does having foreskin increase the risk or disease or increase the "difficulty" of cleaning a male baby? I'm sure it can't be good for urine and whatnot potentially getting "trapped".

Like I said above, if a condom reduces your chances, and circumcision reduces your chances, then both should result in an addition of those chances. You can't know what your future son may or may not stick his penis in, and how careful he is in picking where it goes. Consider it preparing for the worst.. or something less awful sounding.

Another argument I've seen is that the "pain" the baby goes through. To be quite honest, I've never really liked this argument. Why? I'll pull this random number out of nowhere and say that there is a one in one-thousand chance that the child will remember anyways. Beyond that, once the child grows up, I'm fairly sure they won't get it done anyways.

One negative thing I've seen is when they botch up a circumcision. I've seen pictures where the foreskin wasn't completely removed, there is a "skin bridge" from the shaft to the head, etc. So, that is always a risk. Just gotta check the doctors work.

[powerfulcheese04]

Sure it is a reason! We've cut off/out things before we didn't think we needed! Like, tonsils! My father tells me that there was this whole phase of life where they would just cut those things out despite people not having trouble with them! In fact, for him, the doctor came by, asked if anyone wanted their tonsils out, and the doctor did it right there on the kitchen table. Crazy, crazy people.

Mostly unrelated but: I freaking hate tonsils. I wish my childhood had been one of the "get rid of extraneous crap" periods in medicine.

It would have save me 6 months to a year of chronic infections followed by surgery followed by pain so severe I couldn't swallow a slushie for 24 hours and couldn't eat real food for a week and a half.

[neo-dragon]

The bottom line is that I just don't find the benefits to be significant when basic education in hygiene and safe sex do just as well.

[Luet]

As for the pornography thing... that's a really tough thing. I personally feel that you shouldn't shelter a child from it. If a kid of eight or nine sees some boobs in a movie, you shouldn't go "BILLY, COVER YOUR EYES!". But, you really shouldn't go out of your way to make it accessible either. I imagine most children, if while watching a movie or something, see it, they probably wouldn't give it much thought. The act of trying to hide something like that is what makes them search it out. If you've hidden it, then if they get the opportunity they will try and find it at some point.

I just wanted to say that I think having a healthy attitude towards the human body and/or nudity (which Americans in general do not have) is pretty far removed from pornography. I know that is not the point you were making but I just wanted to bring it up anyway. I think the attitudes in Europe are much healthier regarding non-sexual nudity in general.

[Wil]

Yeah, those two points got kind of blended together in my post... but.. well if you work REALLY hard I think you'll be able to get what I meant.

[Syphon the Sun]

I always wondered though; what with a baby wearing a diaper, does having foreskin increase the risk or disease or increase the "difficulty" of cleaning a male baby? I'm sure it can't be good for urine and whatnot potentially getting "trapped".

Yes, leaving it does significantly increase the risk of infection, inflammation, and a whole host of other problems. And while the risk does go down after a few years, it can still be upwards of five or six times the risk for uncircumcised boys.

[zeroguy]

And whenever I see one, I can't help but to think GONZO.

If your penis is that curved, purple, and has a muppet growing out of it, you might want to get that checked.