To Teen Guys: Yes, We Really Need To Check ‘Em

BLUF - exposing the genitals for a hernia exam annually as a teen is a (IMHO) good idea, if the child has been developing normally then maybe a genital exam isn’t all that necessary on an annual basis. But it’s quick and simple to do since the doc is already down there

Couldn’t find any medical literature that promoted less than annual testicular exams for teens. Some literature from NIH and the National Cancer institute as late as 2018 did recommend annual exams based on studies back from 2004-2011. Testicular cancer is high for the 20-40 year age group, low for puberty aged kids. I would think that (not being a doctor) hernia exams are done more routinely as that is more of a risk in young boys. I don’t ever remember getting a testicular exam, but always got hernia exams as a paid, so I know the doc got at least a quick look and may even have done more while my pants were down. Assuring someone that they are “normal” wrt their peers could go either way if you are slow to develop.

As far as the movies referenced, one was sci-fi and the other a comedy- drama. Not sure they were promoting mental support as much as developing normally as much as creating a story line.

Not sure how healthy that is, mentally at least.

I saw a movie a few years ago (Makuko https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9529752/ ) where one of the subplots was that a boy was going through early puberty (actor in his mid teens playing a 5th grader), thinking something was wrong with him, and a climactic scene is where he breaks down and shows his father his genitals, "outing" himself as looking weird. His father responds by showing the son his genitals, and saying basically "mine, too, and everyone else's," effectively confirming that the boy is perfectly normal. Similar subplot in Parenthood ( https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098067/ ) where Joaquin Phoenix confesses to Keanu Reeves what he thinks is wrong with himself, only to be relieved to find out that he's totally normal. That's what happens when boys are afforded too much modesty during puberty -- they spiral and obsess over new things that they think are unique to them.

Since we no longer have communal gym showers or anything like that where a boy can know that his puberty is normal, annual physicals are one of the few non-porn ways for a guy to find out if the changes happening to him are normal. (Teen guys doing internet searches for information will wind up comparing themselves to porn stars, which definitely is not good for their mental health.) Granted, those physicals can be stressful when things are not normal, in my case puberty being two years behind my peers. But once I finally had the physical at 14 where the doctor showed my mom with the orchidometer that puberty finally had started, and the one at 16 where (after he got me to admit I had started masturbating to ejaculation) he said that I finally had caught up, I think the psychological relief was very important. Key here is keeping a routine, where the boy is used to the doctor, and preferably one or both parents (since the doctors may change), seeing him naked at least once a year until puberty is basically done. As stressful as it was for me to be a late bloomer, it never occurred to me at the time to be embarrassed about being naked in front of my pediatrician and my mom, because it was just a normal part of my birthday checkups each and every year, as far back as I could remember.

SPPB- every single thing you said is the exact reason why I've always felt that mainstream American society scrapping the nude male swimming tradition that had been around for nearly a century before was a huge mistake. We've become so obsessed with propriety and paranoid about perverts that to a large extent, we've forgotten how to be fully natural and authentic human beings.

That being said, I can't imagine what it must've been like for those young swimming men, standing there for roll call / opening ceremonies while fully stark naked, as the spectators in the stands gave you a thorough looking over.

You all are talking about situations where symptoms are involved and I specifically said that is a different circumstance. If someone has early/delayed puberty that is something requiring a workup and surveillance. Something that is very frustrating about this thread and many others on this website are people who are not physicians using their own intuition to determine what is healthy and what isn't.

The USPSTF guidelines give a D level recommendation for testicular cancer screening which means it is shown to be MORE HARMFUL than beneficial.

The American Academy of Pediatrics sports physical paperwork removed the genital exam section as detection of issues by exam alone in asymptomatic people is so low that it is not worth subjecting someone to it.

Please stop applying your own intuition and suggesting your anecdotes are more valid than the expert medical bodies forming the guidelines. And please stop relying on studies from 10-20 years ago as those are really outdated. I'm really concerned that many non-experts here think their beliefs around the exam are more or equally valid to expert consensus.

@IRLDrB

I completely agree with you. The medical and scientific aspects can hardly be judged by laypeople.

However, it is obvious that medical experts can be wrong. Medical history is still full of sometimes cruel errors. This is also reflected in changing guidelines for the treatment of certain diseases. I think that doctors and scientists in the medical field can also learn from the patients affected. Patients can sometimes describe their health problems very precisely, which would be very helpful for doctors if they had the time to listen to their patients in their hectic day-to-day work. It frustrates many patients enormously when they are not taken seriously. There are diseases with physical symptoms that cannot or could not be detected with the available examination methods. The patients concerned have been led to believe that the cause is purely psychological. Gradually, medical research is questioning "findings" that were previously assumed to be definitively correct. It then turns out, for example, that the causes of so-called psychosomatic illnesses are more diverse. The path to a differentiated view of the causes of mental illnesses was also very long. Patients were stigmatized for many decades and some of them still are today because doctors do not critically question what they have been taught in their training and further education.

@passiverPatient medical experts can be wrong, this is why patients need to be treated individually and 2nd opinions are great. The mountains of data that support the general guidelines is much more significant for driving medical decisionmaking than individual anecdotes. Obviously clinicians need to listen to patients, but patients also need to understand that what laypeople think makes sense may not align with the data and can actually be very harmful. There are many scams on the rise taking advantage of patient fears and convincing them to drop $$$$ for unnecessary imaging, and it's important to effectively communicate the risks and benefits of what the patient is asking for. Ultimately the patient gets to make their choice, but it all needs to be based on individual patient-centered decisionmaking in discussion with their provider, not just mass telling everyone to get their genitals checked. I agree with you in that this needs to be a 2 way discussion, and my issue on this website is many laypeople using their fascination with exams to support outdated advice for everyone to get poked and prodded everywhere even when it might be more harmful to do so.

Indeed there are so many people who are told their symptoms is in their head and that needs to stop. I err on the side of believing patient's experiences and validating their perspective, although I'm honest with them about the limitations of our diagnostic cababilities. As we learn more though, we're getting way better tools to investigate things like FND or other complex neurological conditions.

@IRLDrB It's worth noting that you do not have testicles.

The USPSTF guidelines give a D level recommendation for testicular cancer screening which means it is shown to be MORE HARMFUL than beneficial.

I would love to know how a testicular exam can be HARMFUL.

The American Academy of Pediatrics sports physical paperwork removed the genital exam section as detection of issues by exam alone in asymptomatic people is so low that it is not worth subjecting someone to it.

So low but not impossible. Testicular cancer is the number 1 cancer in adolescent males. We are not talking about invasive tests. We're talking about a simple testicular exam which lasts what, a minute. The phrase "not worth subjecting someone to it" is where the problem lies. It's a physical exam. We are "subjected" to lots of stuff during a physical exam. Get over it. Teach your boys to be a man and get over it. Be present with him during his physicals so that he knows what the doctor is asking and doing is legitimate.

Please stop applying your own intuition and suggesting your anecdotes are more valid than the expert medical bodies forming the guidelines.

Just like COVID-19, right? The medical establishment sure fucked up on that one.

So this is the problem about waiting until symptoms manifest themselves to get checked. If you really are a doctor you would know that patients often DO NOT report symptoms, particularly in the early stage, for a whole host of reasons. And you are expecting a teenage boy to report symptoms in his genitals?

I have a female friend who never went for any of the routine female examinations out of fear and embarrassed, so there was no medical professional to detect anything early on. Then when her symptoms of breast cancer were so obvious that she had to seek medical help it was too late. And now she is dead.

Society has to stop making pussies out of boys. If I had a son I would make sure that he had his testicles examined and if a doctor told me that it wasn't necessary we would be going to a new doctor. A brief moment of embarrassment - and not everyone was embarrassed to get a testicular exam - we used to laugh about it when I was a kid - is worth knowing that my son does not have testicular cancer, or if he does, it would be found early enough to have minimal consequences.

@Tighty_Whiteis_Now

@IRLDrB It's worth noting that you do not have testicles.

First of all, I believe that every sensible person who is well-disposed towards people is not indifferent to whether men and women get cancer. Cancer of the reproductive organs is particularly distressing for the people affected. It is terrible for anyone to lose one or more sexual organs through illness or accident. No one needs to have testicles to understand this. I don't have any and I'm definitely not indifferent to whether my father, brothers, uncles or nephews are affected. It makes no difference whether I am a cis man or a trans man. I think women also care whether their husbands, sons, brothers or fathers get testicular cancer, prostate cancer or another terrible disease.

When we've reached a point where people are risking a slow, painful, needless death due to pride and / or embarrassment, that's a sure sign that somewhere, somehow, society went VERY wrong.

I myself was one of those lads who rarely went to the doctor growing up. My mother's condition ( lupus ) was so severe that my own healthcare needs got shunted aside. This is regrettable for two reasons- the passing risks to my own health AND the lack of medfet experiences that so many others here regularly enjoyed.

Sometimes I often wonder if God himself deliberately kept both girls and woman doctors AWAY from me in order to keep my mind "pure".

AND the lack of medfet experiences that so many others here regularly enjoyed.

Yeah because I really enjoyed having my underwear pulled down by both male and female doctors, none of whom asked permission even when I was perfectly capable of consenting. Just like I enjoyed their fingers or instruments in my ass.

I can honestly say, hand on heart, that none of my formative medical experiences were ever enjoyable.

Consent is enjoyable. Mutually enjoying things is good. Wishing that you could have had a fetish experience through an appointment with a female doctor comes across as rather creepy.

Wishing that you could have had a fetish experience through an appointment with a female doctor comes across as rather creepy.

Here's another creepy guy then. I too regret having missed out on so many experiences that are written about here.

At times it becomes depressing to think how much of a goody-goody gumdrops upbringing and life I've had. A little more sexual fun from more or less ordinary situations (like a doctor's appointment/examination) would have been nice to reminisce on.

Don't forget that people on their deathbeds are said to regret the things they didn't do (or didn't experience I would add).

Agracier- EXACTLY!!!

TJC- in your last paragraph, you sound like a typical woke / PC Redditor, unfortunately.

Here's another creepy guy then. I too regret having missed out on so many experiences that are written about here.

At times it becomes depressing to think how much of a goody-goody gumdrops upbringing and life I've had. A little more sexual fun from more or less ordinary situations (like a doctor's appointment/examination) would have been nice to reminisce on.

Don't forget that people on their deathbeds are said to regret the things they didn't do (or didn't experience I would add).

The same principle applies regarding the male nude swimming tradition of 50 to 100 years ago. A lot of younger folks nowadays would be absolutely horrified by being placed in that situation. Not me, and not a lot of my generational peers either. For me personally, being made to stand there completely stark naked, with a dozen or more pairs of female eyes looking you up and down as the coach takes roll, would be an absolute hoot!

@Tighty_Whiteis_Now the exam is just an exam, but exams are unreliable and abnormalities often lead to biopsy which IS invasive and risky. I suggest you familiarize yourself with number needed to treat and relative risk reduction. Just because something sounds like a good idea doesn't means it is, especially when stats are involved. Many physical exams are SUPER unreliable. It's interesting to see so many people in this thread with an unwavering support of genital exams but a distrust in medicine for COVID-19 tests and vaccines.

And for the logic of "it's not impossible, so we should check it" folks, it's not impossible that any of us could have any number of medical conditions. This is not a good reason to test everyone in the population for every condition. There are always lines drawn for what is appropriate and meaningful vs what is not helpful. It's not impossible for a 20 year old to have stomach cancer. Should we EGD everyone because it's not impossible that we'd pick up something?

@Tighty_Whiteis_Now the exam is just an exam, but exams are unreliable

By your logic we don't need doctors at all. But, you are not an IRL doctor anyway.

It's interesting to see so many people in this thread with an unwavering support of genital exams but a distrust in medicine for COVID -19 tests and vaccines

Talk about something being unreliable - you just nailed the COVID-19 vaccine to the tree.

TJC- in your last paragraph, you sound like a typical woke / PC Redditor, unfortunately.

Sorry if this sounds woke or PC, but if you're doing something intimate with someone who doesn't want to participate, that's not having a good time, it's being abusive.

I am no stranger to having my underwear down and my genitalia and anus exposed to doctors. It happened multiple times growing up, from my first rectal exam aged ten days until I was 15. I had to strip to be weighed. It was an era when children weren't routinely asked for permission - even into adolescence (despite in UK law the concept of an under-18 being able to give informed consent having been established years earlier). I was either talked about as if I wasn't there, or talked to using age-inappropriate language.

Years later, I read papers my doctor wrote. He advocated rectal exams as an integral part of an abdominal examination, and recommended sedating non-compliant children. He was a believer in the 'gold standard' of exam. The patient's feelings did not concern him.

Outside the doctor/patient relationship that would be quite a serious assault - even back then in the 1990s.

It's a good job he is retired - because his opinions are from sixty years ago and the world has moved on; culturally, socially, and scientifically.

Sure, go and fantasise about about a time where nudity was commonplace and exams were thorough if that's what you get off on. But please, remember some of us had to undergo that sort of stuff and we don't all have pleasant memories of it.