r/TheHandmaidsTale • u/HarryCooky • 11d ago
Male version of removing pleasure with intercourse? Episode Discussion
Just finished it, ending was pretty fuckin dodgy. Weirdly felt familiar due to the sheer amount of it happening under Islam as I write this post. That is horrible to think about.
Other than chopping off testicles, is there any sort of similar genital mutilation for males that affects pleasure? Vasectomies still allow male orgasm, and circumcision does basically nothing (I am circumcised and honestly am glad my parents made that decision). It just seems weird that women are shown to be able to be oppressed through biology alone in some parts. Extremely confronting.
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u/kummerspect 11d ago
I would guess that any significant genital mutilation, particularly if it created scar tissue or nerve damage, would probably cause issues. Fgm is brutal for a number of reasons, so I think if you did that level of mutilation on a man, it would probably have permanent effects on his ability to experience pleasure.
It is just a quirk of human biology that male ejaculation is tied to pleasure, or at the very least stimulation, but a woman’s fertility is entirely passive. Although, I believe it’s more likely a woman will get pregnant if she has an orgasm because of the spasms that occur in the uterus and cervix, so if Gilead was really about fertility, they’d be focused on the Handmaid’s pleasure and comfort as much as the man’s…but we all know it was less about fertility and more about control.
It’s a wonder they don’t make all the Handmaids undergo fgm. I can only imagine they probably wanted to reserve that as a higher form of punishment. Probably also something to do with wanting them to learn to control their urges as a form of piety.
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u/Super_Reading2048 11d ago
And not stressing the handmaids out. Stress is bad for getting pregnant and those handmaids are beyond stressed!
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u/RennietheAquarian 10d ago
Many women who had the most common form of FGM (clitoral hood removal) say their sexual pleasure was enhanced, since their clitoris was no longer covered by skin. Many adult women seek clitoral hood reductions for this reason, but doing this is still classified as "FGM"
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u/SomethingEverAfter 11d ago
I don't think it would be necessary. They consider the fertility crisis to be caused by women so they want to keep fertile women like Emily alive. From their perspective it makes sense to keep her from sinning by removing her clit. But if a man commits a sexually based sin, they don't necessarily need to keep him alive. Like Commander Putnam lost his hand because of what happened with Jeanine, but she was his property so it wasn't a serious sin. But when he raped unassigned property, they killed him.
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u/ProfPieixoto 11d ago
A fictional way to do so is described in ch. 7 of Naomi Alderman's "The Power" novel
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u/False-Badger 11d ago
Just a heads up, the link goes to a site that says there is no text on this page.
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u/ProfPieixoto 11d ago
Well it works for me - you can try the TOC to navigate#Chapters) (chapter #7). Hope this works for you.
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u/Dollyoxenfree 10d ago
Hey, just wanted to say thanks for quoting this book. I looked up it, it looked interesting, and immediately got it from my library! I'm only a quarter of the way through, but it's really good.
So thank you!
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u/Educational-Month182 11d ago
Routine circumcision for male babies in general in the UK (not including babies who have it done for religious purposes) would be considered barbaric and again lowers the pleasure and sensitivity. It's not on the same level as FGM of course which is insanely awful but it's definitely on the mutilation scale.
As a parent I was always horrified when I hear about America's insane habit of.mutilating baby boys for no reason 😱 glad to hear that the practice is reducing. If you asked for it done for no medical reason in the UK, you would probably have it recorded by social care
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u/JanisIansChestHair 11d ago
Male circumcision is also mutilation and there are FGM victims who advocate against FGM that also advocate against MGM. There are different types of both FGM and MGM, some of them are exceptionally brutal.
I learnt about the plastibell method, it’s actually the most common method in the US done to boys and it’s sickening. They use a probe to peel the foreskin from the head as it’s attached by synechiae (like what attaches your fingernails to the nail bed, except the foreskin version will “dissolve” on its own over the years). They make a slit down the foreskin, then they cut off some of the foreskin around the circumference. They then shove a plastic bell shaped object down under the remaining foreskin, then tie surgical thread or twine around it, so the remaining little bit of foreskin ROTS off! It goes black and falls away. All while this poor little baby pees and poops on it for about a week, all while they’re awake and strapped to a board having the plastibell fitted. It’s barbaric! And people let this happen to their newborns. It’s like something out of another kind of dystopian novel.
This method has caused gangrene, complete loss of the penis and scrotum, disfigurement, infections, death. And so has every other type but they continue to harm these poor babies and grow them up telling them it’s a normal thing to do and that they should be happy.
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u/RennietheAquarian 10d ago
I would say it is mutilation. I watched so many videos of men sharing their regrets at being circumcised as adults.
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u/kirinlikethebeer 11d ago
Came for this comment. MGM is circumcision and does reduce pleasure. Puritanical doctors popularized it in the United States and given the current climate it’s not going anywhere.
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u/Thezedword4 11d ago
Just a heads up circumcision does lower sensitivity for the man and add more friction during sex which can be uncomfortable at times. That said, it is NOWHERE near the equivalent to fgm.
Of course we don't have an equivalent though because why would patriarchal society want to limit male pleasure?
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u/ladymacbeth260 10d ago
Just as a heads up fgm covers a wide spectrum of genital cutting from a pin prick to the clitoral hood to the full infibublation it's all horrific and on that scale male genital cutting sits about halfway on the horror scale of impact. Not all fgm happens in a hut with a sharp rock and not all male circumcision happens in a hospital. It's such a huge issue with no black and white about one being horror and the other not.
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u/Ok_Speaker_2912 10d ago
they are the same MGM=FGM = CHILD Genital mutilation.
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u/HopefulProposal4915 8d ago
No. FGM does not always occur as a child, as does MGM. Please think clearly before making uneducated responses. They are definitely not the same in practices, execution, and tools. They are both mutilations, yes, but far from the same, and they happen to more than children.
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u/TheDENN1Ssystem 11d ago
Circumcision doesn’t do nothing. Just because you’re fine with it doesn’t make it harmless and men circumcised as adults have reported significantly less pleasure.
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u/JanisIansChestHair 11d ago
There was a young man from here in England that moved to North America and was pressured by his new doctor there to be circumcised. The man killed himself because it was that different.
It’s been described by men who have been circumcised as adults as “sex becomes like eating without having tastebuds”. It becomes frustrating because the feeling you chase never happens again no matter what.
America also consumes almost half of the world’s viagra.
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u/ladymacbeth260 11d ago
I believe you might mean Alex Hardy. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-47292307
His mum works closely with the UK based charity u/15__square who work tirelessly to ensure the harms of circumcision are known. https://15square.org.uk/a-is-for-alex-by-lesley-roberts/
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u/JanisIansChestHair 11d ago
Yes, that’s the person I was referring to. ☹️
I actually got a DM from someone who said “that’s a one off case, blah blah blah”… no, it’s not a one off. When you’ve actually looked in to circumcision and spoken to men who’ve been harmed by it, there are thousands of men who are depressed by it, and who knows how many that have taken their life because of it.
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u/kirinlikethebeer 11d ago
My friend got circumcised at 16. I think he was young enough to integrate it into his psyche but he confirmed it was a massive loss for sure.
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u/RennietheAquarian 10d ago
YouTube has so many videos of regret men sharing the decrease in sensation and their warnings to other men to NEVER allow themselves to get cut.
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u/JanisIansChestHair 10d ago
And yet people don’t listen because if they ask their family members or partner, they’ll just say they’re fine and refuse to admit what was done to them was cruel and shouldn’t have been someone else’s choice.
People cut at birth have no comparison. They don’t know unless they seek out information, that some of the things they experience are not normal.
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u/RennietheAquarian 10d ago
American doctors are twisted. It's time men cut as adults speak about the harms of circ, because they experienced what it was like to be cut and intact. People probably will listen to them, over a man cut at birth who says "I am fine."
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u/JanisIansChestHair 10d ago
Plenty of them do, they join organisations like Bloodstained Men, or the equivalent that we have in the UK (I always forget their name, but they do protests). There’s also websites like circumcisionharm & sexasnatureintendedit.
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u/RennietheAquarian 10d ago
That's a fear of mines. I heard horror stories of men cut against their will during a vasectomy surgery. They go in for a vasectomy and come out circumcised. One man sued and won, but lost his wife, because sex was never the same for both of them.
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u/Thezedword4 10d ago
How would that happen when a) most vasectomies are done with local anesthetic meaning you're awake and b) you have consent to anything done during surgery unless it's an emergency. I'm not saying it could never happen to anyone but that would be very difficult to do so. If it did, definitely malpractice though.
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u/JanisIansChestHair 10d ago
I have unfortunately heard of this happening in the US. I’ve heard of plenty of newborn boys being cut without consent too. A friend of mine from Florida woke up to a doctor wheeling her son away, asked where he was going and he said “I was told you don’t want this boy circumcised, he will hate you for it so I’m going to do it any way” she had to scream to get her son back, but the hospital staff treated her like it was no big deal and that she was an awful parent for not having the circumcision.
Another friend of mine who had one boy in the US & one in the UK thanked UK maternity staff for not trying to take her son to cut him, obviously the midwives were baffled because we don’t do that here and they were shocked to hear about her experience in the US.
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u/Thezedword4 10d ago
Newborn babies, 100% yes it happens. Adult men getting a procedure where they aren't even anesthetized? Doesn't make sense. Those are two very different thimgs you're talking about.
Edit wording
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u/JanisIansChestHair 10d ago
You can choose to be put under for a vasectomy. Upon googling, it’s actually a recommendation by some places in the US to be asleep for it.
Looks like it’s recommended that you’re asleep in the UK too, but there’s no chance anyone would be snipping your foreskin off here.
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u/Thezedword4 10d ago
I know a lot of people who got vasectomies after the Dobbs decision and no one was put under full anesthesia or even twilight for it. At most they were given a Valium if particularly nervous. It's wholly unnecessary to go under anesthesia for it. I'm not saying it's impossible but highly unlikely. I'm saying a) you're changing gears from adult men to babies which is irrelevant to the original point and b) sharing something that factually doesn't make sense is just fear mongering when there is plenty of information out there to show circumcism is not something that should be done in most cases (barring medical necessity). It hurts your case to throw out wild inaccuracies.
Also it would be an immediate medical malpractice suit and in the news. The only thing found on Google is someone going in for a circumcism and getting a vasectomy instead by mistake.
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u/JanisIansChestHair 10d ago
Point a) did you see the word “TOO”. Wasn’t switching gears to deflect, I simply had nothing more to say on the adult matter than “I’ve heard of that happening”.
Because I have heard of that happening.
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u/Thezedword4 10d ago
If someone goes "I heard the sky is blue" and your response is "Wrong because the grass is green." That doesn't make much sense and is absolutely a deflection.
Regardless, clearly this is getting nowhere and I'm not going to waste my energy. Have a good one.
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u/JanisIansChestHair 10d ago
Yep, I’ve heard of that too and because circumcision is so normalised in the states, and seen as no big deal, you’ll rarely find anyone willing to help you in a legal case.
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u/use_more_lube 11d ago
" circumcision does basically nothing"
well, then you got lucky - a lot of people have some massive scars, to the point that an erection can be seriously uncomfortable
Also, you'll never know about the nerve endings you never got to use.
It's genital surgery on an infant for cosmetic reasons, I can't say I'm a fan.
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u/NaturalFew8735 11d ago
To remove all sexual pleasure the guys at r/humandildo: 1- get circumcised in a way that removes all inner foreskin 2- dip the penis in alcohol to destroy the remaining meissner and genital corpuscles remaining in the glans. Some also use salicylic acid for a more thorough numbing.
Crazy.
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u/MsMercyMain 10d ago
I’m sorry what!?
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u/NaturalFew8735 10d ago
I don’t understand why would anyone do that to themselves and I hate that I was circumcised as a newborn precisely for this reason.
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u/JanisIansChestHair 11d ago edited 10d ago
Male Circumcision (MGM) was started to remove pleasure and studies have shown that the most sensitive part of a circumcised penis is less sensitive than the least sensitive part of a non-circumcised penis. Circumcised males need to be rougher to achieve pleasure as the exposed glans (which is supposed to be soft mucosal tissue like the inside of the mouth or vagina) dries out and becomes keratinised and desensitised. They also lose fine touch nerve endings from the foreskin and the frenulum. You can’t feel with what you no longer have, so pleasure is reduced.
Most circumcised men can still have sex, you can still orgasm (some very unlucky people actually can’t do that when they’re cut) but it’s not close to what a non-circumcised person feels, it does remove some pleasure and ED is rampant in circumcised males (the US takes up 45% of the world’s viagra usage and is the only country that routinely circumcises outside of the Middle East & North Africa. In European countries over 90% of males are left intact).
Most circumcised women can still have sex and still orgasm, it’s a misconception that they can’t. The clitoris is 97% internal, extending down the vulva, to near the tops of the thighs. and the most common form of female circumcision (FGM) is clitoral hood removal or nicking, which leaves the clitoris intact but removes or cuts the female foreskin (prepuce), of course there are plenty of circumcised women who have it worse and cannot achieve pleasure.
The literal male version is circumcision, people can fight me on it, but it’s true. There are different types of both and even female advocates against FGM who have had it done to them, have said the same thing.
*thank you for the award 🥰
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u/kellielynn76 11d ago
We have medications to give to patients to remove the urge but like most comments state, removal of the ball sacs are the definition of castrating a man.
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u/ZongduOfArrakis 11d ago
There are several different 'grades' of circumcision for both sexes. I disagree with all FYI, but a lot of the time it is the case that for social reasons FGM tends to be way worse than male circumcision.
However, there extreme versions that do as much tissue damage that are usually performed by some tribal peoples but it remains less widespread than FGM at the comparable level. Likewise, some countries bar 'modern' versions of female circumcision that involve only a ceremonial pricking that are still taken very seriously, as they are linked to communities that often partake in the more heavily tissue-damaging versions.
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u/Adventurous_Design73 5d ago
Communities that mutilate males also mutilate females. If the lesser form of fgm is taken seriously because those same communities do the worse version then mgm should be taken just as seriously because again communities that mutilate males mutilate females. The most common form of mgm is more damaging than the most common form of fgm. Saying that fgm is worse in any capacity is allowing mgm to continue, the whole reason why it's outlawed is because fgm is treated differently than mgm. Saying that "oh it's not as bad as fgm" implies that it's more okay to do or acceptable "we can do this as long as it's not as damaging as fgm". It's tiring hearing this over and over we don't need to get into specifics they are both bad and shouldn't be happening. To have my pain be acknowledged to only be told that another group has it worse is to be spat in the face, my grief and pain amounts to nothing just because the perceived damage is not as bad as another group.
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u/ZongduOfArrakis 5d ago
I didn't mean to state it in that way and I do mostly agree with you somewhat. I was more explaining why certain public perceptions currently do exist for various reasons, not how things ideally should be
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u/Adventurous_Design73 5d ago
I understand but it still needs to be stated that both are happening even with one being illegal that hasn't completely stopped it. The only way to stop this from happening is to view them all as equal and treat them the same way. The tendency to want to remove flesh on a males body will forever make people want to do it to female bodies. Moving that tendency to exclusively male bodies doesn't fix the issue. People in these cultures doing it are men and women who have been mutilated themselves if they haven't had protection for their bodies why would they value that and give someone else that privilege. Especially if it's fathers allowing it to happen they survived and they feel like they are fine why wouldn't their children be okay with it happening to them in their mind.
I apologize if I came off harsh. I don't think people realize that treating them both differently makes them both continue.
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u/crypt_orchid 11d ago
circumcision with partial penectomy would be the male version to what happens on a clit/vulva owner.
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u/RennietheAquarian 10d ago
You claim to be glad, but deep down most cut men wish they had a choice. Also, many men are cut as adults because of their own choosing and deeply regret it. Many say feeling is gone. Men who were cut as infants can't relate, because they are so use to the decreased sensitivity.
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u/General_Erda 10d ago
Circumcision defs does something, this is coming from a cut guy.
Study after study is clear on this.
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u/derel93 11d ago
There is male Infibulation that is having the foreskin sewn together so that you cannot have intercourse anymore. Not really your question tho.
As for circuncision; 1. If done as a child their is no comparison. Having an objective difference is irrelevant when there is no subjective difference. You cant have less pleasure if you never had more in the first place. 2. Their are massive differences in what you do. I have been cicunsized aged 25. UltraLow and tight leqving no inner foreskin (thats why there is no 2nd color). The next question is the frenulum. Unchanged, cut through or scraped. Big difference. Mine got scrapped. We did do it to curb my masturbation on purpose to enhance our marriage and it worked. No worries tho im a gay bottom and dont really need my penis and orgasm by anal sex. Since stopping masturbation 5 years ago that works muuch better. Considering that made my sex life better i guess in the end the answer to the question remains kinda no. 3. Some mentioned castration. I did have serious talks to my doctor about it. Honestly they suck. They suck when you go by bycicle, when i woek lying on the belly with my notebook. And as i said i dont really need then. I still have them 5 years later 🙃There are massive side effects that fuck you up that are unrelated to sex. You get fat, loose muscles, depression and so on. Not worth it at all.
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u/Inevitable_Nerve_925 11d ago
Only castration like they used to do to make eunuchs. I know that in the Bible Jesus even said something about people “making themselves eunuchs” to avoid sexual temptations. That’s nuts (no pun intended).