Same.
Although, some women have given me some WTF look during sexy time, like I was an alien LOL. Which is quite funny at times.
Which is understandable since mine is a bit of a special case.
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Are you American? Are you circumcized? Then you NEED to watch this
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Although, some women have given me some WTF look during sexy time, like I was an alien LOL. Which is quite funny at times.
Which is understandable since mine is a bit of a special case.
I know that the WHO recommends the practice in certain areas due to its ability to slightly lower transmission of some STDs.
I think over all the practice is kind of useless, and that permanently altering a human's body without consent is morally questionable at best.
I think since the practice isn't very helpful or very harmful - that it doesn't matter much what the government's stance on the issue is.
If the government banned it tomorrow though (where I live) I might be a little miffed just because a weird part of my head wants my kid to be circumcised just like me. I think at this point it's just like that - family tradition.
So my opinion in general? There are slight benefits given the risks, but only in regions like Subsaharan Africa. No reason to have the procedure here. Pretty unethical in general. Only thing keeping the practice going is that it's so common in the US that uncut boys might get made fun of or feel uncomfortable nude.
Personal note. Will I circumcise my kid? I haven't decided. Rates of circumcision are actually falling pretty fast in the US due to decreased white birthrate (who tend to circumcise) and an increased Hispanic population (who tend not to circumcise). If circumcision falls into the minority position I probably won't do it. But if I feel like my kid will be singled out without the procedure - then he gets the cut.
(My uncle was born in the UK and moved here with his family when he was 2. Circumcision is not practiced there - so he was an uncut american at a time where everyone was circumcised - he experienced a lot of bullying and always told me and my sibs to cut the babies)
Last edited by x65943,
That's some nice, refreshing objectivity. (This is not sarcasm, just in case.)
I think most people here would agree that the traditional aspect of it is what keeps it going. Peer pressure is a hell of a thing, and I'll be damned if I can't say I empathize with you. I wish you and your child the best in any case.
I am circumcised. I kinda wish I wasn't because I have heard many times over that it makes the mans pecker more sensitive. I understand why my parents chose to do so so I am not pissed at them about it.
What pisses me off is the gender discrimination. In many (deranged) countries it is perfectly normal to do a female circumcision. The US is bitching and complaining that a female circumcision is unethical, mutilation, cruel, etc... but at the same time male circumcision is promoted. I think any circumcision is wrong, but the way that it is promoted that male genital mutilation is alright but anything done to a female is wrong is just showing the gender bias. The country is so full of double standards especially on the gender side of things. Absolutely pisses me off. Women have things so much better than men, but they complain so much more saying that they are oppressed. Damn feminists just want to have the upper hand on men and treat them as second class citizens.
What pisses me off is the gender discrimination. In many (deranged) countries it is perfectly normal to do a female circumcision. The US is bitching and complaining that a female circumcision is unethical, mutilation, cruel, etc... but at the same time male circumcision is promoted. I think any circumcision is wrong, but the way that it is promoted that male genital mutilation is alright but anything done to a female is wrong is just showing the gender bias. The country is so full of double standards especially on the gender side of things. Absolutely pisses me off. Women have things so much better than men, but they complain so much more saying that they are oppressed. Damn feminists just want to have the upper hand on men and treat them as second class citizens.
I'm so glad I'm uncut as I was born in Italy. I couldn't imagine the difficulties being cut would bring to sex. I mean I'm sure it's still awesome, but hell, I couldn't imagine having less sensitivity down there.
I love the argument that getting cut prevents diseases, because you could just say, "Well if you chop off your toe then it'll prevent you from getting ingrown toenails" How about we chop our noses off, we'll never get runny noses anymore. Oh man, I just realized something, if you chop and scoop ears out, you'll never get earwax. Who wants to deal with snot and earwax anymore, f it, lets cut everything off!!
I love the argument that getting cut prevents diseases, because you could just say, "Well if you chop off your toe then it'll prevent you from getting ingrown toenails" How about we chop our noses off, we'll never get runny noses anymore. Oh man, I just realized something, if you chop and scoop ears out, you'll never get earwax. Who wants to deal with snot and earwax anymore, f it, lets cut everything off!!
Sorry, but these sources are exactly the things rebuted in the original video.
To be fair, @invaderyoyo wasn't ENTIRELY correct in that there are "no pros but a bunch of cons". Hygiene and medical prevention are certainly pros...if they're correct. The problem is that the studies you're linking to are, unfortunately, more a smoke screen than actual studies.
Your first source claims "The risk of heterosexual HIV infection is 2 to 8 times higher for uncircumcised men than for men who have been circumcised." Wow. That's huge, right? I mean...If that were true, HIV infection should be significantly less in countries where a large part of the population is circumcised (meaning: Israel and USA). However...that isn't happening. Here, look at this:
I might be wrong, but the studies talked about in source #2 are probably the one downright DESTROYED in the opening video for having gross and even absurd deontological errors (they compared the HIV level of circumcised men with non-circumcised men...but forgot to mention that the former group was educated on proper use of condoms. So yeah...with those kinds of standards, it's not hard to "prove" that circumcision reduces the chance for HIV).
Your third source is a bit out of place: it doesn't really advice anything ("the benefits are not great enough to recommend universal newborn circumcision"). The dates are also interesting: the first one is from 1999, the second one from 2014, the third one from 2016. If there's any trend in them, I'd say that the medical world is slowly backpedaling from their original stance.
Lol you gotta love how getting circumcised supposedly has all these pros that people in the USA list, yet 90% of the world doesn't and they're all doing just fine. The logic to cut it off is so incredibly stupid.
To be fair the male equivalent of "female circumcision" would be cutting off the penis completely.
That's why it's more accurate to call what happens to females "female genital mutilation"
If women were truly getting the same procedure it would only involve recision of the clitoral hood - but the procedure is usually a full removal of the clitoris and often also of the labia.
So if guys got the most extreme case of FGM (female genital mutilation) it would be chopping off the penis (equivalent to clitoris) and testicular sac (equivalent to the labia).
Women do have special privileges in certain areas, but let's not cheapen that argument by creating false equivalencies.
I understand exactly what you mean. The equivalent that I am trying to make here is that it is wrong to do it to either gender. It is cutting off part of a persons body that they are too young to make a choice over most of the time.
From what I have read is that men that are not circumcised experience greater orgasms and last longer during sex than men whom were circumcised. If that is actually true then it is partly equivalent to a female circumcision because even after the procedure a woman can still experience an internal orgasm.
IIRC, the whole reason for a female circumcision was to prevent women from being promiscuous and wanting to have sex all the time just to get the orgasm. Sadly, in those countries that perform the procedure, women are treated as 3rd class humans, and sometimes even less than human.
I personally feel that I have been treated worse than most other women out there. All this BS about "white male privilege", but it is the men that get shafted in divorce and custody cases.
Yeah, sorry, I am going kinda off topic...
It's to a different degree, but both procedures mutilate the genitals, both reduce sensitivity, and both are completely unnecessary.
Even if the risk of complication was zero, the tradeoffs wouldn't be even close to worth it. Circumcision should be considered a human rights violation.
I would agree with @DeadlyFoez and @invaderyoyo that they are equivalent in the sense that they are performed upon people too young to consent, both for the purposes of exhibiting control of sexuality.
The fact that one is more destructive than the other shouldn't diminish the fact that the other is also unwarranted and the goal should be to eliminate both.
The fact that one is more destructive than the other shouldn't diminish the fact that the other is also unwarranted and the goal should be to eliminate both.
The intentions were the same. Religious groups did to try to reduce male pleasure. They didn't have the medical technology to check the severity differences, and how to reduce pleasure the best way they can, they mostly did it on intent.
It just turned out that male circumcision may not be as bad and severe as FGM (though FGM severity can vary). It could have been the other way around and Male Circumcision was worse then FGM. Without technology to check back then, for both men and women the intent was to reduce pleasure and they did it the best way they knew. And intent is the thing that matters most.
Last edited by SG854,
Wow, I am so happy to see this thread here!
I never "liked" the fact that I was circumcised, but I believed all the other bullshit most Americans do about it. When I first found out I was circumcised, my mother told me it was healthier, looked better, and that it was a commandment from God (this was when I was a little kid, back then I was a very religious Christian). While I didn't like the fact that I was circumcised, I figured I really didn't want to go to hell, and so I was ok with it, blinded by lies. I can now say that I am ashamed that I ever thought this was an acceptable procedure to perform on a baby boy!
A little over four years ago, a situation came up that prompted me to re-think circumcision. When I have a son in the future, would I have him circumcised? I always felt kinda violated that part of my body, part of my penis no less, was cut off without my consent, but once again perhaps there are benefits? So I figured I owed it to my future son(s) to do a little research on the topic, and I'm very glad I did. As the video in OP's post explains, the "health benefits" of circumcision are at best over-exaggerated, and that's not how medicine is supposed to be practiced anyway. We don't cut perfectly healthy body tissue off just to avoid a future risk of infection. Obviously we do sometimes cut out certain things, tonsils, appendixes, etc. but only after they've been shown to be problematic. There's nothing inherently wrong about having a foreskin! As far as the religious argument goes, in the New Testament it's said that Christians should not be circumcised. As Eric Clopper states in his video, circumcision was a blood sacrifice for the Jews. Christians believe that Jesus died to save us from our sins, for Christians continuing to circumcise our newborn would be rejecting Christ's salvation. It's a common misconception among American Christians that we're supposed to be circumcised.
But more importantly, fuck the religious argument altogether. Here in America anyway, we're supposed to have "Freedom of Religion." By permanently cutting off part of my dick "in the name of god", my parents robbed me of my own freedom of religion. As far as I'm concerned, Human Rights should always triumph over religious ones. If you want to get yourself circumcised feel free, but no child should have their body permanently altered against their will. Religions that require circumcision or any other body modifications, especially for children, are barbaric.
And then I learned all of the benefits that a foreskin provides, and I became FURIOUS that I was robbed of it! Now, initially, I didn't really blame my parents. I was born in the late 80s, well before most people had internet in their homes. For that matter, a lot of people in my town didn't even own a computer back then. Now most people have some sort of smartphone, and most questions can be answered with a simple Google search. I couldn't blame my parents when they didn't have access to that sort of technology back then, and instead I blamed the doctors for failing to truthfully tell all the pros and cons of circumcision. So I never confronted them about it.
But I did want to help bring this atrocity to an end, so I became an intactivist. I tried to spread the word about the harms of circumcision. I shared intactivist memes on Facebook, I started "carding", leaving cards around that described the harms and had links with more information. I even got to protest with Brother K and the Bloodstained Men in Washington DC once. I'm not as active now as I once was though.
I'm not friends with my mom on Facebook, but I am friends with a bunch of people from my church, and word travels fast in a small town. When my Mom found out about everything I was posting, she was LIVID. She called me on the phone, cursed me out, told me that was her and my father's decision and that she would still make the same decision today. We went for a couple years with every phone call ending in cursing, yelling, and arguments. Now I've disowned my parents, we don't talk anymore. This pretty much caused a ripple effect, and I no longer have any real contact in my side of the family.
TL;DR: Intactivist here that agrees with everything in the video OP posted. Disowned parents after numerous large arguments regarding circumcision.
I'm happy to see this thread here because even though GBATemp has absolutely nothing to do with circumcision, it shows that the word is spreading. And I can see from various other posts that I am far from the only person at GBATemp that believes circumcision is a human rights violation.
Feel free to message me with any questions, either via PM or here in this thread.
I never "liked" the fact that I was circumcised, but I believed all the other bullshit most Americans do about it. When I first found out I was circumcised, my mother told me it was healthier, looked better, and that it was a commandment from God (this was when I was a little kid, back then I was a very religious Christian). While I didn't like the fact that I was circumcised, I figured I really didn't want to go to hell, and so I was ok with it, blinded by lies. I can now say that I am ashamed that I ever thought this was an acceptable procedure to perform on a baby boy!
A little over four years ago, a situation came up that prompted me to re-think circumcision. When I have a son in the future, would I have him circumcised? I always felt kinda violated that part of my body, part of my penis no less, was cut off without my consent, but once again perhaps there are benefits? So I figured I owed it to my future son(s) to do a little research on the topic, and I'm very glad I did. As the video in OP's post explains, the "health benefits" of circumcision are at best over-exaggerated, and that's not how medicine is supposed to be practiced anyway. We don't cut perfectly healthy body tissue off just to avoid a future risk of infection. Obviously we do sometimes cut out certain things, tonsils, appendixes, etc. but only after they've been shown to be problematic. There's nothing inherently wrong about having a foreskin! As far as the religious argument goes, in the New Testament it's said that Christians should not be circumcised. As Eric Clopper states in his video, circumcision was a blood sacrifice for the Jews. Christians believe that Jesus died to save us from our sins, for Christians continuing to circumcise our newborn would be rejecting Christ's salvation. It's a common misconception among American Christians that we're supposed to be circumcised.
But more importantly, fuck the religious argument altogether. Here in America anyway, we're supposed to have "Freedom of Religion." By permanently cutting off part of my dick "in the name of god", my parents robbed me of my own freedom of religion. As far as I'm concerned, Human Rights should always triumph over religious ones. If you want to get yourself circumcised feel free, but no child should have their body permanently altered against their will. Religions that require circumcision or any other body modifications, especially for children, are barbaric.
And then I learned all of the benefits that a foreskin provides, and I became FURIOUS that I was robbed of it! Now, initially, I didn't really blame my parents. I was born in the late 80s, well before most people had internet in their homes. For that matter, a lot of people in my town didn't even own a computer back then. Now most people have some sort of smartphone, and most questions can be answered with a simple Google search. I couldn't blame my parents when they didn't have access to that sort of technology back then, and instead I blamed the doctors for failing to truthfully tell all the pros and cons of circumcision. So I never confronted them about it.
But I did want to help bring this atrocity to an end, so I became an intactivist. I tried to spread the word about the harms of circumcision. I shared intactivist memes on Facebook, I started "carding", leaving cards around that described the harms and had links with more information. I even got to protest with Brother K and the Bloodstained Men in Washington DC once. I'm not as active now as I once was though.
I'm not friends with my mom on Facebook, but I am friends with a bunch of people from my church, and word travels fast in a small town. When my Mom found out about everything I was posting, she was LIVID. She called me on the phone, cursed me out, told me that was her and my father's decision and that she would still make the same decision today. We went for a couple years with every phone call ending in cursing, yelling, and arguments. Now I've disowned my parents, we don't talk anymore. This pretty much caused a ripple effect, and I no longer have any real contact in my side of the family.
TL;DR: Intactivist here that agrees with everything in the video OP posted. Disowned parents after numerous large arguments regarding circumcision.
I'm happy to see this thread here because even though GBATemp has absolutely nothing to do with circumcision, it shows that the word is spreading. And I can see from various other posts that I am far from the only person at GBATemp that believes circumcision is a human rights violation.
Feel free to message me with any questions, either via PM or here in this thread.
Good post. Though, I'm really sad to hear that this has caused you so much pain and has created a rift between you and your parents, it's not fair at all for you or them that this situation has been foisted upon you by years of misinformation. I hope that you're able to repair that relationship in the future.
It's unfortunate. I was willing to forgive them at first, but my mother refuses to listen to reason and is adamant that she did nothing wrong. Not only that, but she actually went as far as to belittle me for my feelings, saying crap like "Do you want me to go back to the doctor? Maybe they still have a piece of it left that they can glue on." Couple this with her refusal to acknowledge my stepson as her grandson, disagreements between her and my wife... yeah, it just got to the point that it was more hurtful to try and maintain a relationship with my mother than it was worth.
She actually started an argument with a huge number of intactivists on Facebook after I went and protested in D.C. Here's a link if anyone is interested:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=454635101360316&set=a.105162889640874.9577.100004414898074
Because I’ll trust the guy on YouTube over medical journalsSorry, but these sources are exactly the things rebuted in the original video.
To be fair, @invaderyoyo wasn't ENTIRELY correct in that there are "no pros but a bunch of cons". Hygiene and medical prevention are certainly pros...if they're correct. The problem is that the studies you're linking to are, unfortunately, more a smoke screen than actual studies.
Your first source claims "The risk of heterosexual HIV infection is 2 to 8 times higher for uncircumcised men than for men who have been circumcised." Wow. That's huge, right? I mean...If that were true, HIV infection should be significantly less in countries where a large part of the population is circumcised (meaning: Israel and USA). However...that isn't happening. Here, look at this:
Why isn't the rate different for the USA than in its neighboring countries? Why is it higher than in Europe?
I might be wrong, but the studies talked about in source #2 are probably the one downright DESTROYED in the opening video for having gross and even absurd deontological errors (they compared the HIV level of circumcised men with non-circumcised men...but forgot to mention that the former group was educated on proper use of condoms. So yeah...with those kinds of standards, it's not hard to "prove" that circumcision reduces the chance for HIV).
Your third source is a bit out of place: it doesn't really advice anything ("the benefits are not great enough to recommend universal newborn circumcision"). The dates are also interesting: the first one is from 1999, the second one from 2014, the third one from 2016. If there's any trend in them, I'd say that the medical world is slowly backpedaling from their original stance.
The video feels like that assembly in high school where they tell you sex is bad.
It's better to say "I'm glad my penis is 100 percent." or "My penis is intact."
or "My penis is not mutilated."
You didn't watch the video.
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your stance is understandable given the fact that it's hard to come to terms with the fact that you were sexually assaulted in the worst way as a baby. So it's way easier to dismiss it so you can just go on with your life not thinking about it.Because I’ll trust the guy on YouTube over medical journals
The video feels like that assembly in high school where they tell you sex is bad.
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