Was just talking at dinner with family, and it seems a logical action to ban circumcision, as in most cases, doesn’t have consent, and is a major (genitals are important) body modification. Can we ban it at the state level? Just a thought.
Circumcisions should be banned because they are mutilating children’s genitals without consent. At least trans medical procedures have consent.
I think it’s just religious people being hypocrites again. Hard to convince delusional people of facts when they make up what they believe based on the circumstances. The decisions of religious cults shouldn’t have more power than the decisions of individual people. Completely crazy what this country is devolving into
Trans surgical procedures have some of the best outcomes of any major procedures. they are performed on consenting individuals who are always well informed and at or very near adulthood, and only after many other interventions have been ongoing. People who receive these interventions show incredibly low rates of regret (compare for example the percent of people who regret knee replacements or probably circumcisions), and enjoy increased happiness and satisfaction by almost any metric.
Basically every major medical organization in the world (and certainly in America) agrees these interventions are medically useful and should be performed. While there are doctors who dissent, they are in the vast minority and almost never actually work with any trans people, but rather insist all the doctors who do work with trans people must be wrong. It’s not a controversy in the medical world, just the political one.
Then we shall ban dentists too. They never had my consent to touch my teeth.
How many healthy and functional teeth have you had inconsensually removed from your skull by a dentist?
Did they remove your perfectly healthy canines because a bronze-age book said dogs are unclean? If not, get the fuck out of here with your infant penis mutilation apologetics.
There is scientific evidence that circumcision results in the area being cleaner and easier to maintain. I’m not denying it is child mutilation, but you also shouldn’t just sweep it under the rug as religious bullshittery.
And if you shave your head, you don’t have to brush your hair.
Honestly such a weak argument. Having helped my uncircumcised son learn to keep himself clean, I can probably say this myth needs to be laid to rest already. It’s just not true.
I’m sure there are many body parts we could amputate to help with maintenance.
Let me tell you about my revolutionary way to prevent athlete’s foot! Also, did you know you can prevent testicular cancer with one simple
snipstep?
it’d be easier to brush your teeth if you didn’t have any teeth
Does your teeth develop phimosis?
Most cultures in the world don’t circumcise and it doesn’t cause much issue. It’s only the US where it became so common, because the wacko Kellogg had enough money to push his weird ideas, and somehow people still follow it. You should follow his other “preventative” ideas if you think circumcision is such a great idea.
Here’s a good video to get more ideas from. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ4ES8mOzYg
No. But, if they were to I reckon if I’d have the dentist look at them and decide what to do then…rather than rip 'em all out preemptively.
Well one is done precautionary as it doesn’t have any big life altering side effects while removing all your teeth does. I understand your enthusiasm but a little medical knowledge wouldn’t hurt no one. It’s also more difficult to get circ done after growing up.
Well one is done precautionary as it doesn’t have any big life altering side effects
I mean, reduced sensation, higher rates of some kinds of sexual difficulty later in life, and like anything that causes pain and stress to a neonate there are signs that it can have long term psychological effects.
You would only notice it if you get it done after growing up. I don’t understand the logic here. Have you been circumcised?
If god wanted my parents to cut part of my dick off why did she put it there in the first place? Are you saying god made a mistake?
Maybe it was on purpose. The Abrahamic god is a sadist who apparently fucking loves killing and maiming people, so maybe he was like, “yoooo, you know what would be funny?” and then convinced a bunch of people they should cut part of their babies’ dicks off.
Wasn’t there also that weird ass bible tale where some dude brought another guy 200 foreskins so he could marry the guy’s daughter? If I don’t have one, at least nobody will kill me and take it from me to give to a potential father in law…
I still have to give the little fucker a good scrub to not stink though so the cleanliness thing has got to be bull.
Yeah. I get that it’s supposed to represent how many enemies he killed, but why foreskins, Saul? Could’ve asked for a lot of other things besides dick skin. Like, idk, their weapons or something.
It’s not really about the evidence though.
45 years ago my parents genuinely thought they were doing the right thing by asking the Dr to circumcise me.
They weren’t great at critical thinking and have made numerous poor decisions in their lives as a result of vibe-based reasoning.
You can say I was “mutilated” if you like, but I don’t feel like a victim.
My parents also supported my education, where I learned to be skeptical, and challenge my preconceptions.
As a result, I didn’t have my son circumcised.
I don’t think cleanliness is an excuse for lopping off part of a non-consenting infant.
It would be a lot easier to clean your head if you didn’t have any ears. Should we cut those off of babies too?
Where is this evidence?
So, yeah. To paraphrase, “When reviewed by people without the same clear and obvious cultural bias, circumcision only conclusively provides an incredibly marginal benefit, with evidence lacking for other supposed (and still very marginal) benefits.”
Not just cleaner but you are also less prone to certain infections. I am circumcised, but it was done as a child. Knowing what I know now, I am glad since it decreases the risk for certain cancers and infections.
I never had not have ever heard of anyone I know having infections or cancers because of a foreskin.
Technically, you can’t get foreskin cancer if you don’t have foreskin. Not sure if that is an acceptable reason to cut off part of a non-consenting infant’s genitals.
The vast vast vast majority of the worlds men have foreskins though.
Some studies have suggested that circumcision may help prevent penile cancer.
Decreased risk of urinary tract infections.
Decreased risk of penile cancer.
Decreased risk of sexually transmitted infections
Suggested. “However, this is unverified”
Okay mate.
Suggested is my phrasing. The studies are pretty conclusive.
The first link says it’s unverified, and also says “suggest”, not your phrasing.
It would require that a significant portion of the population admit their parents mutilated them as infants.
For some reason, they refuse to admit they were mutilated without their consent.
Some of them have subsequently mutilated their own sons, and admitting that was mutilation is beyond their capacity.
I was circumcised, I don’t have a problem with that fact. I understand why people do have a problem with circumcision and I don’t have an issue with it being banned.
Don’t try to induce mental trauma in me for my past that I’m not bothered by.
I have been physically punished when I did something bad as a kid. I’m not traumatized by that either but I still think it’s good that it’s illegal nowdays.
I agree. And if people went around claiming you must be traumatized over it and lying to yourself you’d say they’re full of shit. If someone was trying to convince you to be traumatized about it you’d tell them to fuck off.
I don’t think they’re saying people are traumatized. That word has a meaning. They’re saying people have issue reconciling the fact that their parents would do something like that to them and also that their parents are generally good people. Many people would rather not even consider that it wasn’t the right call, because it makes it easier to hold those two beliefs at the same time. However, people make mistakes. Those aren’t contradictory ideas if you can understand that people can be mislead.
Good for you not being bothered by it. But I think it’s rather easy to imagine that it can be a traumatizing experience and lead to psychological or physiological injuries. So it’s a medical procedure that should only be prescribed by doctors or if you are an adult.
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Babies and children don’t have sex. If you want to take this extreme HIV reduction procedure as an adult you’re free to do so. Or you can use a condom.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you a persons who is refusing to admit.
Thanks for demonstrating my point so effectively.
What? They’re not bothered by it how the fuck is that refusing to admit anything? Does that mean if two people get jumped scared in a dark room and one for the rest of their life needs a light on in their room and the other doesn’t that they are secretly traumatized? No it doesn’t.
Also circumcision happens at birth most of the time so many people (myself included) don’t remember it. It should absolutely be illegal but as the other person said don’t tell someone what traumas they faced and how they should be effected.
You’re a clown
so many people (myself included) don’t remember it.
"She doesn’t remember being raped, so it’s ok’.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the problem with the anti-circumcision movement.
There are good arguments to be had for banning circumcision. Refusing to recognize my autonomy, and insisting you know the “secret trauma of strangers” better than they do is not one of them. It makes you sound like an asshole who doesn’t know what they are talking about and will cause people to think the whole movement is the same way.
For those arguing to ban circumcision: you need to purge assholes like this from your numbers. They are only doing harm and not helping your cause.
Refusing to recognize my autonomy
Glad that, as an infant, you exercised your own autonomy, when your parents decided to circumcise you.
If you did exercise your own autonomy as an adult, then fine. That’s not what we’re talking about.
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I have a neutral stance on circumcision. Do what you please. I just wish people like you could try to prove a point without using “mutilation” over and over to make it sound worse than it actually is. It puts an agenda on your point and biases it. There’s nothing mutilated about it. It’s just altered.
If you consider this to be mutilation then that would also mean you think any gender affirming surgery is also mutilation. And one could much easier argue that converting a penis to a vagina is far more mutilating than just removing some extra skin from a penis.
So if you’re trying to convince people to stop circumcision, stop using overly dramatic words and just explain why it’s not necessary. Otherwise I’ll just roll my eyes at people like you.
If you consider this to be mutilation then that would also mean you think any gender affirming surgery is also mutilation.
No one gets gender reassignment surgery until they can concentyi it as an adult.
False equivalence.
I’ve never understood the American obsession with MGM (male genital mutilation). But it seems that a large percentage of your population has had it done. So from an outsider perspective it seems like it must be a cultural thing to your country. So for laws to exist that ban it (or at least make it harder to authorise) you’d first need a cultural shift, then. Enough political will for laws to be passed.
It really isn’t cultural. In the early 1900s, William Kellogg (of Kellogg’s) was a puritanical Christian. He hated the idea of masturbation more than anything, so he created Corn Flakes to be a cereal so bland it would kill your libido and prevent you from masturbating. He also was a proponent of circumcision as a means of preventing masturbation because it would make the penis too tight that stroking it would be painful. Americans bought into his propaganda that circumcised penises are “cleaner” and then it just became “well, I’m circumcised, and my son’s penis should look like mine!”
No one said that the average American was intelligent.
There is a lot of misinformation in this post. Here’s a snippet of my research about the anatomy of the penis and the damage of circumcision causes.
The foreskin has specialized nerve endings called Meissner’s Corpsucles located at the tip in an area called the ridged band. It is connected to the penis by the extension of the shaft skin in areas called the outer foreskin and the inner foreskin. The inner foreskin is rich with sensory receptors and is a inner mucosa similar to the inside of our cheeks. It keeps the glans moist and protected from the environment. The inner foreskin is attached to the head of the penis by a membrane called the frenulum. The frenulum is an erogenous zone that is mostly removed by a circumcision procedure.
When a child or baby is circumcised, the foreskin is forcibly removed from the glans which scars and damages the glans. The foreskin is adhered to the glans like a fingernail. When a boy hits puberty the foreskin naturally retracts. In rare cases, phimosis happens which is when the foreskin is unable to retract. Non-surgical solutions to phimosis are stretching the foreskin over a span of time and/or applying steroid creme.
Circumcision is extremely painful for babies and children. Cortisol spikes in babies when they are circumcised. Babies will pass out during the procedure as many circumcisions are done with inadequate anesthetic.
The foreskin is self-cleaning like the vagina. Rinsing in the shower is enough usually for hygiene. Caregivers who retract the foreskin of their children will damage the child’s genitals. The only person who should retract the foreskin is the children as it will naturally retract with age. Some boys are unable to retract their foreskin until their late teens or early adulthood.
This information is not foreign to the medical world. Most medical and political professionals have a bias for the circumcision ritual. Circumcision is the same for boys as it is for girls as the objective of circumcision is to harm the sexual function of the child.
Modern circumcision for males is extremely harsh as it removes 60-80% of penile skin. Many men do not have frenulums from the procedure. It is possible to repair some of the damage by using mitosis to restore skin coverage. It is not currently possible to repair tissue that was completely removed. Foregen is a non-profit researching ways to completely repair the damage caused by circumcision.
For men impacted by this and want to do something for themselves
- Look into foreskin restoration
- Donate to foregen
Warning that this topic draws a lot of insane people with genital mutilation fetishes. Any of the comments advocating for circumcision are either men who were circumcised against their will, women who circumcised their children and haven’t accepted the truth, or weirdos who want others to suffer.
Thank you so much for writing this up. I really appreciate the detailed post.
Most medical and political professionals have a bias for the circumcision ritual.
I think it’s important to point out that this bias is mostly cultural. In many countries where ritual infant circumcision is the exception instead of the norm, medical personnel do not have a bias towards RIC.
Foreskin restoration is legit (even if it may sound crazy like regrowing limbs). I know we collectively dislike Reddit on here, but the subreddit /r/foreskin_restoration has a really supportive and welcoming community and a lot of resources about how to get started (check their wiki).
circumcision is in the Bible, gender reassignment surgery is not. That’s where they’re going to hang their hats… on the invisible sky ghost.
Um, ackshually, eunuchs are in the Bible, including Jesus saying that some people “become eunuchs” to get closer to God. So…
I also want to say, if you read the Bible front to back, it’s the story of a people fucking up. The people do terrible things, a hero teaches them to be better, the heroes turn villain (or, rarely, wander off into the sunset when their role is complete), and the institutions rot.
It’s not a story of a better people, it’s a story of people doing better
As someone whose circumcision worked out perfectly fine and can’t imagine myself without one, I still think it should be banned for babies and children under 18 for any reason other than medical necessity. Even a slight risk of problems outweighs the ‘my dad did it and he turned out fine’ or religious tradition arguments.
It should not be banned for adults who voluntarily choose it for themselves though.
In which case it is cosmetic surgery.
One does not Botox an infant.
In some cases it’s functional. Not all genitals grow as they’re supposed to.
… And that would be the very very very very rare medically necessary intervention.
Stop conflating medically necessary intervention and mutilation.
Some people are born with webbed toes, we don’t cut them up because “my dad did it to me and I’m alright”.
Too many very for today’s society where genetic anomalies and cancerous growths are on the rise.
The problem is it’s quite difficult to get circumcision after adulthood
Personally I find it a lot more disturbing that intersex babies are still assgined a binary gender by a doctor and then get surgery to shape their genitals. The parents are often scaremongered and pressured into consenting and the affected people don’t know it was done to them until firmly into adulthood. It’s often a sterilising surgery too.
If you are against doctors doing gender changing surgery, please start with the babies? But oh no! Then the argument that there are only two genders falls apart.
What the fuck, I wasn’t aware of that. Thanks for sharing
Is it still practice? Even when I studied, long time ago, I thought it was rather consensus that it’s gets worse results in the the long run.
I think we should ban circumcision
because we are a stupid, prudish, and vain country. we don’t want people to enjoy jerking off too much, nor do we want to reverse the trend of mutilation, which would make the old guard feel like they’re the broken ones
Genital mutilation is incredibly sad and people are somehow tricking themselves into being ok with it because they can’t get they dick tips back lol
Remember that cult where dudes were required to cut their balls off? It’s the same cult.
Genital mutilation is awful but the really hard part is getting buy in to the idea that it’s actually genital mutilation. People don’t want to be identified as mutilated - men who have been circumcised don’t want the thing that happened without their consent to define them.
Exactly. The mainstream male culture is too toxic to admit that yeah some are mutilated and even if it’s not a big deal on average these people did have their rights taken away from them and their identity invaded without consent.
Maybe there would be more success with a softer word instead of mutilated but then there’s a risk of people pushing this away as “not a big deal”.
Seriously not even that hard of an area to rinse. I actually wonder how much sensitivity men lose because it it. Articles keep saying it doesn’t reduce sexual satisfaction but I cant walk around with my foreskin pulled back all day. It would dry out and hurt like crazy as soon as I put on clothes. There has to be some loss to men that were mutilated and no one wants to admit they are missing out.
I’m always on the look out for uncut cocks to help abate the resentment of having my own mutilated.
tricking themselves into being ok with it because they can’t get they dick tips back lol
I’m not tricking myself. I am literally indifferent to the fact that it happened. If people want to argue that it’s unnecessarily traumatic to children that is a good argument and makes sense. If you want to argue that I am mutilated, traumatized, and tricking myself then you’re full of shit.
Proving my point here tbh
Unconsensual body modification is mutilation. Wouldn’t you be offended if your parents performed any other permanent irreversible body modification? Clip your toes or ears?
No one is trying to shame you or say that cut dicks are bad but it’s extremely unethical to do that to babies. Just think about how messed up that is.
Are you a doctor or any kind of medical expert?
This is one of the case where we can talk about the Jewish/Muslim lobby without being a far-right biggot. People want to defend their religious practice, even if they involve chopping off a piece of kids genitalia
Americans do it regardless of religion
You probably want to carve out medically necessary circumcision (required treatment for some issues). The main answer in the US would be a combination of religion and tradition with some bonus vanity and outdated knowledge (see arguments about cleanliness).
In the US cutting off the foreskin for phimosis or other minor issues is unfortunately very common (probably because “it’s no big deal, many had it done”) when using lube and careful stretching or just waiting would have been sufficient.
Cutting off the offending part should always be the last option, e.g. in the case of cancer. We don’t need an exception that cutting off e.g. a finger should be only done if medically necessary. That’s obvious. It should be the same here. Otherwise you’re just creating a loop hole.
Isn’t Judaism and Islam a minority religion in America?
Christianity
Christianity doesn’t proscribe circumcision. If anything it can be interpreted as doing the opposite.
Circumcision is taking a kid and doing something irreversible to them without consent. Trans treatment is taking a kid and preventing irreversible things from happening until they consent.
Maybe it’s too early in the morning, but can you explain what you mean by the latter point? I’m under the impression trans treatment is provided for individuals seeking gender affirming care, with parent agreement if the individual is a minor. Your statement sounds like only the parent is consenting…
EDIT: Thanks, EatATaco. So my confusion lies in the equating puberty to hormone therapy. Similar, but not the same.
I think what they are saying is that puberty is irreversible and so trans care delays that until a child consents to going through puberty.
Read it again.
If we ban circumcision does that then mean it’s okay to keep trans medical procedures banned aswell or that we shouldn’t ban neither? I’m not sure the reasoning is sound here. Circumcision without the subject’s concent is an obviously barbaric tradition that we will look back with horror one day.
no. trans medical procedures are consentual.
Assuming you’re talking about male circumscission, the short answer is you’re about to be inundated with accusations of antisemitism.
As for female circumcision; it is illegal in the US. The Stop FGM act was signed into federal law in 2020.
To add to that, some Muslims will claim that FGM is religious. That is not correct. It is something that existed culturally prior to the introduction of Islam to those regions of Africa, and was incorporated into their religious practice. It is not, in any way, a necessary part of Islam. Unlike male circumcision, which is required in orthodox Judaism.
No religion should be mutilating babies. EVER.
I’m on the fence. Male circumcision reduces rates of certain STIs, decreases rates of UTIs, and it pretty well eliminates the possibility of phimosis. On the flip side, some men claim that circumcision reduces sensation, although I don’t know how anyone other than a person that had a circumcision after being sexually active would know. On the list of things to be upset about that parents frequently do to children, it’s pretty far down on my list, well below “spanking” and “gross invasions of privacy”.
It should probably be noted a more important distinction is that the entire purpose of FGM is to remove their ability to feel pleasure - by clipping off the clit - and thereby ensuring she doesn’t go around having sex.
While (male) circumcision isn’t necessarily to do that. (Though when they take too much, it absolutely does. Jewish mohels take far less than surgeons.)
Worth noting “clipping off the clit” is one of the milder less invasive forms of FGM.
Some types of FGM involve cutting off the clit and the labia.
Some involve going full scorched earth and cutting everything off then sewing up the wound leaving a tiny straw hole for pee and menstrual blood.
Then the husband is supposed to cut the scar open with a dagger on the wedding night.
Even before marriage, this creates all kinds of long term health problems and recurrent infections for some women. Of course, not all girls survive the procedure, traditionally the stitching is done using accacia thorns.
Also, in regions where FGM is practiced, it is practiced by Christians and Animists as well as Muslims.
