Circumcision should be banned.

[ArabellaScott]

https://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2025/01/judge-and-parents-call-for-boys-to-be-protected-from-circumcision

Article describes an upsetting case of two doctors performing these ops without anesthesia, and with sometimes serious side effects. One boy nearly died.

The National Secular Society is running a concurrent campaign to ban all 'religious cutting' - that includes both FGM and male circumcision. I wholeheartedly agree that no baby or child should suffer in this way. More info:

https://www.secularism.org.uk/religious-surgery/

YABU - circumcision for religous reasons is fine
YANBU - circumcision should be banned (unless there is a medical reason)

bmcpediatr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12887-020-1952-2

This is a case report and states that it's a very rare complication, and preventable if you follow hygiene procedures, but I don't think they're going to be delighted by their ears when they're older.

I have several friends with earlobe scars from getting earrings ripped out as children and infections were pretty common (it was very common when I was growing up to get your ears pierced really early and obviously most of us were fine).

None of this was the same as circumcision at all, but none of these injuries would have occurred if their ears had been left alone.

FWIW Circumcision won’t be painless because the child won’t be anaesthetised through the recovery period.

So, are you saying that it doesn’t matter that you’ve caused your child pain (through piercing its ears) because the holes will grow over if you take the piercings out? That’s the moral difference? You’re not bothered about the unnecessary discomfort at all?

I can't imagine the recovery is painless though once the anaesthetic has worn off?

YANBU

@Icanttakethisanymore @Simone9 yes you're both right - I suppose there must be pain during the healing period. Nasty.

@Icanttakethisanymore to be honest all the children I know who have had their ears pierced both now and from when I was a child, requested it themselves at 7 or 8 years old. Often for birthdays. Our parents explained how it would feel (I wouldn't call it pain - it was just a click and it was done) and the need to clean and be careful for a few months till healed. We agreed and I don't remember any children regretting it or having pain or infections.

Just from my experience though.

Yanbu. Horrific reading. Those poor poor boys.

Just to confirm, Human Rights Watch says that the most common internationally (85%) are Type 1 (partial or total clitoral removal, most common in Iraq & Kurdistan) & Type 2 (partial or total clitoral & labial removal), both risk birth complications later. In Somalia, Sudan & Central African Republic, Type 3 is the most common. I don't know yet how common total clitoral removal would be, but given it has severe effects often, & there is considerable worry from organisations, I think total clitoral removal probs common. And partial is v bad, surely, too?
An important point is that FGM is mainly carried out by people who are not Medically trained, & risks many further problems which are harder to treat in developed countries. I get that you want to emphasise the harms of circumcision, but I don't think you should play FGM down and spread wrong information like this. Type IV, the pricking you mentioned, is only 15% worldwide, & even if it's clitoral hood w or without labia minora (& sometimes majority too), that's still severe imo.

www.hrw.org/news/2010/06/16/qa-female-genital-mutilation
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9436112/

Yeah, I remember being desperate to have my ears pierced, I think my mum made me wait until I was 12 or something like that.

I think if we’re going to ‘throw stones’ at some people’s cultural practices we also have to acknowledge that it’s a sliding scale rather than being binary. No one you know complains as an adult about having their ears pierced young? That doesn’t surprise me. I guess there’s also millions of boys without foreskins who don’t mind that either, now they’re adults. Does that make either practice morally right? I don’t think it does tbh.

I suppose that's the starting point isn't it:

Ask a large selection of circumcised men, if they could have made a choice, cultural and/or religious expectations aside, would they have had it done?

Some cultures perform a ritual called metzitzah b'peh, where the circumcisor sucks on the freshly mutilated penis to soothe the infant, while the attending family and guests all whoop and holler.

And this resulted in the deaths of a some babies a few years ago in the states.
The mohel transmitted Herpes to them which is fatal to such young infants.

"used to have a boyfriend who was circumcised and it didn’t affect his sex live at all (either in our relationship, before or presumably afterwards!)"

You presumably me he could have a "normal" sex life. EVEN He wouldn't know if it affected his sex life as he would have never experienced the increased sensitivity / loss of sensation compared to being uncircumcised.

Presumably even women who have had fgm are able to give sex / babies but no one says their mutilation has no effect...

"No - we don’t need to help men’s issues. Let them do that for themselves."

Well it's often mothers who make the decision for their sons.... Especially if they are single mothers.

I wasn’t comparing them. As you say, the motivations and scale of harm caused is widely disparate. FGM is unjustifiable and must be banned.

That any adult of either sex is suffering, as a result of a non-medically necessary surgery performed on their genitalia as a child, well that is enough for me to support a ban on both.

Adults can make their own decisions if they want to be circumcised.

I’m aware some people are concerned that by putting the two issues together, the focus on stamping out FGM will get drowned out by talk of male circumcision, because male circumcision does have widespread support. It is a very real risk. Ideally I think both should be banned simultaneously, but the priority has to go to stopping FGM.

They’re not all new born babies and they have fathers, although granted it’s usually the males of the culture/religion that push such medieval practices.

What wrong information?

FGM is abhorrent and appalling.

Thanks for the link.

arabellascot there is no "both sides" assaulting, mutilating or causing GBH to children- or anyone- is a morally unjustifiable position.

And if anyone is hiding behind any reason - including religious dogma- they should be ashamed.

Religion makes good people do bad things.

In my religion (Orthodox Ashkenazi Jewish) I think parents don’t question it. It’s always been done and therefore something they just do. Each week there is Shabbat, each Passover, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur all involve set prayers, meals, traditions, fasts. Funerals are the same service for everyone , Boys have a bris and barmitvah. These things have been done for thousands of years. They have bound Jews together through war, exile, being shunted into ghettoes and being uprooted and ending up in different countries . Circumcision is another thing that unifies us, How on earth you would go about banning this I have no idea. It would just go ‘underground’. Near me there is a tiny synagogue for those who feel the mainstream Orthdox ones aren’t rigorous enough. I doubt some Jews aren’t aware it exists, let alone where it is. I think if circumcisions were banned, they’d be done there or in peoples’ homes. I want it stopping . It won’t be any time soon though,

I don't think anyone is talking about banning it for adults.

, How on earth you would go about banning this I have no idea.

That would be easy. Laws already exist which seek to punish people who harm children.
Prison and removal of all children from parents care. No parent has the right to abuse or harm children and slicing genitals is no different.

s

Both sides to the arguments over whether FGM and male circumcision could/should be included in the same campaign.

If it somehow wasn't clear from the thread and all my posts, I think both should be banned.

FGM should be banned for everyone but women/girls have no autonomy.

I’ve had sex with Circumcised and non-Circumcised men … the ones who were Circumcised (for religious reasons), all had various levels of sexual hang-ups / issues.

Lack of sensitivity was the main issue, alongside issues with foreplay (masturbation was problematic), and psychological issues with it. One guy, only in his 20s, had to use tablets, and was seeing a psychologist about it.

All hated being circumcised.. but I bet they have done it to thier sons

Who decides that our moral limits trumps that of others. As I said, the name for that attitude is supremacism

So you'd allow FGM on the grounds that banning it is supremacism? Maybe you would but I'd hazard a guess that you wouldn't? Everyone has a line somewhere, why is it that the line other people want to draw is supremacism but you presumably don't think the line you would draw is?