Intactivism?

And so the descent of the MRA movement into “male feminism” begins in earnest. I’ve even been stridently attacked by MRAs for defending stay at home wives (even when the MRAs knew that I did so with the caveat that the stay at home wife should work a full day caring for the house, errands and kids). Now, we have MRAs declaring that circumcision is a true horror right up there with FGM.

That, my friends, is the same behavior we see from feminists who call America a cesspool of sexism and ignore the real misogyny in other parts of the world.

Take a good look at that behavior, take a REALLY GOOD LOOK. That is the behavior of a movement that is becoming the very thing it hates.

i read the title as “inactivism,” which would have been apt and a position i’d agree with here. people just like to have a cause.

[Crap, how'd I miss that? - ed.]

All I know is that it was done for medical reasons and there are medical benefits and anyone who claims otherwise is a fucking idiot.

Like a lower risk of getting certain STDs…

“. Equating the two only serves to dilute the true horror of the latter.”

You make a good point FB. As much as I abhor circumcision , to conflate it with female genital mutilation is also just.. plain wrong!

Couple extra tidbits for those perusing the comments.

1. The nerve endings on a newborn are hyper-sensitive, and they feel more pain than an adult would, and circumcision is done without any kind of painkiller. Babies go into shock because of this treatment and are then left untreated.

2. The resulting open wound leaves the child open to infection from their diapers and the ensuing mess all infants create in them.

3. Whether it’s as bad as female genital mutilation or not, it’s still a human rights violation to remove a functioning body part that is not in any way diseased. We do not remove tonsils or appendices as a matter of procedure, it is only when they are diseased that we remove them. Wabbit, your argument is thus inconsequential.

4. It is against the law to commit acts of abuse, murder, or mutilation even though a few (major) religions condone them; circumcision is no different.

No offense, but today’s post didn’t do it for me. The accompanying picture, however, was well worth the price of admission.

I was born in the States, got the snip. My boys weren’t, didn’t. Cultural tradition, advantages on both sides. Who gives a fuck? No comparison to female genital mutilation, the name of which is accurately descriptive. Defend the cooter, hang loose about the wang. MRAs who whinge about the loss of a few millimeters of dork are self-styled victims looking for payback. Fuck them and the other victimologists.

Ferdinand this statement is utter rubbish “There’s no male circumcision procedure that comes anywhere close to what victims of female genital mutilation have gone through.”

You clearly haven’t read the documents you cite! Nor listened to your own American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) which confirmed in the last two weeks that what America does to boys is more severe than what girls experience as FGM in some communities. Let’s look at those forms – how about type Ia circumcision (snipping off the tip of her clitoral hood) which is what most women in Indonesia have undergone as infants or small children ? How about what occurs in Malaysia (which the AAP doctors suggested introducing recently) which involves just slitting the tip of her hood with scissors (type IV female circumcision) – this is generally done by a doctor in a clinical setting on a small baby – does that make it ok? If you’ve read the latest interagency statement you’ll know that type IV FGM is one of the MOST PREVALENT FORMS. Typ IIa female circumcision – removal of the inner labia – forms 8% of circumcisions in Egypt? If you’ve actually read the WHO documentation on FGM you’ll know that for a while 60% of cuts there have been medicalised. So all of the above, affecting millions and millions of women are comparable or milder (even vastly milder) than a typical male circumcision ….

There’s a great expose of your kind of attitude (and that of some of your commenters) here
http://www.youtube.com/user/freedom0f5peech#p/u/1/d96PKZB2Uak
I hope you’ll watch. This one looks at the hopelessness of the straw man argument:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOk-rZTk0Rc
It doesn’t help anyone for people to take this attitude ….FGM is complex and deeply ingrained practice which will take an intelligent and determined approach to deal with. Americans taking knee jerk and uninformed positions on it doesn’t help one iota – in fact it probably makes it much harder to tackle.

Re your own experience and being determined not to think this is any big deal if you read the latest research on what the uniquely damaging effects of pain in the neonatal period I think you’ll change your mind. However you’ve shown yourself to be someone who has a total disregard for actual facts, so I’ve little confidence you will actually read it. It’s so much easier to just press the angry button and avoid thinking isn’t it? Especially when we’re asking you to think about something that’s close to home rather than raging at something foreign brown people do…

http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/News/2009/Features/WTX054083.htm

[The first hater on this thread is a woman. Huh. - ed.]

1. Circumcision reduces the transmission of almost all STIs, not just AIDS. This is because the the pocket between the foreskin and the glans is a great place to store live germs (warm and wet) and thus providing more opportunity for them to be absorbed into the body. Of course, this could be alleviated by washing the genitals with soap and water not too long after sex, but alas that is generally too much to expect from people of average to below average IQ.

2. Heterosexual transmission of AIDS isn’t a major issue in First World countries, but that isn’t the case in other places around the world. Circumcision may be helpful in these places.

3. Loss of sensation appears to only affect those circumcised later in life. The nerve endings of those circumcised while infants seem to grow back. Furthermore, by an overwhelming margin the most important factor in how much a man enjoys sex is the physical attractiveness of his partner. I’ll believe anti-circumcision activists really care about male sexual pleasure when they start agitating for more women to hit the gym, something which would have more hedonic impact.

4. Those who are most strongly against circumcision tend to be women and gay men. Heterosexual men tend to have a very instrumental view of their own body. It is a thing to be used. Since a circumcised body pretty much does what a man wants it to do, most circumcised men don’t feel particularly violated by having such a thing done to them. For women, and apparently for gay men, their body is a precious, precious thing that must be guarded with some intensity. Therefore, they tend to project how violated they would feel, or in the case of gay men, how they do feel, onto heterosexual men. And if, knowing what was done to you, you don’t feel violated, well then you weren’t violated. End of story.

5. That said I tend to view circumcision as unnecessary in a modern Western society, so I won’t have it performed on my kids. But it may be helpful in preventing disease transmission in places like Africa and it is such a minor issue that I don’t care about those who have it done on their kids for religious reasons.

“1. Circumcision reduces the transmission of almost all STIs, not just AIDS.”

Except, of course, for how it doesn’t, as has been documented by all the research done showing otherwise, much of which is available at the Circumcision Information and Resource Pages, at http://www.cirp.org/ , where full and complete copies of the published papers are archived.

0 for 1.

“This is because the the pocket between the foreskin and the glans is a great place to store live germs (warm and wet) and thus providing more opportunity for them to be absorbed into the body.”

Except, of course, for how it isn’t. Again, quoting CIRP: Fleiss et al. have described the many natural immunological protective mechanisms provided by the prepuce against infection. The prepuce has many immunological protections against disease. These mechanisms may explain why surgically-altered, circumcised men seem to have a greater incidence of many different STDs. Dried-out mucous membranes are more prone to infection than naturally moist ones (which is the reason people tend to get more colds in the wintertime!). The foreskin naturally moisturizes the glans penis, keeping it in optimum healthy condition to resist infection. The subpreputial moisture also contains lyzosyme, an enzyme that attacks and destroys the cell walls of bacteria.

0 for 2.

“Of course, this could be alleviated by washing the genitals with soap and water not too long after sex, but alas that is generally too much to expect from people of average to below average IQ.”

Except, of course, for how this — just, somehow, magically! — doesn’t appear to apply when it comes to the female genitals, which should be even more prone to infection on such grounds. And for how there is no way of knowing whether an infant will end up that incompetent as an adult, which therefore ends up being an argument against routine and ritual genital amputation.

0 for 3

DING DING DING DING DING!
Uh oh, that clanging alarm means it’s time for a BONUS ROUND!

And, of course, there’s no need to circumcise infants to protect them against STIs, and circumcision has better outcomes when done at later ages, after it’s grown and the synechia has dissolved (you do know what the synechia is, right?). So, here’s your chance for extra credit: why not wait until they’re older?

“2. Heterosexual transmission of AIDS isn’t a major issue in First World countries, but that isn’t the case in other places around the world. Circumcision may be helpful in these places.”

Except, of course, for how the 1st world countries most comparable to the usa, but where the overwhelming majority of the male population are intact, have HIV-AIDS incidence rates that are a fraction of those in the usa where the majority of the male population is circumcised. I.e., the raw data says no, circumcision probably makes AIDS transmission MORE likely, because the intact populations most like the usa have lower rates.

0 for 4.

“3. Loss of sensation appears to only affect those circumcised later in life.”

Except, of course, for how foreskin restorers almost universally report otherwise.

0 for 5.

“The nerve endings of those circumcised while infants seem to grow back.”

Except, of course, for how they don’t; see http://www.cirp.org/library/anatomy/taylor/ , among others.

0 for 6.

“Furthermore, by an overwhelming margin the most important factor in how much a man enjoys sex is the physical attractiveness of his partner.”

Except, of course, for masturbation. And, of course, for how that isn’t even remotely close to being true for all men, and, of course, how you can’t tell whether it will be or not for any particular infant boy.

0 for 7.

DING DING DING DING DING!
Another bonus round!

So, tell us– how exactly is the proposition that physical attractiveness composes the majority of the source of a man’s sexual enjoyment supposed to justify his being denied any amount whatsoever of sexual enjoyment from other sources?

“I’ll believe anti-circumcision activists really care about male sexual pleasure when they start agitating for more women to hit the gym, something which would have more hedonic impact.”

And we’ll believe you have even the slightest idea what you’re talking about when you start saying anything that is even remotely true or accurate.

Because so far you’re 0 for 8, and it’s just going to get worse.

“4. Those who are most strongly against circumcision tend to be women and gay men.”

Except, of course, for how they don’t.

0 for 9

“Heterosexual men tend to have a very instrumental view of their own body. It is a thing to be used. Since a circumcised body pretty much does what a man wants it to do, most circumcised men don’t feel particularly violated by having such a thing done to them.”

Except, of course, for how most circumcised men have literally no idea what they’re missing, and thus lack the reasons to feel violated.

And, of course, for how they see anti-male shaming tactics applied to those who do feel violated and speak out about it, and keep silent to avoid avoid that.

And, of course, for how males are indoctrinated to devalue and dehumanize themselves in general, which should be opposed rather than cited as a pretext to justify more of the same.

0 for 10.

“For women, and apparently for gay men, their body is a precious, precious thing that must be guarded with some intensity. Therefore, they tend to project how violated they would feel, or in the case of gay men, how they do feel, onto heterosexual men.

Except, of course, for how instead of projecting it onto adult men, they’re recognizing it for the actual violation of infants that it is, which is why that’s where the overwhelming majority of intactivists focus their efforts — the equal protection of male children’s right to genital integrity, not outreach towards adult men.

0 for 11.

“And if, knowing what was done to you, you don’t feel violated, well then you weren’t violated. End of story.”

Except, of course, for how they actually were violated, because they were helpless infants when it was done to them, and for how not feeling violated later in life doesn’t actually change that; it just means they don’t feel violated. Editorial pre-publication rewrite of end of story.

0 for 12.

“5. That said I tend to view circumcision as unnecessary in a modern Western society, so I won’t have it performed on my kids.”

Except, of course, for how they (or someone else) might end up in charge of your medical care, and have it performed on you, as is sometimes done to incapacitated men; I held my intact father’s medical power of attorney for over a decade, and it mattered to him that I could have had him circumcised.

0 for 13.

“But it may be helpful in preventing disease transmission in places like Africa

Except, of course, for how it’s guaranteed to cause inherent harm no matter where it’s done.

0 for 14.

“and it is such a minor issue that I don’t care about those who have it done on their kids for religious reasons.”

Except, of course, for how if it’s such a minor issue then the clearly rational and mature choice is to agree with the existing default standards that condemn it, not the baseless and insupportable claims to some kind of special, unique, exceptional privilege that just — somehow, magically! — justifies it.

0 for 15.

Initial Score: IGNORANT MISINFORMING CUTPUPPET.

Now let’s wait and see how our contestant does on the Bonus Rounds!

You all sound like the same people that scream that Global Warming is real. There are incentives for scientists to say that it is real. And there is incentives for scientists to say that male circumcision is “no big deal.” Well all know what happens to intellectuals that dare to contradict what the scientific community tells them to think.

Women prefer a circumcised penis. So congratulations, you are officially okay with having your penis mutilated for the sake of an American whore’s pleasure.
And congratulations, you are okay with having your penis circumcised for an imaginary man in the sky.

I’m glad my parents are smart enough not to circumcise me. And I can tell you first hand that having a teenage chick licking around the tip of my foreskin is ABSOLUTE HEAVEN.

For someone who “simply can’t get worked up over circumcision” you sure do write a long and impassioned article. Thanks for quoting and linking to The Rape of the Cock.

Nobody says this is the most important issue in the world – it’s just irritatingly common (and can sometimes be devastating, even fatal, when it goes wrong).

This is not “a decision parents have to make for their children”. There is no other normal, healthy, functional (erogenous), non-renewable part of the body that may be cut off at whim – in fact the exactly corresponding part of girls has special legal protection. Only the most sensitive part of the most symbolic organ gets this special treatment. Doesn’t that strike you as a little – odd?

Nobody says all male genital cutting is as bad as all female genital cutting. We say the male kind can be as bad. Compare this Malaysian mother’s blog with this American mother’s. If anything the little girl seems to have got off more lightly than the little boy. And 90 boys died of tribal circumcision in Eastern Cape province, South Africa, last year. What we do say is that as HUMAN RIGHTS issues, they are equivalent.

@Ulysses: boys are sometimes born without a foreskin, unlike the appendix (genetically linked to the rest of the intestine), so it could easily evolve away if it were at all harmful – for example…

@Christo: …”in tropical jungles”? It used to be “in the desert”. Is there nowhere circumcision is not desirable?

@Thursday: there are studies and studies, and few people are uninvolved where circumcision is concerned. The trials may have been randomised (from their pool of paid volunteers for circumcision) and controlled, but they were perforce not double-blinded or placebo-controlled and experimenter and experimentee effects could easily have been at work. Did you know that the whole result of the three trials hangs on 73 circumcised men (out of 5,400) who did not get HIV in less than two years, while 327 circumcised men dropped out of the trials, their HIV status unknown?

It’s less a violation due to three reasons I can think of:

1: Parental control. Most people don’t accept that a boyfriend has a right to do whatever he wants to his girlfriend, but most people accept that parents have a right to do things to their kids without their kids’ consent within reasonable limits. Now, you may say circumcision falls outside of those ‘reasonable limits,’ but that leads me to reason #2…

2: Intent. Most parents circumcise their children because they honestly believe it’s for the child’s own good. You can say the reasons are bullshit (whether religious or medical), but the point is, pretty much everybody who circumcises *sincerely believes them.* They’re not doing it out of a mere desire for self-gratification like date rapists are (again, I’m no mangina who thinks every woman is 100% honest and that there are no false accusations of date rape, but in those rare occasions when it does happen, the perpetrator probably doesn’t have anybody’s best interest in mind). Now, you may say that these justifications can apply equally well to female circumcision, but…

3: There is at least *some* evidence that male circumcision might have *some* benefits. You can say that the evidence (like the STD studies or whatever) is scant and profoundly suspicious, but at least it exists. On the other hand, so far as I’m aware nobody’s ever collected any evidence, no matter how small and fishy, that ‘female circumcision’ carries any benefit at all.

I’m not really pro-circumcision, like our gracious host I don’t really care one way or the other. I’m just saying it doesn’t really seem like the horrible injustice you folks make it out to be, though I probably wouldn’t have my kids circumcised and think people who carry out the procedure without consent should be prosecuted.

Wandering Internet Commentator: I don’t get it; if you acknowledge that parents have a reasonable expectation of being able to make decisions without their kids’ consent, and if you further acknowledge that their intent is likely benign, then why do you think people who carry out the procedure without consent should be prosecuted, i.e. said same well-intentioned parents with such reasonable expectations re: childrearing? You’re not making any sense!

Ah, fair enough; that makes sense, indeed; I completely agree! In which case, that should fall under the definition of ‘medical malpractice’, I’d presume.

No worries.

Ferdinand’s case is the first I’ve ever heard of; I find it bizarre that any surgeons in America would do such a thing and risk getting sued over it. Weird. Though I can more easily imagine it here in Canada, where we don’t have the culture of litigation (because the loser of an unsuccessful lawsuit still has to pay their legal bills), and where thanks to universal medicare, the medical community still has paternalistic, condescending attitudes towards the general public who pay their salaries through taxes.

Hugh7: You’re conflating two different things; parents being pressured to circumcise their children (which I have no doubt sadly happens), and what Ferdinand talked about, which is it being done to him by the surgeons on the sly, so to speak, without asking his mother or attempting to coerce her to choose it.

Whose penis is it? Not an autonomous adult, but a child, under the care of his parents, who ought to be able to choose – or not choose – what they want for their children, as they please. This isn’t a men’s rights issue; it’s a family matter, and also, for some, a religious one. Let parents decide, for their own kids, for whatever reasons they choose, and you and the State butt out of their personal decisions!

What’s next, a campaign against birth names, because that’s parents ‘imposing’ their wills on other individuals and thus ‘violating’ their ‘rights’, and not letting them choose their own names? Already, I’ve seen enough whiners over at the Spearhead bitching about religion being ‘imposed’ on them by their parents, so I’m assuming it’s only a matter of time… Sheesh! Where does the madness end?

@Pat Hannagan: The Plastibell device you refer to DOES involve cutting.

“A PlastiBell of appropriate size is slipped over the glans, and the foreskin is laid over it. A ligature is tied in the ridge of the bell, as tightly as possible around the foreskin. Oozing will occur if the ligature is loose. After one or two minutes to allow for crush, the foreskin is sliced off at the distal edge of the ligature using a knife or scissors. The surgeon trims as much tissue as possible to reduce the amount of necrotic tissue and the possibility of infection. The handle of the bell is snapped off at this time. The rim of tissue will become necrotic and separate with the bell in 5 to 10 days. Occasionally, edema will trap the plastic ring on the shaft of the penis. In this case it’s usually necessary to cut off the ring, using a guide and ring cutter, although application of ice will sometimes reduce edema enough to remove the ring.”

And the separation of the foreskin from the head is like tearing off your fingernails. You should take a look at the horrid infection this infant got after a modern, sterile Plastibell circ. http://www.cirp.org/library/complications/bliss/ He lost ALL of his shaft-skin, his entire scrotum and almost his life. Guess he missed out on the stout and proud thing, eh?

BTW? When erect, the intact penis has an identical (though smooth, shiny and infinitely more sensitive) German helmet too. What are you doing gawking at other men’s cocks anyway?

I think your fact-finding needs a little work, mate.

~Laura

Thanks for the correction on the Plastibell method Laura. In any case my boy never had a problem with it. No doubt there are risks but there are also risks in not getting it done.

The incidence of urinary tract infection (UTI) is greatly decreased with circumcised boys. UTI can lead to Kidney problems if it gets out of hand so there are benefits to circumcision. Not least of which the almost complete impossibility of ever getting penile cancer.

Not sure if the site I linked to has the details but the radio programme I listened to and got that source discussed research into the assertion that un-circumcised males have an “infinitely more sensitive” penis. Studies had shown the difference in sensitivity were negligible in fact the circumcised were a tad more sensitive and also not as prone to premature ejaculation.

There’s a lot of fear and BS with this subject disseminated by intactivists. I urge anyone who is having a boy read the information at the link I put in my last comment so you can make an informed decision.

Laura, if I showed you a botched surgery for appendix removal I suppose you’d be against that as well? Unless you are insane of course you wouldn’t because you know that benefits outweigh risks. Just because one surgeon or even a few failed disastrously in that instance doesn’t negate the validity of the procedure. You are appealing to emotion rather than facts.

I don’t really have a point on this topic Lavazza other than the facts with regard circumcision are that you would be better served to have your boy circumcised.

Intactivist arguments are emotional nonsense.

If you are past your first year of life, not a promiscuous homosexual who rump ranges bareback, and not having sex in 3rd world countries or with IV drug users or prostitutes then you may as well stay uncircumcised.

That is all. Here’s the link again if you want to get some non emotional facts on the subject.

Circumcised or uncircumcised up to you really. I’d suggest circumcised.

I’d hate to be a geriatric in a nursing home hoping the immigrant “nurses” will be professional and caring enough to clean my old fella daily before infection sets in. Just little practical things like that sway me to the pro-circumcision side.

But I don’t care what you do. I certainly won’t be looking after you in your feeble years.

@Pat Hannagan: I’m glad your son didn’t have any complications… but I’m not sure why you think that makes it OK. You have the misfortune of living in a country that the world’s most rabid pro-circ supporter (Brian Morris) calls home. I’d love to see the data that shows how UTIs are greatly reduced, because the flawed studies done in this area were eventually debunked. They were done in hospitals that counted intact infants too sick to be circumcised- and of course, these babies are also more likely to develop UTIs. But let’s just say for a moment that your claim is actually true. Girls get 3 TIMES as many UTIs as boys. We treat them with an antibiotic, not with an amputation. There have been studies that appear to show similar benefit to circumcising girls as well- though it is illegal in most “civilized” nations.

There was no difference whatsoever in the rates of premature ejaculation between intact and circumcised men. However, it has been described by one man circ’d as an adult as “taking out the accelerator pedal and leaving me with only an on/off switch”. They say they can still achieve orgasm but that the wonderful build up is gone. In the first and only comprehensive study ever done on penile sensitivity (http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118508429/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0) the researchers concluded, “The glans of the circumcised penis is less sensitive to fine touch than the glans of the uncircumcised penis. The transitional region from the external to the internal prepuce is the most sensitive region of the uncircumcised penis and more sensitive than the most sensitive region of the circumcised penis. Circumcision ablates the most sensitive parts of the penis.”

In other words, the foreskin on an intact man is more sensitive than the most sensitive place on the circumcised penis.

As for appendix removal, if the surgery was done on a healthy infant with a healthy appendix I would most definitely be against it. But a foreskin is something EVERY mammal on the planet is born with, even marine mammals, both male and female. We aren’t talking about removing something that has become diseased or infected, we’re talking about randomly removing healthy tissue, turning the glans into an external organ instead of the internal organ it was formed as and removing the only moving parts. If you remove ANY part of the body, you can no longer develop infection or disease on it. A man is 10 times more likely to develop breast cancer than penile cancer for example, but we don’t remove his breasts to prevent this. A woman is 100 times more likely, and it is illegal to remove her breasts as an infant, even if she has the BC gene and it runs in her family. We could pull everyone’s teeth to prevent caries and root canals, we could amputate toes to prevent ingrown toenails… and just so everyone’s clear on the HIV issue, when the data is translated to our cultures here, the potential reduction in risk after a circumcision translates to less than 0.33 percent.

I’m appealing to logic. Human rights (and men’s right) are emotional issues. The largest pediatric organization in the world (The AAP) says the benefits are equally balanced by the risks. They do not promote routine circumcision. In Canada and the UK where they have social medicine, it does not pay for routine circumcision. If the risks were as substantial as you’d like us to believe, it would behoove those systems to pay for RIC because failing to do so would mean greater costs down the road. And yet they don’t… and the reason they don’t, is because there ARE NO greater costs associated with remaining intact.

As for geriatric care goes, the foreskin is self-cleaning… period. However, if cleaning becomes necessary, cleaning the foreskin is far FAR simpler than cleaning the folds of a woman’s labia. And last time I checked, there were more women in nursing homes than men. I gotta hand it to you though, making the argument that a man should be denied the exquisite pleasures of his whole penis during sexuality in the prime of his life to save his nursing home nurse the hygiene effort is a rich one. Or maybe… he could enjoy the pleasures of being intact and if the day should come when he needs a circ as an elderly man, he could have one then. There’s an idea.

You claim that I’m appealing to emotions instead of facts, but so far you haven’t presented any facts. Do you have any?

~Laura

@Pat Hannagan:

I don’t dismiss any of the data. The same data is published at other less rabid pro-circ sites where it is balanced with the REST of the data– and I have seen it. I actually even agree that there are potential benefits to circumcision, but that because there are also risks, that it is a decision that only the individual himself can weigh. No one should make a decision that alters another person’s genitals or sexuality without immediate need to do so. It would be like a husband deciding that while his wife was unconscious after an auto-accident that the surgeons should also put in those breast implants he’s been trying to convince her to get… i mean, he’s her proxy and he has the “right” to make medical decisions for her. The difference of course being the lack of immediacy– that there is no reason we can’t simply wait until she IS conscious to decide herself… just as there is no reason we can’t simply wait until a boy has matured to decide if he wants to keep his penis whole. The only reason a thoughtful person would ignore this is if they were eager to exert their OWN preferences before the individual in question had a chance to choose something different.

Many folks make a correlation between arguments about circumcision and arguments about vaccinations. The MAJOR difference here isn’t about laymen like you and I arguing the pros and cons. EVERY major medical organization in the WORLD promotes immunizations… but not a SINGLE one promotes routine infant circumcision– not even the WHO.

These organizations do extensive reviews of all available literature on the topic before publishing their recommendations. Both supporters and opponents present their most compelling arguments and data, and yet these organizations do not find the circumcision-supporting data compelling enough to recommend routinely circumcising infants.

That is neither scare tactics or the appeal of emotion over fact.

Do you think you and I are better informed or know better than these pediatric specialists?

All the best to you as well, Pat.

@Will S.: “parents decide what they want for their own children”

Children are immature human beings, not property. How often do you call mum and dad for sexual advice? What do you think, Mom? Missionary tonight? Doggie? How ’bout mixin’ it up with a little oral? Since when does any of us even care what mum and dad want for us when it comes to sex?! Of COURSE the idea’s foul.. and RIDICULOUS. We wouldn’t want our parents making any OTHER decisions about our sex lives, why should this be different? I’m not trying to interfere with what parents want, I’m trying to protect what the individual that is their child may want. How can any parent possibly know who their child will grow into or what their likes and dislikes will be? At the very least, if they leave their child intact, he still has a choice. If they choose the circ for him and he decides he WANTS that foreskin (as hundreds of thousands of men have) he’s sh*t out of luck. Can anyone really argue that a man shouldn’t have the right to keep every part of his healthy body if he so chooses? I mean, really, how can a parent justify making a decision like this without urgency or immediacy knowing there is no risk to him? When he asks why they didn’t just save that choice for him to make himself, will either of them get much comfort from, “Well, we had the RIGHT to decide for you, Honey… so we did.”?

BTW? I’m not anti-circ in any way… I think body-mods are cool… when they’re chosen by consenting adults.

~Laura

Well, of course, as an adult, I don’t ask my parents for sexual advice! But that’s because I am an adult, and that’s an adult matter. Personally, I don’t feel victimised just because my parents chose to circumcise me, and I had no say in it. And I can’t help but think that those who do complain about it are simply (uh-oh, shaming tactic!) whiners, and should (warning: another shaming tactic coming up) “man up”.

@Will S.: It’s pretty common for the victim to downplay a loss, violation or assault. It makes it easier to accept if they can pretend it doesn’t matter. Add to that the idea of having to admit that a central part of your sexual anatomy doesn’t function as it was formed and you hear rounds of, “But my cut cock is a thing of perfection!” lol Besides, who wants to think about Mom or Dad making a decision that may have harmed you- even if it was made with all the best intentions. Admitting it’s a violation means having to admit you were violated– by a loved one.

There’s nothing odd about it at all… the reactions of the cut men here are textbook psyche 101. The worst part of that is that it will continue to be repeated on whole, perfect baby’s because a man would rather violate his own son that have to admit he may have been violated himself.

~Laura

Ha Ha Ha! I’m a victim, and didn’t realize it, because I’ve been in denial, all these years, apparently. Maybe I should sue my parents!

So, Laura, would you ban religious, practising Jews and Muslims who live in your country from practicing their religious obligations and circumcising their infants, thus impinging on their freedom to practice their respective religions properly, or would you ban it for everyone else but make an exception for them, thus making them a separate class, who, depending on how you look at it, have a right to do something that others don’t have, or, alternately viewed, don’t have their children protected under the law the way everyone else does? (As you would no doubt see it.)

I think if I were Jewish, I’d enjoy accusing anti-circumcision folks of anti-Semitism; it would be hilarious watching them either squirm uncomfortably and deny it, or even more hilariously, to own up to it. (Esp. when they consider how the mohel stops the bleeding: http://www.come-and-hear.com/editor/br-smc/index.html )

The problem is, cutting off a healthy ear or finger can involve hearing or dexterity problems. As our host as pointed out, however, whatever the horrors of circumcision may be, the circumcised can still pee like men and fuck like champs. Most people born without ears or fingers envy those who have them, while aside from the exceptions you mentioned, most men who’ve been circumcised don’t envy their uncut brothers too much. I believe the reasons for this may be more legitimate than ‘not knowing what they’re missing.’

Laura: No, not so simple. Many, if not most, religions often require their believers who are parents to bring up their children in their faith – and they usually want to, anyway, to teach them the way they deem right. That involves making decisions for the children – whether circumcising them, or having them baptised as infants, or sending them to a parochial school for education. On what basis, if we consider people to have the right to practice their religion freely, can we then turn around and tell them they can’t practice this or that tenet of it because it doesn’t correlate with the wider society’s values? And if you ban a practice which, hitherto now, has been allowed, a dangerous legal precedent is set, because once it is decided that the State can legitimately interfere in a particular faith’s (or faiths’) religious practices, what’s to stop the State from interfering in any other faith’s practices, as society’s values change over time?

And Wandering Internet Commentator is right; I have no envy of uncircumcised men; I couldn’t care less; good for them. There’s no comparison between removal of a foreskin, and removal of a hand or an ear or an eyelid! I am not impaired in the least, by what was done to me.

@Thursday: I’m not trying to convince or shame anyone who doesn’t feel violated. It’s the folks who suggests that the ones who DO are pansies… “Suck it up! Be a man! Your schlong still fucks, what more could you want?!”

Where does that attitude end? The hand still functions perfectly well without a pinky. The ears still hear without the shell. It’s been proven that removing the pinky toes has almost zero impact on us… but if you met a guy whose parents cut off his pinkies when he was young, you’d think, “Oh man, that’s fucked! I’m sorry.”

Hundreds of thousands of men say they were violated. The fact that others don’t, neither negates that nor makes it ok to take something from them that they have every right to expect to have the power to retain.

@Will S.: The only difference between an eyelid and a foreskin is “location”. Remove the eyelid and tears would continue to be produced. (like the circ’d penis continues to ejaculate) Your sight would be diminished but not eliminated. (like the sensitivity of the glans) Your ability to sense debris and self-clean the eyeball would be missing. (like the cleaning action and nerves of the foreskin) You could apply artificial tears (like circ’d men apply lube to masturbate) But, there’d be no sties, no moisture trapped against the eye, no folds to harbor the bacteria that cause conjunctivitis. Yes, you’d lose some function… just like the circumcised penis does– but you’d still see.

~Laura

@Will & Genius: There are religions all over the world that include practices we consider a violation of human rights. Marrying off child-brides for example and the consequent child-rape that ensues. The owning of slaves, the stoning of women, the abuse of children. Why should any religion get a pass on human-rights violations?

ProMale: That is not true for not circumcising countries/cultures. Here there are few women argumenting on the matter. MRA men are trying to prohibit Muslim and Jewish parents from circumcising their boys and find it weird that boys should receive less protection than girls from religion based decisions of their parents. The pro-circumcision debaters are mostly Jewish men.

PMAFT: That mother is way messed up! Like most of the rest of her ilk, fretting about this non-issue.

Oh, and to clarify, note that I said “meaningful.” Even in the examples you gave, Laura, the consequences of removing an ear, toe, or finger are far more grave than lack of a foreskin. Somebody’s eyesight will be diminished. Sight is a very important sense–far more so than the sensation a foreskin provides. There are several jobs which require excellent, perfect eyesight (pilots, for instance, need 20/20 vision). No job I am aware of requires a sensitive penis. Same with the shell of the ear–even if you can still hear, your hearing will be somewhat lessened, and of course lacking an ear will make you conspicuous in public. Having a less sensitive penis isn’t nearly as impairing as having a docked sense of hearing, and unless you’re a nudist nobody is going to notice your lack of a foreskin the same way they’d notice a lack of an ear. The same thing applies to little toes–even if the tiny lil’ guys don’t perform much of a function, people will still notice they’re gone if you go barefoot or with sandals, there are social repercussions for not having them. Again, unless you’re a nudist, there are absolutely none for lacking a foreskin, except for perhaps the approval/disapproval of whatever girl you happen to be with.

I repeat again: I wouldn’t circumcise my kids, and I have nothing but respect for people who aren’t or don’t want to get circumcised. However, claiming parents are inflicting some sort of horrible abuse on their sons by circumcising them strikes me as absurd. At worst it’s an inconvenience.

“The sooner boys are protected from genital mutilation in the west, the sooner those peoples that practice FGM will interpret western objections as something more than cultural imperialism.”

Well, that wins the prize for most novel objection to circumcision!

Apart from finding it morally abhorrent, why should we concern ourselves with how other, non-Western societies live, including whether or not they practice FGM? That, in fact, IS cultural imperialism! (Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, but it does strike me, that if we would not have those people over there telling us how to live our lives, we might do well to not tell them how to live their lives. Reciprocity, and all that. But the Puritan totalitarian impulse dies hard in America, doesn’t it…) And those FGM practicers overseas certainly don’t care whether or not we practice circumcision.

I’m sorry; I thought the manosphere was concerned with men’s issues in the West; I had no idea we were concerning ourselves with FGM in the Middle East. Talk about ‘overreach’…

@Pro-Male/Anti-Feminist Tech: I have 3 children, all (intact) boys. I consider myself a ‘humanist’. My husband and I want our boys to grow up into masculine men, rather than the feminized Ken dolls that some of the warped feminist movement appears to encourage. Every “movement” has its backlash. I can’t tell you how many times a feminist told me that my ideas were setting the feminist movement back. The thing is though that true feminism is about giving women CHOICES- it’s not about redefining another model of ‘what she SHOULD BE whether she likes it or not’. If a woman chooses to live a more traditional life, then that she be just as acceptiable and “feminist” as one who chooses to be CEO of a giant corporation.

The same thing goes for men. Men should have a choice over their own bodies. That SOME men will choose to be circumcised shouldn’t matter– that SOME men are happy circumcised shouldn’t matter… that SOME men are absolutely sure they’re not victims of a violation shouldn’t matter. All that should matter is that they had no choice. History is full of stories of people living their lives in ignorant bliss. Slaves who didn’t want to be freed– women who didn’t want equality– there’s nothing wrong with choosing those things for yourself- but pretending there is no violation going on, whether you personally feel violated or not, does your cause a disservice. Men who DO feel violated or angry have nowhere to go with it because other men espouse the violation as a positive thing and criticize the men who do feel violated for not being “manlier” and sucking it up.

It’s one of the most tragic things we can do to a human being– convince them that a violation is meaningless… that it somehow improves them… that they were not born perfect, but left the womb flawed and that only being “fixed” makes them acceptable. Not only do we teach them that this violation is OK, but we’ve even managed to teach them that it’s highly desirable.

There is nothing wrong with saying, “It works well enough for me…” or “I enjoy it more than any other part of my body!” Still, a hand without all 5 fingers doesn’t function the same… an ear without it’s shell doesn’t function the same… an eye without it’s lid doesn’t function the same. To claim that a penis without a foreskin DOES function the same is dishonest on so many levels, and invalidates those men who know that it most certainly does not.

As for the anti-RIC movement being argued mostly by women goes, that is likely because it is a decision made mostly by women– it is the mother whose signature is required on the consent form.

Actually, the mutilators are generally men. Women are simply giving consent- mostly under pressure from men.

Ah, so we’re back to circumcision being considered tantamount to child abuse, in your view. Well, to your credit, at least you’re consistent, in that.

“What part of “human rights” don’t you understand?”

The part where one state tries to enforce its notion of human rights on another, thus violating its Westphalian sovereignty. In other words, one state intervenes in the internal affairs of another, thus violating the principle of non-intervention. But I realize few give a damn about that, any more, esp. what with the self-righteous Puritan missionary spirit imbuing so many in our times.

“it stole a part of my body I simply wanted to keep”

Ah, an infanct boy who is circumcised right at birth or very close in time to birth (as I was) has no notion that he has had part of his body removed, until he is told later on when he is old enough to comprehend; he has no memory of a time before circumcision, no memories of having had life for a few seconds or minutes with an uncircumcised penis. Perhaps later he may somehow come to feel he was “robbed” of something he then wishes he still had, but he didn’t “want” to keep it at the time, because at that time in his life, his mind wasn’t even developed to the stage of being able to “want” or “not want” anything! (Other than his mother’s milk.)

“it tortured me…”

A boy circumcised at birth retains no memory of the event later. I certainly have none. Ergo, I wasn’t tortured, nor was anyone else who went through what I did. Now, a Masai boy circumcised at 13, yeah, he might find it torture – I’m sure I would, too. But not from a circumcision at birth; that’s just BS.

“this practice harmed me”

Only if botched. Otherwise, even if, as is suggested, that circumcision diminishes the level of a man’s sexual pleasure, it doesn’t harm unless it is botched, and deformity and/or pain, inability to use the organ properly for either urination or sex, happens – but that’s only if the procedure is botched, not if it’s done right.

“it scarred me”

In the strictest physical sense that it leaves a visible sign that it’s been done, yeah! Duh. That’s a no-brainer.

However, if you mean in some sort of nebulous emotional sense, again, if done at birth rather than age 13, then no, it doesn’t have any lasting effects. But of course some people decide afterwards that they were victims, just as false memories of child abuse implanted by the power of suggestion can lead some to feel they were “victims”, or young women who regret getting drunk and having sex with some guy they just met can be convinced by campus wymyn’s centres types that they were “date-raped”. People can be convinced of anything, after the fact, whether real or not. (Well, some people can; others of us are lucky enough to have working BS detectors.)

“If the notion of human rights is one you don’t recognize, it seems that the notion of parental or cultural rights would be given similar weight- as in zero”

On the contrary, I recognize fundamental human rights, including the rights of parents to practice their religion as they see fit, not as others say they should. (For an observant, traditionalist Jew, circumcision is the sign and seal of the covenant, and nothing could be more important than to ensure that their children are objectively brought under the sign and seal of the covenant.) That includes, BTW, people who live in other cultures and societies; since I wouldn’t want them telling me how to live my life, I’ll respect their right to live their life the way they see fit. So even though I disagree with FGM, or circumcising Masai boys at the beginning of puberty rather than at birth, hey, I won’t judge them; that’s their business, not mine.

@Will S: While it’s true that an infant doesn’t think about how he wants his foreskin, he doesn’t think about how he wants his eyes or his fingers or any other body part either. He also doesn’t think about how he wants them REMOVED. Think of it like this– you purchase an iPod accessory from Apple and it comes from the factory with every conceivable connector and insert to be sure it will fit every model. Then, they let the individual decide which parts he wants to chuck (if any). And since the primary function of the foreskin relates to sexuality, it makes perfect sense that a man may not give another thought to his sexual sensitivity until sexuality becomes a prominent consideration for him. Considering all the variables in sexual pleasure, how can anyone make a decision like that for someone else?

It’s all well and fine that a circumcised penis still feels enough stimulation to ejaculate, but what about those that don’t? Losing a kidney in an accident isn’t so bad unless you donated one already. Losing sight in one eye isn’t the end of the world unless you only had sight in one eye. The list goes on and on… the point is, it’s not about a man being ignorant to having a part of his body cut off… the idea that it should be OK just because “most men don’t notice or seem to mind” is ridiculous. Whether he knows something was taken or not isn’t the point. The point is that something was taken… from HIS body… without HIS consent. There are things we can tell ourselves to make us feel better about it… and one would hope that if we’re going to inflict this procedure without consent, that the individual is NOT traumatized- so it’s a good thing that they don’t remember— but the fact that they don’t remember doesn’t make it any less a violation. There simply is no justification for surgically removing healthy tissue from a non-consenting individual.

~Laura

No, abortion is a different issue, because pregnancy is a process. Only a few people oppose it at conception (IUDs), almost everybody opposes it at term. The problem is where to draw the line, but be that as it may, the Born Alive Infant Protection Act 2002, signed by George W Bush and supported by the pro-life movement, grants all born babies full human rights.

What the circumcision issue boils down to is, whose body is it? The child’s body – all of it – belongs to him from birth to death, and nobody else has any right to go cutting healthy, functional, non-renewable parts off. Do you deny this is true for any other parts, or the exactly corresponding parts, of little girls or adult men? Why is the minor male’s foreskin alone fair game?

‘“this practice harmed me”
Only if botched.’
Yes, and since it is unnecessary, what is the justification for doing it and botching it?

“if done at birth rather than age 13, then no, it doesn’t have any lasting effects.”
Taddio and Taddio found that circumcised babies react differently to the pain of vaccination months later.

“I recognize fundamental human rights, including the rights of parents to practice their religion as they see fit, not as others say they should.”

What about the fundamental right of the child to grow up to practice the religion of his choice, and not have his parents’ religion carved into his body?

Why is the minor male’s foreskin alone fair game?

Because the foreskin is relatively unique in that it can usually be removed with minimal functional or societal consequences. As our host mentioned, a circumcised man can still pee like a man and fuck like a champ, and I mentioned earlier, excising certain other body parts such as eyelids or even toes will make one stick out in certain situations (like wearing sandals or going barefoot). I genuinely can’t think of any other body part that can be removed and have nobody notice its absence until you get naked. Again, this isn’t to say the foreskin is useless, just that it doesn’t seem to be such a big deal.

As for Laura’s statement that “children have a right to their whole body, who are we to take it away from them?” the problem is that children often can’t make wise decisions about their bodies, being too immature to do so. For instance, a child with leukemia might be reluctant to undergo chemotherapy, because he can’t understand how it works, doesn’t want his hair to fall out, and so on. His parents would be justified in forcing him to undergo the therapy, because they know better than he does what’s best for him in the long run. By the same token, parents ought to be able to choose whether or not their child should be circumcised based on what they think, as adults who know more than he does, what’s best for him.

Now, you’ll say that “circumcision has no benefits! Parents who circumcise their kids are deluded!” For what it’s worth, I think you have some degree of evidence on your side, and if I ever become a father I won’t have my kids circumcised. But there is room for doubt on these questions. We could very well be wrong. You yourself give a few reasons for post-neonatal circumcision on your site. A parent could reasonably say, “Hmm, it’s likely my kid might severely injure his foreskin in the future, or come down with phimosis someday, or whatever. I’ll save him the trouble and circumcise him now.” Thus, I don’t really see why a parent ought to be forbidden from doing what he thinks is best for his children, even if we disagree with it, since there are at least some cogent, non-religious rationales for circumcision, even if you were referring to circumcision in maturity rather than babyhood.

The exact same argument could be applied to the female prepuce/hood. The majority of all “female circumcision” is this type and it is illegal.

I don’t know much about female circumcision, but if the procedure is as harmless as you say then yes, I agree, women shouldn’t receive particularly special protection. If you ask me, that form of circumcision ought to be legalized as well.

This is, of course, assuming female circumcision is necessary in even some cases. Is there a female equivalent to phimosis or something like that? If not, it’d be harder to argue for a parent making an educated decision in favor of female circumcision.

child’s leukocytes removed to pre-emptively prevent leukemia from happening.

The problem with this is that healthy leukocytes perform important functions–removing them without just cause would impair the child’s health significantly. The foreskin can be removed without any meaningful impairment.

testicles are unseen, why not just remove the left testicle from each boy

True, but even in this case testicular function will be mildly impaired–while one ball can do the work of two, it’s still better to have two unless you really, really need to give one up. Even if arms and toes have a chance of getting damaged, they perform such useful functions, or at least in the case of toes, would look weird enough if removed, that it’s not worth removing them without just cause. The fact that the foreskin doesn’t really seem to do much of anything–again, men without them can pee like men and fuck like champs–means that removing it is really no big deal. Again, I reiterate that I personally would leave my kids uncircumcised. However, the function of that body part seems so minor, compared to arms, testicles, or even toes–that I think parents could reasonably come to different decisions regarding whether to keep it or leave it. Thus, why I feel the claims of intactivists are somewhat overblown. I think circumcision is probably unnecessary, but I wouldn’t classify it as a particularly great human rights abuse nor make an effort to outlaw it.

“What about the fundamental right of the child to grow up to practice the religion of his choice”

He will still have that right, regardless.

Sadly, he might be rejected from a faith, like Sikhism (the fifth largest in the world) that rejects body modifications like circumcision and haircutting. It looks like his right to practice the religion of his choice has been infringed.

I believe rights are recognized by the State, at most, never granted by the State; the State cannot actually decide what is right and what is wrong, what rights people have; all it can do is recognize what rights exist.
You are correct, there, in my opinion. Of course, Herr Bardamu does not believe in negative rights, as you and I do. You might want to go back through the archives and take him to task on it.

The slavery issue, decided for America by 1865, was also a conflict arising from two different conceptions of who has what rights.
Yes, I believe we decided then that no person may own another, and treat his body like property.

And some people’s understanding of said Creator requires them to mark their male children as separate from the rest of humanity, via the covenantal sign and seal of the rite of circumcision. But you would term such a practice an atrocity, and compare it with torture,
I’m sure most “intactivists” (not that I can speak for them) would be happy to see this practice reduced to the people of the Book; they, at least, will get a baby somewhat drunk and so pain is lessened. One wonders if anyone has measured levels of cortisol (stress hormone released by pain) in alcohol-treated infants versus the data gathered on the routine kids?

@Wandering Internet Commentator:
“parents ought to be able to choose whether or not their child should be circumcised based on what they think, as adults who know more than he does, what’s best for him.”

If a man bitterly resents having been circumcised, isn’t that a prima facie case that they DIDN”T know what was best for him? (And no scientific studies have been done, but informal polls suggest that the satisfaction rate of circumcised men is barely 50% but the satisfaction rate of intact men is very high, >85%. So the prudent – and I would have thought, obvious – course of action is to leave his genitals alone.)

“even in this case testicular function will be mildly impaired–while one ball can do the work of two, it’s still better to have two unless you really, really need to give one up.”
I know a couple of guys with only one, and you’d never know it to look at them, or their children. Interesting that you think a second ball is absolutely essential, but deny any value to a man’s only foreskin.

“The fact that the foreskin doesn’t really seem to do much of anything”
To those who have it, it does.

@Electric Angel: “I’m sure most “intactivists” (not that I can speak for them) would be happy to see this practice reduced to the people of the Book;”
We would be less unhappy if that happened, but I am in touch with mainstream Intactivist views, and a significant number are Jews who would be very aggreived if we abandoned Jewish babies to their fate, as if Jewish babies had fewer human rights than other babies. It would be much easier, but we’re not leaving them behind.

(Christians are also people of the Book, and their Book is very much against physical circumcision of its adherents for religious reasons. See especially Gal 5:2)

@Will S: “You believe the child has a right to not have this act performed on him, and the adults have no such right to carry out this practice on their sons. ”

Yes, but I also believe that adults have a right not to have had that act performed on them (or indeed any other healthy, normal, functional, non-renewable part cut off their bodies). It’s adults’ rights vs adults’ rights, and the rights of the adult attached to the penis trump the rights of someone who happens to have fertilized him or given birth to him, decades earlier.

I can’t believe that you seriously think that the freedom to found a new religion makes up for the loss of being excluded from one because he has had an (unnecessary) operation performed on him. A parallel case. A castrated man is ineligible to be Pope. Would you tell such a man (supposing he was a Cardinal and papabile), “Never mind, you can start another Roman Catholic Church”?

@Laura: “Less than 2% of men will ever have a medical need for a circumcision.” Actually, where circumcision is not customary, and doctors know more about the foreskin than how to cut it off, the figure is much lower – one in thousands.

“I can’t believe that you seriously think that the freedom to found a new religion makes up for the loss of being excluded from one because he has had an (unnecessary) operation performed on him.”

Like I said, religious organizations have the right to choose who they include and who they exclude, from membership, and I really have zero sympathy for any crybabies who moan, “But I want to belong to it; not fair!”. Too bad.

“A parallel case. A castrated man is ineligible to be Pope. Would you tell such a man (supposing he was a Cardinal and papabile), “Never mind, you can start another Roman Catholic Church”?”

Yes, I would. Luther, Calvin, Zwingli and others couldn’t abide various teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, so they broke away and founded their own denominations. Henry VIII couldn’t get a divorce and remarry within the Roman Catholic Church, so he set up the Anglican Church. And there are gays and lesbians who have broken away from their various churches and founded their own, like the Metropolitan Community Church.

If people don’t like their faith’s teachings, instead of whining about it, they can leave, and start their own. Or they can submit and accept the teachings. Their call.

@Will S:
What is your purpose in debating this topic? You appear to have no position… you aren’t concerned with men’s rights or human rights- you live in a society built on rules and “rights” even while you scoff at them. I can’t help wondering why you’re bothering here? You seem to be a whole lot of nothing.

My position has been clear, all the way through, Laura; but since you seem to have missed it, let me spell it out completely unambiguously: I’m in favour of maintaining the status quo – allowing people to choose whether or not they wish to have their children circumcised. My position is that parental rights and religious practitioners’ rights to continue doing this as they always have, trump any other considerations, especially such a newfangled absurd modern concept as yours; I do not recognize the so-called ‘right’ to ‘intactness’. Obviously, you and your ilk don’t recognize the rights of Jews, Muslims, or parents who for whatever other reasons, wish to circumcise their children, or you place this ‘intactness’ right above any such considerations, since you would deny this choice to others who are not of the same mindset as you – you’re just like the self-righteous Temperance movement alcohol Prohibitionists, or PETA lobbying to ban the seal hunt (and no doubt, meat-eating, if they could). You’re right, though; further debate is likely pointless, so I will bow out of it, hoping people see you for the self-righteous, anti-traditional-religious totalitarians you clearly are.

I suppose slave owners and traders wanted status quo too– I suppose child rapists wanted status quo– I suppose wife beaters wanted status quo.

You know, if our host wanted to prove that ‘intactivists’ really are as shrill and irrational as he thought they were, a post comparing circumcision to slavery and child rape would be at the top of the list. I’m just disappointed you didn’t throw the Nazis in there too, then I would have been able to claim “Godwin’s Law” and be done with this.

It’s something of a pity, ironically enough, Laura here is an unfortunate example of stereotypically feminine irrationality and illogic. Ad hominem attacks (you seem to be a whole lot of nothing, hurr) and shrill, ludicrous comparisons (even hugh7, who’s an intactivist as well, hasn’t tried comparing circumcision to slavery–I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that he’s the more reasonable one here) would seem to justify not only our host’s critiques of the intactivists but also the general perception of women as irrational and illogical one sees fairly constantly around MRA blogs. Ah, well.

Admittedly, if you cut my child, you better believe I’d be shrill. In fact, I have seen men go absolutely berserk over a toddler’s bloody nose when another toddler bumped into him. Cutting and bleeding our children makes decent people a little shrill– it’s funny how that works.

But this is the point, which makes your position even sillier. Neither I nor Will S. nor anyone else here is cutting *your* children, or hurting *other people’s* children in the slightest. I have said repeatedly I don’t want to circumcise my kids, if I ever have them, and I *support* your and hugh7′s decision not to cut them. The only thing we “anti-intactivists” are doing is requesting you to stop telling other people they’re committing some sort of awful crime even remotely comparable to slavery or kidnapping or whatever. You don’t like circumcision? Great, I agree with you. I’m not telling you what to do with your kids, I’m just asking you stop telling everyone else what (not) to do with theirs. Telling parents they’re doing a HORRIBLE EVIL THING by circumcising their kids is not really the same thing as telling rapists and slave traders they’re doing horrible evil things, because…

it isn’t the degree of the human rights violation that is important here- it’s that there IS a human rights violation

This sounds nice, but only until you give it a moment’s thought. Something may be a ‘human rights violation,’ but if the degree is absolutely miniscule, getting up in arms about it is fairly silly. Degree means close to everything. Punching a guy in the face is painful to him and technically a violation of his rights, but you will be hard-pressed to argue it merits the same punishment as cutting off his limbs or killing him, and you will be justly called a fool if you attempt to compare the plight of a man punched in the face to a man disfigured or murdered. By the same token, you would quite justly be called a fool for comparing the “plight” of circumcised men to the plight of slaves, people who’ve been raped, or people who’ve been subjected to genocides.

And in the case of female circumcision, as I said above, if it *really* was as unobtrusive as male circumcision, then I see no particular reason to forbid other people from doing so either.

When all is said and done, no part of her body is damaged or removed- and yet we recognize the violation.

You curiously forget to take into account the psychological trauma the girl endured–and date rape is *almost invariably* incredibly traumatizing, often throughout one’s entire life. The only evidence I’ve seen that men without foreskins suffer horribly compared to those who don’t is Hugh7′s unscientific poll that about 50% of men who are circumcised are “unsatisfied” with it, a few examples of adults who ended up extremely resentful of it, and some evidence that babies feel pain during circumcision and are somewhat more sensitive to pain later on in life. The comparison doesn’t really hold.

We can now prove that the Holocaust was a hoax!”? Well, you know how many violated Jews were willing to go along with that?

NOW I can call Godwin’s Law. Thanks. Question: Have you ever considered that the reason Jews get offended when someone tells them the Holocaust was “no big deal,” while few circumcised people will get offended when you tell them “circumcision is no big deal,” is because the Holocaust actually *was* a big deal while circumcision actually isn’t? You can compare people who don’t think circumcision is a horrible abuse to people who deny the Holocaust all you want, but you both prevent yourself from being taken seriously and make your cause look absolutely ludicrous in doing so. Congratulations =)

Slippery slopes can tilt in more than one direction, and circumcision, as the only removal of normal, healthy, non-renewable, functional tissue from a non-consensting person can well be regarded as the first step towards allowing female genital cutting. That is certainly how advocates of FGC see it, and that is how the AAP saw it during May 2010, albeit in a much less extensive, tokenistic way. But opponents of FGC rightly worried that in the privacy of a doctor’s surgery, who knew what a doctor and/or a parent might think that allowed? The AAP rightly withdrew.

Papers and blogs have been written about “mandatory circumcision” and mobs have set upon men in parts of Africa and circumcised them then and there, willy nilly, in a wave of hysteria following publicity about “circumcision preventing HIV”. That is one direction this slippery slope demonstrably leads.

“Those who value freedom and dislike coercion, I would think, should be willing to tolerate a cultural practice like circumcision as a matter of freedom of choice, exercised on the part of parents choosing that option on their kid’s behalf.”

Actually it is precisely because I value freedom and dislike coercion that I oppose a cultural practice like circumcision, as a matter of freedom of choice to be exercised by the person most directly affected, facing the ultimate coercion of being strapped down and having their most intimate part cut off.

I always smile when someone says they’re never going to post on a topic again….

@W I C: Licencing mohels won’t stop men from being resentful.

“for all we know maybe 100 years in the future someone will do an excellent, well-researched study that proves without a doubt circumcision really *does* have some sort of benefit, whether in disease or function or whatever.”

Oh if that’s all you ask, there are plenty of those already. Circumcision absolutely eliminates foreskin cancer, or by definition, posthitis (Greek for “foreskin ailment”). The question is, how much benefit (compared to the rarity and severity of the ailment), and how does it compare to the harm? Most things circumcision is (supposed to be) good for can be treated without it – as their female equivalents always are, as and when they occur, not pre-emptively.

And I think we’ll wait in vain for “enough evidence proving definitively it’s a horrible thing” because that’s not what science does.

What you haven’t explained is why just this is the only normal, healthy, functional, non-renewable body-part that may be cut off a person at someone else’s request. If it weren’t already customary, it would never be allowed. It would simply be including among all other kinds of maiming, and doctors would never get ethical approval to do it without a serious diagnosis.

@Will S: “… such a newfangled absurd modern concept as yours; I do not recognize the so-called ‘right’ to ‘intactness’.” You recognise it for yourself, I imagine? You recognise it equally for women, I hope. You recognise it for little girls’ genitals, I suppose. But for little boys’ genitals – and only their genitals – it’s “a newfangled absurd modern concept”? You’ve lost me.

And it’s a real mystery to me why MRAs don’t think this is a perfectly integral part of their agenda – cutting an erogenous part off a man-to-be’s favourite part, often at a woman’s behest? I couldn’t have invented it.

I’m pregnant, due in a few weeks. I’m currently active on some pregnancy message boards and I just wanted to share a little bit of what I read in just the past couple of days… I want to be clear- I selected these quotes for a reason- they do not represent all of the comments or opinions that women posted- but to the child whose mother made these comments- her opinion (and his dad’s) is the only one that will matter in the end. (Many comments were in favor of genital integrity.) These might stand out because of their honesty. Many other women may have feelings similar or stronger than these as their main motivator- but they instinctively know that they’d sound sexist, sexually inhibited, uneducated or shallow- so they hide their true motivation with a medicalized justification so they can sound like a concerned caring parent and not a squeamish schoolgirl.

Virginia- due in 2 months: “And I’ll also totally admit part of it is for asthetic reasons. I’ve never seen an uncircumcised penis and have no desire to do so.”

Ohio- due in 3 months: “I also think the uncircumsized penis looks unappealing. I think its healthy for men to be circ’d.”

Lavender- Due in 2 months: “It isn’t like I have been around the block a ton but I have never seen one…I thought they were a myth, lol! Actually my DS will be the only one I have ever seen and that will only be in the few hours before we have it done.”

Wife- trying to get pregnant… will have to oppose her husband to avoid circumcision: “His opinion is based solely on aesthetics; he is circumcised and actually dislikes the appearance of an uncircumcised penis (he’s told me he would turn off porn if any of the men were uncut).”

Rhode Island- will be circumcising when the baby is born in a month and a half: “Looks better, it’s cleaner…and those are about the only 2 reasons why I can think of doing it.”

Lisa- circumcising when the baby is born in a few weeks: “For me…I just don’t like the way they look and I don’t feel they are as clean and hygeinic, no matter how well they are cleaned.”

Texas- circumcising any day now: We are getting it done. My DH won’t really consider not doing it, he thinks uncirced are gross and unclean – all those stereotypes.”

I am an Intactivist- A few years back I was staffing a circumcision information booth at a baby fair and was approached by a young mother with a baby in a stroller. She hesitantly asked me, “Isn’t it true a boy needs to be circumcised if he is going to have children?” I tried to gently explain how absurd that was without laughing or crying… but the fact is- she did believe that at the time when she authorized her son’s circumcision. Who knows where she heard it… a slumber party when she was 10? I don’t know… but I do know that there was a person with a medical degree who didn’t bother to even find out WHY they were doing that circumcision. Maybe 20 years from now that boy will circumcise his own son to “look like dad.”

When you say that male circumcision is nothing like female circumcision- you have to consider two things- the physical damage and the cultural motivation. One of the reasons why most people feel so resistant to the comparison is because they believe that male circumcision (in our culture) is done to enhance men, to raise their social status, to elevate and beautify them- as such- our motivations are noble and loving. We tend to believe the female cutting is done to reduce women, to make them less, to subjugate them in a male dominated society (nevermind that it’s typically women who do the cutting and insist on doing it to their daughters) While we want our circumcised boys to get lots of blow-jobs… they want their girls to be submissive to their husband who cares nothing for her sexual pleasure.

Male circumcision is not socially benign and beneficial to men (not to mention the physical loss). If a boy has to be circumcised in order to “not be teased in the locker room” …and parents are buying into that- that means that there must be a very strong cultural bias against the natural male body- and not only that- but there is a cultural investment in protecting the bias rather than protecting the boy! … the natural male body, especially at only one day old, is not powerful and protected- he is weak and vulnerable… and ugly and undesirable… until he is “enhanced” with a genital reduction surgery! This usually results in parents and an adult man who feel that the circumcision is nothing but goodness for all it’s social benefits (and…oh yes… the medical ones too) -we believe it’s an act of strengthening men- but if men have no physical security without the circling scar line- it’s clear that men are not empowered in this culture and the act of circumcising is an opportunistic cultural imposition and not one of loving enhancement. If circumcision was really so good in and of itself, men would be allowed to opt for the painful procedure as an adult just as adult women are allowed to opt for painful breast implant surgery.

Sure there may be bigger fish to fry or worse violations of human rights out there but this is a much bigger issue than a simple snip of banana peel.. or sausage… or whatever stock image d’jour is chosen to marginalize the experience of people who have been harmed voice of people who are willing to speak out. There is a sexist double standard that needs to be challenged- and there is no justifiable reason to ignore it. There is only the personal unwillingness to let go of the social benefits you believe you were granted as a circumcised person in a circumcision loving culture. Once you identify the cruel sexist twist imbedded in each cherished benefit- all you are left with is a scar and the question… what to do now?

EDIT- The above post was directed at Wandering Internet Commentator, not Hugh7. ;-)

@Will S: Oh I don’t know… I think rape is wrong and I’m not likely to change my mind… but then neither are most folks. I think stealing is wrong… I think cheating is wrong. I guess that could make me a fanatic along with 99% of the world’s population.

But then, at one time I was pro-circ, and I changed my mind- so I guess I don’t fit that description either. Sometimes something is just wrong- and you know it’s wrong as surely as you know your own name. We call that “truth”.

Winston Churchill might have had more to say on the subject if HIS foreskin was on the line. He also said–
“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”

And this–
“Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyzes the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.”

And this–
“”A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”"

@Wandering Internet Commentator: I’ll comment further when I have more time– I just wanted to say that the reason the Plastibell is the most commonly used method is because it’s considered the safest method. The tragedy is that even the safest method causes unacceptable harm. =(

There is no “safe” way to cut healthy sexual anatomy off a non-consenting person’s body… no matter how well you do it- it damages their body in a way they didn’t agree to- so it’s not like- lopping off a little bit of their glans or nicking through their urethra is a tragedy and crushing through their foreskin and frenulum so you can trim it off without bleeding was wonderful.

Here is a FDA warning about the other most popular circumcision devices:
http://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/Safety/AlertsandNotices/PublicHealthNotifications/UCM062279

@Hugh7: I agree Hugh… it’s like saying that a person with no sense of smell can still chew and swallow “like a champ”. We have just a few very basic taste receptors and the rest of the subtle and exquisite flavors we can experience are all a function of smell. Just ask anyone with a bad head cold how good their food tastes. lol It’s pretty funny that anyone would argue that it was no big deal to give it up… and quite indicative of ignorance of the sensation.

@Will S: The title of this post is “Intactivism” and that is the topic of the discussion. When the topic is rape, stealing, cheating, slavery etc, I’ll go on and on about that too. In fact, you’ll find that regardless of the discussion board, there will be a single topic that everyone goes on and on about. Haven’t been around discussion boards much, eh? Please do move on though… we never needed your input to make a convincing argument. ;-)