Joseph

"Fear, pain, crippling, disfigurement and humiliation are the classic ways to break the human spirit. Circumcision includes them all."
"What's done to children, they will do to society." Karl Menninger
Infant circumcision has bothered me for a while now. Actually, I myself was looking into circumcision because I had heard almost everyone else was circumcised. I fell into the trap of conformity and so I started looking into it. (I don't even need it. My foreskin retracts just fine. The reasons would have been sheer cosmetic conformity.) What I found was horrifying. I had no idea most, if not all circumcision in the US, entailed the forceful circumcision of newborn babies. I had no idea newborn baby boys were being made to endure this procedure with absolutely no anaesthesia. In some cases, infants and teenagers were being forced to undergo circumcision by divorced parents. I have seen many videos of babies, infants and teenagers being circumcised despite their protests and cries of pain. I was shocked. Sickened. Horrified. I could not believe this painful and needless mutilation had been allowed to go on in my own country.
I further researched the matter, and it looks like circumcision is pretty much a worthless cosmetic surgery of little, or no, medical value. Circumcised babies and men STILL get UTIs, penis cancer, prostate cancer, STDs, and yes, AIDS. Aside from preventing next to NOTHING, it desensitizes a male over a period of time, nevermind the painful healing process they must endure. I completely changed my mind about getting circumcised, and I immediately felt a deep feeling of pain and sadness at realizing over a million babies get needlessly circumcised a year.
This is not right. It's not fair that a boy/man has to live the rest of his life with mutilated organs because of a choice over his body that he had absolutely no say in. It's not fair that a man has to live with an artificial rendition of what a " normal penis" is supposed to look like. Forcing a boy to conform to a cosmetic aesthetic is tantamount to Chinese foot-binding. Even if a child or a man can't remember what has happened to him, it doesn't change the fact that it was a forced mutilation. If I were to rape a woman using a drug, does it make it alright if she couldn't remember? Would female circumcision be acceptable if it were done with anaesthetic pain-killers and/or in infancy, when she "wouldn't remember?" If something is wrong, it's wrong. The fact that you hurt a child before he can ever remember doesn't make it BETTER, it makes it WORSE. What about older boys who have been forced by their parents to undergo circumcision who WILL remember??? I have created this profile specifically to voice my thoughts on this horrible practice. I hope in doing so people get educated, and that I educate myself even more. I want to help STOP INFANT CIRCUMCISION NOW!!!