[GranteedEV]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

Inherently calloused glans?

Yes. The glans is not an external organ meant to be in regular contact and friction, as is the case in a baby's diaper or a toddler's underpants. The glans has to physically adapt to the exposure created by male genital mutilation by undergoing keratinization and that takes painful time. Every male has a glans, but you could spot the glans of an intact person vs a circumcized person from a mile away because of the difference in keratinization. Even if the word "callus" sounds sensational, that's exactly what's happening to a child who did not consent to this procedure.

Originally Posted by Tacopuck

This is THE CP Thread of Summer 2018!

DICKS! DICKS! DICKS! DICKS! DICKS! DICKS!

Let's adjust this for some accuracy here:

*Cutting Infant Dicks! Cutting Infant Dicks! Cutting Infant Dicks! Cutting Infant Dicks! Cutting Infant Dicks! Cutting Infant Dicks! Cutting Infant Dicks! Cutting Infant Dicks! Cutting Infant Dicks! Cutting Infant Dicks!

Originally Posted by Textcritic

A handful of posts have suggested that it is more aesthetically pleasing, but the vast majority of respondents I have seen in this thread have made more sensible points about the promotion of hygiene and as a preemptive measure. I don't really see many people "arguing for circumcision." I see most who are not acrimoniously opposed to it arguing in favour of parental consent, which seems entirely reasonable.

Of course, those "sensible points about preemptive measures" point to dubious correlative evidence rather than causal evidence. Which is a problem compounded by publication biases, and misinterpretation of sample populations' education on said topics. Circumcision is not a safe sex practice.

That's why:

Originally Posted by Canadian Pediatric Society

While there may be a benefit for some boys in high-risk populations and circumstances where the procedure could be considered for disease reduction or treatment, the Canadian Paediatric Society does not recommend the routine circumcision of every newborn male.

And discussions of hygiene, particularly in North America, are dubious in their own right. There is much information and misinformation on human hygiene that is dominated by opinion and tradition rather than medical fact. Humans are known to do things - excessively using mouthwash, sticking Q-Tips into their ears, oversterilize their environments - which do the opposite of perception. I have not seen one "sensible point about hygiene" in this thread.

Originally Posted by Textcritic

I see most who are not acrimoniously opposed to it arguing in favour of parental consent, which seems entirely reasonable.

Parental consent is not sufficient for any permanent, non-theraputic surgical procedure. So no, that does not seem reasonable. Even if it's a social norm.

This isn't just a piece of loose skin, even though it's colloquially referred to as foreskin.

The prepuce is a specialized, junctional mucocutaneous tissue which marks the boundary between mucosa and skin; it is similar to the eyelids, labia minora, anus and lips. The male prepuce also provides adequate mucosa and skin to cover the entire penis during erection. The unique innervation of the prepuce establishes its function as an erogenous tissue.


The male prepuce is formed by a midline collision of ectoderm, neuroectoderm and mesenchyme, resulting in a pentalaminar structure composed of a squamous mucosal epithelium lamina propria (corion) dartos muscle, dermis and outer glabrous skin

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10349413

it's something that is fused to the penis until well into boyhood - there's no clear "beginning, and end" to a foreskin. It's a part of your dick, and in a baby, it's a part that isn't even developed enough like that of an adult where it could be treated as a separate part. Circumcisions remove parts of the penis that are not skin at all.

The amount of tissue loss estimated in the present study is more than most parents envisage from pre-operative counselling. Circumcision also ablates junctional mucosa that appears to be an important component of the overall sensory mechanism of the human penis.

...

The mean length of prepuce in this sample was 6.4 cm (range 4.8-9.2) and covered 93% of the mean penile shaft (6.9 cm). Ten prepuces were as long as or longer than the shaft of the penis to which they belonged; three of them were > 10% longer than the shaft and glans combined. Circumcision of these subjects, allowing for a 3 cm mucosal cuff, would have removed a mean of 3.4 cm (range 1.8-6.2) of (strictly) preputial skin and mucosa, or 51% of the length of the mean adult penile shaft, or more from nearly half the penises. Unknown amounts of true skin were missing from the shaft of the circumcised adult penis.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8800902

Parental consent is, again, not sufficient as a form of consent for this cosmetic procedure. You need to be able to consent to the mutilation of your own penis in the modern era. That is the only humane position to have - it's not about parental choice because the child is a living, breathing individual capable of feeling pain and with permanent long term impact a possibility that can't be predicted right now based on anecdotal evidence. This isn't a gray area like abortion where the fetus may or may not be "a human". A baby is a human being.