The Last Navigator: Busting Justifications for MGM: My Rebuttals to Absurd Claims
So, I’ve seen a lot of posts justifying MGM with various arguments - some saying it’s not actually genital mutilation and some merely regurgitating the health myths told to cut-happy Americans to perpetuate the cycle. Instead of replying to each person individually, I’m just going to put them all in one place. And sorry, I’m not going to copy and paste each individual argument (since a lot of them are really buried in the notes for my post and some were the same argument merely phrased differently), but I hope my paraphrasing is as close to the original as possible.
These are in no particular order and I hope I cover as many of the justifications that I’ve seen as humanly possible. I may copy/paste some of my answers from previous posts, but I will at least try to expand on them as fully and completely as possible.
———————————————————
How is circumcision mutilation? Those are two completely different things.
Well, what do you think circumcision is and how do you define mutilation?
Mutilation is disfiguring a body part and inflicting damage on it. When it’s done to oneself, it’s self-mutilation. When it’s done to genitals, it’s genital mutilation. Circumcision is classified as genital mutilation.
When you circumcise a male at infancy, you forcibly amputate the foreskin of an unwilling participant. It’s permanently altering and disfiguring not only the look of the penis, but the functionality of the penis as well (more on that later) - all on someone else who isn’t old enough to make an informed decision themselves. That’s a form of mutilation and an abuse of power over another individual.
———————————————————
I don’t like that you call it amputation!
And? I’m not going to lie, I’m generally more of the abrasive type - I don’t shy away from calling things exactly what they are, no matter how it makes other people feel. It’s better to face the hard truth than to sugarcoat it; it’s harder to brush off the truth we don’t like when we get it straight up.
To amputate is to remove a portion of the body - the foreskin is a portion of the body. By that logic, removing the foreskin is amputating it - there’s no two ways around it. This (the objection of calling circumcision amputation) is by far one of the things I personally encounter the most (next to the objection of it being classified as mutilation). No matter how many times I try to explain that, people still seem to not really understand it. I almost wonder if I have to logically break this down…
Does seeing it in syllogistic logical form help?
Moving on before I get more condescending…
———————————————————
But the foreskin is just a flap of skin - it doesn’t do anything!
Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. The foreskin is not “just a flap of skin”, it serves a pretty important function and the removal of a foreskin drastically alters the functionality of the penis.
Not only is it packed with nerve endings, it also protects the glands of the penis - the primary source of pleasure for males. Without the foreskin, the glands keratinize, giving it a hard solid texture, desensitizing the nerves after it’s already cut off about 50%. Males lose around 80% of feeling from being circumcised at birth.
As you can see, the circumcised penis (left) has a very hard, rough, dry, discolored head. This is what is mean by keratinization of the glands - it becomes hard, loses sensitivity and pigmentation. The skin on the entire penis is taut when erect, there’s very little wiggly room when penetration occurs. It’s not moist, which can cause for a lot of “drying out” during intercourse, requiring lube for more enjoyable penetration.
On the right is the glands of an intact penis. It’s soft, moist, spongey, and pink/purpleish. The color is from the blood as it’s able to reach the surface of the glands. It’s similar in texture and sensitivity to a vagina. It also produces its own lubrication (minimizing the need for lube during sex). The foreskin has a bit of “slack”, allowing for a scrolling action during intercourse, making penetration more enjoyable for both partners.
The foreskin is a healthy and important part of the penis - amputating it does have negative effects to the genitalia of men. It’s not just excess skin, it’s there for a reason.
———————————————————
It’s better to have it done as a baby because babies don’t feel the pain. They stop crying after the first cut.
Yes, they do feel the pain. Many babies go into shock from being circumcised, which is why they stop crying. It’s not that they are comfortable, it’s that they’re in so much pain their bodies can cope with it. Most circumcisions are done without a topical anesthetic and no doctor can do a general anesthetic on someone so small without the risk of them dying from it.
When infant males are circumcised, the foreskin is literally forced apart from the glands - they’re currently attached at that stage in life. That is painful and traumatic; the foreskin isn’t meant to be separated from the penis until it naturally does it on it’s own. Doing it before then is extremely painful, not to mention the clamps necessary to stop the baby from bleeding too much (babies only need to lose about a shot glass worth of blood before they die). The entire procedure and the weeks following is immensely painful (which is why many circumcised babies end up getting colicky for a few weeks to a few months). On an adult male who chooses to get circumcised, they’re able to receive anesthetics for the procedure and also don’t have to force the separation of the foreskin and the glands - so the procedure is less painful, even if the adult male remembers it while the baby doesn’t.
Another reason why it’s better to wait to have a circumcision done on an adult rather than on an infant is the precision of it. Let’s face it, it’s nearly impossible to know how much to cut on an undeveloped penis, no matter how many circumcisions you’ve done in your life. On an adult, however, you’re able to be as precise as possible, because the entire penis is fully formed - you’re much less likely to end up with a botched job if you wait until the penis is fully formed. (A botched job? click here but be forewarned, you’re going to see a lot of penis and there are many galleries of different types of botches.)
How is the precision increased with the development of the penis, you might be wondering. Well, let’s use the simple analogy of writing on a balloon. Below is my unblown up balloon.
As you can see, it’s a lot smaller than what it will be when it’s blown up. Now, I’ll write a message on the unblown up balloon as neatly as I can.
It looks fine right now, but let me blow up the balloon.
Wow, that’s a lot different than when it wasn’t blown up. Let me try writing the same message on the same balloon while it’s inflated and see if I can get it to be a bit neater/more legible.
Much better. It was easier for me to write neatly on the balloon when it was inflated because I knew the full size of the balloon that I was dealing with. Circumcising a penis can be thought of in a similar way - it’s much easier to be precise when you know the full size of what you’re dealing with than when you don’t.
———————————————————
It’s not like circumcision is dangerous.
Yes, it is. When you circumcise an infant, not only are you putting him at risk of shock and necrosis of the glands, but you’re also putting him at risk of death. And no, it’s not just the recent death of an infant from contracting herpes from the rabbi in an orthodox tradition, even babies that are circumcised in the hospital run the very real risk of death due to blood loss, shock, infection, and urethra blockage.
The sad thing is, since circumcision is an elected procedure, 100% of these deaths could have been avoided.
———————————————————
But sometimes it’s done for religious purposes. You can’t deny someone their religious expression!
Religious freedom and freedom to express yourself religiously does NOT include violating the rights of other people. If an adult male wishes to get circumcised to show his devotion to YHWH, that’s his choice. It should NOT be the choice of a parent to permanently alter their child’s body to show their devotion to that deity. It is not your right to impose your beliefs upon your children - they have to make that decision for themselves when they’re old enough.
And a lot of people should understand something about the orthodox Jewish tradition of circumcision - it isn’t done at the hospital or by a doctor, it’s done by a rabbi. In some traditional sects, what does the rabbi do after he’s made the cuts? He sucks the foreskin off. Yup. He literally puts mouth to infant genitalia and sucks the foreskin away from the penis, and some of these children end up contracting herpes and dying as a result of it. THAT is not an acceptable way to express your religion, no matter how devout you are.
———————————————————
But it’s harder to keep clean if you’re not cut!
Actually, it’s not. It’s easier for parents when they’re babies to clean an intact penis rather than a circumcised one. You don’t retract the foreskin to clean it until it retracts on it’s own, you clean what you can see. Forcibly retracting the foreskin before it’s ready will cause a lot of problems (before it retracts, it’s self-cleaning like the inside of a vagina).
How do you know when the foreskin is retracting? Well, a lot of them usually end up retracting by the time the person is 5 or 6 - and they’re not really shy about telling you all about what they discovered their penis can do. Some don’t find out their penis retracts until they’re older and start masturbation, some don’t have a fully retracting penis at all. The important thing to note, the owner of the penis will discover if/when the foreskin retracts. When they do, mild soap and gentle cleaning is all that’s needed. It really doesn’t take much effort to do. (If you want to know more about caring for an intact penis, click here.)
When the penis is circumcised at infancy, there’s actually a lot more to worry about because of the fresh wound. You have to ensure that it heals properly, that you keep fecal matter out of it the best you can, and that it doesn’t become infected. There’s a lot more work caring for a circumcised penis than an intact one.
———————————————————
But circumcision helps prevent UTIs.
The study that made the claim that getting an infant circumcised prevents UTIs within the first year has been very thoroughly debunked. It failed to actually show a causal relationship between circumcision and a reduction in UTIs, merely went based on assumptions.
UTIs are actually more rare in infant males (circumcised or not) than they are infant females. Why then do we tell parents to treat their penis-carrying children to treat it with surgery, but tell them to treat vagina-carrying children with drinking more cranberry juice? Statistically speaking, you have to preform 195 circumcisions to prevent 1 UTI within the first year of life, and many more than one will receive complications from it (see botched linked above).
———————————————————
Circumcision prevents HIV.
Says the also debunked studies done in Uganda and Kenya - one that does not at all reflect reality? The thing is, you can torture data all you want to get it to say everything you want, but when you look at the actual, global facts and figures, they just don’t stand up. You would think, with America’s circumcision rate significantly higher than all of Europe, Europe would have a higher rate of HIV if the study were true - but they don’t, they actually have a smaller HIV rate than America.
Even if that were due to the differences between the abstinence only BS America tries to shove into high school health classes, you would still think if circumcision actually prevented HIV there would be less of it even with less condom use - but there isn’t.
———————————————————
Circumcision prevents penile cancer.
And preforming mastectomy on girls as soon as they begin to develop breasts would prevent breast cancer.
Amputation is never a preventative measure, it should only be used as a treatment option that the patient decides to use. Penile cancer is not that common, and using that as an excuse to routinely amputate the foreskin is honestly quite ridiculous.
———————————————————Parents have to make other decisions for their kids, like vaccines and which school to attend. Circumcision is just another choice that the parent has every right to make.
There is a huge difference between vaccinations and choosing a school than amputating a portion of the body. Vaccines have proven medical benefits, circumcision does not. School choice does no permanent physical changes to a child, circumcision does. There is a vast difference between choosing to amputate and making other parenting decisions. Think of it this way; if any parent would want to amputate any other healthy portion of their child’s body, would they be free to make that “parenting choice”? No.
———————————————————
I know a bunch of guys who were circumcised and not a single one of them complains. There aren’t guys that care that they were circumcised, so why are you making a fuss about it?!
Good for them, but you can’t say that simply because you don’t know of any man who has complained about being circumcised at birth doesn’t mean there aren’t any. In fact, foreskin restoration is a growing industry for one reason, it does bother many men that they didn’t have the choice.
If you’re still unsure, do a google search, find a forum, talk to men who do feel like their rights were violated and are working to restore their penis as much as possible to the way nature intended it to be. Some men have no problem with it, and that’s them. But to deny that men don’t exist who do have an issue is naive.
———————————————————
I’m cut and I like it. THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH MY PENIS HOW DARE YOU!!!!
And that’s good for you that you feel that way. Personally, I don’t care what kind of penis you have (cut or intact), I still think that should have been your choice to make. You don’t have to agree with me, and me stating that I’m against infant genital mutilation doesn’t mean I think any less of you for your parents making that choice - I just think you should have had the right to make that choice. I don’t know many intactivist to actually look down on circumcised men - we just think the owner of the penis should have the rights to make decisions about the penis, that’s all.
keyser söze: i’m not a big fan of messing with infant’s genitals for any reason...
i’m not a big fan of messing with infant’s genitals for any reason (consent, anyone?), but let’s remember that penis foreskin can grow back, whereas the clitoral hood, the clitoris, and the labia do not.
so, if we could stop trying to compare the two for the sake of men’s rights, that would be…
I don’t know which parallel universe you live in, but in the one which I’m from, foreskins DO NOT GROW BACK. They are like literally lost forever.
So when you cut off someone’s foreskins, they lose something like 20,000 nerve endings, their glans becomes literally covered with a callous to the loss of a protective covering, and their sexual experience is forever altered. Which is sort of the reason why all forms of female genital cutting are completely illegal in many countries, no matter how much or how little is cut off.
Also, if you are really from a parallel universe, then that’s pretty cool, and I like your avatar!
so apparently people are mad because parents make the decision to have the child circumcised and that should be the child’s right when one is “sexually developed”.
so parents, pull your children out of school since children need to make the decision to go to school when they are “intellectually developed”.
Yeah, that’s a decent comparison — that primary education is coercive, and that despite that fact parents not only have the right, but are also obligated to provide their children with it. Where this analogy falls apart is when you consider that basic education cannot reasonably be postponed until late adulthood, while circumcision can be done whenever you want, with relatively minimal down-time. Also, basic education is pretty clearly more desirable and useful than circumcision, no?
Nobody really wants circumcision for themselves when left to their own devices. In my experience, people mainly just want to circumcise others, or to bolster the legitimacy of their own circumcision, of which they had no control over.
A question for fellow tumblerists…
If somebody submits a non-anon ask and you reply publicly, do they receive notification?
It’s not illegal per-se, but it also doesn’t have the same protected status as most other body parts. For example, tattoos and many types of piercings are restricted for minors, as far as I know, and any type of female genital cutting — even in it’s most minimal form, a symbolic pinprick — is completely illegal. On the other hand, if you are under a certain age, your foreskin could be surgically removed based on relatively trivial reasons, such as someone else’s aesthetic or religious preference.
‘Legalize Foreskin’ borrows from the ‘Legalize Gay’ and ‘Legalize LA’ slogans, which try to make the point that, despite the fact that being gay isn’t explicitly illegal for example (discounting archaic anti-sodomy laws), it’s also not completely legal because gay people don’t have the same rights as straight people do when it comes to marriage. The idea behind this tumblr is that, as a key component of a uniquely important body-part, the foreskin deserves a higher status and more protection than it is currently afforded.
i don’t understand why guys are so touchy on circumcision.
like, wtf
it’s skin.
why are you whining that it’s gone?
Actually it’s far more than just skin. It has a completely separate inner layer that’s composed of a mucosal lining, a frenulum that allows it to glide back and forth during intercourse, it protects the glans from getting calloused-over due to the effects of dry air and rubbing against clothing, and it’s also densely innervated. But, you know, other than the 20,000 nerve endings lost, it’s no big deal.
I have to take a moment to thank my mother for leaving my genitals intact after birth. And rest assure, it is in fact pretty simple to keep it fresh and clean.
Why I hate most libertarians
Libertarians when it comes to drugs: No one should be able to control what I do to my body. IT'S MY CHOICE!
Libertarians when it comes to mutilation of children: They're not old enough to make the choice, it's a parent's decision. -hack-
If your only concern about bodily rights is your ability to do drugs, you're not a libertarian - you're just a fucking junkie.
----------------------------------------------
I don't know how prevalent this view is among Libertarian thinkers, but I'm pretty sure I've back-and-forthed with a few on Twitter who were anti-circumcision.
Male circumcision unnecessary says surgeon
A report of a Dublin plastic surgeon who says circumcision is a form of genital mutilation that exposes patients to a number of health risks. The doctor said: “There is no rationale for carrying out this extremely painful, traumatic and potentially dangerous procedure on male infants.”
Here’s the link to the full article.
(Source: restoringtally.com)
Intactivists:
If you’re sending people anon hate for circumcising their sons, you need to stop. Now.
That is NOT how we will convince anyone of anything. That will only convince people that all intactivists are crazy bullies who hide behind a grey face.
If you want to educate, do it gently. Stick to the FACTS: No medical organization in the world recommends RIC, circumcision kills at least 117 baby boys per year, many babies go into a state of shock after being circumcised, circumcision permanently alters the brain - that sort of thing. And don’t do it anonymously. Have the guts to show who you really are, that way if someone wants to talk with you privately you can do so.DO NOT tell people they are bad parents. Don’t say they are “mutilating their baby”. That will only piss them off. Stick to the facts, and have a little compassion. Remember you didn’t know all of this at one point either.
This^2.
Also, not sure how reliable the 117 deaths estimate is, given that the analysis was not published in a peer-reviewed publication.
A post sparked by the circumcision post I just reblogged.
I always got so much crap for wanting to get a labiaplasty. People telling me that my vulva is fine the way it is, that the procedure will be painful, that there’s nothing wrong with my labia.
And then circumcision is so normal. People think that foreskin is gross and not nice to look at.
In the end, it’s genital mutilation for vanity’s sake. Why is it okay to tell a girl, ” No, your labia are fine! Don’t have them removed!” and also okay to tell a boy, ” Ew, gross, you need to get your foreskin removed!”
If all vulvas are beautiful, why can’t all penises be beautiful too?
I’m glad to see this post given how much criticism labiaplasty receives relatively to the much more prevalent and problematic practice of circumcision. I’m especially impressed by OP’s lucid criticism of the latter, despite apparently opting for the former in her own life.
Body positivity is beautiful, and so is the ability to choose!
Even if it was done to you, that does not mean you should do it to someone else. End the cycle.
There you go. Children deserve better than to be surgically modify to alleviate parental anxiety about their genitals.
I’ve gone through the #circumcision tag and based on the pro-circ posts, cosmetic familiarity seems to be the key point of interest. At least they are willing to be honest about it.
anneka submitted:
Laci Green talking about circumcision. Thought you and/or your followers might like this if you haven’t seen it already. ^_^
—————————————————————-
Thanks! I have seen this before, but always worth reposting for anyone who hasn’t.
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this. Go Laci Green!
Hey, sorry about a very late response. If you have a Tumblr account feel free to send a message via Ask and I’ll be sure to respond privately. I’m sure that uncutting would be careful to do the same.
As far as foreskin restoration goes, I view it as a fairly dramatic form of body modification which cannot be taken lightly. Even the cosmetic change alone can be intimidating, and it also involves a massive commitment of time and energy, and even though it’s generally regarded as safe, the risks aren’t completely known.
Because of this, I do not think you can simply suggest it to your partner in practical terms, though you can definitely bring it up as a possibility. Speaking from personal experience, I feel that we generally develop pretty strong bonds to our bodies and our appearances, and going from cut to “intact” can be as intimidating a change as the opposite.
