This topic is approached from the wrong angle in countries that practice male genital cutting, such as the OP did. The fact that people who’ve something done to them, in this case a part of their genitals cut off, manage to justify an unnecessary procedure must not be mistaken with them being “okay” with it. Ask any european whether they’d be okay being circumcised and then go from there, because, believe it or not, these women being FGM’d in africa think they’re being saved by having their clitoris removed. It doesn’t matter what somebody who has had this procedure done on him thinks. That’s basic psychology, and it’s faulty logic.
The question should be “Should we remove a part of a normal penis in a child?” and the answer can only be no. You’d think every european and chinese and japanese boy is full of terrible infections and in pain and suffering from these threads. It’s very simple: You operate on a body part if it’s defective in some way (infection or phimosis). Not before, not prophylactically. The “benefits” are ridiculous in that they concern STDs which can be prevented, as in any country with sane pediatricians, with safe sex practices which should be used anyway because a “lesser risk of getting HIV” doesn’t prevent anybody from still getting HIV, OR herpes, OR hepatitis, OR gonorrhea, or syphilis. Or they concern penile cancer which, again, is a joke of a justification, because it hardly ever occurs and because you don’t amputate a girl’s breasts because her mother had breast cancer. What remains? “Hygiene”? I.e. water and soap?
What’s lost? A part of an infant’s genitalia, his bodily integrity infringed upon, his body visibly altered; the protective function of the foreskin lost, the glans slowly keratinizing, both glans and foreskin sensitivity lost, healthy, normal masturbation impaired due to the lack of natural lube, i.e. the foreskin. I’ve read enough german and american forums to know that europeans use lube in an exotic kind of way at the most, not for normal masturbation. We also hardly get “chafing”, search any american boards and they’re full of men complaining of that. No, I think circumcised men don’t realize just how an intact penis works and that “just a bit of skin” does actually have a function.
The idea of this outrage is not to make FGM seem more harmless than it is but to forcefully bind together these topics, not just because they are essentially the same problematic, but because any justification for male genital cutting or ignoring of it only leads to an unequal, exclusive fight against FGM and not circumcision. By mentioning them in the same go, we can actually fight both.
If people are ignorant enough to think an anti-vaxxer, a 9/11 hoaxer and me, brace yourself, an MRA fighting unnecessary infant genital cutting are the same, it’s really their own psyche they need to examine.