I remember reading through the many turgid arguments for and against circumcision. I thought the topic was eventually banned? It’s been a while since it’s come up.
I have participated in a few threads with all the cites, studies and factual stuff and have yet to see one that doesn’t become a dumpster fire. No offense to the OP, of course, but that’s a major motivator in my low effort approach these days. I’m not all THAT interested in trying to change anyone’s mind and it all devolves into emotionally-driven twaddle anyway.
You have already decided it’s an awful decision, so sure, parents shouldn’t make awful decisions for their kids. But yes, parents decide to have their kids’ teeth pulled when they think it will benefit the kid, and when they find a certified dentist who agrees.
There are very few men who are upset at either their circumcision or their lack of circumcision. I don’t think it’s an awful decision. I think it’s a medically nearly-neutral decision that helps a boy feel fully accepted as a Jew by other Jews. That’s kinda a big deal if you happen to be Jewish.
And even in places where it’s not done routinely, it’s not that uncommon. I used to work with a guy who grew up in Spain, and he said that at puberty, a lot of his classmates needed to be circumcised for medical reasons. He estimated 5% of his classmates had it done. Hell, i had to get a kitten circumcised for medical reasons. (We found him unresponsive on the bathroom floor, and took him to the vet. I was pretty surprised when that turned out to be the treatment. He was bouncing around, good as new, a day later.)
Or maybe someone thought they could make a buck by selling it? I put some Vaseline on the wound, and put the infant back into a diaper. The umbilical cord required more special care than the newly circumcised penis.
I also have no mention of my circumcision. My parents got rabbinical permission to have it delayed unil I was ten days old, rather than the usual eight days, so my grandparents could come in for the ceremony.
I do remember, very well, experiences cutting myself while making a rubber Godzilla into a pipe for a friend (no really. She smoked weed. I never have. But the thought of s somebody sucking on a pipe in Godzilla’s tail while pot smoke came out of his fanged mouth appealed to me) and I also remember the time I used a glass cutter to trim pieces of plate glass somebody had thrown out to fit in my display case as shelves. I have posted about both experiences extensively in circumcision threads. When modifiying Godzilla, I was using a fixed blade knife and a Swiss army knife. I forgot which one I was using. It turned out to be the Swiss army knife. The blade attempted to snap shut. The tip of my right index finger got in the way of that. It did not hurt even a tiny bit. I wondered how bad the wound could be. I then proceeded to bleed for at least the next thirty minutes. The cut had been very deep indeed. I consider myself lucky not to have permanently lost part of my fingertip.
Several similar things happened when I was trimming the plate glass. I would wonder if I had cut mysefl on the sharp edge of a piece of glass. Then, I would bleed like a stuck pig. (I admit being Jewish I’ve never actually seen a stuck pig bleed. But, I imagine it would be a lot like this).
My point is, as I have personally experienced many times and remember quite vividly, being cut with a sharp enough edge does not hurt at all. I do not claim to remember my circumcision, but I’m betting that the actual slicing doe not hurt. The clamps the put on the penis look uncomfortable at best. I’m betting recovery is unpleasant. But the mohel’s scalpel is barely felt.
From your cite (which just gives conclusion rather than a full breakdown of methodolgy and providing all the raw data
So all the study actually claims is that circumcision AFTER PUBERTY reduces sexual sensation. It makes no such claim about infant circumcsion.
Clearly somebody is upset about the entire topic.
I do not believe the OP’s intent was to provide a forum to relitigate “circumcision: bad or good?” I believe the OP’s intent was to discuss “Circumcision for non-religious reasons: a waxing or waning habit / tradition / custom?” Although I unconditionally defer to the OP to refine / correct my definitions.
IMO it would be nice if we could remain within the topic as defined by the OP.
hid off topic long post
I don’t think that today any certified dentist who upholds medical ethics would agree to extract a full set of a child healthy teeth extracted based on a parent’s arbitrary opinion that teeth are a source of hypothetical future medical problems. If they weren’t a quack or a hack, they would most likely only extract a child’s teeth that, to a greater or lesser extent, have severe caries or other fathomable medical issues (e.g. removing wisdom teeth to prevent them from cramping the other teeth). AFAIK a modern dentist would hesitate even to honor the request of a consenting adult to remove healthy teeth just like that.
First of all, you can’t speak for all men. Second of all, there are men who are very angry that they were circumcised, and like I said rights are there for those who need and want them (as a bit of an analogy: women before the feminist movement did not generally speak out about being oppressed by men in manifold ways and many probably thought their vastly inferior status was God-ordained. That doesn’t make oppression of women in those days retroactively OK, just because the average woman would not have complained about it). And there are also men like me who are happy to have our foreskins and disgusted at the thought that, when we were powerless to withhold consent, someone bigger than us could have decided to amputate that part of our body.
You could use the same logic to justify female circumcision, which is generally condemned by society at large and almost uncontroversially illegal. As for your argument about circumcision being a big deal if you happen to be Jewish, let me make an analogy. When I was a kid, adults teaching me to stay away from drugs told me that if my friends would only like me for indulging in drugs, they are not really my friend. The Jewish community should have to adapt to the rights of the boy not to be circumcised, not the defenseless boy to the majority opinion. He should be accepted for what he is. Circumcision is mandated by a more-than-2000-year old book written by desert dwellers. It should not inform how people act today. Another thing you’re not considering: if routine circumcision of non-consenting infants was made illegal in a country (both on pseudo-medical and religious grounds - I’m not singling out Jews here, the law would apply in equal measure to anyone who sought to circumcise a kid), those boys could no longer be circumcised, therefore no boys born after a certain date would be circumcised in the Jewish community, and, well, the community would have no choice but to accept those uncircumcised boys.
I wouldn’t consider 5% nearly a high enough percentage to justify pre-emptively circumcising everyone. And I am not against medically necessary circumcision, only against routine circumcision imposed on baby (or older) boys who, thus far, have a healthy foreskin.
And even when the OP tries to set parameters for what they want discussed, there is always someone or more than someone who feels that something else is absolutely necessary to bring up.
I believe that what was heavily stomped on was the practice of deliberately trying to turn threads about female circumcision into threads about male circumcision and how much worse it supposedly is.
I agree with your overall contention.
But IMO this will remain formally unanswerable until a single specific individual can be both circumcised and uncircumcised as an infant and have sex as an adult after having lived both histories. And then compare their individual experiences.
By analogy …
I’d love to know what female orgasm really feels like to a natural-born woman. They certainly seem to enjoy it, but after that the details are all a mystery to me. But until I’ve been female from birth I can’t know what it’s really like.
IMO this is a similar question. We can argue, some, by analogy between male and female experiences of sexual pleasure, but with little knowledge of how far to stretch that analogy before it fails completely.
Moderating: You’re going pretty far off topic with that post. You’re welcome to start a new thread on it, but not hijack this one.
How to Reply as a linked Topic
Click Reply, in the upper left corner of the reply window is the reply type button, looks like a curving arrow point to the right.
Choose Reply as linked topic and it starts a new thread. As an example, you can choose GD, IMHO or The Pit for it.
I’m going to hide your post to avoid hijacking.
That is actually the best method.
That makes me feel better.
You are ever the voice of reason. 
And you are correct.
I’m not a strict constructionist when it comes to hijacks in my threads. I don’t mind a little wiggle room.
It’s certainly true that as soon as one sets a limit, there is at least one person who feels compelled to test that limit. You know who you are. 
Insofar as the OP’s actual question, this is the answer. Solid data from the CDC is dated but from 1979 to 2010 there has been a net slight decrease, “10% overall, from 64.5% to 58.3%.” There are demographic variations too of course.
As a general pediatricIan that roughly 60% seems pretty much spot on today as well. I’ve seen no dramatic changes in numbers over the past decade or so. Can’t say I pay much attention though.
Meh. They started off describing it as a decision made to “inflict” a “barbaric” procedure upon a sensitive part of an innocent baby. They were lighting a dumpster fire.
Oh, please. 
“Dumpster fire”? Give me a break.
This bit, and the use of the word “inflict”, puts in right in the middle of the “Circumcision: Good or Bad” onversation, in my opinion.
I’m not sure if you want to keep this to American statistics, but for what it’s worth it appears that the Canadian circumcision rate is approximately 32% according to the Canadian Paediatric Society.
Their position is that circumcision is not recommended as a routine practice for all newborn males.
While there may be a benefit for some boys in high-risk populations and circumstances where the procedure could be considered for disease reduction or treatment, the Canadian Paediatric Society does not recommend the routine circumcision of every newborn male.
The link goes on to detail some of the “high risk” populations but otherwise elaborates on why it isn’t done as a matter of course per their position.
For my son, it wasn’t offered in a routine way. We would have had to ask for a separate and specific surgical consultation. Among my peers, non of our sons are circumcised.
Nah. It’s clearly not in the middle of that conversation!
So, the trend was downward but a shallow slope. And as pointed out there are wide variations depending on specific demographics (e.g. recent Latino immigrants would not have a tradition of it). I do wonder if another decade later with more late-Millennial and early-Z parents there has been any acceleration in the decline.
The dominant culture in the US embraced it widely in the early-to-mid 20th century, and there’s no denying that this had a component of what were considered “health” justifications (that we now find debatable) as well as a component of social signaling (as in “We won’t live like unkempt hill peasants of the Old Country! This is modern America: we’re clean-cut in more ways than one!”). For more educated, conscientious parents, this has kind of been left behind and they no longer just automatically allow whatever the hospital wishes to do, but we pause a moment and think: that cohort of parents probably have fewer children anyway. Meanwhile among those less likely to hear or read about how it should not happen, if it’s what the last 3 generations of a family have experienced, cultural inertia will lean towards it.
Although even among Jews, neonatal male circumcision is not absolutely universal and apparently continues to become slightly less so. Even among Israeli Jews, it’s estimated that around 1-2% of boys are uncircumcised.
However, I agree with you that in many if not most cases a decision not to circumcise a Jewish boy is very likely to put some strain on the “acceptance by other Jews” response.