17 ms·

A botched circumcision and its aftermath

83 points by mhb 5y ago

AndrewThrowaway 5y ago
Another mindblowing fact about USA - some tribal genital mutilation is a norm. You wouldn't believe this would be happening in a first world country at all and here you have it.
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  I believe the rate has been dropping steadily, though. I sure as hell didn't do it to my son. Not my right to make that decision for him.
  - lindseymysse 5y ago
    Thank you. Even the Evangelical Christian's guy Paul said it wasn't necessary. It is about a deeply abusive culture rejecting the child's autonomy. It's roots was Egyptian Slave culture, and while I am marked as one of pharaoh's servants (or YHWH or Jesus's) I reject that position in the world. Thank you for your stand against this wicked violation of a child's autonomy.
    - dang 5y ago
      Please don't take HN threads further into religious flamewar. It's a particularly hellish direction for internet discussion to go, and also particularly avoidable, and we're certainly trying to avoid it here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - lindseymysse 5y ago
        I think I should be allowed to talk about the pain this culture caused me.
        dang 5y ago
        That's fine, as long as you do it within the site guidelines, which means eschewing flamebait, having curious conversation, and everything else described at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Some topics are not easy to talk about in the key of curiosity, but it's still doable, if you set that intention.
      - rootusrootus 5y ago
        I appreciate that you described a religious flamewar as hellish.
    - FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
      There's a scene in Game of Thrones where the slavemaster makes a circular cut to rip off a slave's nipple. I hope people were smart enough to understand what this was a sanitized version of. Making a person a "slave to Jesus" is a total perversion though. The New Testament is very clear about that sort of thing. On this, you can challenge Evangelicals in their own language on their own ground.
  - thefounder 5y ago
    You are brave and you are not alone in this world...HN is such a good breath of fresh air. It's hard for me to understand why people don't challenge the "norm" more often when they see it obviously flawed.
  - mhb 5y ago
    the proportion of infant boys circumcised in the United States between 1979 and 2010 dropped from sixty-five per cent to fifty-eight, according to the C.D.C.
    - anewthrowaway 5y ago
      And there's HUGE regional variation, the practice being very rare in the southwest and very common in the northeast. I can say from personal experience, I'm in the midwest and in my entire dating career, I've only encountered two women with prior knowledge of natural men, and both of them had spent time in Europe. So if the rate is indeed dropping here, it's happening in a younger segment of the population. (Good for them!)
    - rootusrootus 5y ago
      I don't have a ready source, but I thought somewhere there were numbers for 2010-2020 and it was a more significant change. Like there has been a significant change in attitudes over the last 10 years.
  - invalidname 5y ago
    I'm in Israel and didn't do it to my son. I was a bit nervous about that because well... Israel. He'll be ostracized for it... Then I talked with his kindergarten teacher and "warned" her about his penis so she'll be "ready". She looked at me dead in the eye and said: "This is Tel Aviv, half the boys here aren't circumcised". Lol. I guess I'm not too special.
- rob_c 5y ago
  I keep thinking this might keep stoking the fire of some of the antisemitism in America. I think it was Norway planned to outlaw all mutilations of minors and ended up with all middle eastern religions crying foul in unison which was scary. (All they seemed to disagree on was which child to harm) needles to say the law that was eventually passed was so watered down as to be (again imo) ineffective... The view that this practice is the norm and that it's somehow so untouchable is imo scary.
  - anewthrowaway 5y ago
    However, the precedent that FGM is outlawed _despite_ religious protest, means that MGM might eventually fall too. This means that anyone wishing to preserve MGM is trying to find support for it on other grounds. Hence the litany of "health studies" supporting the practice, so it's not just a religious issue, it's a health issue! Muddy the waters with just enough doubt to keep the debate alive instead of letting it be an obviously-settled issue like FGM. The result is that, if you look at all the papers published on the topic, and sort them into two piles depending on who funded the research, and then look again and sort them into two piles depending on their conclusion, you'll find that you've performed the same sort twice.
    - Freak_NL 5y ago
      The health arguments simply don't fly here in Europe though. There was a practitioner of circumcision in the Netherlands who went to court this year to argue that their income was tax deductible because it served a therapeutic purpose. The judge did not agree and wiped away the argument that it prevented future complications as well. It's still legal, but it's not health care (except presumably in rare special cases like phimosis where it may be warranted if other solutions are not effective). It's only by making this a matter of religious autonomy that MGM isn't banned outright yet, because politicians are always really careful around matters that might anger religious groups. Especially right-leaning politicians or those who belong to a Christianity-based political party.
- lindseymysse 5y ago
  My circumcision was just the first violation of my body the Evangelical church put me through as a child -- finally culminating in my chemical balding at Billings West High School in 1998-99 after coming forward about my childhood sexual abuse in the Lutheran Church. If you read anything about modern evangelical thought the single worst thing a child could demand is their autonomy, and well, anyway, every time I look in the mirror right-wing America gets to kick me in the face again. Wicked culture, all of it.
  - FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
    They're not even Christian, really, if they're still doing this horrible Abraham-and-Isaac stuff. Jesus was the blood sacrifice to end all blood sacrifice. Paul makes this abundantly clear.
- em500 5y ago
  The WHO prevalence map of circumcision[1] is quite interesting. It's uncommon in most Europe, Middle- and South America, and Asia (except in muslim-majority countries like Pakistan, Indonesia, and South Korea where it was apparently introduced by the Americans after WW2). [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevalence_of_circumcision https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevalence_of_circumcision
- Freak_NL 5y ago
  It's something that kind of flies under the radar, excepting some rare mention (e.g., in Sex and the City). People all over the world consume American media and glean all sorts of facts about American culture from it, but the prevalent (though declining) practice of male genital mutilation is something people outside of the US aren't generally aware of. Most people think it is something only done by some following orthodox religions. Amusingly, the signs are there in US media. Almost every masturbation joke comes with a mention (either referred to or more often simply shown) of that ubiquitous hand lotion. Hand lotion? Who needs hand lotion to masturbate? Well, men endowed with a penis (and other bearers of penii) don't normally, but apparently many do when they've been circumcised. It's often an eye opener here in the Netherlands when you explain that the cornflakes guy inspired generations to mutilate their sons.
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tomrod 5y ago
Such a painful experience. He detailed some of it last week on "All Things Considered."
carrolldunham 5y ago
Female genital mutilation: the horror! what primitive tribal culture bound nonsense. Male genital mutilation: oh nono, it's for uh, health. no totally. - American people
- shikoba 5y ago
  Circumcision and excision are not the same thing. Excision is like removing the head of the penis, not just skin.
  - wizee 5y ago
    Many forms of FGM are just cutting off the clitoral hood, equivalent to a male circumcision.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
    There are forms of FGM that consist of removal of the clitoral hood. Those are pretty much exactly the same thing. Yes, clitoridectomy would correspond to removal of the glans. In practice, most FGM in the West happens under Islam and is symbolic: A small cut to draw blood, but no amputation. Still unacceptable, but actually less damaging than MGM. Finally, do not be fooled by "just skin". First of all, it's a lot of skin. There are videos on the internet of African tribes performing circumcisions of adolescents. Watch one. Second, it's full of nerve endings. The skin is a sense organ. You are removing as much as possible of that which makes sex feel good. To emphasize, this is not like the relatively insensitive skin of the shaft. That's the whole point. If you're a man, if you pay attention you can get a hint of what you're missing. What's left of the inner foreskin after a circumcision is called a "corona" (as though it's a natural body part). Touch that. You will find that it is one of the most sensitive parts of your penis, arguably even more so than the glans. And if you are a (straight) woman, then I have just given you some important information about how you can still give your partner some (limited) sexual pleasure.
    - 5y ago
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JohnGB 5y ago
I'll just cut this functional part off a baby because I don't like the look of it. Now if we were talking about earlobes, suddenly we would be barbarians, but part of the penis is just fine. More genital mutilation of babies happens in America than any other country on earth. Think about that for a moment.
- thefounder 5y ago
  You don't get it...Abraham did it so it must be good. It's right there in the book. In a real life Utopia we would live in tribes like that old guy...eat what he eat and do the things he did...
- lindseymysse 5y ago
  It comes from Egypt: https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-ancient-traditions/history-circumcision-0010398 https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-ancient-traditions/h... It is about marking you as subservient. If you read anything about Evangelical Christian culture the single worst sin you can ever commit is demanding your autonomy. This grievous violation of our bodies is used to induce us into servitude. I reject the marks this wicked culture has given me.
  - anewthrowaway 5y ago
    Bingo -- the whole thing about being "cleaner for living in the desert" or something is hooey -- every desert mammal has a foreskin; if it were a disadvantage evolution would've adapted that along with all the other adaptations that desert mammals have. That entire line is garbage and meant to support the subservience, exactly as you've said. A mother's strongest instinct is to protect her children, so the tribe taking a child and cutting his body marks him as belonging to the tribe rather than to the family. It proves, in plain view, that the familial bond is secondary, and individual autonomy serves at the pleasure of the group, not the other way around.
    - lindseymysse 5y ago
      I know this quite well -- the last thing the Evangelical Church ever did to me was chemically bald me at Billings West High School in 1998-99. I have horns, they mark me as outside their wicked culture. I'm proud to be outside of it.
thefounder 5y ago
People putting their genitals's faith in the "hands" of Abraham. You wouldn't believe it's possible in the Information Age...but as we've seen with COVID the humanity is still hopeless in getting facts over fiction
- dang 5y ago
  We ban accounts that take HN threads into religious flamewar, regardless of how right they are or feel they are. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
rob_c 5y ago
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/moral-landscapes/201501/circumcision-s-psychological-damage https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/moral-landscapes/201... Just to add...
girvo 5y ago
As an adult, I had to have a frenulectomy performed, as it would tear and bleed during sex semi-commonly. The most annoying thing was both the doctor I saw for the referral, and the clinic itself tried to insist I get a circumcision instead. I still don’t know why. It healed perfectly and aside from having to adjust some habits (the foreskin no longer rolls up on its own), it’s identical in function to before with no loss of feeling. I felt weird at the surgery, surrounded by parents taking their babies and toddlers to be circumcised. Weird day.
- forgotmypw17 5y ago
  It was also strongly suggested to me by a doctor inappropriately. After a small cut on the glans had healed up, it would still sometimes get irritated. This doctor, a woman and a GP, told me I HAD to get circumcized! I did not return to see that doctor again... IIRC it fixed itself with a little bit of help from an antibacterial ointment.
- billpg 5y ago
  You were an adult, making a choice for your own body.
  - girvo 5y ago
    Indeed I was, which is why I found the surgery full of babies and children decidedly sad. I don’t think I implied otherwise? Even then, it was still confusing why I was being pushed toward circumcision when a frenulectomy is a far less invasive, easily tolerated procedure with decades of practice, but is apparently not that common as a solution for similar medical problems as mine.
    - billpg 5y ago
      Indeed. The original article was about the circumcision of a child, so I wanted to underline the particular point that yours was as an adult.
      - 5y ago
ur-whale 5y ago
https://youtu.be/Xx_ov2NiNo4?t=208 https://youtu.be/Xx_ov2NiNo4?t=208
kenneth 5y ago
Circumcision still being a thing blows my mind. I'm lucky that my parents never had me mutilated before I could consent. What really shocks me is the amount of justification that circumcised men give for the practice. Instead of accepting that a terrible thing was done to them, they convince themselves it's a good thing, and further the practice by in turn mutilating their children. This just perpetuates the problem ad infinitum. That said, I'm not that surprised that men feel that way, considering that having been with many women, an absurdly large percentage of them were shocked to be with an uncircumcised man, and some even said they thought it was less hygienic. The entire society is conditioned to think this way, perpetuating the practice. It's entirely absurd. The facts are clear cut: circumcision has zero benefits (health, hygiene, or otherwise), it can be dangerous, and it is proven to lessen sexual feeling. It's an absurd practice that is damaging and serves no purpose, beyond religious practices aimed at decreasing sexual enjoyment (with the mistaken idea that it'll make sins like adultery less likely…).
- xrisk 5y ago
  Pretty sure that circumcision reduces chances of HPV significantly.
  - tarboreus 5y ago
    If you removed the whole thing you'd have even less chance of getting HPV.
  - spacemanmatt 5y ago
    Pretty sure that bathing has the same effect.
  - snshn 5y ago
    Pretty sure there are better ways to not catch the disease than making man a cripple.
    - 0xdeadb00f 5y ago
      Speak for yourself. I'm not "crippled". Circumcision has never affected me negatively in my entire life (was circumcised as a new born). How about don't throw names around like that?
billpg 5y ago
What exactly would constitute a non-botched circumcision of an infant?
deworms 5y ago
I can't believe the levels of antisemitism that are casually accepted - and even cheered for - on HN under articles like these.
- hawk_ 5y ago
  i think the word you're looking for is antidogmaism.
- Zababa 5y ago
  Where exactly do you see any form of antisemitism?
evanpw 5y ago
Another insane fact: in the US, circumcisions are usually done by obstetricians. Doctors who are trained on and work on exclusively women, except for a single surgical procedure on newborn male babies.
- fennecfoxen 5y ago
  Is there some general familiarity which they would gain from a more general practice which would be relevant to or affect the execution of this specialized procedure?
- jes 5y ago
  It is also the case that public health boards are given such latitude that doctors who force these damaging and unnecessary surgeries on infants cannot be sued for medical battery. It is an insane practice.
albalus 5y ago
I grew up in a country that rhymes with toroko. When it was done to me i was 7 and it was in my grandmother's living room surrounded by family and it was performed by the neighborhood Barber(it was the 90's)...he cauterized it with electricity. It destroyed my sense of family, i no longer felt loved by those around me. 25 years later I had my own son and was offered neonatal circumcision for him, my wife was for it, my inlaws who are american were pushing hard and of course my parents too. I had a near nervous breakdown over it, but i stood my ground. We need to Break this culty traumatic cycle.
- detritus 5y ago
  > I grew up in a country that rhymes with toroko. I'm very curious why you chose to take this tack. Are you in not-Toroko now and are concerned about being tracked?
  - albalus 5y ago
    My username is tied pretty closely my IRL identity and yes i am not in Toroko, speaking out against systemic beliefs in plain text especially your own can lead to consequences. Also scrappers can't allegory.
    - detritus 5y ago
      Crikey, it's easy for me to forget how easy I have it sometimes. Thank you for responding!
jes 5y ago
Dr. Brian Earp is excellent resource on this topic. I had the pleasure of talking with him at a conference on genital autonomy in SF a few years back. What I most admire about Brian’s work is his relentless scholarship and his calm and kind demeanor in discussing this sad topic. This talk [1] of his is a good example. [1] https://circumcisionandhiv.com/2021/09/16/brian-earp-circumcision-a-sexual-harm/ https://circumcisionandhiv.com/2021/09/16/brian-earp-circumc...
lbayes 5y ago
I tried to reply to a comment alleging antisemitism, but the original was flagged and disappeared. I'd like to reassure folks who might feel that criticizing circumcision is a form of antisemitism. I recognize that antisemitism is real and terrible and more common than it should be. That said, my genitals were brutally mutilated when I was an infant and I find it shocking that any person would do this to a baby. My family is not Jewish and I truly love the Jewish people I know. Some in my family are born again Christians. I dislike some of their beliefs, yet still love them very much. Is it so impossible to despise an archaic and despicable practice while still loving the people who engage in it?
- jes 5y ago
  Male genital mutilation survives in America through laundry-list persuasion. If you look at the history of the practice in America you will find that medical claims of benefit last about ten years before being debunked. The cultural claims seem to last longer. You also have young girls growing up in a culture where an intact penis is asserted to be weird, while a mutilated penis is seen as normal. Circumcised men are often defensive when they learn what was done to them as infants. Mothers are also tricked into having this done to their children. Imagine trying to break the news to a mother (or father) that when they did what they thought was best for their son they were actually complicit in harming him.
detritus 5y ago
Circumcision is kind of ingenious - physically mutilate the essence of a man's fundamental sexual identity before they have a say in things and BOOMPH! tribal lock-in for the rest of their life, and that of their progeny and ever thereafter. Savage.
ralusek 5y ago
Just to reiterate: people have a problem with making a permanent major modification to a functional part of an unconsenting baby's body. That means that your arguments regarding whether you think your circumcision is cool irrelevant, or whether you think it's hygienic, or whether you think people prefer how it looks. Nobody has a problem with individuals choosing to get circumcised.
- umvi 5y ago
  Babies by definition can't consent. They can't consent what language they are taught, what religion they are taught (or not), what food they are given to eat, what air they breathe (whether it has tobacco or cannabis smoke in it or not). Parents consent for the baby. And parents do circumcisions and ear piercings at birth so that the kid won't experience any pain having the same procedure when older. Sure, in a perfect world, parents wouldn't circumcise their boys or pierce the ears of their girls as infants and let them choose for themselves. But those are pretty minor compared to all the other major ways parents can really mess up a kid.
sebow 5y ago
Stop fucking apologizing for speaking against this barbaric practice, that's why their method of shame & blame against "antisemitism" works and still shields this stupidity that is called circumcision.Because they will just defend it under the pretense that the opposition is just "antisemite nazis".And it has nothing to do with it, just like the first organized religion to speak against and ban circumcision was the catholic church ( under the vast influence of roman & greek culture, which led to the reformation). Does it mean that the church was anti-semite ? Obviously no. The american myths _fabricated_ around the benefits of circumcision are almost entirely made-up and proven wrong, you can do your own research and get to whatever conclusion you want. With the rare exceptions of US & SK(arguably christianity is still not popular there but still on the rise), the vast majority of "christian countries" do not practice circumcision, so it's mainly an "american thing". Practices like circumcision, or premature cutting of the umbilical cord should be straight out banned.Same goes for female genitalia mutilation, but that's more common in Africa/ME.
giords 5y ago
In Europe (luckily and rightfully) it's illegal and considered torture to cut the ears of a beagle or perform infibulation on a little girl. But for some reason it's totally fine to perform circumcision on a baby. Something's wrong here and we should ban also this practice. It's torture.
cannabis_sam 5y ago
This really should be as simple as «don’t fucking cut your children’s genitals». If it has religious significance to you, that’s fine, just let the child decide when they are old enough to consent. If your religion stipulates infant circumcision, then your religion denies the religious freedom of others (in this case the child), and thus religious freedom is an inherently moot argument, and not a justification.

83 points by mhb 5y ago

Another mindblowing fact about USA - some tribal genital mutilation is a norm. You wouldn't believe this would be happening in a first world country at all and here you have it.

rootusrootus 5y ago
I believe the rate has been dropping steadily, though. I sure as hell didn't do it to my son. Not my right to make that decision for him.
- lindseymysse 5y ago
  Thank you. Even the Evangelical Christian's guy Paul said it wasn't necessary. It is about a deeply abusive culture rejecting the child's autonomy. It's roots was Egyptian Slave culture, and while I am marked as one of pharaoh's servants (or YHWH or Jesus's) I reject that position in the world. Thank you for your stand against this wicked violation of a child's autonomy.
  - dang 5y ago
    Please don't take HN threads further into religious flamewar. It's a particularly hellish direction for internet discussion to go, and also particularly avoidable, and we're certainly trying to avoid it here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - lindseymysse 5y ago
      I think I should be allowed to talk about the pain this culture caused me.
      - dang 5y ago
        That's fine, as long as you do it within the site guidelines, which means eschewing flamebait, having curious conversation, and everything else described at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Some topics are not easy to talk about in the key of curiosity, but it's still doable, if you set that intention.
    - rootusrootus 5y ago
      I appreciate that you described a religious flamewar as hellish.
  - FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
    There's a scene in Game of Thrones where the slavemaster makes a circular cut to rip off a slave's nipple. I hope people were smart enough to understand what this was a sanitized version of. Making a person a "slave to Jesus" is a total perversion though. The New Testament is very clear about that sort of thing. On this, you can challenge Evangelicals in their own language on their own ground.
- thefounder 5y ago
  You are brave and you are not alone in this world...HN is such a good breath of fresh air. It's hard for me to understand why people don't challenge the "norm" more often when they see it obviously flawed.
- mhb 5y ago
  the proportion of infant boys circumcised in the United States between 1979 and 2010 dropped from sixty-five per cent to fifty-eight, according to the C.D.C.
  - anewthrowaway 5y ago
    And there's HUGE regional variation, the practice being very rare in the southwest and very common in the northeast. I can say from personal experience, I'm in the midwest and in my entire dating career, I've only encountered two women with prior knowledge of natural men, and both of them had spent time in Europe. So if the rate is indeed dropping here, it's happening in a younger segment of the population. (Good for them!)
  - rootusrootus 5y ago
    I don't have a ready source, but I thought somewhere there were numbers for 2010-2020 and it was a more significant change. Like there has been a significant change in attitudes over the last 10 years.
- invalidname 5y ago
  I'm in Israel and didn't do it to my son. I was a bit nervous about that because well... Israel. He'll be ostracized for it... Then I talked with his kindergarten teacher and "warned" her about his penis so she'll be "ready". She looked at me dead in the eye and said: "This is Tel Aviv, half the boys here aren't circumcised". Lol. I guess I'm not too special.
rob_c 5y ago
I keep thinking this might keep stoking the fire of some of the antisemitism in America. I think it was Norway planned to outlaw all mutilations of minors and ended up with all middle eastern religions crying foul in unison which was scary. (All they seemed to disagree on was which child to harm) needles to say the law that was eventually passed was so watered down as to be (again imo) ineffective... The view that this practice is the norm and that it's somehow so untouchable is imo scary.
- anewthrowaway 5y ago
  However, the precedent that FGM is outlawed _despite_ religious protest, means that MGM might eventually fall too. This means that anyone wishing to preserve MGM is trying to find support for it on other grounds. Hence the litany of "health studies" supporting the practice, so it's not just a religious issue, it's a health issue! Muddy the waters with just enough doubt to keep the debate alive instead of letting it be an obviously-settled issue like FGM. The result is that, if you look at all the papers published on the topic, and sort them into two piles depending on who funded the research, and then look again and sort them into two piles depending on their conclusion, you'll find that you've performed the same sort twice.
  - Freak_NL 5y ago
    The health arguments simply don't fly here in Europe though. There was a practitioner of circumcision in the Netherlands who went to court this year to argue that their income was tax deductible because it served a therapeutic purpose. The judge did not agree and wiped away the argument that it prevented future complications as well. It's still legal, but it's not health care (except presumably in rare special cases like phimosis where it may be warranted if other solutions are not effective). It's only by making this a matter of religious autonomy that MGM isn't banned outright yet, because politicians are always really careful around matters that might anger religious groups. Especially right-leaning politicians or those who belong to a Christianity-based political party.
lindseymysse 5y ago
My circumcision was just the first violation of my body the Evangelical church put me through as a child -- finally culminating in my chemical balding at Billings West High School in 1998-99 after coming forward about my childhood sexual abuse in the Lutheran Church. If you read anything about modern evangelical thought the single worst thing a child could demand is their autonomy, and well, anyway, every time I look in the mirror right-wing America gets to kick me in the face again. Wicked culture, all of it.
- FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
  They're not even Christian, really, if they're still doing this horrible Abraham-and-Isaac stuff. Jesus was the blood sacrifice to end all blood sacrifice. Paul makes this abundantly clear.
em500 5y ago
The WHO prevalence map of circumcision[1] is quite interesting. It's uncommon in most Europe, Middle- and South America, and Asia (except in muslim-majority countries like Pakistan, Indonesia, and South Korea where it was apparently introduced by the Americans after WW2). [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevalence_of_circumcision https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevalence_of_circumcision
Freak_NL 5y ago
It's something that kind of flies under the radar, excepting some rare mention (e.g., in Sex and the City). People all over the world consume American media and glean all sorts of facts about American culture from it, but the prevalent (though declining) practice of male genital mutilation is something people outside of the US aren't generally aware of. Most people think it is something only done by some following orthodox religions. Amusingly, the signs are there in US media. Almost every masturbation joke comes with a mention (either referred to or more often simply shown) of that ubiquitous hand lotion. Hand lotion? Who needs hand lotion to masturbate? Well, men endowed with a penis (and other bearers of penii) don't normally, but apparently many do when they've been circumcised. It's often an eye opener here in the Netherlands when you explain that the cornflakes guy inspired generations to mutilate their sons.

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tomrod 5y ago

Such a painful experience. He detailed some of it last week on "All Things Considered."

carrolldunham 5y ago

Female genital mutilation: the horror! what primitive tribal culture bound nonsense. Male genital mutilation: oh nono, it's for uh, health. no totally. - American people

shikoba 5y ago
Circumcision and excision are not the same thing. Excision is like removing the head of the penis, not just skin.
- wizee 5y ago
  Many forms of FGM are just cutting off the clitoral hood, equivalent to a male circumcision.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
  There are forms of FGM that consist of removal of the clitoral hood. Those are pretty much exactly the same thing. Yes, clitoridectomy would correspond to removal of the glans. In practice, most FGM in the West happens under Islam and is symbolic: A small cut to draw blood, but no amputation. Still unacceptable, but actually less damaging than MGM. Finally, do not be fooled by "just skin". First of all, it's a lot of skin. There are videos on the internet of African tribes performing circumcisions of adolescents. Watch one. Second, it's full of nerve endings. The skin is a sense organ. You are removing as much as possible of that which makes sex feel good. To emphasize, this is not like the relatively insensitive skin of the shaft. That's the whole point. If you're a man, if you pay attention you can get a hint of what you're missing. What's left of the inner foreskin after a circumcision is called a "corona" (as though it's a natural body part). Touch that. You will find that it is one of the most sensitive parts of your penis, arguably even more so than the glans. And if you are a (straight) woman, then I have just given you some important information about how you can still give your partner some (limited) sexual pleasure.
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JohnGB 5y ago

I'll just cut this functional part off a baby because I don't like the look of it. Now if we were talking about earlobes, suddenly we would be barbarians, but part of the penis is just fine. More genital mutilation of babies happens in America than any other country on earth. Think about that for a moment.

thefounder 5y ago
You don't get it...Abraham did it so it must be good. It's right there in the book. In a real life Utopia we would live in tribes like that old guy...eat what he eat and do the things he did...
lindseymysse 5y ago
It comes from Egypt: https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-ancient-traditions/history-circumcision-0010398 https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-ancient-traditions/h... It is about marking you as subservient. If you read anything about Evangelical Christian culture the single worst sin you can ever commit is demanding your autonomy. This grievous violation of our bodies is used to induce us into servitude. I reject the marks this wicked culture has given me.
- anewthrowaway 5y ago
  Bingo -- the whole thing about being "cleaner for living in the desert" or something is hooey -- every desert mammal has a foreskin; if it were a disadvantage evolution would've adapted that along with all the other adaptations that desert mammals have. That entire line is garbage and meant to support the subservience, exactly as you've said. A mother's strongest instinct is to protect her children, so the tribe taking a child and cutting his body marks him as belonging to the tribe rather than to the family. It proves, in plain view, that the familial bond is secondary, and individual autonomy serves at the pleasure of the group, not the other way around.
  - lindseymysse 5y ago
    I know this quite well -- the last thing the Evangelical Church ever did to me was chemically bald me at Billings West High School in 1998-99. I have horns, they mark me as outside their wicked culture. I'm proud to be outside of it.

thefounder 5y ago

People putting their genitals's faith in the "hands" of Abraham. You wouldn't believe it's possible in the Information Age...but as we've seen with COVID the humanity is still hopeless in getting facts over fiction

dang 5y ago
We ban accounts that take HN threads into religious flamewar, regardless of how right they are or feel they are. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

rob_c 5y ago

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/moral-landscapes/201501/circumcision-s-psychological-damage https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/moral-landscapes/201... Just to add...

girvo 5y ago

As an adult, I had to have a frenulectomy performed, as it would tear and bleed during sex semi-commonly. The most annoying thing was both the doctor I saw for the referral, and the clinic itself tried to insist I get a circumcision instead. I still don’t know why. It healed perfectly and aside from having to adjust some habits (the foreskin no longer rolls up on its own), it’s identical in function to before with no loss of feeling. I felt weird at the surgery, surrounded by parents taking their babies and toddlers to be circumcised. Weird day.

forgotmypw17 5y ago
It was also strongly suggested to me by a doctor inappropriately. After a small cut on the glans had healed up, it would still sometimes get irritated. This doctor, a woman and a GP, told me I HAD to get circumcized! I did not return to see that doctor again... IIRC it fixed itself with a little bit of help from an antibacterial ointment.
billpg 5y ago
You were an adult, making a choice for your own body.
- girvo 5y ago
  Indeed I was, which is why I found the surgery full of babies and children decidedly sad. I don’t think I implied otherwise? Even then, it was still confusing why I was being pushed toward circumcision when a frenulectomy is a far less invasive, easily tolerated procedure with decades of practice, but is apparently not that common as a solution for similar medical problems as mine.
  - billpg 5y ago
    Indeed. The original article was about the circumcision of a child, so I wanted to underline the particular point that yours was as an adult.
    - 5y ago

ur-whale 5y ago

https://youtu.be/Xx_ov2NiNo4?t=208 https://youtu.be/Xx_ov2NiNo4?t=208

kenneth 5y ago

Circumcision still being a thing blows my mind. I'm lucky that my parents never had me mutilated before I could consent. What really shocks me is the amount of justification that circumcised men give for the practice. Instead of accepting that a terrible thing was done to them, they convince themselves it's a good thing, and further the practice by in turn mutilating their children. This just perpetuates the problem ad infinitum. That said, I'm not that surprised that men feel that way, considering that having been with many women, an absurdly large percentage of them were shocked to be with an uncircumcised man, and some even said they thought it was less hygienic. The entire society is conditioned to think this way, perpetuating the practice. It's entirely absurd. The facts are clear cut: circumcision has zero benefits (health, hygiene, or otherwise), it can be dangerous, and it is proven to lessen sexual feeling. It's an absurd practice that is damaging and serves no purpose, beyond religious practices aimed at decreasing sexual enjoyment (with the mistaken idea that it'll make sins like adultery less likely…).

xrisk 5y ago
Pretty sure that circumcision reduces chances of HPV significantly.
- tarboreus 5y ago
  If you removed the whole thing you'd have even less chance of getting HPV.
- spacemanmatt 5y ago
  Pretty sure that bathing has the same effect.
- snshn 5y ago
  Pretty sure there are better ways to not catch the disease than making man a cripple.
  - 0xdeadb00f 5y ago
    Speak for yourself. I'm not "crippled". Circumcision has never affected me negatively in my entire life (was circumcised as a new born). How about don't throw names around like that?

billpg 5y ago

What exactly would constitute a non-botched circumcision of an infant?

deworms 5y ago

I can't believe the levels of antisemitism that are casually accepted - and even cheered for - on HN under articles like these.

hawk_ 5y ago
i think the word you're looking for is antidogmaism.
Zababa 5y ago
Where exactly do you see any form of antisemitism?

evanpw 5y ago

Another insane fact: in the US, circumcisions are usually done by obstetricians. Doctors who are trained on and work on exclusively women, except for a single surgical procedure on newborn male babies.

fennecfoxen 5y ago
Is there some general familiarity which they would gain from a more general practice which would be relevant to or affect the execution of this specialized procedure?
jes 5y ago
It is also the case that public health boards are given such latitude that doctors who force these damaging and unnecessary surgeries on infants cannot be sued for medical battery. It is an insane practice.

albalus 5y ago

I grew up in a country that rhymes with toroko. When it was done to me i was 7 and it was in my grandmother's living room surrounded by family and it was performed by the neighborhood Barber(it was the 90's)...he cauterized it with electricity. It destroyed my sense of family, i no longer felt loved by those around me. 25 years later I had my own son and was offered neonatal circumcision for him, my wife was for it, my inlaws who are american were pushing hard and of course my parents too. I had a near nervous breakdown over it, but i stood my ground. We need to Break this culty traumatic cycle.

detritus 5y ago
> I grew up in a country that rhymes with toroko. I'm very curious why you chose to take this tack. Are you in not-Toroko now and are concerned about being tracked?
- albalus 5y ago
  My username is tied pretty closely my IRL identity and yes i am not in Toroko, speaking out against systemic beliefs in plain text especially your own can lead to consequences. Also scrappers can't allegory.
  - detritus 5y ago
    Crikey, it's easy for me to forget how easy I have it sometimes. Thank you for responding!

jes 5y ago

Dr. Brian Earp is excellent resource on this topic. I had the pleasure of talking with him at a conference on genital autonomy in SF a few years back. What I most admire about Brian’s work is his relentless scholarship and his calm and kind demeanor in discussing this sad topic. This talk [1] of his is a good example. [1] https://circumcisionandhiv.com/2021/09/16/brian-earp-circumcision-a-sexual-harm/ https://circumcisionandhiv.com/2021/09/16/brian-earp-circumc...

lbayes 5y ago

I tried to reply to a comment alleging antisemitism, but the original was flagged and disappeared. I'd like to reassure folks who might feel that criticizing circumcision is a form of antisemitism. I recognize that antisemitism is real and terrible and more common than it should be. That said, my genitals were brutally mutilated when I was an infant and I find it shocking that any person would do this to a baby. My family is not Jewish and I truly love the Jewish people I know. Some in my family are born again Christians. I dislike some of their beliefs, yet still love them very much. Is it so impossible to despise an archaic and despicable practice while still loving the people who engage in it?

jes 5y ago
Male genital mutilation survives in America through laundry-list persuasion. If you look at the history of the practice in America you will find that medical claims of benefit last about ten years before being debunked. The cultural claims seem to last longer. You also have young girls growing up in a culture where an intact penis is asserted to be weird, while a mutilated penis is seen as normal. Circumcised men are often defensive when they learn what was done to them as infants. Mothers are also tricked into having this done to their children. Imagine trying to break the news to a mother (or father) that when they did what they thought was best for their son they were actually complicit in harming him.

detritus 5y ago

Circumcision is kind of ingenious - physically mutilate the essence of a man's fundamental sexual identity before they have a say in things and BOOMPH! tribal lock-in for the rest of their life, and that of their progeny and ever thereafter. Savage.

ralusek 5y ago

Just to reiterate: people have a problem with making a permanent major modification to a functional part of an unconsenting baby's body. That means that your arguments regarding whether you think your circumcision is cool irrelevant, or whether you think it's hygienic, or whether you think people prefer how it looks. Nobody has a problem with individuals choosing to get circumcised.

umvi 5y ago
Babies by definition can't consent. They can't consent what language they are taught, what religion they are taught (or not), what food they are given to eat, what air they breathe (whether it has tobacco or cannabis smoke in it or not). Parents consent for the baby. And parents do circumcisions and ear piercings at birth so that the kid won't experience any pain having the same procedure when older. Sure, in a perfect world, parents wouldn't circumcise their boys or pierce the ears of their girls as infants and let them choose for themselves. But those are pretty minor compared to all the other major ways parents can really mess up a kid.

sebow 5y ago

Stop fucking apologizing for speaking against this barbaric practice, that's why their method of shame & blame against "antisemitism" works and still shields this stupidity that is called circumcision.Because they will just defend it under the pretense that the opposition is just "antisemite nazis".And it has nothing to do with it, just like the first organized religion to speak against and ban circumcision was the catholic church ( under the vast influence of roman & greek culture, which led to the reformation). Does it mean that the church was anti-semite ? Obviously no. The american myths _fabricated_ around the benefits of circumcision are almost entirely made-up and proven wrong, you can do your own research and get to whatever conclusion you want. With the rare exceptions of US & SK(arguably christianity is still not popular there but still on the rise), the vast majority of "christian countries" do not practice circumcision, so it's mainly an "american thing". Practices like circumcision, or premature cutting of the umbilical cord should be straight out banned.Same goes for female genitalia mutilation, but that's more common in Africa/ME.

giords 5y ago

In Europe (luckily and rightfully) it's illegal and considered torture to cut the ears of a beagle or perform infibulation on a little girl. But for some reason it's totally fine to perform circumcision on a baby. Something's wrong here and we should ban also this practice. It's torture.

cannabis_sam 5y ago

This really should be as simple as «don’t fucking cut your children’s genitals». If it has religious significance to you, that’s fine, just let the child decide when they are old enough to consent. If your religion stipulates infant circumcision, then your religion denies the religious freedom of others (in this case the child), and thus religious freedom is an inherently moot argument, and not a justification.