The first time an anti circumcision video isn’t some MRA going “feminism cut my pp 😭”
I can’t watch the video at this moment but is there a reason “infant genital mutilation is not cool” doesn’t work? It’s the only argument I’ve ever needed
Once you confront someone with the stark reality that they performed genital mutilation on an infant, you enter the stages of grief, and it’s not so much that it doesn’t “work”, but instead, now the person confronted with this reality has to dig and dig to justify the genital mutilation, and they’ve NEVER had to do that before.
- They’ll deny that it’s actually mutilation.
- They’ll get angry at your persistence and your unwavering position.
- They’ll plead and bargain over how it’s actually a good thing, and how no one wants the child to be “different”.
- They’ll become saddened by the idea that they could have done this at all, if what you say is even true.
- Until, after much persistence, they finally accept your position, and realize what they did was not necessary.
This would be true for those who are cut too. For a long time, it was just “normal”, and when these men are confronted with the reality that they’ve been living with an unnecessary mutilation, they will do the same thing. It’s hard reconciling the parents you love, and the idea that they consented to your genital mutilation at birth.
I will say, among my group of friends, none of them had their sons circumcised, and among us, it’s a large majority of boys within the group of kids. I don’t know if that’s a growing trend or just one local to me and my friends. We talk pretty openly about it, which is probably why.
They’ll deny that it’s actually mutilation. They’ll get angry at your persistence and your unwavering position. They’ll plead and bargain over how it’s actually a good thing, and how no one wants the child to be “different”.
This is what happened when i asked my mom about it. We did not reach the next two stages. We no longer speak but not at all because of this matter so i guess I’ll never know if she feels bad for doing it.
I realize I’m making it seem like it’s something that I think or talk about a lot but I only get obstinate about it when it’s brought up by someone else
My mum is the same, she’ll avoid the discussion or get really bad faith mean when pressed. Cuz of this and a few other stuff, we have no relationship now. We’d probably be fine-ish if she took 5 seconds to apologise for 3 things.
When I went down the rabbit hole of this years back, I got REALLY angry. It took a long time for me to pull out of it. I hope you’re doing OK.
I hope you’re doing OK.
I appreciate the sentiment but I’ve been ok with it for a long time.
CW non-traumatic personal parental stuff
Pretty easy to get over it when i have a lot of evidence that my mother’s a narcissist and likely did it without regard for me at all and if my dad protested(unlikely) she probably manipulated his emotions.
I’m sorry about all that. That’s gotta be hard to get over.
In regards to my parents, they’re just normie centrists, so it’s a bit more surprising that they could be so cold. I feel like being boomer white settlers does this to people.
Yeah, I get it, I don’t think about it either until it’s brought up. I’ve never asked my parents about it directly, and I probably won’t. My parents are pretty cool, and I know that when I was born, that is just how everything was done. I don’t say that to excuse it, but it’s not like the people around them were challenging them on it, and they would have likely accepted the idea had it been presented to them. They’ve had no issue with my son not having it done.
and how no one wants the child to be “different”.
my brother had his son circumcised even though he was thinking he wasnt going to do it because his gf/wife brought this up. i was honestly kind of flabbergasted, i didnt even know what to say, seemed like such a dumb reason i couldnt believe i was hearing. small mercies that his son will probably not really care, but still such a shitty thing to do to your child,…
I can understand a man coming to this conclusion. Im having a hard time wrapping my head around a women coming to this conclusion. That’s wild.
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I think that argument does work, but a lot of regular folks have literally never been confronted with any argument against circumcision.
I didn’t need an argument to be against it
It’s fine, tbh. I’m just used to anti circ people and arguments online being mostly terrible. (not your fault, reactionaries will always be shitty)
arguments online being mostly terrible
I don’t think cutting baby genitals needs particularly sophisticated arguments?
I’ve never read someone blaming feminism for circumcision though.
I’ve never read someone blaming feminism for circumcision though.
Totally not your fault. Just that MRA types have been making a real effort to insert themselves into intactivism. It’s really obvious on reddit. Most (but not all) intactivist subs are modded by the same people modding MRA subs. It’s what eventually drove me off of
Also middle American intactivist communities are loaded with MRAs.
Personally I think that it’s due to reactionaries having more time, money, and resources to do shit. Also leftists tend to prioritise a bunch of other stuff. Like I’d love to do more intactivism, but there’s a billion other real problems happening right now too.
Sorry for the long post. I can’t stress enough that I’m not arguing with you.
Oh yeah I forgot entirely about the “intactivist” communities actually, they’re the worst
Is it still super common in the States? It costs like $500 no public health coverage to get it done by the delivery doctor here because they’re trying to discourage it
It’s still pretty common over there, around 60%-55% of AMAB babies are circumcised. Aside from cosmetic and cultural factors, a lot of people get sold on the idea that it has benefits to hygene and overall health outcomes. These aren’t good reasons of course, and the boons it provides are mostly marginal, not enough to justify inflicting that on an infant.
That being said, there is significant evidence that circumcision lowers the probability of HIV transmission and as such it may be beneficial for adults to undergo the procedure voluntarily in regions with high infection rates.
That being said, there is significant evidence that circumcision lowers the probability of HIV transmission
The studies that push this were heavily flawed and criticised. They took two cohorts, circumcised one, and found that in under a year’s time the circ group had a somewhat smaller level of hiv infection. Well maybe because they weren’t having sex for two months after getting cut??
There’s been follow up research showing that over time, cut and uncut cohorts don’t have any meaningful difference in infection rates. I can find it if you like.
There’s probably some increased rate of transmission through certain cells of the foreskin, but the difference isn’t massive. And the protection isn’t anywhere near as close as condoms or PrEP.
I need to always point out that circumcision is being pushed by Amerika in Sub-Saharan Africa, and very much by Bill Gates. They would be much better served by getting rid of IP protections for anti virals, and the West just stop fucking with their countries.
Frankly, my research into circumcision as an HIV prevention measure was a while ago and I took UNAIDS on their word for it. I believe this counts as talking out my ass and I apologize for that. Being corrected on this is something of a relief since it means one of the arguments in favor of circumcision being disproven.
I would love to read the research you mentioned.
What exactly are the terrible arguments? Like women do it because they feel jealous of our dicks? Ok now that i imagined that strawman it looks a lot more believable
MRAs will say shit like:
cw: misogyny
most circ doctors are women, the industry is lead by women profiting off of the suffering of boys, feminists don’t care about or support circumcision
Reactionary ideas are all just New World Order shit rebranded
most circ doctors are women
assuming this isn’t true, right? not that it matters either way, just curious. also, what does feminism have to do with circumcision? from my understanding its prevalence stems from weird christian puritanism
The reactionaries making the claim aren’t offering evidence, and those people are all bad faith all the time anyways. I don’t think it’s worth spending a moment considering their assertion. And yes, it’s probably factually wrong.
Circumcision is so fucking weird, it’s just a weird cultural american/jewish/arab/mena no one else does it. Like, by default you shouldn’t be cutting kid’s foreskins off, but if you do there’s no need to get deep about it it’s just a tradition.
This post has been fact checked by real intactivists
There’s depth to it. I heard that it started as an adult rite of passage into a patriarchal cult that explicitly was building bonds between men against women. When the men began to take power they implemented it as an infant mutilation ritual.
This is a materialist takedown?
It’s neither. I wish there were some sources cited. Wikipedia says Brown & Brown (1987) found that the biggest correlative factor a child being circumcised is whether the father is, but doesn’t explain how it got so widespread in the first place.
Circumcision was an ideology of the ruling class.
IDK I think there’s more to materialist analysis then just saying “it is what it is because of rich white men”. No support for rich white men they should all get gulaged but when people shrug that off as all the explanation you should need it always makes my eyes glaze over. Just feels super lazy, and especially so in this case because it’s not just a white tradition and it can be found in non-patriarchal societies as well.
It’s a 28 second clip, and we’re all talking about the West here.
because it’s not just a white tradition and it can be found in non-patriarchal societies as well
Sounds like a defense
Sounds like a defense
If you genuinely believe that I don’t think you’re able to think clearly about this issue comrade
I’m not the person who walked into a convo that was objectively talking about Western non consensual genital cutting, saw the posters venting about their victimhood, and decided to mention the tiny proportion of non patriarchal humans that also do it. If you have any empathy for what we went through, then you wouldn’t “um akshually” in this discussion.
I don’t think you’re able to think clearly
Kinda wierdly ableist
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By the outbreak of World War I the circumcised penis was the mark of the English elite
At the height of its incidence circumcision affected only 30 to 40 percent of British boys, but this was not distributed evenly through the population: while two-thirds or more of public school boys were cut, the proportion in the working class or living in rural areas was much lower
Frank Mort suggests that Victorian anxieties particularly centered on dirt and disordered hierarchies of social power, while Joanne Townsend has commented that the Victorian understanding of hygiene, disease,and public health was a response to the "disorder brought by the Industrial Revolution. Public health movements were a way of gaining control over the physical environment and the bodies of … the working class.‘’
A stronger case can be made that the sanitarians were more interested in disciplining the bodies of the middle and managerial class than those of the masses they were expected to direct
-The Demnonization of’ the Foreskin & the Rise of Circumcision in Britain (Robert Darby)
In the West, circumcision was driven by the upper class. I can find more evidence, but I’m a bit lazy atm.
lazy cut/paste of a pdf
Stolberg attributes the success of the campaign to demonize mastur- bation to several political, ideological, and economic motives, including religious concern with "uncleanness;’ bourgeois fears about self-control, and the “financial interests of the London venereal trade.‘’ He also shows how the symptoms blamed on masturbation addressed contemporary anxieties about virility, gender identity, and selfhood and were consis- tent with prevailing understandings of bodily function and disease cau- sation. Stolberg particularly mentions the role of medical entrepreneurs eager to increase the sale of their goods and services, and notes that mas- turbation gave the medical profession” a welcome opportunity to demon- strate the importance of medical expertise for promoting individual as well as social welfare.‘’
My absolute favorite discussions on the Internet are in vegan Facebook groups where people argue whether circumcision is vegan or not.
I’ve heard the argument that it can desensitize your dick but as someone who is circumcised I have a related but opposite issue.
CW CSA and sex stuff
My glans is permanently out because the hood isn’t there anymore due to circumcision. That means the most sensitive part of my sex organ is just hanging out there, rubbing on the fabric of my underwear and so on all day every day. It’s a problem with no damn solution. Some days it feels so sensitive and you are just trying to go about your day any every time you move its like, “hey, let’s rub your dick; party time.” It sucks. Combine that with CSA I suffered and the hyper-sexuality I’ve experienced my whole life, it’s a struggle with being overly horned up all the goddamn time. I used to look forward to getting older when your libido drops naturally. Mine hasn’t and doesn’t seem like it ever will.
It just seems so cruel to me.
