Considering that I'm circumcised and every male I know is, and none of us even give it a second thought or feel that our genitals have been "mutilated", I would say it requires a bit of sucking. There has to be some existing dissatisfaction or disorder for someone to get so up in arms about that.

Anyway, it was an example I saw, I had intended to remain neutral on the subject.

> There has to be some existing dissatisfaction or disorder for someone to get so up in arms about that.

How about undergoing a non-essential and medically unnecessary surgery without your consent? Doesn't that bother you at least a little bit?

I was baptised as an infant and most of the people I know were as well, but I recognize it for what it is - roping me into a membership in an organisation which requires me to jump through many hoops to leave, because it needs the numbers (at least on paper) to maintain power.

Fortunately this is reversible, but circumcision isn't.

> How about undergoing a non-essential and medically unnecessary surgery without your consent? Doesn't that bother you at least a little bit?

Nope. My parents were 20 and 21. Family, their Priest and Doctor all pushed them to do it. I have no recollection of any of this. My dick looks like most of the dicks I've seen in the change room and in porn. Why would this bother me? It's so abstract as to be ludicrous.

All sorts of things were done without my consent that have had a much larger impact in my happiness and well being: being raised Catholic for instance, something you brush off as "reversible".

I've really always thought of it as akin to cutting my nails. Its never bothered me and while a small benefit, I appreciate the cleanliness aspect of it; although, that can of course be mitigated by proper washing by those that are uncircumcised. My parents made the decision they thought was right and I am pretty happy with the results.

The fact that other people went through it too is a horrible, horrible metric for something being okay, and I think buying into that is its own form of sucking.

I am circumcised and pretty happy with it, has nothing to do with it happening to other people. It is not a horrible thing that happened to me, its just my penis and me and everyone else that has encountered it seem to like it. The fact that you are determined to think that I and others like me (the majority of American, middle eastern, south korean and other men) should feel assaulted or upset about it is an issue in and of itself. You appear to have a narrative you are trying to push.

I haven't determined as much, just poked a hole in your argument.

You can't really know how bad it was if you were too young to remember and can never have any bearings. The only way we can really know is from empirical analysis or people that went through it at an older age.

come on, your argument boils down to "you are circumcised so you are not qualified to comment on circumcised people".

Agreed, add to that because something didn't bother me or bothers me less than something else means it's okay is also a horrible metric.

Circumcision can be delayed until a man can consent, but it's much more traumatic if done after infancy.

I'm one of those people that people just feel comfortable opening up to.

In college, one friend told me his dad was asking him if he resented his father's decision to circumcise him. His father had to get a medical circumcision due to recurring infection due to difficult sanitary conditions in mandatory military service in his country of origin (where circumcision is uncommon). The father's experience was terrible, decided his son should never go through that, and circumcised his son. Years later, he was second-guessing the decision. My friend wasn't sure how to respond to his father, since it was clearly weighing heavily on his father, but it was totally a non-issue for the circumcised son.

Another friend told me that he was circumcised at 12 due to recurring infections (in a first-world G10 country), and is a big advocate for infant male circumcision.

Anyway, there are statistically significant benefits from male circumcision, though they are often over stated. On the other hand, the downsides to circumcision are also minor for most men. For the average male in a G10 nation, circumcision seems to be low-risk low-reward procedure, though with large fat-tail distribution on both the risks and rewards.