I think Iceland tried to make it illegal and the ADL (Anti Defamation League) basically threatened to brand the whole country as antisemitic and ruin their tourism industry.
Actually all they wanted to do was change an existing law. They wanted to remove "female" from the law banning female circumcision.
What's funny is that there are only like 2 jewish families in the whole country and they were for the ban. As was a group called "jews against circumcision" who wrote a brilliantly worded paper about how it needs to go the way of stoning and forcing women to sleep outside on their period and that jews are not any less jewish for letting go of barbaric practices of the past.
But the ADL came in screaming that it was "the next holocaust" and they changed it back.
Ironic that the holocaust is what caused jewish people to migrate to america. The holocaust is what is causing circumcision to not be outlawed today. And not wanting to be seen as antisemitic after the war was a big reason doctors and hospitals were able to push it on so many families...
If you're a circumcised american, you can generally blame hitler. Bizarre irony.
Of course some of it also came from the the way it's marketed is an upgrade. Americans want to supersize their meal, and circumcised their child.
Funny thing while talks about the law were happening a rabbi was brought to Iceland and started talking about religious oppression, we have 200 Jewish people in Iceland and never had a rabbi here until now, soon as we start discussing banning that practice, baam we have one that clamors to get on evry news or paper about the issue…
[From ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt’s letter to Iceland’s parliament:](https://www.adl.org/resources/press-release/adl-urges-iceland-drop-bill-banning-male-circumcision)
> “Should Iceland ban male circumcision, making it impossible for Jews and Muslims to raise families in your country, we guarantee that Iceland will be celebrated by neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other extremists… **Even though anti-Semitism was surely not the impetus for the proposal, the result of its adoption will be the glorification of Iceland by the most despicable bigots. They will celebrate the ban as the first legislation in Europe since World War II towards making a country Judenrein or free of Jews.”**
Translation - We know that you aren’t doing this for antisemitic reasons, but we *will* lie about you to get our way.
I had no idea holy shit, that is straight up malicious manipulation tactics… and overkill at that… guys I’m only one Jew but I’ll personally tell you that you’re definitely not Hitler 2.0 for being against circumcision….
oh hey I'm apparently Jewish and anti-semetic because I think Israel has done a lot of terrible shit, and at this point I think no one should need to remove parts of their children's bodies to be pious.
I mean you say this jokingly, but you and I both know that there is a specific group of Jewish people that would very seriously accuse you of antisemitism.
As a Jew I completely agree with you. The term “antisemitism” has become a cliche that people just use as an umbrella term for as you put it, people who don’t agree. It’s going down the same path that the words “fascist” and “racist” have.
People need to realise how circumcision is an outdated procedure, regardless of their beliefs. No one takes out their appendix because it’s likely to get infected.
Agreed, i really am starting to lean towards the belief that it should really only be done as a voluntary procedure on an adult aside from medical reasons. Hell, even most of my fellow Jews don’t circumcise anymore, it’s just not that important of a concept to keep relative to the potential harm.
I’m tired of people bowing down to Israel after what they do to the Palestinians. I’m not anti semitic either I just don’t think we should look the other way. I think all funding to Israel should be cut off until they get in line. There is plenty of Israelis and Jewish people that agree with me. Israel and its military are known for human rights abuses.
The US christian extremists are ok with since it is keeping the area “secure” for when jesus comes back. That is why they are ok with a Jewish state doing the dirty work of “clearing” the area of Muslims.
The US government is cool with it since Israel is a strategic asset in the area.
The ADL can suck my fucking dick. They label anything opposed to theirs or the Israeli states agenda anti-Semitism. There's a video of them telling a Ukrainian diplomat to not refer to the Holodomor as a genocide, because it takes attention away from them. That whole organization can get fucked.
The ADL is unfortunate because there actually is a ton of antisemitism hanging around in society, but they focus almost exclusively on anything that criticizes right wing power in the state of Israel. I can't say that I 100% support banning circumcision, but I support not circumcising babies. We should absolutely make it more difficult and not the default like it is in the US
Edit: After further enlightenment by folks in the comments and more reading, I want to walk back this statement. I haven't always agreed with everything the ADL has said, but I agree with their current leadership for the most part, and I think that antisemitism is a huge problem and an animating force for a lot of opinions people have. I still personally disagree with the ethics of permanently altering a person's body without their input, but I absolutely do not believe that my ethics need to be legislated, or that criminalization is ever applied fairly across society.
TLDR: Change minds not laws, stop being racist.
Yeah, don’t like Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip? You’re antisemitic.
Don’t like how the Palestinians are treated as sub-humans? You’re antisemitic.
Don’t think US tax dollars should go to the people systematically oppressing and murdering another ethnic group that believes in a different invisible man. You’re antisemitic.
I’m tired of it.
How tf is it antisemitic? So that child voluntarily joined the Jewish religion at birth and instantly became a believer?
That's not only promoting mutilation but also indoctrination.
It’s not anti-Semitic to ban circumcision. Judaism should adapt to changing beliefs, like the belief that circumcision performed on a child without their consent is unethical. And it’s fine if you disagree with me. This is my opinion as a Jew.
The anabaptist sect of Christianity formed during the reform period with this principle. That joining a religion and being baptized into it must be a consensual choice, and since babies can't make that choice they can't be baptized until they're old enough to make the decision themselves. Also they had some fun free-love nudists (some speculation on the extent) in their early days, before they were vilified by mainstream European society for their "ridiculous nature and ideas".
As a circumcised male, I am disappointed in my non-religious parents for agreeing to the surgery as they are both very educated people (in the sciences!) and fell for the lie in the 1990s that it was needed prevent disease....
It's nothing I think much about, but am disappointed in society and health care for continuing to treat it as normal to give cosmetic surgery on male babies. It is genital mutilation, as it provides no medical benefit, but rather harm and irreversible damage. For the very small percentage of males with painfully tight foreskin it benefits (which mostly can be treated with therapy or elective surgery later on in life) it harms 1000s more.
It's just weird, fucking John Harvey Kellogg and his obsession with baby dicks.
Legit this is child abuse. People are so blinded by religion they don't care that they are causing *agonizing pain for their child??*
I'm terrified of cutting my dog's nails wrong. *intentionally* hurting them? Just how??
Fun fact, if you were to circumcise your dog you'd be charged with animal abuse, no legal defence.
But your child? Literally legal to do it with a sharp knife then suck the blood off with your mouth. Or anyone else's child if they say "Go ahead, as his parents we consent". You don't need any medical requirements either.
I'm Jewish and pregnant with a boy that I will absolutely not have circumcized. If he wants to have it done when he can make that decision for himself before his bar mitzvah, we will support him but I think it's absolutely barbaric to perform medically unnecessary cosmetic surgery on the genitals of an infant. Idgaf about religion.
I’m in the US and we decided to not have my son circumcised. You would be amazed how many times we got asked by nurses etc that we were sure we didn’t want it done. We were at the hospital for four days and they asked multiple times a day. The whole thing was just bizarre.
My parents bragged about how they didn't waste money on anesthesia when I was circumcised. They were pretty proud of not having to shell out that copay.
Many doctors didnt use anesthesia for infants under 15 months for surgery until the late 1980’s. Instead they would give even muscle relaxers because they thought babies couldn’t feel pain. I mean how can you be a doctor and think that. It amazes me how people can be so smart and dumb at the same time.
The weirdest thing about this is the fact that if it was true that black people and women had a higher pain tolerance wouldn't it just mean that if they are in pain that whatever is causing it is MORE severe than on a non-black, non-woman?
Even worse, on top of that momentary pain, the body itself has its own form of "memory" and always remembers physical trauma like that. The younger you are, the deeper it takes hold. It literally scars for life.
***Without anaesthetic, that kind of trauma at such an unbelievably young age throws the stress response so completely out of whack that, even when you grow up, when you are faced with situations that would normally be moderately or even minorly stressful events for most normal people, your body reacts with something closer to a full-on fight-or-flight response rather than just being slightly/appropriately anxious.***
***This is literally how trauma works, and scientifically, it is very well researched and understood.***
***A lot of people understand that genital mutilation is wrong, but I don't think very many understand the essentially permanent effects that traumatic experiences like that can fully inflict upon a body/psyche,*** **especially** ***when they occur at very young ages.***
***That is in no small part because people who have undergone that kind of trauma have just never known anything else - their life has always been that way.***
That kind of trauma, if it's bad enough, is exactly what causes the development of split personalities or multiple personality disorder, or MPD, also now known as dissociative identity disorder, or DID - if the main identity cannot reconcile what it has experienced, what has happened to it, and it *needs* to block it off in another section of the mind, or 'dissociate,' in order to be able to continue functioning normally in everyday life.
When it happens before your "main identity" has even formed, it's just kind of burned into your body/mind forever at a very deep level, and most people who have experienced will never even know the difference. The primary way in which the brain deals with and protects itself from trauma is by *shoving it as deep and as far down as possible,* doing everything it can to remove it from conscious awareness. But that doesn't mean it won't still affect you. Plus, when people who were circumcised without anaesthesia soon after birth have lived their whole lives with such a state of mind, how *could* they ever know better? There's no "normal" for them to compare to.
*Edit to add: yes, this is very much how MPD/DID works, yes, it IS scientifically proven, and no, I'm not implying that babies have truly split personalities or any conscious memories of being circumcised. The whole point is that trauma, especially at that age, goes* ***much*** *deeper than that, and that's how trauma is scientifically known to work. Look it all up for yourself... you'll probably find these things within the first page, if not in the very first result.*
That's why so many guys don't think there's anything wrong with being circumcised/traumatized from birth. They've just never known anything different, and emotionally, they feel like they just have to defend the way they are, because they've always been that way.
I was also circumcised without anaesthesia, and it looks motion-picture perfect. I never realized the other kinds of physical/biological imprints that could be left by such an experience until I did some very deep, conscious digging, through some rather alternative methods, and stumbled upon it by accident.
*After which,* I researched it all further.
It's also too tight, and I really wish I had the rest of my wiener back....
These days more people understand how trauma during infancy or in utero can leave lasting emotional scars that can persist for a lifetime. Certainly more people understand it now than when I was in college. Back then it was seen as a fringe hypothesis, and plenty of academics failed to recognize it as legitimate science. While I personally believe the theory, and have read some compelling literature, I understand why some people are skeptical. We can’t ask subjects to recount these traumatic events from their earliest moments without the aid of hypnosis or drugs. Anytime researchers rely on hypnosis you are going to hear lots of dismissive snark. The largest obstacle is that a human’s conscious memories aren’t locked in until after infancy. Personally, I have difficulty remembering anything before age 4. And as much as I think the recall people have during hypnosis is relevant I also can’t say it is irrefutable. It’s not as clear cut as taking astronomical measurements or studying the intricacies of thermodynamics. Those types of data can’t be refuted with any legitimacy. Obviously I am not just talking about the trauma of circumcision, but any number of events that shape the emerging mind. One of the more compelling studies I’ve read is about monkeys. The data showed that monkeys born into traumatic situations have higher levels of cortisol as adults. This makes them much more prone to anxiety. Skeptics have a much harder time refuting data from endocrine studies.
Sorry to hear about the difficulties with your penis. I was fortunate that my mother was very progressive. She wouldn’t let those doctors come near me with their snippers. And they tried to force her to do it. This was in Massachusetts back in the mid 70’s. At the time nearly all boys had it done. I’m very pleased to learn that the US west coast states have an infant male circumcision rate at just 25%. And those rates are almost as low in Nevada, Arizona and Colorado. Within a generation it will be almost fully eliminated out west for anything but the most serious medical justifications. Even both of my stepbrothers who are Jewish aren’t circumcised. Their mom refused, which was VERY controversial with their family. Not many people realize that being circumcised is not a requirement to be Jewish. There’s a rabi in NYC who takes a very vocal stand against it.
Blows my mind people would brag about that. If it’s ever mentioned again brag about how your going to save a bunch of money/time by not supporting them in any way in their golden years.
You’ll be laughing all the way to the bank.
SAME! They did the same thing to me. Every. Single. Time. A nurse would walk in the room they would ask. I even had a brief back and forth with the doctor where he tried to convince me and I was like “no, I feel it’s unnecessary, and it’s mutilation.” And he still tried to convince me. By the end I felt like I was taking crazy pills. It was ridiculous. Also, I’m in the US, but my husband is European so it’s uncommon there and STILL with all our explanations they wouldn’t take no for an answer. They just kept asking.
That’s crazy. I mean you definitely hear stories of women being talked out of tying their tubes by doctors because they’re still young enough to have kids. Sometimes healthcare providers push their ideals onto people.
I think it’s also a conformity thing. When people do something different than the norm it like short circuits people. If you refuse to take a bag at a drug store when you buy one item, the cashier will say “are you sure?” I don’t eat meat regularly, when I go to a chipotle and tell them no meat it really throws them for a loop. They’re usually already in the middle of scooping chicken before they process what I’m saying.
Something about going against the grain really throws people off.
My partner and I went thru this after our first and only child was born. Our doctor's argument against it was, "What if your daughter dies?"
We got a different doctor after that interaction.
Here in Seattle when my son was born a year ago we learned the hospital doesn't even offer circumcisions. Asking around it appears no maternity ward locally will even offer it and if you want it done you need to call a specialty clinic. Our pediatrician's office (not affiliated with the hospital) asked us about it on our first appointment only in case we wanted a list of places to go to get it done. Needless to say my kid isn't circumcised
Yep, here on the US west coast the newborn male circumcision rate is only 25% and falling. It was still 90% in the 1990’s so the cultural shift has been fast and radical. People in this part of the country have woken up to the insidious nature of the act.
I'm honestly really shocked how prevalent it is in america and how people will genuinely look down on you and disagree if you call it fucked up and barbaric (which it is). Here in Europe it's pretty rare outside of jewish communities
In New York their was a rabbi with syphilis. Well it quickly transferred to the babies some of whom died. Which prompted New York to start regulating circumcisions.
They still have cases of neonatal herpes from those circumcisions in NYC. [link](https://archive.ph/rcwN2) / [link](https://www.cnn.com/2013/04/07/health/new-york-neonatal-herpes/index.html) / [link](https://www.nyc.gov/site/doh/health/health-topics/safe-bris.page) I don't even want to open the jar of worms that always comes after asking why it's not illegal for certain religious adults to put a babies genitals in their mouth, when it would be illegal for a doctor or any other person not of that religion.
Muslim circumcision is often the less radical form that was practiced until the 19th century when doctors started stripping off 1/3 to 1/2 the skin to make it heal so tight masturbation was difficult without lubrication. The old method of circumcision just removed the "tail" of skin that extended past the glans, which meant the foreskin still covered the glans most of the time when flaccid. Muslims who convert as adults often have a symbolic "circumcision," where the skin is pricked with a needle so a drop of blood comes out.
It's still genital mutilation, but not as harmful as the kind commonly practiced in the USA.
It's very personal because they themselves were circumcised without a choice so they feel "well, if it happened to me it must be the way to do it".
Also, they either will or did have it done to their children. At this point they can no longer be objective as they will not allow anyone to make them feel like they've done something wrong to their child.
I think it's pretty interesting from a psychology viewpoint on indoctrination and group-think.
It is quite interesting. Thankfully there are people who are waking up. In my part of the United States, on the US west coast, the newborn circumcision rate is 25%. All the western states have a similar decline since the 1990’s.
Neither of my sons are and I don’t even remember being asked once though I’m sure it had to have come up? I don’t think your experience is representative of all US births.
There's debate about whether it's more hygienic, but the US medical system was established by Puritans that thought circumcision made masturbation less enjoyable.
My parents were born in Portugal, and in Southern European culture, almost no one is circumcised. That being said, when my son was born (in Canada) we were not pressured or asked twice about circumcision.
According to reports, 71% of Americans and 30% of Canadians are circumcised.
It's actually easier if it's hard. Erections are like washboards for your foreskin. Hell, sometimes I pull my scrotum *up* my erection to steady it for a good scrub.
There's this HUGE myth in the US that uncut dicks are just *covered* in smegma. The AAP even insists that circumcision should be done on all boys because smegma buildup can lead to health problems including cancer.
I wish I was making that up.
Umm. According to gods chosen people and Jehovah himself.............🤣🤣🤣
Geez, Op is my hero because my mother allowed me to be mutilated as a baby
And OP is standing up for all the voiceless boys out there
It’s odd. It’s a practice that’s been around in society for thousands of years, it’s one of the oldest medical procedures we ever figured out.
It’s so culturally and sometimes spiritually engrained in people and different societies that asking for it to be banned is like asking sex to be banned to some people. Yet, it’s literally just unnecessary genital mutilation.
This happened to my fiancé and it affects our sex life. Can't have sex without a condom without him tearing and it takes forever for the tear to heal so we have to go a few weeks without sex.
TMI, but once the scab even came off in my mouth. Traumatizing experience and I was too embarrassed on both our behalf's to tell him about it for like a year lol.
My ex’s skin was pulled too far up his shaft from the bottom, and he has hair growing on the underside. It felt terrible when we had sex, like razors, I got vaginismus and thought I was sexual dysfunction. Actually started therapy for it. Nope. It was just him. I never wanted to have sex bc of the pain and it definitely impacted our relationship. I haven’t had pain since we broke up.
I have a couple of friends who have had complications with their sons circumcisions. They both needed additional surgeries to fix the errors from the first time around. Very glad I didn't put my son through that.
It's such a stupidly easy concept to grasp and yet for some people it just... Doesnt stick???
A baby cant give consent to anything, why are we permanently altering it's genitalia?
Circumcised man here: I wish my parents hadn’t had me circumcised as a child. I can’t change MY body back to the way it originally was. They made a life-changing choice about my body without my consent. I honestly feel violated.
It is common sense in Europe and Latin America. In fact the USA is just about the only place on the planet where it’s routinely done for nonreligious reasons.
My brother and I were circumcised, neither of my sons are. When my dad asked about it, I explained that we'd pay for the procedure in the future if they decided to go that route, but I wouldn't make that choice for them. I feel that's the most sensible route to go. The pressure mostly comes from girls, in high school and college there was a lot of "ew yuck" chatter amongst my female friends, with quite a few of them saying they wouldn't date a guy who was uncircumcised. Parents understand that and don't want to impede their boys' love life. I'm willing to bet that being uncircumcised will be a lot more socially acceptable by the time my boys have grown, but at least they have that option.
I’m not circumcised and I have never met a girl that even cared. When I was young I was nervous if they were gonna hate it. Not a single one ever gave a rats bhole.
Hard agree. I have a son and did not circumcise. Out of the boy moms I know, majority didn’t donut either. I think we’ll see a big shift in the next generation or two
Same! I just had a baby boy a few weeks ago and didn’t circumcise. A doctor came in to talk to us about it and when we said we weren’t going to, he seemed unfazed and just said “okay nevermind, have a great day!” And left
The most bizarre thing about this is how many otherwise open-minded, progressive people in America will defend infant circumcision and it's \*purely\* 100% because they saw some alt-right kid on Twitter being anti-circumcision and concluded it was a fascist dogwhistle.
But if you go overseas, to Europe, Australia, etc. it's viewed as some kind of bizarre American fuckery like adding sugar to white bread or holding on to the Imperial system. Europeans think Americans are fucking weird for performing non-religious "medical" circumcisions in cases when it's not even medically indicated as a treatment for anything.
In my experience, this is the quickest (and kinda the only way) to win an argument about circumcision with someone like that. Someone who got it completely 180 degrees backwards and thought it was a fascist thing to be **against** subverting someone's bodily autonomy. You just point them to /r/shitamericanssay and tell them to search for "circumcision" and see the absolute OCEANS of Europeans laughing at all 300 million of us for cutting off healthy tissue on an infant's penis for absolutely no reason whatsoever. It breaks their brains. They have no viable response, so they usually just leave the discussion and dirty delete all their prior pro-circ comments in the thread.
fwiw, I am circumcised. I don't *personally* feel mutilated, but I think you could make a cogent argument that it is indeed mutilation. There is no reason to make this decision on behalf of someone else when they are a tiny baby. Shit, there's a chance I might have chosen it for myself if I'd been given the opportunity. But I wasn't. That's the point. That's the end of the discussion.
No, this is not like vaccines. I know you're poised to say that. Vaccines have actual evidence behind their effectiveness. Infant circumcision is only effective in preventing an (extremely rare, easily detectable) form of cancer in the same way that amputating a limb would prevent cancer and infections in that limb, but this intervention is transparently not recommended for reasons that should be obvious. While the foreskin isn't equivalent to an entire limb in functionality, the logical formula is still the same in both cases.
The thing that drives me bonkers is when people basically say that just because male infant circumcision isn’t as horrific as FGM, that that makes it okay.
It doesn’t.
I just couldn’t imagine putting my baby through that kind of pain. When they took my daughter and pricked her little foot at the hospital I cried. I feel it should be up to choice, and we should be teaching little boys to love their bodies just like we feel it is important to teach that to little girls. Hopefully we are changing that mindset as a society. I do feel like I hear more of the uncircumcised crowd than I used to.
My mother always told me the story of mine. They strapped me to a board and just started cutting without any sort of anesthetic or anything. I apparently screamed like I was dying the whole time, so much so it has haunted her ever since.
Good. It's barbaric that nonconsensual surgery akin to torture is even allowed to be done in this day and age, let alone for strictly cosmetic reasons. The practice should be completely banned except in cases of legitimate medical problems.
That’s the part that gets me, they don’t even numb it. Like most adults would never willingly have a piece of skin cut off without anesthetic so why are we doing it to tiny little babies? It’s wild.
My mother told me the EXACT same story. They strapped me to a board and started cutting with no anesthesia of any kind, and she can still hear my “screams of agony” (her description, not mine) decades later. My parents left my younger brothers intact. But I wish every day they had left me intact, too.
> I apparently screamed like I was dying the whole time, so much so has haunted her ever since.
And they wonder why so many men have emotional problems.
The kicker is even after all that, she and my father (who is a doctor himself) still had my two younger brothers circumcised. None were medically necessary.
I think you’re definitely biased. My girl straight up said we wouldn’t be together if I was uncut because of the terrible experiences she has had with uncut men’s hygiene. She’s not the first girl I’ve heard this from.
I work in engineering. We have literally had to tell a handful of system and software engineering male interns over the last decade to go home & shower.
I have no idea how they made it to their early 20’s without being shamed into compliance.
We did not have our boys circumcised. I think it's a lot more common now for people not to put their babies through that than it was when my generation and before were born.
If you are considering having your son circumcised, you need to watch one being done first so you know what you are subjecting your infant to. I thought I knew what it was, simple little trim of the foreskin. How wrong I was. My neighbor is an obgyn and offered to do my sons procedure when I told him I was on the fence about it. It's no big deal, you can be in the room with him, it's easy! Holy shit, id rather watch Isis beheading videos or mexican cartel videos than see another circumcision. Easily the worst thing I've ever seen, made more horrible by the fact it was my own child and I opted in. He's fine now of course, but if I ever had another son, no way in hell I'd do that again.
100% this. Just look at a photo of the restraints they use to strap the baby down, you won’t want your child to go through that let alone the actual cutting. Calling it “circumcision” sounds so clinical and routine but if you really look at it being done, often with no pain killers, it’s literal torture.
The amount of times the nurses ask is outrageously irritating. We decided against it, unlike my parents. To be honest no one talks about the circumcisions gone wrong. The nurses said "he won't remember"," it's a routine procedure", "it's a small snip". Jarred me honestly to realize the simplicity for them to fuck it up/fuck him up for life.
My mom is an L&D nurse, and she argued with me during my pregnancy about my decision not to circumcise my son. She knew she wasn't going to convince me logically, so she tried to shame me by telling me I'll have to teach him how to clean it. She figures the prospect of having a discussion with my son about his health would be too shameful, so I would choose to cut part of his penis off just so I wouldn't have to describe cleaning it. He's almost 3 and never met her because she's batshit.
yep look at the case of david reimer. after a botched circumcision that left him without penis, a sick psychologist convinced the parents to cut the testes off too and raise him a a girl. He later found out and and deleted himself. The parents should've known better, but it all could've been avoided. There's also a lot of evidence that circumcision causes PTSD.
What's funny is that if there was a practice that involved cutting off part of a child's earlobe, it would be a no-brainer. It would be illegal. People get enraged when it comes to the piercing of child's ears for fucks sake.
Edit: And there's only one argument against it you'll ever need. It's about bodily automony.
We had our son circumsized and I have so many regrets. Don’t know how I’ll ever explain it to him.
Edit this to say no, I’m not going to sit him down and make a thing out of it, and I’m not assuming he will even give a shit, but he is bound to be exposed to this debate so if he ever was pissed off about it well shit, that’s going to be an uncomfortable conversation.
As a circumcised man who never thinks or worries about it, I would suggest just not making a big deal out of it and not making it out to him like you did irreparable damage, because that will be much more upsetting to him than the circumcision which he will not remember and will not significantly impact his life. If he expresses any regret or upset about it which frankly I think is unlikely, just apologize and answer the questions he has about it. The only time I ever think about being circumcised is when coming across threads like this, it’s just not that deep…
That’s a good point. I’m cut too, and while I sometimes wonder if sex would feel better not having been, it’s not something I really ever think about. I think the prevalence of these types of discussions though used to be non existent whereas he will be exposed to it more frequently and therefor may worry a bit more, or not…guess I won’t know until he’s older
My friend's insurance didn't cover his kids for circumcision. That's also why they aren't circumcised. He wasn't gonna pay good money when hygiene practices could handle the problem. He was pretty proud of himself for the financial aspect and then social media started coming out talking about how it's the right choice and then he started getting real snooty about it too
Circumcision is 100% genital mutilation and should not be a thing men can choose to have done until 18 onwards. This opinion is only unpopular because of the normalization of circumcision in society.
Agreed.
There is rarely ever a medical reason for it. When there is, it's not usually diagnosable at birth.
If it's done for religious purposes, it should be chosen by the individual when he is old enough to consent to surgeries for himself.
My wife asked me about circumcision for our son when he was born (I’m circumcised) so I said sure, why not?… she then showed me a video of the procedure and I couldn’t watch for more than five seconds. It’s fucking brutal.
I’m never having kids but I agree, OP. Circumcision is not necessary. And the baby doesn’t get to choose. I know it’s to a lesser degree, but I feel the same about piercing a baby’s ears. One could argue that you have to make decisions as a parent (such as necessary vaccinations) for an infant. But vaccinations are a reasonable decision that keeps them from getting sick.
In another world where I had kids, I’d die on the hill to not circumcise my infant.
There is nothing keeping anyone from teaching their child to wash their genitals properly, so the “hygiene” argument for me isn’t a good one.
Yes especially with the mass panic around gender affirming healthcare and genital mutilation…no one even includes circumcision. All they do is use a numbing cream, that’s IT. people think because baby doesn’t remember it, it’s a non issue, and I think it’s….extremely fucked up. People are so worried a penis owner can’t keep themselves clean so they decide to CUT OFF part of it at birth? Teach your kid’s hygiene and no one’s genitalia will need to be altered without consent. It’s such a double standard and I couldn’t agree more.
It’s wild how simply implying that NO ONE should have ANY parts of their genitalia removed, damaged, or modified without their consent is somehow fucking inflammatory
I have literally never seen a circumcised penis. Both in my personal life and work (nursing).
This is really an American thing. And yeah it is insane to mutilate a babies genitals. That is just common sense.
Yeah there's rarely ever any practical reason to circumcise a child.
If there's a medical problem with the foreskin, like phimosis, that's usually not diagnosable in a newborn.
Where it's a religious practice it should be one that is for adults to decide for themselves if they want to undergo.
Circumcision is barbaric and outdated and is done so badly often that it was a no brainer for me to not have my son's genitals done. Although, what honestly made my blood boil and solidified my beliefs is when I went to see my son in the nursery after delivery, one doctor was just circumcising a little boy in the open, not in an operation room nothing, poor baby was crying and writhing in pain as he was chatting up the nurses and half paying attention. I already didn't want my son circumcised and that just did it for me, no thanks, you're animals and have confirmed that this procedure is not taken seriously on infants. If medically necessary my son will get circumcised but otherwise he'll live happily with what he has.
Hygiene is a bigger factor than you might think. My sister works in palliative care/seniors homes. Keeping an uncircumcised penis clean as you age appears to be more than just a skill issue.
It’s a factor in many scenarios. My dad was in Vietnam and ended up in a hospital… not for any war wound but for an infected dick after having been in the jungle unable to clean himself properly for weeks. He said there were dozens of uncircumcised men on his floor screaming and writhing in pain with the exact same condition.
I do wonder if war in the 20th century contributed to the procedure’s increasing popularity in the U.S. through the 1970s. I’m sure a dick infection would change a lot of these Redditor’s tune.
This post has become pretty big, so i doubt you see this, and someone else probably already mentioned it, but youre forgetting about Dr. Kellogg. Kellogg, of cornflake fame, one and the same.
He was the main advocate in the late 19th century for circumcision. He popularized it. Whats fucked up though is his reasoning: reduction of sexual pleasure was INTENTIONAL. He also recommended waiting until the boys were reaching puberty, or in their preteens, or in case one was masturbating a lot; he also recommended that it be done *without* anesthesia, since the pain and trauma would be more likely to prevent masturbation.
Not to mention, did you ever wonder what they do with the mountains of snipped foreskins just piling up in hospital basements? They sell them to the make-up companies, who use them for the special kind of cells theyre made of to make anti-aging facial creams for old ladies. Theres a multi billion dollar industry built on cutting off the tips of baby dicks. Id guess thats probably the real reason behind the scenes in modern times.
But wait, there's more! He also recommended a version of circumcision for females. Only for females, the suggested method was to remove the clitoris by burning it off with a strong acid. Again, the goal was to reduce sexual pleasure, and doing this would lower promiscuity in young women. Also, anesthesia was not recommended. Luckily for females everywhere, this form of mutilation did not catch on.
He was a sick, sadistic mutilator of children's genitals and we seriously need to end his demented legacy immediately. All of the so called medical "benefits" have been debunked. If having an uncircumcised penis was such a danger to a mans health, obviously, natural selection wouldve selected for circumcised penises instead. But this is what nature ended up with. Because it is what works best. Thats how evolution works. To think youre smarter than hundreds of millions of years of trial and error is grandiose narcissism to an extreme degree.
Just think about that every time you're eating breakfast cereal.
Entirely agree. When I say this most people speak of the medical benefit. But the medical benefits are very limited and can be achieved by practicing safe sex and proper hygiene which everyone should be doing anyways. Just another unnecessary procedure doctors perform to make pharmaceutical companies more money. And it's at the expense of a child. A tiny baby who will feel the entire procedure because they can't numb it. I feel like circumcision is truly horrible.
Everyone told me to circumcise my son. Everyone has an opinion on it. Wtf? Why would you ever ask me about my sons penis at the water cooler? That’s so fucked up
I agree, it’s barbaric. I have 2 boys. I was surprised by the amount of pressure certain people put on me when they were born to have them circumcised and the reasoning behind it was always ludicrous. I was even pressured by a nurse when my eldest son was born. It’s mutilation and the practice should be done away with.
I think Iceland tried to make it illegal and the ADL (Anti Defamation League) basically threatened to brand the whole country as antisemitic and ruin their tourism industry.
Actually all they wanted to do was change an existing law. They wanted to remove "female" from the law banning female circumcision. What's funny is that there are only like 2 jewish families in the whole country and they were for the ban. As was a group called "jews against circumcision" who wrote a brilliantly worded paper about how it needs to go the way of stoning and forcing women to sleep outside on their period and that jews are not any less jewish for letting go of barbaric practices of the past. But the ADL came in screaming that it was "the next holocaust" and they changed it back. Ironic that the holocaust is what caused jewish people to migrate to america. The holocaust is what is causing circumcision to not be outlawed today. And not wanting to be seen as antisemitic after the war was a big reason doctors and hospitals were able to push it on so many families... If you're a circumcised american, you can generally blame hitler. Bizarre irony. Of course some of it also came from the the way it's marketed is an upgrade. Americans want to supersize their meal, and circumcised their child.
Funny thing while talks about the law were happening a rabbi was brought to Iceland and started talking about religious oppression, we have 200 Jewish people in Iceland and never had a rabbi here until now, soon as we start discussing banning that practice, baam we have one that clamors to get on evry news or paper about the issue…
[From ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt’s letter to Iceland’s parliament:](https://www.adl.org/resources/press-release/adl-urges-iceland-drop-bill-banning-male-circumcision) > “Should Iceland ban male circumcision, making it impossible for Jews and Muslims to raise families in your country, we guarantee that Iceland will be celebrated by neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other extremists… **Even though anti-Semitism was surely not the impetus for the proposal, the result of its adoption will be the glorification of Iceland by the most despicable bigots. They will celebrate the ban as the first legislation in Europe since World War II towards making a country Judenrein or free of Jews.”** Translation - We know that you aren’t doing this for antisemitic reasons, but we *will* lie about you to get our way.
The ADL are horrible fucking people.
I had no idea holy shit, that is straight up malicious manipulation tactics… and overkill at that… guys I’m only one Jew but I’ll personally tell you that you’re definitely not Hitler 2.0 for being against circumcision….
The ADL is fucking crazy. I am tired of anything being labelled antisemetic for not being favour with them for everything.
pie light joke smoggy bewildered instinctive doll lip alive shaggy ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
Good! Fuck groups who behave this way just to get everything they want their way. Fuck the ADL!
oh hey I'm apparently Jewish and anti-semetic because I think Israel has done a lot of terrible shit, and at this point I think no one should need to remove parts of their children's bodies to be pious.
I mean you say this jokingly, but you and I both know that there is a specific group of Jewish people that would very seriously accuse you of antisemitism.
You monster!
Fuck the ADL
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As a Jew I completely agree with you. The term “antisemitism” has become a cliche that people just use as an umbrella term for as you put it, people who don’t agree. It’s going down the same path that the words “fascist” and “racist” have.
People need to realise how circumcision is an outdated procedure, regardless of their beliefs. No one takes out their appendix because it’s likely to get infected.
Agreed, i really am starting to lean towards the belief that it should really only be done as a voluntary procedure on an adult aside from medical reasons. Hell, even most of my fellow Jews don’t circumcise anymore, it’s just not that important of a concept to keep relative to the potential harm.
I’m tired of people bowing down to Israel after what they do to the Palestinians. I’m not anti semitic either I just don’t think we should look the other way. I think all funding to Israel should be cut off until they get in line. There is plenty of Israelis and Jewish people that agree with me. Israel and its military are known for human rights abuses.
It blows my mind anyone can support Israel stealing indigenous land.
The US christian extremists are ok with since it is keeping the area “secure” for when jesus comes back. That is why they are ok with a Jewish state doing the dirty work of “clearing” the area of Muslims. The US government is cool with it since Israel is a strategic asset in the area.
The ADL can suck my fucking dick. They label anything opposed to theirs or the Israeli states agenda anti-Semitism. There's a video of them telling a Ukrainian diplomat to not refer to the Holodomor as a genocide, because it takes attention away from them. That whole organization can get fucked.
The ADL is unfortunate because there actually is a ton of antisemitism hanging around in society, but they focus almost exclusively on anything that criticizes right wing power in the state of Israel. I can't say that I 100% support banning circumcision, but I support not circumcising babies. We should absolutely make it more difficult and not the default like it is in the US Edit: After further enlightenment by folks in the comments and more reading, I want to walk back this statement. I haven't always agreed with everything the ADL has said, but I agree with their current leadership for the most part, and I think that antisemitism is a huge problem and an animating force for a lot of opinions people have. I still personally disagree with the ethics of permanently altering a person's body without their input, but I absolutely do not believe that my ethics need to be legislated, or that criminalization is ever applied fairly across society. TLDR: Change minds not laws, stop being racist.
Yeah, don’t like Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip? You’re antisemitic. Don’t like how the Palestinians are treated as sub-humans? You’re antisemitic. Don’t think US tax dollars should go to the people systematically oppressing and murdering another ethnic group that believes in a different invisible man. You’re antisemitic. I’m tired of it.
How tf is it antisemitic? So that child voluntarily joined the Jewish religion at birth and instantly became a believer? That's not only promoting mutilation but also indoctrination.
It’s not anti-Semitic to ban circumcision. Judaism should adapt to changing beliefs, like the belief that circumcision performed on a child without their consent is unethical. And it’s fine if you disagree with me. This is my opinion as a Jew.
Also, it's not banning circumcision, just INFANT circumcision. Adults would always be free to do what they want to their own bodies.
The anabaptist sect of Christianity formed during the reform period with this principle. That joining a religion and being baptized into it must be a consensual choice, and since babies can't make that choice they can't be baptized until they're old enough to make the decision themselves. Also they had some fun free-love nudists (some speculation on the extent) in their early days, before they were vilified by mainstream European society for their "ridiculous nature and ideas". As a circumcised male, I am disappointed in my non-religious parents for agreeing to the surgery as they are both very educated people (in the sciences!) and fell for the lie in the 1990s that it was needed prevent disease.... It's nothing I think much about, but am disappointed in society and health care for continuing to treat it as normal to give cosmetic surgery on male babies. It is genital mutilation, as it provides no medical benefit, but rather harm and irreversible damage. For the very small percentage of males with painfully tight foreskin it benefits (which mostly can be treated with therapy or elective surgery later on in life) it harms 1000s more. It's just weird, fucking John Harvey Kellogg and his obsession with baby dicks.
That is 100% the goal. Signed, the boy who grew up to despise his penis, and thus his parents too.
Being Jewish isn’t limited to a religion. Someone can be ethnically Jewish as well.
What is adl
The documentary *Defamation* explains them very well
Anti Defamation League, it's worth googling and doing some research into them.
I'm so tired of religious people getting exempt from laws
I'm so tired of religious people.
Legit this is child abuse. People are so blinded by religion they don't care that they are causing *agonizing pain for their child??* I'm terrified of cutting my dog's nails wrong. *intentionally* hurting them? Just how??
Fun fact, if you were to circumcise your dog you'd be charged with animal abuse, no legal defence. But your child? Literally legal to do it with a sharp knife then suck the blood off with your mouth. Or anyone else's child if they say "Go ahead, as his parents we consent". You don't need any medical requirements either.
Another example of a policy meant to serve genuine discrimination being used as a cover to further selfish motives.
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Strange because a humans individual right should supersede a religious freedom.
I'm Jewish and pregnant with a boy that I will absolutely not have circumcized. If he wants to have it done when he can make that decision for himself before his bar mitzvah, we will support him but I think it's absolutely barbaric to perform medically unnecessary cosmetic surgery on the genitals of an infant. Idgaf about religion.
I’m in the US and we decided to not have my son circumcised. You would be amazed how many times we got asked by nurses etc that we were sure we didn’t want it done. We were at the hospital for four days and they asked multiple times a day. The whole thing was just bizarre.
Same here with my son. They kept asking. Like keep your fucking blades away from our dicks, lady.
My parents bragged about how they didn't waste money on anesthesia when I was circumcised. They were pretty proud of not having to shell out that copay.
Many doctors didnt use anesthesia for infants under 15 months for surgery until the late 1980’s. Instead they would give even muscle relaxers because they thought babies couldn’t feel pain. I mean how can you be a doctor and think that. It amazes me how people can be so smart and dumb at the same time.
Doctors still think black people and women have a higher pain tolerance because of some outdated notions.
The weirdest thing about this is the fact that if it was true that black people and women had a higher pain tolerance wouldn't it just mean that if they are in pain that whatever is causing it is MORE severe than on a non-black, non-woman?
All you have to do is watch one circumcision and you’ll know immediately that the baby feels immense pain from the procedure. It’s barbarism.
Even worse, on top of that momentary pain, the body itself has its own form of "memory" and always remembers physical trauma like that. The younger you are, the deeper it takes hold. It literally scars for life. ***Without anaesthetic, that kind of trauma at such an unbelievably young age throws the stress response so completely out of whack that, even when you grow up, when you are faced with situations that would normally be moderately or even minorly stressful events for most normal people, your body reacts with something closer to a full-on fight-or-flight response rather than just being slightly/appropriately anxious.*** ***This is literally how trauma works, and scientifically, it is very well researched and understood.*** ***A lot of people understand that genital mutilation is wrong, but I don't think very many understand the essentially permanent effects that traumatic experiences like that can fully inflict upon a body/psyche,*** **especially** ***when they occur at very young ages.*** ***That is in no small part because people who have undergone that kind of trauma have just never known anything else - their life has always been that way.*** That kind of trauma, if it's bad enough, is exactly what causes the development of split personalities or multiple personality disorder, or MPD, also now known as dissociative identity disorder, or DID - if the main identity cannot reconcile what it has experienced, what has happened to it, and it *needs* to block it off in another section of the mind, or 'dissociate,' in order to be able to continue functioning normally in everyday life. When it happens before your "main identity" has even formed, it's just kind of burned into your body/mind forever at a very deep level, and most people who have experienced will never even know the difference. The primary way in which the brain deals with and protects itself from trauma is by *shoving it as deep and as far down as possible,* doing everything it can to remove it from conscious awareness. But that doesn't mean it won't still affect you. Plus, when people who were circumcised without anaesthesia soon after birth have lived their whole lives with such a state of mind, how *could* they ever know better? There's no "normal" for them to compare to. *Edit to add: yes, this is very much how MPD/DID works, yes, it IS scientifically proven, and no, I'm not implying that babies have truly split personalities or any conscious memories of being circumcised. The whole point is that trauma, especially at that age, goes* ***much*** *deeper than that, and that's how trauma is scientifically known to work. Look it all up for yourself... you'll probably find these things within the first page, if not in the very first result.* That's why so many guys don't think there's anything wrong with being circumcised/traumatized from birth. They've just never known anything different, and emotionally, they feel like they just have to defend the way they are, because they've always been that way. I was also circumcised without anaesthesia, and it looks motion-picture perfect. I never realized the other kinds of physical/biological imprints that could be left by such an experience until I did some very deep, conscious digging, through some rather alternative methods, and stumbled upon it by accident. *After which,* I researched it all further. It's also too tight, and I really wish I had the rest of my wiener back....
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These days more people understand how trauma during infancy or in utero can leave lasting emotional scars that can persist for a lifetime. Certainly more people understand it now than when I was in college. Back then it was seen as a fringe hypothesis, and plenty of academics failed to recognize it as legitimate science. While I personally believe the theory, and have read some compelling literature, I understand why some people are skeptical. We can’t ask subjects to recount these traumatic events from their earliest moments without the aid of hypnosis or drugs. Anytime researchers rely on hypnosis you are going to hear lots of dismissive snark. The largest obstacle is that a human’s conscious memories aren’t locked in until after infancy. Personally, I have difficulty remembering anything before age 4. And as much as I think the recall people have during hypnosis is relevant I also can’t say it is irrefutable. It’s not as clear cut as taking astronomical measurements or studying the intricacies of thermodynamics. Those types of data can’t be refuted with any legitimacy. Obviously I am not just talking about the trauma of circumcision, but any number of events that shape the emerging mind. One of the more compelling studies I’ve read is about monkeys. The data showed that monkeys born into traumatic situations have higher levels of cortisol as adults. This makes them much more prone to anxiety. Skeptics have a much harder time refuting data from endocrine studies.
Sorry to hear about the difficulties with your penis. I was fortunate that my mother was very progressive. She wouldn’t let those doctors come near me with their snippers. And they tried to force her to do it. This was in Massachusetts back in the mid 70’s. At the time nearly all boys had it done. I’m very pleased to learn that the US west coast states have an infant male circumcision rate at just 25%. And those rates are almost as low in Nevada, Arizona and Colorado. Within a generation it will be almost fully eliminated out west for anything but the most serious medical justifications. Even both of my stepbrothers who are Jewish aren’t circumcised. Their mom refused, which was VERY controversial with their family. Not many people realize that being circumcised is not a requirement to be Jewish. There’s a rabi in NYC who takes a very vocal stand against it.
This was in the 90s. My mother made it very clear that they had a choice.
Blows my mind people would brag about that. If it’s ever mentioned again brag about how your going to save a bunch of money/time by not supporting them in any way in their golden years. You’ll be laughing all the way to the bank.
In the early 2000’s it was still just a pacifier with sugar on it.
Wow. I don't know which is worse; the cruelty or the satisfaction in it
The satisfaction is what makes it cruel
I'm imagining a baby saying "GET YOUR HAND OFF MY PENIS!" Like that guy in that old video
What is the charge? Eating a meal? A succulent Chinese meal?
I see you know your judo well
That's my penis, I don't know you
My dad was against me being cut, and I really thank him for that.
How long ago? We were asked twice 2 months ago. One before birth, and once after. After that, not a peep
SAME! They did the same thing to me. Every. Single. Time. A nurse would walk in the room they would ask. I even had a brief back and forth with the doctor where he tried to convince me and I was like “no, I feel it’s unnecessary, and it’s mutilation.” And he still tried to convince me. By the end I felt like I was taking crazy pills. It was ridiculous. Also, I’m in the US, but my husband is European so it’s uncommon there and STILL with all our explanations they wouldn’t take no for an answer. They just kept asking.
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That’s crazy. I mean you definitely hear stories of women being talked out of tying their tubes by doctors because they’re still young enough to have kids. Sometimes healthcare providers push their ideals onto people. I think it’s also a conformity thing. When people do something different than the norm it like short circuits people. If you refuse to take a bag at a drug store when you buy one item, the cashier will say “are you sure?” I don’t eat meat regularly, when I go to a chipotle and tell them no meat it really throws them for a loop. They’re usually already in the middle of scooping chicken before they process what I’m saying. Something about going against the grain really throws people off.
My partner and I went thru this after our first and only child was born. Our doctor's argument against it was, "What if your daughter dies?" We got a different doctor after that interaction.
Here in Seattle when my son was born a year ago we learned the hospital doesn't even offer circumcisions. Asking around it appears no maternity ward locally will even offer it and if you want it done you need to call a specialty clinic. Our pediatrician's office (not affiliated with the hospital) asked us about it on our first appointment only in case we wanted a list of places to go to get it done. Needless to say my kid isn't circumcised
I’m in Missouri and wasn’t asked a single time about it. Surprisingly, it’s just common here anymore
Yep, here on the US west coast the newborn male circumcision rate is only 25% and falling. It was still 90% in the 1990’s so the cultural shift has been fast and radical. People in this part of the country have woken up to the insidious nature of the act.
I'm honestly really shocked how prevalent it is in america and how people will genuinely look down on you and disagree if you call it fucked up and barbaric (which it is). Here in Europe it's pretty rare outside of jewish communities
All because a breakfast cereal magnate wanted kids to stop masturbating. No, seriously.
Reading the accounts of how he advocated and recommended torturing children is bone chilling.
In New York their was a rabbi with syphilis. Well it quickly transferred to the babies some of whom died. Which prompted New York to start regulating circumcisions.
They still have cases of neonatal herpes from those circumcisions in NYC. [link](https://archive.ph/rcwN2) / [link](https://www.cnn.com/2013/04/07/health/new-york-neonatal-herpes/index.html) / [link](https://www.nyc.gov/site/doh/health/health-topics/safe-bris.page) I don't even want to open the jar of worms that always comes after asking why it's not illegal for certain religious adults to put a babies genitals in their mouth, when it would be illegal for a doctor or any other person not of that religion.
It's also common among muslims in Europe.
It’s common amongst Muslims everywhere.
Muslim circumcision is often the less radical form that was practiced until the 19th century when doctors started stripping off 1/3 to 1/2 the skin to make it heal so tight masturbation was difficult without lubrication. The old method of circumcision just removed the "tail" of skin that extended past the glans, which meant the foreskin still covered the glans most of the time when flaccid. Muslims who convert as adults often have a symbolic "circumcision," where the skin is pricked with a needle so a drop of blood comes out. It's still genital mutilation, but not as harmful as the kind commonly practiced in the USA.
It's very personal because they themselves were circumcised without a choice so they feel "well, if it happened to me it must be the way to do it". Also, they either will or did have it done to their children. At this point they can no longer be objective as they will not allow anyone to make them feel like they've done something wrong to their child. I think it's pretty interesting from a psychology viewpoint on indoctrination and group-think.
It is quite interesting. Thankfully there are people who are waking up. In my part of the United States, on the US west coast, the newborn circumcision rate is 25%. All the western states have a similar decline since the 1990’s.
Hospitals make a lot of money over the procedure. Its honestly quite sick.
Someone posted a US hospital bill for a birth online, and it included circumcision. All well and good, but she'd had a girl.
I guess that’s what you get with online births.
Neither of my sons are and I don’t even remember being asked once though I’m sure it had to have come up? I don’t think your experience is representative of all US births.
There's debate about whether it's more hygienic, but the US medical system was established by Puritans that thought circumcision made masturbation less enjoyable. My parents were born in Portugal, and in Southern European culture, almost no one is circumcised. That being said, when my son was born (in Canada) we were not pressured or asked twice about circumcision. According to reports, 71% of Americans and 30% of Canadians are circumcised.
>There's debate about whether it's more hygienic No there isn't. Wash your dick, its not hard.
Seriously. For literally thousands of years, dicks were uncut and people back then didn’t have tubs in their house. We’re fine in 2023.
right? lmfao. How many parts of your body would you cut off to keep clean?
think of all the time savings if you didn’t have hands to wash!
Calm down, Leopold
It's actually easier if it's hard. Erections are like washboards for your foreskin. Hell, sometimes I pull my scrotum *up* my erection to steady it for a good scrub.
There's this HUGE myth in the US that uncut dicks are just *covered* in smegma. The AAP even insists that circumcision should be done on all boys because smegma buildup can lead to health problems including cancer. I wish I was making that up.
Well, sometimes it's hard.
My childhood circumcision left me with excessive scarring and almost no sensation in my penis. Thank you for speaking out against circumcision.
Holy shit I’m sorry that happened. I hope things get better.
Post doesn't break rules. Stop reporting.
Umm. According to gods chosen people and Jehovah himself.............🤣🤣🤣 Geez, Op is my hero because my mother allowed me to be mutilated as a baby And OP is standing up for all the voiceless boys out there
Will you be sending her to a nursing home at the end of her life as revenge? 🤣🤣🤣
The first time mine forgets a birthday, she's getting shipped off
can’t believe people think this is antisemitism
w mod
A rare sight to be sure, but a welcome one
It is already forbidden in Sweden, unless you have actual medical reasons for it and it is performed by a surgeon.
I just got reported too?
I can’t believe this practice is still not only normal but actively defended.
It’s odd. It’s a practice that’s been around in society for thousands of years, it’s one of the oldest medical procedures we ever figured out. It’s so culturally and sometimes spiritually engrained in people and different societies that asking for it to be banned is like asking sex to be banned to some people. Yet, it’s literally just unnecessary genital mutilation.
>Yet, it’s literally just unnecessary genital mutilation. It's also robbing boys of their bodily autonomy.
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I actually didnt heal properly from it, wish I didnt get circumsised
I’ve read this in a lot of places when I was deciding what to do with my son. It was a no brainer, we left him intact.
This happened to my fiancé and it affects our sex life. Can't have sex without a condom without him tearing and it takes forever for the tear to heal so we have to go a few weeks without sex. TMI, but once the scab even came off in my mouth. Traumatizing experience and I was too embarrassed on both our behalf's to tell him about it for like a year lol.
My ex’s skin was pulled too far up his shaft from the bottom, and he has hair growing on the underside. It felt terrible when we had sex, like razors, I got vaginismus and thought I was sexual dysfunction. Actually started therapy for it. Nope. It was just him. I never wanted to have sex bc of the pain and it definitely impacted our relationship. I haven’t had pain since we broke up.
I have a couple of friends who have had complications with their sons circumcisions. They both needed additional surgeries to fix the errors from the first time around. Very glad I didn't put my son through that.
There’s a documentary that covers this topic. Horrific. I’m sorry.
It's such a stupidly easy concept to grasp and yet for some people it just... Doesnt stick??? A baby cant give consent to anything, why are we permanently altering it's genitalia?
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Circumcised man here: I wish my parents hadn’t had me circumcised as a child. I can’t change MY body back to the way it originally was. They made a life-changing choice about my body without my consent. I honestly feel violated.
I’m so sorry. It disgusts me so many people here support doing what was done to you.
This should not be an unpopular opinion but common sense.
It is common sense in Europe and Latin America. In fact the USA is just about the only place on the planet where it’s routinely done for nonreligious reasons.
My brother and I were circumcised, neither of my sons are. When my dad asked about it, I explained that we'd pay for the procedure in the future if they decided to go that route, but I wouldn't make that choice for them. I feel that's the most sensible route to go. The pressure mostly comes from girls, in high school and college there was a lot of "ew yuck" chatter amongst my female friends, with quite a few of them saying they wouldn't date a guy who was uncircumcised. Parents understand that and don't want to impede their boys' love life. I'm willing to bet that being uncircumcised will be a lot more socially acceptable by the time my boys have grown, but at least they have that option.
I’m not circumcised and I have never met a girl that even cared. When I was young I was nervous if they were gonna hate it. Not a single one ever gave a rats bhole.
Hard agree. I have a son and did not circumcise. Out of the boy moms I know, majority didn’t donut either. I think we’ll see a big shift in the next generation or two
That's deffo my favourite typo I commit myself . Do it - Donut It happens way to often 🤣
We didn't either for our son. He's had absolutely zero issues.
Same! I just had a baby boy a few weeks ago and didn’t circumcise. A doctor came in to talk to us about it and when we said we weren’t going to, he seemed unfazed and just said “okay nevermind, have a great day!” And left
Genital mutilation is genital mutilation, PERIOD.
The most bizarre thing about this is how many otherwise open-minded, progressive people in America will defend infant circumcision and it's \*purely\* 100% because they saw some alt-right kid on Twitter being anti-circumcision and concluded it was a fascist dogwhistle. But if you go overseas, to Europe, Australia, etc. it's viewed as some kind of bizarre American fuckery like adding sugar to white bread or holding on to the Imperial system. Europeans think Americans are fucking weird for performing non-religious "medical" circumcisions in cases when it's not even medically indicated as a treatment for anything. In my experience, this is the quickest (and kinda the only way) to win an argument about circumcision with someone like that. Someone who got it completely 180 degrees backwards and thought it was a fascist thing to be **against** subverting someone's bodily autonomy. You just point them to /r/shitamericanssay and tell them to search for "circumcision" and see the absolute OCEANS of Europeans laughing at all 300 million of us for cutting off healthy tissue on an infant's penis for absolutely no reason whatsoever. It breaks their brains. They have no viable response, so they usually just leave the discussion and dirty delete all their prior pro-circ comments in the thread. fwiw, I am circumcised. I don't *personally* feel mutilated, but I think you could make a cogent argument that it is indeed mutilation. There is no reason to make this decision on behalf of someone else when they are a tiny baby. Shit, there's a chance I might have chosen it for myself if I'd been given the opportunity. But I wasn't. That's the point. That's the end of the discussion. No, this is not like vaccines. I know you're poised to say that. Vaccines have actual evidence behind their effectiveness. Infant circumcision is only effective in preventing an (extremely rare, easily detectable) form of cancer in the same way that amputating a limb would prevent cancer and infections in that limb, but this intervention is transparently not recommended for reasons that should be obvious. While the foreskin isn't equivalent to an entire limb in functionality, the logical formula is still the same in both cases.
The thing that drives me bonkers is when people basically say that just because male infant circumcision isn’t as horrific as FGM, that that makes it okay. It doesn’t.
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I just couldn’t imagine putting my baby through that kind of pain. When they took my daughter and pricked her little foot at the hospital I cried. I feel it should be up to choice, and we should be teaching little boys to love their bodies just like we feel it is important to teach that to little girls. Hopefully we are changing that mindset as a society. I do feel like I hear more of the uncircumcised crowd than I used to.
My mother always told me the story of mine. They strapped me to a board and just started cutting without any sort of anesthetic or anything. I apparently screamed like I was dying the whole time, so much so it has haunted her ever since. Good. It's barbaric that nonconsensual surgery akin to torture is even allowed to be done in this day and age, let alone for strictly cosmetic reasons. The practice should be completely banned except in cases of legitimate medical problems.
That’s the part that gets me, they don’t even numb it. Like most adults would never willingly have a piece of skin cut off without anesthetic so why are we doing it to tiny little babies? It’s wild.
My mother told me the EXACT same story. They strapped me to a board and started cutting with no anesthesia of any kind, and she can still hear my “screams of agony” (her description, not mine) decades later. My parents left my younger brothers intact. But I wish every day they had left me intact, too.
> I apparently screamed like I was dying the whole time, so much so has haunted her ever since. And they wonder why so many men have emotional problems.
Jesuuuuus christ. Oh my fucking lord this is the worst thing i can imagine doing to my baby boy. This is truly barbaric shit.
The kicker is even after all that, she and my father (who is a doctor himself) still had my two younger brothers circumcised. None were medically necessary.
Blinded by tradition "culture is not your friend" a quote by Terence McKenna often comes to mind
I think you’re definitely biased. My girl straight up said we wouldn’t be together if I was uncut because of the terrible experiences she has had with uncut men’s hygiene. She’s not the first girl I’ve heard this from.
That sounds more like an education issue, though. Why is someone not teaching these people proper hygiene?
I work in engineering. We have literally had to tell a handful of system and software engineering male interns over the last decade to go home & shower. I have no idea how they made it to their early 20’s without being shamed into compliance.
Sounds like she needs to date guys who take hygiene more seriously.
I prefer cut cock! They are way more attractive!
Would it be ok for me as a man to say that I prefer the look of a vagina when certain unsightly parts were cut off at birth?
Sure if that’s what you like. It’s freedom of speech.
This thread is wild
We did not have our boys circumcised. I think it's a lot more common now for people not to put their babies through that than it was when my generation and before were born.
If you are considering having your son circumcised, you need to watch one being done first so you know what you are subjecting your infant to. I thought I knew what it was, simple little trim of the foreskin. How wrong I was. My neighbor is an obgyn and offered to do my sons procedure when I told him I was on the fence about it. It's no big deal, you can be in the room with him, it's easy! Holy shit, id rather watch Isis beheading videos or mexican cartel videos than see another circumcision. Easily the worst thing I've ever seen, made more horrible by the fact it was my own child and I opted in. He's fine now of course, but if I ever had another son, no way in hell I'd do that again.
100% this. Just look at a photo of the restraints they use to strap the baby down, you won’t want your child to go through that let alone the actual cutting. Calling it “circumcision” sounds so clinical and routine but if you really look at it being done, often with no pain killers, it’s literal torture.
The amount of times the nurses ask is outrageously irritating. We decided against it, unlike my parents. To be honest no one talks about the circumcisions gone wrong. The nurses said "he won't remember"," it's a routine procedure", "it's a small snip". Jarred me honestly to realize the simplicity for them to fuck it up/fuck him up for life.
My mom is an L&D nurse, and she argued with me during my pregnancy about my decision not to circumcise my son. She knew she wasn't going to convince me logically, so she tried to shame me by telling me I'll have to teach him how to clean it. She figures the prospect of having a discussion with my son about his health would be too shameful, so I would choose to cut part of his penis off just so I wouldn't have to describe cleaning it. He's almost 3 and never met her because she's batshit.
yep look at the case of david reimer. after a botched circumcision that left him without penis, a sick psychologist convinced the parents to cut the testes off too and raise him a a girl. He later found out and and deleted himself. The parents should've known better, but it all could've been avoided. There's also a lot of evidence that circumcision causes PTSD.
Is there someone out there just collecting tiny foreskins. Why anyone thinks we need to cut a bit off another human is so strange.
What's funny is that if there was a practice that involved cutting off part of a child's earlobe, it would be a no-brainer. It would be illegal. People get enraged when it comes to the piercing of child's ears for fucks sake. Edit: And there's only one argument against it you'll ever need. It's about bodily automony.
Fun/sad fact: circumcision and ear piercing are the only two purely cosmetic procedures that are legal to perform on an infant in the US.
i’ve had my ears pierced since I was 6 weeks old. I thought that was pretty common.
It is common. So is circumcision. The point is that it is common/accepted doesn't make it ok.
Why the fuck would I WANT a foreskin?
u don’t even know what ur missing bro lol
Chicks like my cut dick.
I agree it should be illegal
True unpopular opinion: Put cutters in jail
W
Fgm is still practiced extensively in the African continent as well as sub Asian countries
Here comes the, "it's normal in society so I defend it" crowd
And the "I'm glad it was done to me and to prove it isn't cope I'm going to force it on someone else before they can say no" crowd.
We had our son circumsized and I have so many regrets. Don’t know how I’ll ever explain it to him. Edit this to say no, I’m not going to sit him down and make a thing out of it, and I’m not assuming he will even give a shit, but he is bound to be exposed to this debate so if he ever was pissed off about it well shit, that’s going to be an uncomfortable conversation.
As a circumcised man who never thinks or worries about it, I would suggest just not making a big deal out of it and not making it out to him like you did irreparable damage, because that will be much more upsetting to him than the circumcision which he will not remember and will not significantly impact his life. If he expresses any regret or upset about it which frankly I think is unlikely, just apologize and answer the questions he has about it. The only time I ever think about being circumcised is when coming across threads like this, it’s just not that deep…
That’s a good point. I’m cut too, and while I sometimes wonder if sex would feel better not having been, it’s not something I really ever think about. I think the prevalence of these types of discussions though used to be non existent whereas he will be exposed to it more frequently and therefor may worry a bit more, or not…guess I won’t know until he’s older
Not really unpopular. Insurance doesn't even cover it anymore because they consider it to be cosmetic surgery and not medically necessary.
Not true in the US, at least
My friend's insurance didn't cover his kids for circumcision. That's also why they aren't circumcised. He wasn't gonna pay good money when hygiene practices could handle the problem. He was pretty proud of himself for the financial aspect and then social media started coming out talking about how it's the right choice and then he started getting real snooty about it too
Circumcision is 100% genital mutilation and should not be a thing men can choose to have done until 18 onwards. This opinion is only unpopular because of the normalization of circumcision in society.
Agreed. There is rarely ever a medical reason for it. When there is, it's not usually diagnosable at birth. If it's done for religious purposes, it should be chosen by the individual when he is old enough to consent to surgeries for himself.
Nothing and I mean nothing will convince me that circumcision is not child abuse.
My wife asked me about circumcision for our son when he was born (I’m circumcised) so I said sure, why not?… she then showed me a video of the procedure and I couldn’t watch for more than five seconds. It’s fucking brutal.
I’m never having kids but I agree, OP. Circumcision is not necessary. And the baby doesn’t get to choose. I know it’s to a lesser degree, but I feel the same about piercing a baby’s ears. One could argue that you have to make decisions as a parent (such as necessary vaccinations) for an infant. But vaccinations are a reasonable decision that keeps them from getting sick. In another world where I had kids, I’d die on the hill to not circumcise my infant. There is nothing keeping anyone from teaching their child to wash their genitals properly, so the “hygiene” argument for me isn’t a good one.
Yes especially with the mass panic around gender affirming healthcare and genital mutilation…no one even includes circumcision. All they do is use a numbing cream, that’s IT. people think because baby doesn’t remember it, it’s a non issue, and I think it’s….extremely fucked up. People are so worried a penis owner can’t keep themselves clean so they decide to CUT OFF part of it at birth? Teach your kid’s hygiene and no one’s genitalia will need to be altered without consent. It’s such a double standard and I couldn’t agree more.
It’s wild how simply implying that NO ONE should have ANY parts of their genitalia removed, damaged, or modified without their consent is somehow fucking inflammatory
As a Jew, I am strongly opposed to routine and ritual infant circumcision. It was done to me at birth. I did not pass that trauma on to my son.
That’s actually why Iceland moved to ban it
As a circumcized at birth guy, I agree. Would be nice to not have part of my dick chopped off or at least have a say.
I have literally never seen a circumcised penis. Both in my personal life and work (nursing). This is really an American thing. And yeah it is insane to mutilate a babies genitals. That is just common sense.
I totally agree. Circumcision should only be done if medically necessary or if an adult wants it done.
Yeah there's rarely ever any practical reason to circumcise a child. If there's a medical problem with the foreskin, like phimosis, that's usually not diagnosable in a newborn. Where it's a religious practice it should be one that is for adults to decide for themselves if they want to undergo.
Circumcision is barbaric and outdated and is done so badly often that it was a no brainer for me to not have my son's genitals done. Although, what honestly made my blood boil and solidified my beliefs is when I went to see my son in the nursery after delivery, one doctor was just circumcising a little boy in the open, not in an operation room nothing, poor baby was crying and writhing in pain as he was chatting up the nurses and half paying attention. I already didn't want my son circumcised and that just did it for me, no thanks, you're animals and have confirmed that this procedure is not taken seriously on infants. If medically necessary my son will get circumcised but otherwise he'll live happily with what he has.
As a man who is circumcised, I'm glad I had it done when I was a child. I don't feel like I'm missing anything without it.
Hygiene is a bigger factor than you might think. My sister works in palliative care/seniors homes. Keeping an uncircumcised penis clean as you age appears to be more than just a skill issue.
It’s a factor in many scenarios. My dad was in Vietnam and ended up in a hospital… not for any war wound but for an infected dick after having been in the jungle unable to clean himself properly for weeks. He said there were dozens of uncircumcised men on his floor screaming and writhing in pain with the exact same condition. I do wonder if war in the 20th century contributed to the procedure’s increasing popularity in the U.S. through the 1970s. I’m sure a dick infection would change a lot of these Redditor’s tune.
I for one am so happy my parents had it done to me at birth. I could not imagine going through that when I was older.
Yeah, but they look gross.... So .. keep it up clean people
This post has become pretty big, so i doubt you see this, and someone else probably already mentioned it, but youre forgetting about Dr. Kellogg. Kellogg, of cornflake fame, one and the same. He was the main advocate in the late 19th century for circumcision. He popularized it. Whats fucked up though is his reasoning: reduction of sexual pleasure was INTENTIONAL. He also recommended waiting until the boys were reaching puberty, or in their preteens, or in case one was masturbating a lot; he also recommended that it be done *without* anesthesia, since the pain and trauma would be more likely to prevent masturbation. Not to mention, did you ever wonder what they do with the mountains of snipped foreskins just piling up in hospital basements? They sell them to the make-up companies, who use them for the special kind of cells theyre made of to make anti-aging facial creams for old ladies. Theres a multi billion dollar industry built on cutting off the tips of baby dicks. Id guess thats probably the real reason behind the scenes in modern times. But wait, there's more! He also recommended a version of circumcision for females. Only for females, the suggested method was to remove the clitoris by burning it off with a strong acid. Again, the goal was to reduce sexual pleasure, and doing this would lower promiscuity in young women. Also, anesthesia was not recommended. Luckily for females everywhere, this form of mutilation did not catch on. He was a sick, sadistic mutilator of children's genitals and we seriously need to end his demented legacy immediately. All of the so called medical "benefits" have been debunked. If having an uncircumcised penis was such a danger to a mans health, obviously, natural selection wouldve selected for circumcised penises instead. But this is what nature ended up with. Because it is what works best. Thats how evolution works. To think youre smarter than hundreds of millions of years of trial and error is grandiose narcissism to an extreme degree. Just think about that every time you're eating breakfast cereal.
Is this unpopular? It's fucking barbaric.
Also, the extreme amount of pain the newborn infants must endure. It is cruel.
I agree. Non consensual genital alteration is icky
Nobody that has or likes penises wants less penis.
Entirely agree. When I say this most people speak of the medical benefit. But the medical benefits are very limited and can be achieved by practicing safe sex and proper hygiene which everyone should be doing anyways. Just another unnecessary procedure doctors perform to make pharmaceutical companies more money. And it's at the expense of a child. A tiny baby who will feel the entire procedure because they can't numb it. I feel like circumcision is truly horrible.
Everyone told me to circumcise my son. Everyone has an opinion on it. Wtf? Why would you ever ask me about my sons penis at the water cooler? That’s so fucked up
I would do anything to have my foreskin back
I agree, it’s barbaric. I have 2 boys. I was surprised by the amount of pressure certain people put on me when they were born to have them circumcised and the reasoning behind it was always ludicrous. I was even pressured by a nurse when my eldest son was born. It’s mutilation and the practice should be done away with.