Welp, after approximately seven days (the maximum length allowed for a Twitter poll), the results for my Twitter penis polls are finally in.
Let me just say, the results are not what I hoped they had been.
Not that I was wishing for them to be one way or another, after all, these polls were meant to find one thing, and one thing only; the truth.
No, what I mean by this is that, for one, I wish I would have had larger sample sizes, which would have lent more credibility to the results; with only a few respondents on some questions, the results mean almost nothing.
Before I share the results of my polls, I'd like to address their shortcomings.
For one, there are some questions which I probably could have worded better.
One of the biggest limitations constricting the effectiveness of these polls are the limited options Twitter users have when creating polls:
- Only 4 answers are possible
- Each answer has a short character limit.
- One question per poll
For this reason, I had to word the options in a funky manner, and I had to lump in different things together.
I also feel Twitter might be shadow banning me, limiting the visibility of these polls on the Twittersphere.
Another factor that may have contributed to the mixed results in these polls is the fact that I had to create a separate poll for each question, making all of the questions disconnected and disjointed; a problem I sought to remedy by unifying all the poll questions in one blog post like I did, and then posting a link to that.
Still, given the different number of respondents for each poll, it seems not everyone answered all of the questions, so the data is rather incomplete. And yet others may not have actually voted using the Tweet option, and instead decided to respond directly to the Tweets themselves, if not to the blog post I posted them on (see comments).
Perhaps using a different polling option was in order, one that made sure respondents answered all the questions, and allowed fields for respondents to give more detailed replies.
Without Further Ado... the Results
Lube Usage Poll
These first poll questions were touched off by another poll I saw on Twitter.
It has long been suspected that circumcised men use lubrication a lot more than their intact counterparts for sexual activity including sexual intercourse and masturbation, due to the fact that circumcision removes the foreskin which covers the glans and keeps the glans and space between the glans moist and supple, leading to keritanization and drying out of the head of the penis and surrounding mucosa.
Here is what my Twitter poll said:
Of 91 circumcised respondents or their partners, 37% said that commercial lubrication was essential. 24% said they use it often but isn't essential, while 15% of them said they only use it sometimes. 24% of them said they never use it.
Compare that with 64 intact respondents or their partners, only 9% of which said that commercial lubrication was essential. While 5% said they often use it, and 25% of them said they only use it occasionally, 61% of them said they never use lubrication.
The sample size is small, but if these results mean anything, it sounds like it simply is true; circumcised men use lubrication a lot more than intact men.
A few people commented that it would have been better to separate sex and masturbation, because, at least with gay men, many use lubrication as a matter of course, regardless of whether or not the penetrative partner was circumcised. One intact person commented that his female partner is menopausal, she doesn't produce enough of her own natural lubrication, so they use commercial lubrication.
A few others commented on the wording; "commercial lubrication" may exclude other forms of lubrication, such as coconut oil or saliva, so including the words "other forms of lubrication" may have yielded different results.
ED Aid Poll
Another common assumption is that, since circumcised men become desensitized over time, they would be more likely to experience ED in older age, and thus use drugs and devices to aid in maintaining an erection.
Thus I created the following poll:
I was expecting to see more circumcised men and/or their partners to answer "essential" for this question, but I was surprised to find that intact and circumcised respondents answered more or less the same, with slightly more intact men indicating that the use of Viagra or pumps to be "essential," (13% intact vs 9% circumcised) and more circumcised men indicating "never" than intact men. (77% circumcised vs 60% intact)
Again, some respondents contacted me privately to tell me that they use pumps and rings even though they don't experience ED, simply because it feels good to them to use these devices, so it may have been better to separate drug and device usage.
Also, the sample sizes were much smaller than in the first question, and there were more intact men in the older ranges, which might have something to do with it.
It is what it is.
Have you seen your father's Penis?
I made this poll, because a rationale often used to justify male infant circumcision is that a boy must look like his father, and that a boy being different than his father might create animosity between them.
Intactivists often say that a boy is not likely to see his father naked, and that even if this happened, a child is more likely to notice other things first, such as the bigger size, presence of pubic hair, etc.
Here is what my polls said:
Add up all the "yesses," and a whopping 67% of 71 respondents said they saw their father's penis. If this is any indication, most could actually tell their father's circumcision status, while a small percentage never really looked close or couldn't tell. If you include the 3% that couldn't tell their father's circumcision status, that's 46% of men as children who weren't really interested in looking at their father's penis. (I wonder how many wanted to...)
So yes, it looks like boys who see their father naked will be likely to notice their father's circumcision status.
In retrospect, I could have worded this question differently; only boys who have a different circumcision status than their father would notice there is a difference, because most boys wouldn't know what circumcision is in the first place unless parents took the time to educate them about it.
I suspect that of the respondents who "could tell" their father's circumcision status, circumcision status may have been different. Otherwise, they couldn't tell, or it wouldn't be such an outstanding thing to notice.
It bears repeating that, in the early days when circumcision wasn't a thing, and doctors were beginning to circumcise baby boys, circumcision status would be different between father and son, and this was not a consideration as a possible "problem." It's interesting how now that parents are considering leaving their children's penises alone, doctors are suddenly "concerned."
So there you have it; most respondents who saw their fathers' penis did so within 1 to 10 years of age.
There were only 21 respondents, but most of them, 38%, thought that size was the most outstanding thing about their father's penis, followed by the presence of pubic hair (24%). Circumcision came in third (19%), while a small percentage of respondents didn't think much one way or the other.
So size and the presence of pubic hair was more noticeable to my respondents than circumcision status.
Once again, this could have been a larger sample size.
Only 7 respondents for this question, but, for what it's worth, none of them seem to think that being different from their fathers affected them in a negative way. Over half were able to bond with their fathers despite having different circumcision statuses, still, for the others, it didn't really matter.
There was probably a better way I could have worded this; it could be said that "he was still a dick" might be a negative thing. Still, it is possible that a relationship between a father could sour in spite of same or different circumcision status.
Locker Room Poll
This poll was also touched off by an oft-used rationale for circumcising a son; "If you don't circumcise him, he'll be made fun of in the locker room."
Here are the results:
12 respondents (should have been 15), half of which said they experienced regular locker room nudity in Jr high and high school. Again, this is such a tiny sample size; I wish others would have voted.
Only 11 respondents for this one, more than half of which were from the East Coast. (Intact men? In the East Coast? Wonders never cease.)
Perhaps another question for ethnicity might have been in order. Again, these would be constrained to 4 due to Twitter's limitations, so I might not have been able to garner much.
Perhaps another question for ethnicity might have been in order. Again, these would be constrained to 4 due to Twitter's limitations, so I might not have been able to garner much.
Conclusion
So in these were the results, and again, I beseech the reader to consider that these polls were rather informal, and your blogger acknowledges their limitations.I repeat that, I hope that this is a starting point for others; hopefully others, more rigorous than myself, can take my ideas and create better polls and gather more meaningful data from more significant sample sizes than I ever could, and provide more accurate insights for the discussion of considerations for male infant circumcision.
Related Post:
Original Penis Poll Post
