Good, it's barbaric child abuse. No other form of permanent body modification surgery (especially to genitals!) would be allowed on infants who can't consent. An adult wants to get circumcised? Go for it. It's pretty wild that we allow it on babies that can't even speak.
We've banned this account for using HN exclusively for political/ideological/national/religious battle and ignoring our requests to stop. That's not allowed here, regardless of which political position you're advocating.
(Before somebody pounces with "so we're not allowed to post about $TOPIC now?": no, I'm not secretly advocating for circumcision (of all things) and this comment is not about $TOPIC. I just had to hang it somewhere so I chose the most recent thread.
The issue is the overall pattern of the account's behavior, which is clearly against HN's rules.)
We've banned quite a few accounts on either side of that issue—theirs as well as yours—not because of their/your view on the issue itself, but because they/you were posting abusively. It's obviously a divisive topic, and people's strong feelings and political commitments are unfortunately leading them to break HN's rules pretty much irrespective of where they stand on it.
You can't derive much signal from cherry-picked examples, because we don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here. When accounts are posting abusively and not getting moderated, the likeliest explanation is that we just haven't seen it yet. We don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here.
It isn't hard to find people with different religious views from their parents, so no, I don't think defaulting a baby to any religion should be a thing.
In general, I'm surprised by the vitriol in these comments.
I think your claim proves too much:
If you pick a different religion (my siblings and their kids are religious - not Jewish), you could similarly say "even though they're happy being raised in their religion, they have no way to know whether they would prefer to have been raised agnostic/atheist" (or some other religion)
Of course that's true for many decisions parents make on behalf of their children.
I am curious if folks in this thread are similarly incensed by young children having their ears pierced? It's obviously different, but it still seems like a cultural decision.
To my knowledge (having only learned about it incidentally during the pregnancy/birthing process since it wasn't a relevant decision) it didn't seem like circumcision had strong medical recommendations for or against
You can stretch it to religion, if you consider being inculcated in a certain religion a 1-way door.
Circumcision removes nerve endings and results in an exposed glans, which thickens the skin and further dulls its nerve endings. This is a 1-way reduction in sexual capacity, which the child doesn't have any say in. Comparing it to ear piercing isn't the same, which, while cartilage doesn't heal easily, there's no sexual sensation interaction and leaving piercings empty tends to reverse them over time.
The linked study doesn’t measure sexual stimulation, only touch, pain, and heat. The study also found that the foreskin was more sensitive than any other area, which supports the prior commenter’s point.
As far as I can tell it addresses the mechanisms proposed by the parent comment.
If the claim is specifically about reduced stimulation during sex, that's a different claim. I'm simply saying the initial explanation seemed like bullshit
In general, if a claim is easy to verify, someone has verified it, but the US is also somewhat prudish so making the research more explicit might make it less likely that the research happens in the states. If there is an existing study that says this claim is correct, feel free to link it.
Respectfully, this is a case where a lack of "field experience" combines with asking AI about peepees, and it gets weird after that.
Like another commenter said, this is a small (62) group of men tested for stimuli that don't appear to resemble sex.
To be blunt, I think it is apparent to those with experience that uncircumcised penises are significantly more sensitive than circumcised ones. If you wanted to test this - get a big sample size and simulate the 3 common types of copulation in a standard way (lol).
Parents can definitely decide how to raise their child, within reason. It is in no way reasonable to conduct a non medical non consensual surgical procedure on your child. Simple as, really.
I understand the Middle East and know that Iran is our ally in the fight against Zionism. I also understand that these "protests" are inorganic and have failed in their attempt to inflict damage on Iran.
Israel is a Jewish theocracy (and a genocidal, illegitimate apartheid state), yet that doesn't stop us from being subjected to Zionist propaganda 24/7 (including these fabricated "protests").
Edit: Ok so this is clearly being brigaded, there's not way my post got flagged less than a minuted after posting.
Zionism is an illegal, genocidal, racist ideology. It exists 100% on land stolen from the Palestinians. They have every right to resist the foreign occupation on their land.
The Zionists literally just spent two years blowing up Mosques and committing genocide against Muslims and Christians. I'm sorry, you're not arguing in good faith and we're done here.
It resulted in hundreds of thousands of innocent people murdered as it's stopping the Palestinians from being able to defend themselves. It's literally enabled genocide (along with US support).
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