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submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Was just talking at dinner with family, and it seems a logical action to ban circumcision, as in most cases, doesn't have consent, and is a major (genitals are important) body modification. Can we ban it at the state level? Just a thought.

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[-] [email protected] 181 points 4 months ago

Circumcisions should be banned because they are mutilating children's genitals without consent. At least trans medical procedures have consent.

I think it's just religious people being hypocrites again. Hard to convince delusional people of facts when they make up what they believe based on the circumstances. The decisions of religious cults shouldn't have more power than the decisions of individual people. Completely crazy what this country is devolving into

[-] [email protected] 54 points 4 months ago

Trans surgical procedures have some of the best outcomes of any major procedures. they are performed on consenting individuals who are always well informed and at or very near adulthood, and only after many other interventions have been ongoing. People who receive these interventions show incredibly low rates of regret (compare for example the percent of people who regret knee replacements or probably circumcisions), and enjoy increased happiness and satisfaction by almost any metric.

Basically every major medical organization in the world (and certainly in America) agrees these interventions are medically useful and should be performed. While there are doctors who dissent, they are in the vast minority and almost never actually work with any trans people, but rather insist all the doctors who do work with trans people must be wrong. It's not a controversy in the medical world, just the political one.

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[-] [email protected] 115 points 4 months ago

There is a lot of misinformation in this post. Here's a snippet of my research about the anatomy of the penis and the damage of circumcision causes.

The foreskin has specialized nerve endings called Meissner's Corpsucles located at the tip in an area called the ridged band. It is connected to the penis by the extension of the shaft skin in areas called the outer foreskin and the inner foreskin. The inner foreskin is rich with sensory receptors and is a inner mucosa similar to the inside of our cheeks. It keeps the glans moist and protected from the environment. The inner foreskin is attached to the head of the penis by a membrane called the frenulum. The frenulum is an erogenous zone that is mostly removed by a circumcision procedure.

When a child or baby is circumcised, the foreskin is forcibly removed from the glans which scars and damages the glans. The foreskin is adhered to the glans like a fingernail. When a boy hits puberty the foreskin naturally retracts. In rare cases, phimosis happens which is when the foreskin is unable to retract. Non-surgical solutions to phimosis are stretching the foreskin over a span of time and/or applying steroid creme.

Circumcision is extremely painful for babies and children. Cortisol spikes in babies when they are circumcised. Babies will pass out during the procedure as many circumcisions are done with inadequate anesthetic.

The foreskin is self-cleaning like the vagina. Rinsing in the shower is enough usually for hygiene. Caregivers who retract the foreskin of their children will damage the child's genitals. The only person who should retract the foreskin is the children as it will naturally retract with age. Some boys are unable to retract their foreskin until their late teens or early adulthood.

This information is not foreign to the medical world. Most medical and political professionals have a bias for the circumcision ritual. Circumcision is the same for boys as it is for girls as the objective of circumcision is to harm the sexual function of the child.

Modern circumcision for males is extremely harsh as it removes 60-80% of penile skin. Many men do not have frenulums from the procedure. It is possible to repair some of the damage by using mitosis to restore skin coverage. It is not currently possible to repair tissue that was completely removed. Foregen is a non-profit researching ways to completely repair the damage caused by circumcision.

For men impacted by this and want to do something for themselves

  • Look into foreskin restoration
  • Donate to foregen

Warning that this topic draws a lot of insane people with genital mutilation fetishes. Any of the comments advocating for circumcision are either men who were circumcised against their will, women who circumcised their children and haven't accepted the truth, or weirdos who want others to suffer.

[-] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Thank you so much for writing this up. I really appreciate the detailed post.

Most medical and political professionals have a bias for the circumcision ritual.

I think it's important to point out that this bias is mostly cultural. In many countries where ritual infant circumcision is the exception instead of the norm, medical personnel do not have a bias towards RIC.

Foreskin restoration is legit (even if it may sound crazy like regrowing limbs). I know we collectively dislike Reddit on here, but the subreddit /r/foreskin_restoration has a really supportive and welcoming community and a lot of resources about how to get started (check their wiki).

[-] [email protected] 71 points 4 months ago

Here's another question along the same lines - my friend when I was a kid developed gynecomastia, commonly known as "breast knots" when he was 14. They're completely harmless, but they made it look like he had boobs. Cute little A cups on this otherwise very boy-presenting person. For some reason, no one thought it was "against God's plan" or "mutilating his body" or "part of the gender agenda" when this 14 year old boy had a purely cosmetic double mastectomy. I wonder why no one batted an eye at a child receiving gender-affirming cosmetic surgery just because he wanted to in this particular case.

[-] [email protected] 55 points 4 months ago

Cutting a piece of your baby's junk off for no other reason then everyone does it is a really weird thing that I've never been able to wrap my head around.

I'm not religious but I at least can understand if it's for religious reason, there's a point to it, even if I don't agree with/understand the point. But people seem to just do it for no reason aside from it's what people do. It's forced genital mutilation anyway you look at it.

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[-] [email protected] 49 points 4 months ago

It would require that a significant portion of the population admit their parents mutilated them as infants.

For some reason, they refuse to admit they were mutilated without their consent.

Some of them have subsequently mutilated their own sons, and admitting that was mutilation is beyond their capacity.

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[-] [email protected] 40 points 4 months ago

Because transgender (anti)rights have nothing to do with religion; it's simply the transgender people's turn to be thrown under the bus so the conservatives can continue virtue signalling.

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[-] [email protected] 40 points 4 months ago

On one hand I oppose circumcision, on the other hand I think we’re getting far too comfortable letting politicians ban medical procedures.

My alternative perspective is no surgery on someone too young to request it unless it cannot wait until they’re old enough to do so.

[-] [email protected] 24 points 4 months ago

Kids can't get plastic surgery even if they wanted to, but can get circumcised even if nobody asked them? It's just dumb.

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[-] [email protected] 39 points 4 months ago

circumcision is in the Bible, gender reassignment surgery is not. That's where they're going to hang their hats... on the invisible sky ghost.

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[-] [email protected] 35 points 4 months ago

Because one is ordered by their favorite imaginary character in their favorite fairy tale book.

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[-] [email protected] 34 points 4 months ago

we *should *ban circumcision, it's genital mutilation and children cannot consent

[-] [email protected] 33 points 4 months ago

Because the laws are being pushed on a religious basis, not a rational one.

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[-] [email protected] 31 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

As someone whose circumcision worked out perfectly fine and can't imagine myself without one, I still think it should be banned for babies and children under 18 for any reason other than medical necessity. Even a slight risk of problems outweighs the 'my dad did it and he turned out fine' or religious tradition arguments.

It should not be banned for adults who voluntarily choose it for themselves though.

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[-] [email protected] 31 points 4 months ago

Personally I find it a lot more disturbing that intersex babies are still assgined a binary gender by a doctor and then get surgery to shape their genitals. The parents are often scaremongered and pressured into consenting and the affected people don't know it was done to them until firmly into adulthood. It's often a sterilising surgery too.

If you are against doctors doing gender changing surgery, please start with the babies? But oh no! Then the argument that there are only two genders falls apart.

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[-] [email protected] 30 points 4 months ago

Circumcision is so weird. Like why are non religious people opting for that so much in the US?

[-] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago

It's a myth that circumcision is a religious practice in the US. It was actually started by a bunch of 19^th^ Century health obsessed, vegetarian, noFap weirdos. It was a health fad to save your body, not your soul.

I mention the vegetarianism to emphasize that these people were progressive, it's just that many of their ideals were garbage.

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[-] [email protected] 28 points 4 months ago

I've never understood the American obsession with MGM (male genital mutilation). But it seems that a large percentage of your population has had it done. So from an outsider perspective it seems like it must be a cultural thing to your country. So for laws to exist that ban it (or at least make it harder to authorise) you'd first need a cultural shift, then. Enough political will for laws to be passed.

[-] [email protected] 18 points 4 months ago

It really isn't cultural. In the early 1900s, William Kellogg (of Kellogg's) was a puritanical Christian. He hated the idea of masturbation more than anything, so he created Corn Flakes to be a cereal so bland it would kill your libido and prevent you from masturbating. He also was a proponent of circumcision as a means of preventing masturbation because it would make the penis too tight that stroking it would be painful. Americans bought into his propaganda that circumcised penises are "cleaner" and then it just became "well, I'm circumcised, and my son's penis should look like mine!"

No one said that the average American was intelligent.

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[-] Ziggurat 22 points 4 months ago

This is one of the case where we can talk about the Jewish/Muslim lobby without being a far-right biggot. People want to defend their religious practice, even if they involve chopping off a piece of kids genitalia

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[-] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago

They'll make the Church of Scientology pay taxes before they ban circumcisions.

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[-] [email protected] 18 points 4 months ago

Circumcision is taking a kid and doing something irreversible to them without consent. Trans treatment is taking a kid and preventing irreversible things from happening until they consent.

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[-] [email protected] 16 points 4 months ago

I think cosmetic surgery should be limited to adults, yes. Circumcision here is usually cosmetic (someone wants the baby to look like the Dad, I am not kidding, that is the argument I hear the most) so like labiaplasty, I don't think it should be done to people who can't choose it. I don't think intersex babies should be modified either.

Trans care for minors does not involve surgery. But other gender affirming care should be available to those over 13, like sexual health services are, without parental consent. That's the age we legally think kids get some privacy rights so why not this?

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[-] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago

The same answer to both:

Religious indoctrination.

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[-] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago

You act as if logic and consistency matters to them

[-] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago

There's actually no mandate for non-Jewish people people to be circumcised in Christianity. It's specifically made clear that it isn't a requirement for "gentiles" in the new testament. But I have a great circumcised cock and I have no complaints. I'm still curious what it would be like naturally though.

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this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2024
543 points (90.8% liked)

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