A family says their newborn son nearly bled to death and is fighting for his life after he was circumcised at a New York City hospital.
Tim and Gabrielle Groth said their son, Cole, underwent the circumcision at NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital in Manhattan, where he was born on March 31.
That is very much not accurate. Genital mutilation (of both genders) generally focuses on removing the ability to obtain pleasure from sex while maintaining reproductive capability.
Circumcision is roughly analogous to clitoral hood amputation (one type of FGM). The foreskin also contains a substantial number of sensory nerves (Meissnar’s corpuscles, and ~10k-20k nerve endings specialized for pleasure). Additionally, the glans (head) is subjected to the external environment in a manner which it was not adapted for, resulting in formation of thickened, layer of skin to protect it. These two things, taken together, result in greatly reduced sensory and pleasure capabilities in the penis. The reason for its commonality in the US is the historical puritanical belief that sexuality is wrong and desire to repress sexuality in little boys.
FGM is wrong. So is male genital mutilation. Inflicting either on those who can not consent is a crime against humanity that should not be accepted as commonplace.
I agree it should not be performed on a non-consenting individual, ESPECIALLY KIDS, but please do not claim the result is guaranteed to reduce sensitivity, as it is simply not true. Source: I am living proof the opposite can actually happen!
I had phimosis and experienced paraphimosis which can result in losing the whole thing. A circumcision was one of the best decisions of my adult life. It is NOT a sexual death sentence or designed to be only that. It can in fact be a saviour.