It's violent, because it involves forcibly taking a device which literally wounds the penis causing it to bleed and removing the ridged band and the frenulum permanently from the body. It's violent in that it leaves a permanent scar, if not many permanent scars, on the boy's penis. It's violent in that it leads to long-term psychological effects; see this volume to get started here: https://www.amazon.com/Circumcision-Hidden-Trauma-American-Ultimately/dp/0964489538
Note that the foreskin is fused to the glans at birth. Thus, most circumcisions are violent in that they involve a foreign metallic object penetrating the penis (which separates the foreskin from the glans). Penetration of a sexual organ by a foreign object without consent is often called rape. Most circumcisions also involve the boy's penis getting made to penetrate a clamp afterwards. A penis getting made to penetrate a foreign object also sounds structurally the same as rape to me.
I make a second comment instead of editing the first one so if OP only checks the thread through "context" in his inbox, he'll see this one as well.
I really recommend this book gives insights on how we might start making studies on the subject, and lists all the psychological damage that potentially comes from circumcision. (as well as its possible effects on society as a whole)
According to this link even babies in the womb are aware of what circumcision is citing multiple times arguments over circumcision resulted in long complicated labors, but upon agreement not to circumcise, the long 12 hour labor immediately ends and the baby is born.
Amazon has pickup places. You can have your order sent to a place near your home.
https://www.amazon.com/Circumcision-Hidden-Trauma-American-Ultimately/dp/0964489538
So that first book is really well researched. I believe it mentions the study that was too traumatizing to actually continue
Circumcision: The Painful Dilemma
This second book the painful dilemma mentions the homosexuality study
This study is the one that finds a correlation between autism and circumcision
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4530408/
There is the intact wiki of course with loads of information
https://en.intactiwiki.org/wiki/Circumcision
https://en.intactiwiki.org/wiki/Psychological_issues_of_male_circumcision
This is also a great resource on the psychological harm of circumcision
https://www.nextlevelintactivism.com/education-library-psychological-harm/
This looks at sex as nature intended it, specifically how sex is changed
http://www.sexasnatureintendedit.com/
This two hour presentation has a ton of information
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCuy163srRc&t=127s
I myself also wrote a book that I didn't publish(because I am a slacker who doesn't finish what I start and I get extremely depressed about circumcision at times) and one very long chapter is devoted to circumcision and it is quite extensive.
The point is, the information is out there, but as far as specifically about how your IQ is affected and your intelligence? I've never seen anything -- though to be fair I haven't specifically looked either, but I've also never seen anything like that for other trauma survivors either. IQ studies simply are not done like they used to be because that would be very politically incorrect. The old IQ studies always marked big differences between demographics which we can't talk about publicly, so many IQ studies have changed radically as such they don't tend to look at that anymore because we don't want to say someone is stupid and make them feel like they can't succeed even if that actually is a true statement that someone's maximum ability is entry level jobs(no offense to entry level jobs, someone has to do it), so you may simply be out of luck in that regard. Though with that too, there is literature worth reading and videos worth watching but I would rather my comment not get flagged.
And I've said nothing of the cultures that perpetuate circumcision.
Cut men will never know what it is like to have a prepuce. I believe if they were to research the parts and functions, they would be more likely to regret their circumcision. Many men may not want to deal with the idea that something was done to them that damaged their most prized body part. I recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/Circumcision-Hidden-Trauma-American-Ultimately/dp/0964489538 A person should be happy with their body. Because neonatal circumcision is unnecessary and irreversible, the person who owns the genitals should be the one to make the decision. https://regardingmen.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/circ-grief.pdf
To add to what he said, the grief comes from the feeling of sexual assault and betrayal with a side of no one lets us grieve.
Men who come here feel they were sexually assaulted, betrayed, and worse still people just tell them to shut about it and completely invalidate their feelings and concerns. They argument can be made and has been made that circumcision is, sexual assault, genital mutilation, rape, human torture, and a violation of your basic human rights. Men who are grieving get their because they reach this inevitable conclusion.
Regardless of how men here confront their parents, it is almost universally met with some version of "you have no right to be mad at me" or even a "you should be happy you were circumcised" and of course "You don't know what you're talking about"
Men also grieve because they learn as I linked in the other comment reply, they learn how sex is supposed to actually be and they learn they can never ever experience that. Imagine learning, no matter how awesome your wife or GF may be, you can never ever sexually satisfy her? And you can never ever be fully sexually satisfied by her?
And we still haven't gotten to the cases where the circumcision is SOOO bad the man can't even have sex. Some truly unlucky souls have to have two or three circumcisions as a baby because the initial one is so horribly done. Some get it done by a Mohel who sucks the infants penis with his mouth because I guess infant blow jobs are legal if you mutilate the genitals first and in some cases this gives the baby an STD. And then some babies die during the operation. And some end up like this poor bastard. This guy survived his infant circumcision but he lost his penis. The quack doctor used this as an excuse to make him a girl, well David never was a girl and never had any girl tendencies. This lead to his father becoming a drunk with depression, his parents still decided despite to circumcise their other sons, David eventually learns the truth and commits' suicide before he is 40 after a life time of terrible mental and physical health issues.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer
In short, there are a lot of reasons men here are ticked off.
I also want to point out often the boy is fondled before he is cut as the foreskin is fused to the rest of the penis at birth, and the only way to get the glans to pop out is massage and fondle the penis. This is done to avoid completely cutting off the entire penis.
But two final things. The reason circumcision is legal cannot be criticized because it would be anti-Semitic and heaven knows we can't have that. And the other thing, imagine a girl getting her feelings this invalidated over female circumcision. It wouldn't happen. People want to talk about the rape crisis, and want to stamp out child abuse and want to say my body my choice, yet we men were victims of all of this and no one cares and worse if we dare speak up we are immediately called anti-Semitic Nazis because circumcision is such a critical part of Jewish life. And there is a lot that could be said about that.
In short, I hope you can see why men here would be very angry.
I saw in another comment you said you may consider not cutting your future sons, if that is the case, good on you. Fight the good fight.
P.S. final thing, circumcision also causes brain damage 100% of the time as the baby always passes out into a shock induced coma as a result of it. Whenever you hear "he slept right through it" what they really mean is the baby let out a loud scream and passed out into a shocked induced coma and didn't wake up for usually upwards of 14 hours later. This scream can sometimes cause complications like death because if the baby screams too much they can scream so loudly and intensely they burst organs on the inside and cause internal bleeding.
So yes, this is what was done to you. Does any of this sound okay to you?
I will definitely have to read this one.
Here is where you can order it online:
https://www.amazon.com/Circumcision-Hidden-Trauma-American-Ultimately/dp/0964489538
I have been considering this path for sometime as well, and after reading these books:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Circumcision-Hidden-Ronald-Goldman-Ph-D/dp/0964489538
and
I think psychedelics could offer a very good treatment for early traumas such as circumcision, but from what I have read and heard, preparation and integration are key. I was circumcised and had my tonsils removed when I was 3 years old and I am convinced these operations at such an early age seriously traumatised me. I would love to hear from you if you are still considering this path ;)
> Parents decide what they do to their kids.
No. Parents can't decide what to do with their girl's genitals. They can decided what to do with their boy's genitals.
> And when I say a lot, I mean a fucking lot.
Most circumcision involve a device such as a gomco clamp, which forcibly envelops the penis. Or in other words, it makes it penetrate an object. Thus, most circumcisions literally do involving a fucking. So, yes, we do have an issues that involves a fucking lot here.
> You want to completely remove this authority over this procedure, with far less evidence than the court needs to order those life-saving procedures.
Yep. It's not the parent's body. They don't have a moral right to alter the sexuality of their boy's bodies. Why would they?
> Your evidence of harm is minor bleeding, minor infections, the rare botched case, and loss of sensation.
No, it's not just that. It's also psychologically traumatic. See this book: http://www.amazon.com/Circumcision-The-Hidden-Trauma-Ultimately/dp/0964489538 Also, here: http://www.cirp.org/library/psych/rhinehart1/
> None of those come even close to any previous reason to override the parents.
The parents have no right to override the autonomy of the boy with respect to his penis. You are the one who needs a reason as to why the parents should have a right to control the permanent development of a boy's penis, especially when it involves deliberate forced penetration of an object.
> There is no great government imperative to have a non-circumcised population, unlike say... schools, or vaccinations. The government just cant jump in on this one.
No, actually they can. We have a federal law which prohibits even a pinprick of a baby girl's genitals.
> Now, if we want to compare this to FGM...
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that I've only talked about the less severe forms of FGM. The less severe forms of FGM are illegal. Cirucmcision which is more severe than a pinprick of the clitoral hood is legal, while that pinprick is not legal.
> And people who had FGM done to them were saying it sucked, in large numbers.
Yeah, I don't believe this. And there do exist a significant amount of men saying that male genital mutilation in the form of circumcision sucks.
> We ask people who have been circumcised if it sucked, and the response is nearly always "Huh? Its just there."
No, that's not true. You're selectively looking at the male population. There exist FAR more many men who are not happy with such.
> The courts could look at FGM and say "This is harmful enough to warrant overriding parents and preventing it", which they just can't say about circumcision.
First off, it wasn't the courts. The courts don't make the law. The legislature does. The legislature made the law and no harmful enough was not their standard. The bill says:
"Except as provided in subsection (b), whoever knowingly circumcises, excises, or infibulates the whole or any part [emphasis added] of the labia majora or labia minora or clitoris of another person who has not attained the age of 18 years shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both." http://www.mgmbill.org/usfgmlaw.htm
If the bill concerned "harmful enough", then it wouldn't have had that "or ANY part" clause.
> We allow ear piercing of infants.
Ear holes can close up. Such is reversible. Circumcision is not.
That said, we probably should make it illegal. Since you've brought it up, why don't you start advocating that forced ear piercing of minors should get made illegal?
Oh, and you're wrong here also. Some people ARE trying to ban ear piercing of minors: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/11/baby-ear-piercing-ban_n_7561178.html http://debatewise.org/debates/100-should-baby-ear-piercing-be-banned/
> Circumcision is currently less harmful than ear piercing.
Yeah, I simply don't believe that. Circumcision has psychologically traumatic effects. It involves the forcible envelopment of a sex organ of a boy in the majority of cases. Ear piercing is not rape, while circumcision often is rape (it involves the forcible envelopment of the penis without the consent of the boy). Ear piercing doesn't destroy a body part, while circumcision involves the permanent destruction of an otherwise functioning body part. Ear piercing is reversible. Circumcison is not.
So you're just wrong. There exist plenty of ways in which circumcision is clearly worse.