To think that circumcising baby/young boys is the equivalent to FGM?

[Cress42]

I’m part of a baby group - our babies are all younger than 12 months and there are parents looking to get their sons REcircumcised 😢

They’re all based in America. I understand it’s a cultural norm there and nobody is talking about any medical issues to warrant having them circumcised.

It’s a fact that it causes desensitisation and part of me feels that along with the general pain of the operation this is similar to FGM.

The baby can’t consent to the mutilation. Also mutilation isn’t too severe a word, it literally means: act or instance of destroying, removing, or severely damaging a limb or other body part of a person or animal.

YABU - It’s not similar to FGM. There’s nothing wrong with it, snip away!

YANBU - It’s similar / the male equivalent to FGM and unless carried out for medical reasons it should be up to the discretion of the person who is being circumcised

Why something is done does change things though. It's crazy to think that it doesn't.

If a child has a tumor in their liver and has part of their liver removed to remove the tumor then good. That's what should happen.

If a child has no tumor and the parents ask someone to remove part of the child's liver purely because in their culture, children have been having part of their liver removed for hundreds of years - that's abuse. And barbaric.

This is a better way of saying what I was trying to say!

Male circumcision is barbaric, nothing but for rare medical cases (foreskin too tight etc) excuses it. Absolutely nothing. I couldn't stay in the group & I couldn't leave without saying what I thought. Why the Fuck we excuse ppl for doing this to boys is beyond me.

However. If we go from the word barbaric for MC then there simply isn't an adequate word for FGM, there just isn't. I vote YANBU but that's the caveat.

Re ear piercing little kids (usually girls & not boys...) - I don't get it myself but it's not on the same level. 14yo ds has wanted his done for years & I said he has to wait till he's 15 before he permanently changes his body. And I say that as someone with huge tattoos.

I take the point, but I still think that the two positions available to you as a parent (concerned and caring vs barbaric and abusive) are too extreme and leave no space for a middle ground.

The two examples given (mastectomy and removal of part of the liver) refer primarily to cancer diagnoses. Whereas phimosis, whilst sometimes being serious, could be mild enough that it just means the penis gets a bit sore from time to time and sometimes infected. If a parent decides to go for circumcision in those circumstances, are the medical issues enough to warrant an exemption from being labelled barbaric or abusive? Or does it have to be something as serious as a cancer diagnosis or immediate risk of death to get away with it?

This is no one's responsibility, but rhetoric like this can make it difficult to make a balanced decision.

I still don't feel that I'm effective expressing what I mean.

Phimosis is a medical condition (albeit one that varies in severity), “my son has been born with a foreskin but my religion says he shouldn’t have one” is never a medical condition.

I don’t think we need to worry about calling abusive practices abusive because some people might be worried about taking appropriate medical decisions if they have heard something being called abusive.

If I stood in the street and shoved my son until he was bent double and whacked him repeatedly, as hard as possible, on the back, because my religion told me too, people would say (rightly) it was child abuse. I know this. But that doesn’t mean if he was choking I’d stand about dithering because hitting children is abusive. People know the difference.

If it's medically necessary then it's medically necessary and not removing for no reason. I think it is black and white and that's as it should be.

Is it medically necessary?

Yes. Its a medical procedure being carried out for genuine reason / proven risk that it is in the patient's best interests to avoid.

no. It's a cultural / religious practice and there are no medical problems that are being solved by doing it.

There is no middle ground and there's no need to create one.

I am totally anti-circumcision, but male circumcision and FGM are not even comparable. The male equivalent of FGM would be cutting off the head of the penis, not the foreskin.

Circumcision - the cutting and removal of the foreskin.

FGM - the cutting and removal of the clitoris (type 1), plus the labia (type 2) with a rudimentary blade with no anaesthetic, and (type 3) sowing up the vulva so a tiny hole is left for urine and menstruation. None of the wounds are treated. Extreme likelihood of infection. Normal sex not possible only anal. Designed to control female desire. Childbirth excruciating. Woman mutilated for life.

Not remotely comparable.

Not remotely comparable.

But they are comparable, and not remotely. As I wrote in an earlier post:

Tick ✅ or cross❌ if applies to both or not, FGM vs newborn (not adult) circumcision:

Done on non-consenting children ✅
Done by non-medical professionals ✅
Done without anaesthesia ✅
Done in non-sterile places in many parts of the world ✅
Done for cultural not medical reasons ✅
Results in permanent alteration of the genitalia ✅
Can have significant complications ✅
Can result in death ✅ many boys have died from newborn circumcision.

Results in significant alteration of sexual function ✅❌: there are more men that aren’t bothered compared to those who do suffer problems and are outspoken about them (reduced sensitivity, erectile issues) but that number is not zero. Equally, remarkably there are women who advocate for FGM (which is inexplicable to me) but they are a tiny minority. Importantly though, men suffer harm. Many men have no idea what sex could feel like if they hadn’t been circumcised. This is from late circumcision data.

The degree of tissue removed and the motivation behind it is where the comparisons diverge, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t remotely comparable.

@NotBadConsidering

One has their foreskin removed.

The other is mutilated beyond recognition of what a vulva/vagina looks like.

I understand what you're trying to say, both have their genitals mutilated without consent, but the end-result is very different.

I'm not going to post pics here as they are so appalling, but look up FGM type 3. It's horrific.

Agreed. My uni boyfriend had it done in his 20s, because he had a problem with an overly tight foreskin.

In the UK, anyone failing to protect a girl from FGM faces up to 7 years in prison.

Do the majority of posters here believe that all practising Jewish and Muslim parents in the UK should be imprisoned for 7 years?

Because if you think they are comparable, then it stands to reason that the legal consequences should also be the same.

As I posted earlier, the foreskin removed is the equivalent of 15 square inches of skin on an adult male. Draw a rectangle of 3 inches X 5 inches on your own skin for comparison.

I’m not saying male genital mutilation is as horrific as female genital mutilation. Clearly the latter is worse. It’s just not true to say they’re not remotely comparable, that’s all.

having come across both FGM and circumcised patients in my medical practice, I can categorically say there is no comparison. we regularly do circumcision in adult men for medical reasons. there is a small risk of complications but this risk is extremely small in infancy (when most circumcision take place). the nerves in this region are not well developed at this time, so it is also not as painful. please see below a review of the scientific literature which states that circumcision does not cause desensitisation, sexual dysfunction etc. etc.

there is also strong evidence that circumcision reduces spread of some STIs, most notably HIV and genital herpes (will provide links on request).

having seen (and unfortunately smelt) foreskin infections, if i was a man, i would want it off. but each to one's own. i can understand why many find it difficult to accept.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23937309/#:~:text=Conclusion%3A%20The%20highest%2Dquality%20studies,%2C%20sexual%20sensation%2C%20or%20satisfaction.

there is a small risk of complications but this risk is extremely small in infancy (when most circumcision take place

This is not true. The complication rate is higher in neonates:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9679242/

Overall complication rate of 8%, risk of bleeding 2.5%. Given it’s a procedure carried out on millions of baby boys worldwide per year, that is thousands of baby boys suffering serious complications every year. Because male genital mutilation is more widely practised, it will result in greater numbers of boys with serious problems. But it also means there are many, many who don’t who obscure this number.

there is also strong evidence that circumcision reduces spread of some STIs, most notably HIV and genital herpes (will provide links on request).

I would like to see a link showing baby boys are having sex and contracting HIV and herpes at such a rate that neonatal circumcision is essential.

@NotBadConsidering the study you quoted compare neonates and children.... I was talking about the comparison between infants (so 6wk+, definitely would not reccommend in neonates) and adults.

I probably know hundreds of men circumcised in infancy or childhood and I have been involved in hospital management in Bangladesh for over two decades with very high numbers of childhood circumcision (we are talking few hundred cases a week!) - can't remember complications except rarely. in my personal practice in the uk have managed atleast 2 - 300 adult circs... no early complications, not sure about late ones... have to look at the evidence for exact numbers.

obviously each to one's own, if someone doesn't want to circumcised their child, they shouldn't

@NotBadConsidering I never said neonates, that was the study you quoted.. I said infants, quire different.

obviously not, but one hopes when they grow up they are safer, although should be practising safe sex obviously, I am just sharing evidence, its facts - how you choose to use that information to make decisions is up to you, not here to be adverserial

@NotBadConsidering

The latter is not "worse"

The latter is butchered beyond all recognition.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make anymore to be frank.

@NotBadConsidering I also never said male circumcision is essential... feel like you are responding to someone else's post rather than mine?

Ok, sorry, I misquoted you. You brought up the fallacy of circumcision reducing rates of HIV and STIs. I want to know why this matters for circumcising newborns.

The data of reducing HIV/STIs is very weak. It’s based on studies where HIV rates were very high, so a reduction would seem significant anyway, and didn’t factor in that many men in the study period had to abstain from sex because they’d just been circumcised. And the rates of reduction weren’t anywhere near as good as wearing a condom.

It also doesn’t explain why baby boys need to be circumcised. Baby boys aren’t having sex. Baby boys don’t contract HIV through sex. Baby boys should be given the option of growing up and deciding whether they’d rather a) have a piece of their penis removed or b) wear a condom.

It’s nice that you haven’t seen any complications (although surprising, I would expect you have seen some) I have, some horrific ones, but as a worldwide population it occurs on such a widespread basis that serious complications are inevitable.

Yes it’s worse. Horrific. Butchered beyond recognition.

So is penile amputation when it goes wrong.

The point I’m trying to make is that just because one is objectively more horrific than another doesn’t mean they aren’t “remotely” comparable. I have listed many comparisons that are shared properties of both practices.

Another comparator:

Those who practice both with come up with spurious weak justifications for their practice and deny any problems with it✅

If only anal is possible then childbirth isn’t.. 🙄

Only anal until marriage. Stops pregnancy outside marriage, I guess. Then the joy of being cut open by your new husband on your wedding night, with sex to follow through a raw wound. Nice.