I have long searched for a meaningful justification for my circumcision and could not find a single one. Every single so called ‘benefit’ is insignificant and can only be blindly accepted by those desperately trying to justify having less penis.
Not withstanding the lack of choice in this matter, its victims are left with a seemingly one-way path of acknowledgement. Of course most people would choose to find meaning in a meaningless procedure. To do otherwise would be to concede to the fact that circumcision greatly reduces sexual pleasure whilst providing almost nothing in return.
This is an extremely terrifying realization for most people and rightly so as circumcision is irreversible. So they inflate the weight of the ‘benefits’ while deflating the weight of the adverse effects of not having a foreskin. They never actually stop to consider the benefits of having a foreskin.
Their perspective is shifted towards the side of comfort. This shift is further fortified by the complete lack of experience of their foreskin. Since they don’t physically know what they’re missing out on and since it is irreversible, they erroneously convince themselves that nothing of value was taken.
Insignificant justifications of circumcision
1) Health
There is absolutely no significant medical benefit to circumcision. Here are the most common cited medical benefits of circumcision:
- Better hygiene
- Decreased UTIs
- Decreased penile cancer
- Reduced risk of acquiring STDs
- Prevent of foreskin problems
The foreskin is not prone to infections, it is prone to ignorance. The foreskin contains harmless microorganisms that are there for a reason. It seems as though most people have forgotten that humans live alongside with bacteria. Your guts are full of them. That’s why probiotics are touted as being good for your health. And this is why antibiotics cause so many side effects. Both of these things affect the bacteria in your guts, with probiotics increasing their number and antibiotics decreasing them.
Now, that’s not to say that all bacteria in your gut is beneficial, but for the most part the bacteria are there because your body has deemed them beneficial. That’s why the immune system doesn’t kill them. They serve very important functions that the body wants. In fact, it’s almost like the body is outsourcing its work to foreign aid.
There’s bacteria all over your body and even on your face. It’s called the skin flora.
Okay, so with that established let’s imagine that the foreskin is rich in these harmless bacteria. Let’s assume they cause us no harm while at the same time providing no obvious benefit. They just sit there, but the foreskin is saturated with them. Well what would happen if some other type of bacteria wanted to benefit from the foreskin? And this type of bacteria was aggressive and could easily cause infections?
The harmless bacteria that’s already residing there will be the first line of defense against these harmful pathogens. So the harmless bacteria are actually mutualistic. They benefit from you and you benefit from them. That’s just one benefit though, there’s most likely a lot more.
But, the point is if you destroy the natural bacteria with harsh soaps or over-washing then you’re just making yourself prone to infection. This is not to say that you should not wash your penis, but to do so in a gentle manner. The penis is an internal organ, that’s why it has a foreskin. What other internal organ do people wash or clean vigorously?
If you cleaned out all the earwax in your ear you would just be increasing the risk of ear infections, not decreasing them. And yet some people attempt to remove all the earwax from their ears.
Ignorance is the number one reason why some intact males have foreskin problems.
2) Culture
This is an extremely weak argument. Cultural traditions do not supersede basic human rights. Circumcision violates the basic human rights of the child of their basic bodily integrity. Their ownership over their own body. This is destroyed by circumcision and cultural tradition is certainly not enough to justify it.
There are so many cultural traditions that have been abandoned simply because people started to realize how immoral they are. It was normal to beat women or your kids for seemingly no good reason whatsoever. These were acceptable practiced in the societies of the past. But they are now almost despicable acts.
However, do you think the men perpetrating these acts felt that they were doing wrong? Probably not, and this is exactly why circumcision perpetrators also see no wrong with it.
Some people only rely on the moral judgements of others as moral compasses for themselves. They don’t have a sense of intrinsic righteousness and instead go with the flow.
3) Religion
Many proponents of circumcision abuse their religion in an irrational manner. They claim that since circumcision is a part of their religion and since their children also have the same beliefs as them then it must be the case that religion has an absolute justification.
The problem is that this assumes the child will also grow up to believe in the same religion as his parents. However, this is a direct attack on freedom of religion as it permanently marks the body of the boy with the insignia of the religion. Thus, the boy will always and forever have a part of him belonging to his parents’ religion.
This is no doubt one of the most severe attacks on freedom of religion. Ironically, with Iceland’s recent proposal to ban involuntary circumcision for those 18 and under, there has been a massive uproaring from religious members worldwide. They condemn Iceland for allegedly infringing on their freedom of religion. They always forget that their child also has their own freedom of religion. Why is this important fact never discussed? Why are the parents engaging in a shortsighted perspective? Do they not realize that they do not own their children? That children are human as well?
It’s like these parents use religion as a pyramid scheme, a forced one at that.
4) Aesthetics
This is by far the most ridiculous argument for mutilating someone else’s penis. It is perplexing how the appearance of a baby boy’s penis is of such vital importance that it warrants surgery.
What kind of argument is this? Even if it were true, that circumcision and its resulting scar is more pleasing to the eye, shouldn’t the decision be left up to the boy and only the boy himself?
This argument is so ridiculous that anyone who takes it seriously should be thrown into an insane asylum. What other children’s body parts do we modify to make them more ‘aesthetic’? None, none at all.
Even something as benign as an ear-piercing is seen as child abuse and yet circumcision is somehow not child abuse. Here’s what society thinks is moral and what’s immoral.
Things that are seen as despicable
- Giving a child a tattoo
- Slapping a child
- Giving a child an ear piercing
Things that are perfectly okay
- Cutting off a part of a boy’s penis without his consent, without pain management, and without even a medical necessity
Surgery is serious
Surgery is an invasive procedure that involves the use of multiple tools, and in the case of circumcision several specialized tools. All surgeries carry risk of:
- Infection
- Bleeding
- Complications
- Pain
- Shock
- Possibility of something going horribly wrong
- Death
- A myriad of others
Surgery is often times used as a last resort and yet it’s the first resort to fixing something that does not need fixing. There is nothing wrong with being born with a foreskin.
When it comes to circumcision, surgery is downplayed as being safer than it actually is. It’s not. There are thousands of stories where horrific complications have occurred as a result of this wicked act.
And because most circumcisions are done to infants, who still wear diapers, there’s an even greater risk of infection. Those open wounds are prime targets for the bacteria in their urine and feces to infect.
How ironic that reduced infection is used as a justification when it’s quite clearly the opposite.
Regardless, what other body part do we cut off for no reason whatsoever other than to ‘prevent’ future problems? Did you know that more males die from breast cancer than penile cancer? Why don’t we start removing male breast tissue at birth?
Better yet, just like how males don’t need a foreskin to live, females don’t need breasts either. Female breast cancer is one of the leading causes of death in women.
So there’s obviously a significant health benefit here if we just started removing both female and male breast tissue at birth. Oh wait, that’s completely immoral. And rightly so. Everyone deserves full ownership of their own body.
Amputation is a last resort for dealing with a serious health condition. Circumcision is a first resort for no reason other than to please the parents. And this is seen as okay in the medical community in the USA.