Cultural circumcision in babies/young boys

[junipermarten]

1 of my DS's is circumcised due to a medical issue, he was 3 at the time and it was bloody horrific.

When he was going through it, a good friend gave me tips on after care and offered the number of a private doctor. She has sons who were circumcised shortly after birth for religious reasons.

I personally don't agree with circumcision unless medically required however I respect others choices for religious reasons.

It got me thinking about the high % of boys in the US who are circumcised for cultural reasons, just over 2/3rds. Why is it so prevalent there?

I was having a look at % of male pop per country and the highest were mainly Islamic, but also Samoa was almost 100% which surprised me but apparently its cultural as opposed to religious (I think).

@TooBigForMyBoots so it's OK for thousands of people to object? How many men have to say they don't want their dicks cut for you to listen? What's the number?

It must be bloody hard for them to speak out against something their own parents did to them, and that their culture and community (religious or otherwise) defends as the norm. Lots of people make excuses for all sorts of bad things that happen to them - this is no different.

@TooBigForMyBoots I agree that implementing a ban on this kind of practice at a global level, or at least in developed nations, is going to be a long, hard, difficult slog. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. The practice itself is wrong. You seem to think that it should be allowed to continue even though people are being injured permanently.

You cannot compare complications from circumcisions that were medically indicated with complications from ritual circumcisions. You just can't - because were it not for the religious practice, those circumcisions would not be happening. Whereas the medically indicated ones are, like any medical intervention, a matter of weighing benefit and risk. No medical procedure is 100% risk free - not even the act of taking a paracetamol. It is disingenuous not to acknowledge that your comparison is not a valid one.

I note how dismissive you are of the suffering of men injured by this practice. There's 'only a few of them' (there are many), so it's therefore OK. How many men need to suffer before you think that this practice is not OK? For me that number stands at 1.

@MaryBary, around 20% of the UK male population is circumcised. That's around 6.6million men. Even if all of the signatories to the parliamentary petition were circumcised men, that is less than .0001% of them wanting a ban.

@TooBigForMyBoots oh OK. So chopping bits off of babies is OK as long as only a few thousand grow up to complain about it. What % of people would you want to see complaining before you took them seriously?

if .0001% is the number of men upset that their genitalia were altered without their consent, why isn’t that enough?

You don't get 99.999% approval often in life.

Not all the signatories will have been circumcised men. Some will be their loved ones. Some will be antisemites, some will be anti-all religions, some will be do-gooders and others virtue signallers.

As I have repeatedly said on this thread, when it comes to a ban, I will take my lead from the "victims", not wannabe rescuers. And I will consider all the costs that it entails in the real world.

@TooBigForMyBoots and what about the circumcised men who oppose what was done to them? The ones who speak out on the documentary I mentioned and the ones in intactivist groups? Do they matter or not? Genuinely, if you had a chance to speak to one of them would you want to hear what they say or do you think the religious mandate or cultural history is more important ?

@TooBigForMyBoots by the way silence isn't approval or consent.

The silence is "not bothered at all by my circumcision". Fewer than 1% of 1% of circumcised men signed that petition.

I understand that a tiny minority of circumcised men wish it had never happened, but it would be bad law to legistlate a ban on such small numbers.

I also understand that not everyone on the internet is who they claim to be and intactivist groups attract their fair share of Internet weirdos.

Dismiss the victims and uphold religious privilege. Yep, that's what I would have expected from you. With a nice side of 'most of them aren't real, are lying or are weirdos.'

The intangible deity and its followers must be appeased. They are more important than real people experiencing real suffering. That's where you stand.

The silence is "not bothered at all by my circumcision"

You don't know that. We all know how good men are at not talking about their feelings. The silence could be 'don't want to upset my family', 'don't want to be an activist but still in pain', 'nothing can be done to improve things so I'll just have to live with it'. Silence is not assent, that is a ridiculous thing to say.

You’ll not get anything any better than that because that’s all they have. Not enough people are against this act of chopping off pieces of babies so it must be ok. A level of abuse is ok as not many feel able to stand up and object (and against a massive cultural expectation I understand why).

there is no logical, scientific, or moral reason why this act should continue. I’ve not seen a single poster support it with anything other than justifying it because it’s a cultural norm or it’s a religious act.

I’d love @TooBigForMyBoots to explain why a small amount of victims of abuse (yes) standing up can be dismissed. What % is needed for it to be valid? Presumably abuse against women, rape, domestic violence, child abuse, bullying, any other act in the entire bloody world, victims should be listened too however few come forward, and for any other act in the bloody world that hurts children unnecessarily there wouldn’t even need to be victims coming forward! It should be morally and ethically absolutely basic humanity that we don’t do shot like this any more!

Are followers of a religion not real people?

@TooBigForMyBoots I’m convinced your just playing the contrarian for attention now. You’re not engaging with anything meaningfully, just trying to be a wind up.

Bowing out of this conversation now - better not to argue with idiocy. It's utterly disgraceful to ignore actual humans affected by their genitalia being modified speaking up by claiming they are lying weirdos.

I made a big effort to challenge my preconceptions and for lots of research but have come to the conclusion that the main reasons for ritual circumcision are:

• we have always done it this way (cultural, class, family reasons)
• God wants us to prove we love him by cutting our babies willies (and tests of faith by asking people to sacrifice their children in both Christian and Jewish texts, and probably others, and various other tests of faith)
• there may be marginal benefits in countries with severely limited access to health care and hygiene provision (though condoms and abstinence still more effective)

If there is a god and this is the type of crap he pulls to get people to prove their love - I say "no bloody thank you".

I'm very glad the NHS mostly refuses to perform ritual circumcision (I looked into that too)

Sure. But why should they be allowed to cut pieces off perfect newborn babies when a number of those babies will have lifelong adverse consequences? But I agree, you're being deliberately obtuse and contrarian. It has to be that, because I can't imagine anyone so lacking in empathy that they think causing harm to newborn babies is OK. I'm out.

6.6 million circumcised men in the UK, with only a tiny percentage of a tiny percentage of them wanting a ban. No calls from GPs, paediatricians, psychiatrists or urologists for a ban.

Posters here are arguing for a ban because, they don't like the thought of it. It's OK to not like it, it's authoritarianism to impose it on everyone else.

I have more substantial arguments with my 6 year old.

One of the reason people are fleeing actual persecution is because of religious persecution. You've yet to give me an example of a country that has banned a 1000yo religious practice and it was OK.

As has been pointed out to you countless times, FGM has been banned in many places, often where it was a tradition much older than 1000 years. Circumcision isn't only a religious tradition, nor is a tradition more important because it is religious. Laws changing =/= persecution.

Kabalagala - you may say that changing laws doesn't equal persecution, but a lot of Jews, Muslims and others (Africans, Filipinos?) would feel that they were being targeted, particularly in terms of how it would be checked/enforced. No doubt some would stick to the rules, others would leave the country fearing that it was part of a sustained attack on religion, while others would have the op done illegally in the UK or legally abroad (or would say they had done it abroad when they'd done it here).

In case you're wondering, there is zero chance that the Chief Rabbi would tell his congregants that Jewish law needs to change.

Gosh - let's not upset the delicate sensibilities of the religiously inclined - let's just let them continue to cut bits off boy babies - can't possibly have them upset in any way.

This is 2023, not the dark ages FGS.

There is precedent for these laws though. FGM is directly comparable and male circumcision laws could be implemented in the same way.
It is a medical procedure first and foremost and should be treated as such. We don't give the religious or cultural freedom to chop off any other body parts.

It is NOT a medical procedure.

It is only a medical procedure if it is undertaken to deal with a medical problem. Baby boys are not born with a medical problem. They are born perfect.

Circumcision is a medical procedure. Which is why it shouldn't be performed without medical need