This seems like a false equivalency: Female circumcision is truly horrible, provides no medical benefits, robs many women of their ability to orgasm, and lethal complications are common.
As for male circumcision, I will let the American Academy of Pediatrics handle it:
"The preventive health benefits of elective circumcision of male newborns outweigh the risks of the procedure" and that the health benefits "are sufficient to justify access to this procedure for families choosing it and to warrant third-party payment for circumcision of male newborns," but "are not great enough to recommend routine circumcision for all male newborns".

@1: I hate how we call it "female circumcision." it is so far from a circumcision, you may as well call it anything else.

While it is true that circumcised males tend to get certain sexually transmitted diseases less often, as well as some cancers, there is not really a strong medical reason to circumcise, as much of that is hygeine related and can be solved that way. It is simply a cultural standard at this point, and one that probably should be left by the wayside.

I also beseech the ladies out there to stop body shaming guys who are not circumcised. One of the main complaints of uncircumcised men is that many women think their genitals are "weird" or "ugly" or laugh at them, and it can cause much undue shame.

'[N]o one is saying "foreskin is sexy" or "foreskin feels better" or "foreskin FTW" or anything like that. They're saying, essentially, "MUTILATION!!!!"' Odd... the photo you use at the top clearly shows one of the several "Foreskin Pride" signs and the huge "Say Yes To Foreskin!" banner. Not pictured is the 6-foot-long pink inflatable intact penis. The float also had a live DJ, and everyone on it as well as the neighboring groups were dancing and generally having a blast. Sure, the dour woman in the other photo doesn't seem to be enjoying herself, but we had a fantastic time spreading the positive message of genital integrity for all. See you next year!

Oh, they had a DJ. That changes things. Delete the article.

> The gay right's movement started in New York City—in Greenwich Village, in a bar called Stonewall.

Ah, no. Stonewall was a loud, angry event that made a good mythic start to the angry 80's and 90's. But it was most assuredly not the start of gay rights.

Hahaha that's okay - any publicity is good to spread the word, the article can stay ;). Just wanted to mention that the negative, humorless demonstration described here must have happened in the author's imagination... https://twitter.com/maxwelldemon_/status…

Anyone (well, any male) who belongs to a gym and changes/showers in the locker room can tell you circumcision is on its way out of style with the younger set. The circumcised ones are almost all 40 and over; I think they are the generation who decided not to circumcise their kids.

@1 Fyi, "Female circumcision" is an umbrella term that covers many different things. You're referring to a clitorectomy, which is (kind of) like castration and would definitely be included. However, female circumcision also covers removing some/part of the labia and/or the clitoral hood (which would be almost exactly analogous to male circumcision.)

IMO, the reason that people focus on the clitorectomies as the sole manifestation of female circumcision is that it's a lot harder to be indignant about female circumcision when you're talking about something is pretty similar to what we do culturally.

The preventative benefits might be worth an individual to choose it when he reaches a sufficient age of consent, is a much better phrasing. I have yet to hear one good reason to take someone out of the decision process, especially considering that, while rare, the risks do include death and castration. Just let boys decide for themselves. Easy as pie.

@7 Agreed. The majority of "gung ho", pro-cutters are pretty old because it was what they grew up with. Culture is a hella of a drug.

Also, if the sensation was any more intense I would probably have died of a brain aneurysm by the time I turned 13. So I'm OK with my parents' decision.

I could definitely go for some more sensation, lol. Basically if someone ever came to me and said, "hey dude, I wanna make sex feel better for you. You down?" The will always be a resounding and enthusiastic, "yes please!"

Judging from the signs and floats I saw standing there in New York City a couple days ago, no one is saying "foreskin is sexy" or "foreskin feels better" or "foreskin FTW" or anything like that.
Well there were signs saying just that in San Francisco and Chicago, if not NY too.

@unknown_entity. The AAP could not and did not weigh up the risks of infant male genital cutting because they had no figures for the worst risks, major complications and death. They were contradicted by 38 top paediatricians (heads and spokespeople for the paediatric associations of Austria, Britain, Denmark, England, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands, and senior paediatricians in Canada, the Czech Republic, France and Poland) have written:

"There is growing consensus among physicians, including those in the United States, that physicians should discourage parents from circumcising their healthy infant boys because non-therapeutic circumcision of underage boys in Western societies has no compelling health benefits, causes postoperative pain, can have serious long-term consequences, constitutes a violation of the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child, and conflicts with the Hippocratic oath: primum non nocere: First, do no harm"

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/co…

Hey this guy I know in Spokane, have you noticed that the 2,000,000,000 intact males in the world are not dying of brain aneurisms? A foreskin doesn't just make it "more intense", not just more of the same, it's like the difference between black and white and colour, or so men cut as adults ruefully say.

@12 - yes, I had noticed that. I was joking-slash-exaggerating. I hope my lack of dissatisfaction is OK.

Sure, just don't assume your son will be as satisfied if you decide to cut the the best part off HIS penis, just because YOU don't mind it.

Cut or don't cut. I like them either way. After all, the brain is the real sex organ.

But I must say that ages ago I knew a perfectly nice young man with what I thought was a perfectly lovely circumcised penis, but he was beyond bitter. He just wouldn't shut up about it, to the point that he could never keep a boyfriend, and became something of bore. I gave up on him when he told me he was going to get a "restoration". That was a bit too much for me.

Had to LOL at "best part." It might be true for all I know, but it was funny.

It is, this guy. I speak from first, um, hand experience.
DIY restoration is helping hundreds of thousands of men, Catalina. It can't replace the lost thousands of nerves, but it restores the rolling action that gives pleasure to both partners, and by protecting the head, it allows the sensation there to come back.

OK.

He went to Mexico for the procedure, and I don't know what became of him. I hope it made him happy, but I'm sure he found something else to complain about and obsess over. That was just his way.

Re: FGM vs MGM: As Hugh said, female circumcision has many types, and the least severe types are done in sterile conditions by skilled practitioners and are either about the same or LESS harmful, damaging & invasive as/than male circumcision is. The most severe type does not leave a woman unable to have children, while castration would leave a male unable to father a child.

Re: Foreskin Restoration: Many men are unable to enjoy sex because they have too little skin left, or too little sensitivity, or realized how much they are missing, and want it back. Many men have successfully restored their foreskin to get back much of what they lost as helpless infants, and are very happy with the results. It takes YEARS of diligence to get back what was stolen in minutes.

Circumcision absolutely does stunt the normal form & functions, thereby the sexual function, sensitivity and pleasure that the penis was supposed to have. Having foreskin makes intercourse, anal or vaginal, and masturbation easier, smoother, better, because the foreskin moves with the penis. That's why it's there.

All this should make circumcised men very angry. But, I agree with the article, parades should be fun. That float looks like FUN! :D Men who were shunned for having a normal, unmodified body should be able to walk with Pride, hence the point of being in the parade.

Anger is for protests. Many in the movement aren't angry, but they still protest it happening to new boys. The realization that, while a man may be perfectly happy with his circumcised penis, the cycle of abuse needs to stop. Please don't cut your sons, let them enjoy their whole penis. :-)

@20 well said. :o) Just an fyi, body integrity aside, I'm not sure if you saw this but one of the almost never talked about topics is the possibility of death. There's still more research to do obviously but I think there's still enough evidence to at least give people pause on whether or not they should do it to their sons.

http://www.academia.edu/6394940/Lost_Boy…

In other news, apparently they're working on a way to grow back your foreskin using your own DNA so it wouldn't just be stretching the skin back over, it'd be complete with the frenar band, nerve endings; the whole shebang-a-bang.

I don't know if I'd do it personally because I don't know how much more mucking around I want to happen down there but it is interesting.

Well, this article had absolutely nothing to say. I guess The Stranger needed to fill some space.

Infant circumcision is a human rights violation, boys deserve the same protection and respect to bodily autonomy as girls in America. Genital mutilation is genital mutilation, regardless of gender. His body, his choice, his human right. The only person who should decide how the genitals should look is the owner of said genitals. No medical organization recommends routine infant circumcision. It's 2015, inform yourselves and get with the time! No more cutting healthy parts off the genitals of babies. - https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ceht-3xu84I

@19 Catalina, surgical restoration is not recommended. It's expensive, has all the downsides of surgery including recovery time, and cosmetic surgeons by definition concentrate on appearance at the expence of function. Its only advantage is that it is relatively quick. DIY restoration gives an excellent appearance and greatly improved function, is cheap or even free with home-made devices, and is psychogically empowering. (It is however time-consuming and tedious.)

But, hey Catalina, enough of the victim-shaming. The one guy you know is just that, one guy, and you don't know what feeling he had left with his "perfectly lovely circumcised penis". No two circumcisions are the same, because doctors take or leave the frenulum according to their skill, luck or whim, and the frenulum, which circumcised men (but not intact men) call "the male G-spot" is just a remnant of the richly innervated ridged band that ran round the inside of the foreskin conferring not just "more sensitivity" but "a symphony of sensation".

Let's be honest here, circumcision is a euphemism for child sexual torture and rape. The AAP is a trade organization that promotes circumcision because it is an industry worth billions annually. It's your American for-profit medical care system at work. Their position statements on circumcision have been thoroughly debunked.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/co…

Those who deny that circumcision severely harms a person's sexuality are engaging in psychological torture. No one who is raped deserves to live in a culture that denies that any abuse took place. Or be told the lie that the rape was done for their benefit.

Instead of citing the pro-circumcision propaganda of the AAP or circumcision fetishists, you should check out the other side of the story from the people who's opinion is the only one that is relevant: those who have had part of the genitalia cut off without their permission and are unhappy about it. The survivors of violent barbaric child rape rooted in the same primitive religion that gave us wonderful memes like "stone the faggots to death" and "marriage is between one woman and her rapist".
http://circumstitions.com/
http://noharmm.org/
http://nocirc.org/
http://intactwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://www.mendocomplain.com/

If you think that "the brain is the real sex organ" try cutting the whole thing off (or out) and see how much sex you can have with the brain alone.