The fact is, there are actual studied medical benefits to male circumcision and circumcision has the approval of multiple medical bodies based on those benefits. Even if you want to insist that they’re not worth it, etc the fact remains that male (esp. neonatal) circumcision has medical benefits that FGM does not share. So it is impossible to say that both are equal in any real sense.
Do people not read the whole threads here?
STDs > condoms
Hygiene > shower
Phimosis > surgery when indicated
Do you propose cutting out babies’ appendices and breasts as well since both appendicitis and breast cancer do occur and can actually be fatal?
Or do americans just like to make unnecessary operations and cut off random parts of their kids?
It’s like you’re desperately searching for justifications.
There are as many “benefits” to this as to prophylactic appendectomy. Why don’t you advertise for those?
Find me the medical board recommendations for prophylactic appendectomy, please.
It’s surely that simple. Appendices aren’t needed so why not remove them at birth? At best they’re not needed, at worst they might randomly kill you.
And why is the downside of having a piece of your penis being cut off never mentioned? Do we collectively think a person has no right to an intact, whole body?
Americans started circumcision for no reasons and now you’re trying to come up with any you can find because the realization that you’re genitally cutting your children for nothing would just be too shocking for most people.
edit:
I asked for medical board recommendations. You know, like multiple boards have approved male neonatal circumcision for medical benefits.
Posting a study about prophylactic appendectomies while performing a hernia operation (because the conditions of the hernia could make an appendectomy more difficult in the future) misses the mark by about, oh, twenty or so miles.
I’m totally opposed to any form of genital mutilation, absent of a compelling medical reason. I’m circumcised, but my husband is not. After almost 30 years of comparative data, I’m still amazed at how much feeling he has, just in his foreskin, that I am lacking. He has a lot of it, extending well beyond the end of his penis. It’s like an additional organ; to remove it would have been criminal.
And showering regularly prevents smegma. No need to rush to the bathroom before intimate moments. It doesn’t multiply like some sort of alien lifeform.
Is that a fact? Have the benefits of FGM been studied?
I think you’re missing the point. The American Academy of Pediatrics does not recommend male circumcision; but they do say the final decision should be left to the parent. One would naturally wonder if that would be the case if circumcision weren’t so accepted and wanted by society. Like Schoggi’s appendectomy or the following example regarding breast bud removal.
You understand that removing an appendix is major surgery and a circumcision is an incredibly minor procedure.
The downside of having your penis altered is not terribly difficult to understand or quantify. The downside of having your penis unaltered is also not difficult to understand or quantify.
What is absolutely true is that a person who grows up one way or the other is generally satisfied with however they are and has no desire to change.
My view is that male circumcision is pretty much a non issue one way or the other. It doesn’t have any significant impact positive or negative for anyone to get all riled up over.
That’s not true at all based on the various opinions I have read over the years on this board alone by seemingly bright and intelligent posters. Some, such as you, consider it a non-issue while someone has compared his husband’s uncut penis to his cut penis just two posts before you has found the differences to be significant.
Maybe. But probably due to ignorance.
See that post I mentioned.
Yes it’s just as bad in that it involves a pointless procedure based on tradition. Both have their fans, and both have reasons THEY consider valid, as we saw in the link in the other thread.
I guess what it all boils down to is what do they cool kids think? Because clearly on this forum the cool kids are a-okay with boys getting their penises altered for tradition’s sake but not for girls to have their clitoral hoods cut/altered/mutilated. The cool kids say the reason is because it’s ONLY for sexual reasons that girls are cut, and with boys it’s a matter of hygiene. In the US. Where we have access to clean water. It’s clearly very important that boys are circumcised and not at all mutilation, unlike when the same amount of tissue is removed from a clitoral hood.
That’s what the cool kids say anyway.
When you can point to a study about them then we can talk. Saying “Well, maybe they do but no one knows!” isn’t evidence making the case for calling the two equal.
The American Academy of Family Physicians, American Urological Association, and Center for Disease Control make similar statements.
So find me a similar statement they make regarding FGM or prophylactic appendectomy and that they hold medical benefits that outweigh the risks. If you can’t, you should stop pretending that the procedures are of identical value, or lack thereof.
And without citation, which is something at least one of those cool kids are always asking others for.
That’s a lot of catchphrases. You must know a lot about this subject. Are you circumcised?
Nice try. You made the claim that male circumcision has medical benefits that FGM does not share. My questions to you were therefore valid and the onus is on you, not me.
They say exactly what I claimed: The American Academy of Pediatrics does not recommend male circumcision.
You’re not, or pretending to not, understand the point. NO ONE is claiming “they” would make those recommendations.
Understood. However, all things considered, I’d rather just not have smegma in my life at all. Or have to worry about it.
Are you straight? If so, does it freak you out that your partner may get some?
If I stop and think about it, it does. Thanks.
No, not really. I’m not the one trying to compare them and you’re asking me to prove a negative. If you think the two are identical, show it.
Not routinely. They say it has measurable health benefits that outweigh the risk, endorse expanding coverage so more parents may take advantage of it and recommend that physicians discuss the advantages with parents so that the parents may make a final informed decision. You’ll notice that I can actually quote them instead of “claiming” what their stance is.
You’re well aware that this is not the case with FGM despite your weird attempts to spin this otherwise. That’s not to endorse male circumcision in of itself but the question the OP poses is whether or not male circumcision is “just as bad” as FGM. Since male circumcision has measurable health benefits sufficient for multiple boards to acknowledge them and encourage expanded access to them, no one can seriously and sincerely claim that the answer to the OP is “yes”.
The statement made was that prophylactic appendectomies have the same “benefits” as neonatal male circumcision. If this is factual, then it should be trivial to find endorsement of them even if it’s in the form of “The medical benefits outweigh the risks but the final decision should be in the hands of the parents”.
Have you ever actually looked at “the benefits”? Have you read my now several posts describing how ridiculous they are? That they’re basically “less likely to get HIV without condoms” (stupid practice), “more hygienic without showers” and “can’t get phimosis - where we’d operate anyway”?
And say, hypothetically, that there were no risks involved in surgery, would you prophylactically remove your daughter’s breasts or your son’s appendix? Why not? They can all get diseased and be grounds for surgery later on, right?
Basically, does bodily integrity have no worth for “don’t care” opinion holders, is that just at the will of any potential surgery with “benefits”?