You think it's really important to perform an unnecessary procedure. That's fine for you, but it doesn't make it necessary. It's a cultural practice.

Circumcision isn't mutilation in and of itself, but performing an unnecessary surgery on somebody without consent is.

The advice to wash your dick is a sure sign that you weren't heavily involved in raising a child. Getting them to brush their damn teeth, wash their hands, and just generally not be gross is hard enough without necessitating a genital check as well.

My kids do all of those things. You're just bad at parenting, which explains a lot, actually.

Imagine cutting off a part of your child because you aren't capable of getting them to clean it.

The advice to wash your dick is a sure sign that you weren't heavily involved in raising a child.

That’s quite an arrogant statement.

My son is 25, and happy with my decision not to have him circumcised. I know because I asked him based on this discussion.

He never once got any sort of infection, because I taught him basic hygiene.

Our bodies having parts doesn't make them inherently useful or purposeful or superior to life without. We still have tail bones

The foreskin is not a vestigial trait. It’s a 100% relevant and useful organ today. (eta: I know about vestigial traits because I have one: Darwin’s tubercle. I’d also not have appreciated having my ears docked at birth.)

Ask anyone who has a foreskin. That’s a profoundly ignorant comparison.

we grow teeth that don't fit it our mouths

That’s an adaptive trait that serves us quite well, because our hominid ancestors fed their young the most high-energy fruits, which also increased the risk of cavities in our young. Being able to shed and replace juvenile teeth meant we were able to commence adulthood without the risk of starving. Our wisdom teeth weren’t a problem until very, very recently, because the evolution of our bodies haven’t had time to catch up with our modern diet. That’s nothing like the foreskin, where our sexual activity has not changed in millions of years. You should learn some paleo-anthropology before making comparisons like that.

and we get auto-immune diseases.

I have very severe autoimmune disease. Many recent studies point to environmental causes, which are recent and our evolution cannot account for.

None of that has anything whatever to do with the continued and relevant importance of the foreskin to sexual pleasure.

I am a mother who decided not to circumcise my child (who is now 25 and is happy to have his foreskin), a decision I made after talking to my father who had to have his removed in his teens after developing a rare condition. I know more about this topic than many people, and certainly more than you.

The reasons this procedure is commonly done in the US are questionable at best. We have learned better, and this archaic practice should not be advocated any longer.

If you had it done to you and/or had it done to your child, I’m not here to shame you. Until recently, it’s just what we did, but going forward, we should do better for our children and our species based on what we’ve learned. And we shouldn’t be a dick when presented with information that goes against our cultural norms (pun intended).

e: link to my 4 month old comment about my vestigial trait. I had to scroll through nearly a thousand comments to find it, whew.