I’m even tugging to restore my foreskin but at least 90% of the movement is creepy weirdos like this
Yeah I feel that. I guess I’ve learned to mostly shrug at that as human nature. We seem predisposed to exaggerate the importance of our own experiences. I for one see more voices speaking out against male circumcision as a net positive all the same. Very few people are going to seriously reconsider their attitudes towards fgm based on the situation as you’ve described it. Most people already find it revolting, and the people who are likely to perpetrate it aren’t going to be in a niche anti-circumcision community to begin with lol, so they’re not going to be emboldened either.
But if the community makes enough noise, and the good arguments have a chance to shine without being knee-jerk belittled, then it seems like more people will become increasingly aware of the harms of male circumcision with relatively few downsides in terms of fgm.
I’m just thinking out loud now, but I almost see criticizing communities like that as punching down, or useless purity testing. Like, the people who end up there are wrestling with a feeling of loss and victimization. They are in a vulnerable state and looking for a way to have their feelings validated. Yeah that’s sometimes going to happen in a problematic way, but they are all genuinely in pain and trying to use it to affect positive change. As long as they don’t really have power such that their problematic trauma coping is going to reduce efforts to combat fgm, I don’t see the point in policing how they rationalize their personal motivations for being a part of the anti-circumcision movement, if it can be called as much.
I feel like as a member of the community (at least as someone who has had a deep circumcision and is undoing its effects) that I retain rights to criticize it. I mean maybe I’m not a member because I refuse to take part in their weird misogyny and Islamophobia and shit, but I think that their attempts to compare penile to vaginal circumcision in terms of pain is such a bad move. The point is to talk about bodily autonomy and argue from that position.
Honestly I wish I could go back to this morning before I knew about misogyny and islamaphobia in the circumcision restoring community. I just now paid enough attention to the original community you referenced and realized that you’re conflating the restoration community with antii-circumcision activists in general.
I’m rubbed the wrong way (heh) by your depiction of the WORST elements of a super niche community as being indicative of circumcision activists in general. Your entire post seems drastically more harmful than helpful in retrospect. Smearing an entire group of people who are morally in the right, (automatic circumcision IS bull shit, as we agree) by likening them to sexual predators (to be clear, I see the act described in the OP as potentially predatory or abusive, not restoring in general) or people who are, quite frankly, not mentally well, is a pretty shitty thing to do.
Like, I learned what I responded with from people who probably consider themselves anti-circumcision activists. They’re smart, reasonable, and caring people who are doing good in the world by spreading awareness. Based on their help educating me on the issue, I won’t circumcise my kids should the choice arise. I recommend the same to my friends and family when the serious discussion of children comes up. I’m a cut man myself (likely have reduced sensitivity but that’s besides the point) and my family comes from a Jewish background, so I probably would have maimed my kid for no good reason had it never been explained to me. Yet here you are, trying to tar and feather them in a public forum because of the toxic culture in a men’s issue reddit community. It seems so unnecessary, I guess? And probably turning off a bunch of people who don’t know much about the issue from taking it seriously if someone tries to educate them in the future.
I don’t know. I’ve already spent too much time and energy on this today. I hope you take my comments as critical support. No hard feelings or anything like that. It seems like we’re on the same page as far as ethical assessment of the big issues go, I just find this post to be in extremely poor taste and likely a net harm. But what the fuck do I know - shrugs-. I’m just some schmuck on the internet. (last dick pun I promise)
There’s a lot of overlap with the restoration community and anti-circumcision activists, who call themselves uh intactivists. And there’s definitely people in that space doing good work but from my time as an uh intactivist there were a lot of daddy issues and shit And there were some guys who were really excited to show you their dicks without asking. Obviously they’re in the right but it’s a mess, man. Not a fun group.
And again they’re doing this shit to themselves and discrediting themselves. I am not the asshole for pointing out what they do.
