re: John Cleese: “I Prefer Cultures That Don’t Tolerate Female Genital Mutilation”

quote:

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Only one is very bad with permanent physical damage, which is why equating the two is asinine

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I'm not listing them all from the article, but the article uses referenced studies. And I'm not judging anyone on this. The vast majority of people didn't choose to be circumcised or not. And if it is your religion that is perfectly fine, that is your culture, I get why you do it. I just think it should be a choice to do is all, not forced.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/moral-landscapes/201501/circumcision-s-psychological-damage

Circumcision is often performed on infants without anesthetic or with a local anesthetic that is ineffective at substantially reducing pain (Lander et al., 1997). In a study by Lander and colleagues (1997), a control group of infants who received no anesthesia was used as a baseline to measure the effectiveness of different types of anesthesia during circumcision. The control group babies were in so much pain—some began choking and one even had a seizure—they decided it was unethical to continue. It is important to also consider the effects of post-operative pain in circumcised infants (regardless of whether anesthesia is used), which is described as “severe” and “persistent” (Howard et al., 1994). In addition to pain, there are other negative physical outcomes including possible infection and death (Van Howe, 1997, 2004).

Research has demonstrated the hormone cortisol, which is associated with stress and pain, spikes during circumcision (Talbert et al., 1976; Gunnar et al., 1981). Although some believe that babies “won’t remember” the pain, we now know that the body “remembers” as evidenced by studies which demonstrate that circumcised infants are more sensitive to pain later in life (Taddio et al., 1997). Research carried out using neonatal animals as a proxy to study the effects of pain on infants’ psychological development have found distinct behavioral patterns characterized by increased anxiety, altered pain sensitivity, hyperactivity, and attention problems (Anand & Scalzo, 2000). In another similar study, it was found that painful procedures in the neonatal period were associated with site-specific changes in the brain that have been found to be associated with mood disorders (Victoria et al., 2013).

The CDC fails to consider that many medical procedures, even those that are described as routine, are often experienced as traumatic by children and adolescents (Levine & Kline, 2007). Circumcision, for example, clearly meets the clinical definition of trauma because it involves a violation of physical integrity. In fact, research has demonstrated that medical traumas in childhood and adolescence share many of the same psychological elements of childhood abuse, such as physical pain, fear, loss of control, and the perception that the event is a form of punishment (Nir, 1985; Shalev, 1993, Shopper, 1995).

The studies found that these procedures often produce symptoms which are very similar to those of childhood sexual abuse, including dissociation and the development of a negative body image. The effects often persist into adulthood as evidenced by a study that examined the effects of childhood penile surgery for hypospadias. Men who had this surgery in childhood experienced more depressive symptoms, anxiety, and interpersonal difficulties than men who did not have the surgery (Berg & Berg, 1983).

The Majority of Boys Circumcised as Children and Adolescents Meet Diagnostic Criteria for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

I'm not really using this as evidence, I just saw it in the links and had to post it
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/active/mens-health/11334800/Circumcision-doubles-autism-risk-study-claims.html
Boys circumcised before the age of five are twice as likely to develop autism, according to a controversial Danish study of over 300,000 children

https://www.cirp.org/library/psych/brain_damage/

Modern scientific research indicates that early childhood trauma, especially during the first two years of life when the brain is still rapidly developing, produces permanent adverse physical changes in brain development.