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.
Cutting a piece of your baby’s junk off for no other reason then everyone does it is a really weird thing that I’ve never been able to wrap my head around.
I’m not religious but I at least can understand if it’s for religious reason, there’s a point to it, even if I don’t agree with/understand the point. But people seem to just do it for no reason aside from it’s what people do. It’s forced genital mutilation anyway you look at it.
There are medical reasons to remove. If the foreskin isn’t cleaned well (challenging for toddlers) it can get infected which prevents it from separating, which is very dangerous.
The foreskin is fused to the tip of the penis until around puberty, there is no need to clean it.
I don’t know man. The entire world for most of human history has gone on just fine without circumcision. I’m eternally grateful I was not born in the US and was brought here as a child so I didn’t get my foreskin cut.
It’s always an interesting conversation with women. Some prefer it, some don’t, most don’t care. But it is a bit exotic in some areas of the country. Not so much in heavily immigrant areas.
For example California and Florida the vast majority of people are not circumcised. In Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, etc and other states in mostly white America it’s close to 90%.
until puberty starts the foreskin is attached to the penis. Just like how the finger nails are attached. It can’t get dirt under there until you pull it back.
Poor hygiene is not a sufficiently good reason to remove
If your foot isn’t cleaned well, it can get infected and potentially cause sepsis, which is very dangerous. Should we be removing children’s feet?
No, obviously not. The time for invasive, nonconsentual medical intervention is when it is medically necessary, and circumcision does not fit the bill.
“The CPS does not recommend the routine circumcision of every newborn male.”
“It is shown that the foreskin is more sensitive than the uncircumcised glans mucosa, which means that after circumcision genital sensitivity is lost.” - Meaning circumcision is quite a damaging procedure, which means the justification for it must be high. And as a preventive measure for which the things being prevented won’t happen for a decade and a half or longer, isn’t justified.
If the foreskin isn’t cleaned well (challenging for toddlers)
Newborns should not have their foreskin pulled back for cleaning, as the separation can cause damage. IIRC it’s only a bit before puberty that it is safe to gently (not forcibly) pull back the foreskin.
Nah mate. They had to remove mine because is overgrew my gland and was so tight that I would have pee between the foreskin and the gland layong around, and it was impossible to unhook. The alternative would have been to cut it open and have dumbo’s ear flapping everytime I’d take my dick out. No partner ever complained, and I don’t give à shit about it.
I wouldn’t circumsize a kid if it wasn’t necessary, but when an operation takes place specifically for medical reasons, it’s because there is no other solution. Like when a foot id so gangrenous that you have to remove it or it will propagate the necrosis to the leg.
I wouldn’t circumsize a kid if it wasn’t necessary
We’re (hopefully) obviously not talking about when its necessary. We’re arguing against the systemic circumsion of infants. Liken it to an amputation, If we decided to systemically remove every infants pinky finger, and then people are arguing against it, people would probably not say “But babies could get the finger infected! The pinky can break really easily, its safer to remove it”
Being necessary for medical reasons is a good reason. Doing it because “it gets dirty” and “it looks better” is not. Unfortunately the latter is the most common reason.
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.
Look at what happened to David Reiner if you really want to be sickened.
I’m pretty sure that I’m intersex myself and had something done to me when I was an infant, but there is no way for me to ever find out. My only evidence is apparently my dong is pretty massive for a trans dude, which is a nice thing to hear from a nurse.
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
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.
Here’s another question along the same lines - my friend when I was a kid developed gynecomastia, commonly known as “breast knots” when he was 14. They’re completely harmless, but they made it look like he had boobs. Cute little A cups on this otherwise very boy-presenting person. For some reason, no one thought it was “against God’s plan” or “mutilating his body” or “part of the gender agenda” when this 14 year old boy had a purely cosmetic double mastectomy. I wonder why no one batted an eye at a child receiving gender-affirming cosmetic surgery just because he wanted to in this particular case.
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.
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).
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.
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.
How many healthy and functional teeth have you had inconsensually removed from your skull by a dentist?
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.
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.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you a persons who is refusing to admit.
Thanks for demonstrating my point so effectively.
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.
