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Pro circumcision activists have [[Alleged reasons for circumcision|many arguments ]] why the medically not indicated [[Circumcisioncircumcision]] should make sense. This page tries to offer an almost complete list and a ranking of the pro arcuments. All arguments listed hereafter can be and already have been refuted, the [[#Religious arguments|religious arguments ]] included.

== Religious Arguments ==* '''Circumcision is required by God.''' This argument is brought by the Jewish communities, with respect All arguments listed here and their refutations generally refer to children who are fundamentally owner of all [[human rights]] since birth and who are fundamentally unable to a Bible text where God ordered the Israelic forefather Abraham consent to have all male descendants circumcisedirreversible physical modifications.* '''Circumcision has been recommended by the Prophet Mohammed.''' This argument is brought by the Muslim communities, with respect to a Sunna text of the prophet where the male circumcision is required.{{Incomplete}}

== Medical Prophylactical Arguments Pseudo-medical arguments ==

* '''Circumcision supposedly protects against phimosis"Today, the [[foreskin]] has no function any more."'''* '''Circumcision supposedly protects against STDs: This argument holds very persistently, often used by women who only know [[circumcised]] men, but even by urologists who earn a lot of money with [[circumcision]]s and therefore welcome any argument pro [[circumcision]].'''* '''Circumcision supposedly protects against HIV/AIDS: A common stereotype of this argument sounds like this: "The [[foreskin]] was necessary when we lived in trees and crawled on all fours. The [[foreskin]] then had protected the [[Glans penis|glans]]. Now that we are running on two legs and men no longer grind their genital over the floor, the [[foreskin]] can therefore get away.'''"* : During the [[Circumcision Debate]] 2012 in Germany, a single Muslim children'''Circumcision supposedly protects against urinary tract infections (HTI)s surgeon from Cologne was repeatedly quoted<ref>{{REFweb |url=http://www.rp-online.de/panorama/deutschland/arzt-fuerchtet-illegale-beschneidungen-aid-1.'''2895603 |title=Arzt fürchtet illegale Beschneidungen |trans-title=Doctor fears illegal circumcisions |language=German |date=2012-07-03 |accessdate=2019-10-18* '''Circumcision supposedly protects }}</ref> who railed with exactly this stereotype and other abstruse arguments against penis canceran impending [[circumcision]] ban.'''* '''Circumcision supposedly : For many years, the medicine knows that the [[foreskin]] is a very important organ of the body that not only contains a large number of very sensitive nerve endings and is very beneficial for sex, but also protects the [[Glans penis|glans]] against cervical cancer / HPVdrying, [[keratinization]], and sunburn.'''

*: The cleaning of an [[intact]] or [[circumcised]] penis is equal and is not hampered by an intact [[foreskin]].* '''"[[Uncircumcised ]] penisses always smell."'''*: This argument assumes a poor knowledge about hygiene for all [[intact]] boys and men and thus constitutes an indirect insult of all intact boys and men. In fact, all genitals start smelling after a while if they are not cleaned now and then. Rinsing with water is basically sufficient.* '''"There are SO MANY older men in the facility who aren’t [[circumcised]], and cleaning them is terrible and nasty. So many of them have to get circumcised because they keep getting infections."'''*: This is the so-called ''[https://www.littleimages.org/blog/nursing-home-debate/ Nursing Home Argument]'' which is silly in itself and has been debunked. Read the linked article, please. == Esthetical arguments ==* '''"A circumcised penis looks nicer."'''*: That is not a valid measure of [[circumcision]] on children. With the same aesthetic argument, for example, Chinese girls‘ feet were bound in former times, so they could barely walk as adult women because of the deformation of the feet. == Sexual arguments ==* '''"Circumcised men can cum later."'''*: In fact, many [[circumcised]] men have to work much longer for ejaculation, especially with age, because due to the lack of [[foreskin]] their [[Glans penis|glans]] is increasingly callous and unfeeling. Regardless of these differences, this is about adult sexual preferences that they want to force on their children, which is not covered by any law in the world.* '''"Women enjoy sex with circumcised men more."'''*: There are certainly women who like sex with [[circumcised]] men. Discussions show that this is often voiced by women who have no comparison, while women who know both sex with [[intact]] and genitally mutilated men generally prefer [[intact]] sex because it doesn't require as hard a penis bump Dry scrubbing of the [[vagina]] happens. Regardless of these differences, this is about adult sexual preferences that they want to force on their children, which is not covered by any law in the world. == Trivializing arguments ==* '''"I've never heard anyone complain about being circumcised."'''*: Chances are that a man does not talk about his sexual or other (genital) issues to others at all. There are many personal stories of men who did and do complain. There is an organization named [[Men Do Complain]], there are books with [[Case Histories|case histories]] of many men who do complain. But it is not the question if men do complain. The question is: Is [[circumcision]] of children an illegal intervention in the [[physical integrity]]? That is continuously asserted by lawyers. The question for victims does also not arise here, because [[circumcision]] of children basically violates the [[human rights|fundamental rights of the child]]. * '''"[[Circumcision]] is similar to removing a patch."'''*: All published [[It´s A Boy!|circumcision videos]] show that those who are [[circumcised]] without adequate anaesthetic treatment (anaesthesia or anaesthetic), suffer immense [[pain]]. Infants fall regularly into [[shock]] as a reaction to the pain, when being [[circumcised]] without effective anaesthesia. This [[shock]] is often misinterpreted and the parents believe that their baby would have simply slept through.*: Actually, in some traditional ritual forms of [[circumcision]] not only the outer [[foreskin]]} is cut up or off, but rather even the (inner) foreskin is torn down. The comparison with pulling off a patch is safe only from the point of view of the person who tear down the patch or the [[foreskin]], but not from the point of view of the child who suffers the [[pain]]. It is at least not a single case known in which a [[mohel]] fell in [[shock]] after [[circumcision]], while it is regularly in only a few days old boys. Therefore, this comparison is more than cynical.*: The [[foreskin]] of an infant firstly is connected with the [[Glans penis|glans]] and thus serves to protect it from everything. One can compare the state of the physiological connection between internal [[foreskin]] and [[Glans penis|glans]] with the way how fingernails are connected to the underlying tissue. * '''"Babies feel no [[pain]] yet, therefore should be [[circumcised]] at an early stage."'''*: This assertion is completely obsolete and refuted in many studies. The discussion is also quite schizophrenic. It is fiercely debated whether embryos that are to be expelled, should be stunned before. But you can easily cut off a body part without anesthesia on born babies because they do not feel [[pain]]? The research situation is however quite differently here: boys who were [[circumcised]] as infants, show even stronger reactions to [[pain]] (e.g. vaccination) than [[intact]] ones.<ref>{{REFweb |url=http://english.alarabiya.net/en/life-style/healthy-living/2015/04/21/First-infant-MRI-study-finds-babies-feel-pain-like-adults-.html |title=First infant MRI study finds babies feel pain ‘like adults’ |date=2015-04-21 |accessdate=2019-10-18}}</ref><ref>{{TaddioA KatzJ IlersichAL KorenG 1997}}</ref>

* '''"A [[Circumcision]] is like cutting fingernails or hair."'''*: Fingernails and hair grow by themselves. This trivializing comparison of [[Circumcision|foreskin amputation]] with normal personal hygiene is untenable. * '''"The baptism of a baby with ice cold water is also brutal and puts a [[shock]] to the child."'''*: This argument is not only wrong, it's downright silly. First, it is common nowadays to use warmed water for infant baptisms, because you just do not want to scare the often only a few days old child. Second, here the actual gentle wetting of the head (or forehead) is compared cynically with the amputation of a healthy, important body part of a healthy baby body without adequate anesthesia. And third, there is no right in the wrong. If baptism with water would violate the fundamental right of the child to physical integrity to the extent that [[circumcision]] does, then still no equal (un)right to [[circumcision]] can be derived. * '''"He should look like his father; you can't tell the child why he looks different '''''there'''''."'''*: Probably one of the worst arguments, because where is the limit? So you can't also explain to the child why the father is sitting in a wheelchair and the child doesn't, so you have to cut his spinal cord? Maybe the father is blind or has scars on his face — does the child have to compensate the father, too? Of course not. The argument serves to protect the father's peace of mind, but not the child that must be protected against 'conflicts'. * '''"I like my penises circumcised ."'''*: Often voiced by mothers who could not imagine who an intact [[penis ]] looks nicerlike or works. The argument is not only dangerously close to a sexual assault, but has already exceeded this limit. Any man who would express himself this way about the genitals of his daughter, would have major problems with the DCFS and would expose himself to criminal prosecution.  * '''"You can't teach a boy to wash there. Thus he will be circumcised."'''*: Parental education failure should not be borne on the backs of the boys. If parents do not feel able to educate their son to proper personal hygiene, they should take help from official aid agencies rather than to impose the son on an operation that has no other justification than parental laziness. == Exclusionary arguments == Exclusionary arguments often try to either push the discussion partner in the corner of a minority so that he must not talk when the majority discusses something - or to ascribe themselves to a special group, whose group rules forbid that outsiders may join in the discussion at all. * '''"The child isn't yours, so you don't have to care!"'''*: This argument is often heard by young parents who wonder when [[intactivists]] add informative comments about the circumcision to their publicly posted statements about the circumcision of their sons. Almost always they don't understand [[parental rights]] and wonder why strangers care more about their child and his well-being and [[human rights]] than they do themselves. * '''"Those who are not circumcised, can / may not talk!"'''*: An argument of an impressive logic. Then women and men who were not raped, must not be against rape. Who was not already executed, may or may not then have a say even on the death penalty. * '''"This is a purely Jewish / Muslim topic - not your affair!"'''*: Here the attempt to take out the genital mutilation which is practiced worldwide for the most diverse reasons, from the discussion, is doubly insidious: One is pretending as if there were only the religious ritual of a single religious community. On the other hand discussion partners are identified here automatically as unwanted outsiders of communion who had better not to interfere in the intra-Community discussion. == Moral arguments ==* '''"I want to keep my boy from [[Masturbation|masturbating]]."'''*: [[Masturbation]] is something completely natural and part of the right to sexual self-determination. The excessive fight against the natural [[masturbation]] was the main motivation for the American doctor and racist [[John Harvey Kellogg]] to propagate [[circumcision]] all over the United States of America.* '''"If we ban it here, it is done illegaly or abroad."'''*: This so-called 'backyard' argument can be applied to almost all statutory, punitive bans and is just absurd. It is also listed in debates about drug addiction, abortion and [[FGM|female genital mutilation]]. During the [[Circumcision Debate]] 2012 in Germany, the author [[Harald Stücker]] has explained in a recommended article<ref>{{REFweb |url=https://evidentist.wordpress.com/2012/11/19/beschneidung-im-hinterhof-legalize-it/ |title=Beschneidung im Hinterhof: Legalize it?! |trans-title=Circumcision in the backyard: Legalize it?! |language=German |last=Stücker |first=Harald |date=2012-11-19 |accessdate=2019-10-18}}</ref> why the backyard argument is not accessible. *: Cases are already on record in Germany, in which courts have eluded parents the right to determine residency of their children when it was to expect that they wanted to take a child abroad for a [[circumcision]] and the court ruled for the benefit of the child.<ref>{{REFweb |url=https://dejure.org/dienste/vernetzung/rechtsprechung?Text=XII%20ZB%20166/03 |title=Rechtsprechung BGH, 15.12.2004 - XII ZB 166/03 |trans-title=Case Law BGH, 15.12.2004 - XII ZB 166/03 |language=German |publisher=dejure.org |accessdate=2019-10-18}}</ref>*: They who still want to do something legally prohibited, will not be quenched by law at all. Arguing that legal banning would lead to dodging into illegality, should result in a situation where all criminal laws could be abolished.* '''"You have to be tolerant of religions."'''*: It is allowed to criticize any religion or other worldview, since they cannot demand respect as a thought structure per se. Tolerating means "standing", "enduring", above all other or foreign beliefs, actions and customs. Of course, this does not include actions that are punishable or morally questionable. It can be seen time and again that above all conservative or even ultra-Orthodox religious representatives demand tolerance (or even respect) for their basic attitude of mutilating children's genitals for religious reasons. This is where Popper's [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance Paradox of tolerance] comes into play, which makes it clear that there can be no tolerance for intolerance if tolerance does not want to be abolished. == Compare bans ==Comparisons are legitimate elements of any discussion, since comparison is a basic, perception-based method that leads to finding similarities and differences between topics or objects. It is therefore always legitimate to compare, even if the subjects or objects to be compared do not have the same characteristics. The comparison can lead to the result that the compared topics or objects are the same, or that they are similar or very different.=== MGM and FGM ===* '''"Female genital mutilation and male circumcision must not be compared."'''*: This killer argument is often used to end a discussion about the similar violation of [[human rights]]. It is often ignored that the [[WHO]] has published a gradation catalog for different types of [[FGM]], according to which the "mildest" forms of [[FGM]] are far more harmless than the usual form of [[MGM]], which almost always means a complete removal of the [[foreskin]]. In addition, the choice of words ("genital mutilation" vs. "circumcision") tries verbally to reinforce the difference between [[FGM]] and [[MGM]].:: See also: [[Comparison MGM and FGM]]. == Religious arguments ==The two main religions that still exist, which "challenge" male genital mutilation in some way, are [[Judaism]] and [[Islam]]. In Christianity there are only marginalized groups such as the Coptic Christians who still mutilate children's genitals. Of course, the demand to mutilate children's genitals is appropriately religiously disguised in the religions mentioned, although it is not anchored in the Quran, the content of which the dogmas of Islam are primarily based on.=== Jewish religion ===* '''"Circumcision is required by God."'''*: This argument is brought by the Jewish communities, with respect to a Bible text where God ordered the Israelic forefather Abraham to have all male descendants circumcised. But in fact it is not a religion-giving, but a religion-confirming ritual act that can therefore be postponed to a later date without any problem, however the [[Abrahamic covenant]], has been debunked by [[Leonard B. Glick]]. Furthermore, children and especially babies have no religion. Educating your children in a religious manner is not allowed to include cutting off sane organs from your children's bodies. * '''"Only the [[circumcision]] makes a boy a real Jew."'''*: Refutation: In the Jewish-religious culture, a boy becomes a Jew automatically when he is born by a Jewish mother. * '''"There is no internal Jewish debate about circumcision."'''*: The many [[Intactivists|Jewish movements]] against the ritual [[circumcision]], founded in the Internet age, which also search for [[Brit Shalom|alternative rituals]], clearly show that an intra-Jewish debate exists very well.*: But the ritual was repeatedly questioned in inner-Jewish debates even earlier. [[Walter Otte]] wrote about it in the [[HPD]]: "The combination of medicine and religion refers to the great decade-long intra-Jewish debate of the 19th century, brought in mainly Jewish doctors objection made against the circumcision of boys. In the middle of the 19th century, there were Jewish reform groups, Jewish doctors and rabbis, who entered intense discussions, which dealt with religious but also to health aspects of the Prepuce [[circumcision]] of boys. In debates or reform Rabbi and Jewish doctors (which even claimed the abolition of the [[FGM|Boy circumcision]]), the hospital doctor [[Gideon Brecher]] called the procedure a "bloody operation". The Dessau doctor [[Adolf Arnhold]] presented extensive arguing why [[circumcision]] is outdated as a "binding ritual of the Jews". He was based on religious considerations, called the biblical circumcision formations only of importance for "unbiased believers" and came to the conclusion that the material act of [[circumcision]] had become "a redundant and useless shell of the mentally bare core". [[Philipp Wolferts]] from Lemförde and the Hamburg doctor [[Moritz Gustav Salomon]] emerged with medical arguments, where Salomon came to the conclusion that [[circumcision]] was not religious but merely a political meaning in the 19th century at all."<ref>{{REFweb |url=http://hpd.de/node/14033?nopaging=1 |title=Verunglimpfungen statt Argumente? |trans-title=Slurs instead of arguments? |language=German |last=Otte |first=Walter |date=2012-09-24 |accessdate=2019-10-18}}</ref>===Christian religion===The Christian fathers rejected [[circumcision]] for Christians at the [[Council at Jerusalem]] in 49 A.D.<ref>[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+15%3A1-30&version=NASB Acts of the Apostles 15:1-30].</ref>=== Islamic religion ===* '''"Circumcision has been recommended by the Prophet Mohammed."'''*: This argument is brought by the Muslim communities, with respect to a Hadith of one fellow of the prophet where the male circumcision is required. The Quran itself neither mentions nor requires the [[circumcision]]. Although Ibrahim (Abraham) himself is mentioned in the Quran at least 67 times, his [[circumcision]] is not mentioned there. Instead, many places in the Quran describe that Allah created man "in great shape" <ref>(Quran 95:4)</ref>, "completed"<ref>(Quran 27:88)</ref> and "complete"<ref>(Quran 32:7)</ref>, and "made your bodies perfectly"<ref>(Quran 40:64)</ref>. "No mistake you can see in the Creation of the Most Gracious." <ref>(Quran 67:3)</ref> The [[circumcision]] itself would have to be an insult for Allah.<ref>{{REFweb |url=http://www.quranicpath.com/misconceptions/circumcision.html |title=Circumcision - Does the Qur'an Approve it? |publisher=Quranic Path |accessdate=2019-10-18}}</ref>*: The recommendation for [[circumcision]] goes back to [[Abū Huraira]], who reported that the Prophet should have said: ''"To fitrah (at creation of man) five things are required: The [[circumcision]], the shaving of pubic hair, the short-cutting of the mustache, cuttin the (finger and foot) nails, and plucking the armpit hairs."''<ref>[BUCHARI:1216]</ref>*: Since this is five body treatments that have to do in the broadest sense with hygiene, one can understand even in temporal and spatial context of Islam in the 7th century AD, that [[circumcision]] was mentioned, too. But nowadays, [[circumcision]] is unnecessary for hygienic reasons. Hygiene can be no religious argument, too. {{SEEALSO}}* [[Alleged reasons for circumcision]]* [[Circumcision#Non-medical_indications_for_circumcision|Circumpendium: Non-medical indications for circumcision]]

== Sexual Arguments Ironic confrontation ==* [http://reductress.com/post/were-piercing-my-babys-tongue-heres-why/ We’re Piercing My Baby’s Tongue. Here’s Why.]* {{REFbook |last=Dickman |first=Hugh |init=H |url=https://www.amazon.com/dp/165183430X/ |title=Reasons To Circumcise: A Comprehensive Unbiased Evidence-Based Guide To All Of The Data In Favor Of Circumcision |website=Amazon |date=2019-12-29 |accessdate=2020-01-15}}

{{LINKS}}* '''"Circumcised men come later[http://www."'''circumstitions.com/Absurd.html Circumsurdities: Absurd claims about circumcision]* [https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/moral-landscapes/201109/myths-about-circumcision-you-likely-believe Myths about Circumcision You Likely Believe]