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Notes -
Let's talk about infant male circumcision. Common in the United States, considered beastly in most European countries. But they don't spend much time criticizing the United States about it, perhaps due to fear of being called anti-semitic.
Reasons not to do it:
The foreskin has functions
Bad for the infant's brain due to inadequate aenesthesia
Complications ranging from meatal stenosis to more grisly and life-changing outcomes
Etc etc
Anyway, besides just introducing a topic I believe is underdiscussed both on the Motte and in general, my questions are this:
How do you rate the importance of this issue relative to commonly discussed culture war stuff? If it is true that circumcision is a serious violation akin to rape, then it seems very very important.
and
Does anyone on this board support routine infant circumcision, or is this thread just going to be full of a lot of devil's advocate stuff?
Y'know what, fine. I'll bite. I'm cut, my son is cut, it seems pretty simple to me and I don't get why some people make such an enormous deal out of it. In general parents make irreversible decisions about their children all the time. Pros and cons for their future are weighed, their autonomy is not. This is no different.
Cons:
Potential complications
Potential trauma/brain effect
Reduction in sexual pleasure
Pros:
Less work to clean
Reduced odds of STD transmission
Reduced odds of penile cancer
Reduced odds of phimosis/related issues
Women's preference
I throw out potential complications, as I think is generally safe to do for procedures with low rates of complications - this is not isolated. What's that tongue flap clipping procedure called that potentially avoids speech complications, sometimes done very near birth? Lingual frenectomy or something? My son had that done as well. Unless a procedure is noted to be a risky one, it's not worth worrying about. Given the enormous number of men circumcised in the US and the lack of any widespread trauma or brain effect anybody can point to, that is either unrelated or incredibly low odds. Again, throw out. This leaves reduction in sexual pleasure as the sole con, and yeah, it's pretty much impossible to compare directly since very few men have experienced both sides, and arguably going through puberty already cut is different than being cut as an adult. Without a direct comparison or real data to work with, we have to cobble together some kind of reasoning here. Here's what I've got - premature ejaculation is an order of magnitude more common than male anorgasmia. Supposing the effect is significant, it's more likely to be beneficial than a hindrance.
I agree lots of the pros are pretty miniscule. The numbers are not very significant for STD reduction in places like the US, penile cancer is incredibly rare to begin with, women's preference is an ephemeral social fact, not a hard medical one. Then there's what I'll call near-elimination of phimosis/smegma/etc. Sure, they still could happen, but they're essentially non-issues for the circumcised. That's not much given their prevalence/ease of avoidance, but it's not nothing. Lastly there's less work to clean. People talk about how trivial this is, but it's honestly a bigger deal than it's given credit for! If you save yourself thirty seconds a day, that's something like a week added to your life.
I see a number of doctors advocating for it, a number of (small) positives, and only one real proposed downside worth considering (reduced pleasure) - even that may be statistically more likely to help than harm if it's a big enough effect to meaningfully change your experience.
It very much seems like a far, far, FAR overblown issue with very small effects either way (but that I happen to see as weighing slightly more positive than negative).
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