system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Circumcision is straight up genital mutilation, no different than female genital mutilation, and should be banned by law.

The foreskin is a necessary and natural part of the human body. It contains 80% of the nerve endings in the penis. It is the main sexual area of the penis, the primary erogenous zone. Cutting off the foreskin is no different than cutting of the clitoris. Yes, you can still have sex without a clitoris, but it's nowhere near as pleasurable or satisfying. It was generally practiced by anti-sex bigots to prevent masturbation, usually with a religious bent, as is true with most harmful anti-sex practices. It does nothing to prevent disease. Cultural reasons are only valid is the individual is a legal adult making this decision for their own personal desires, like any genital piercing or body modification. Fear of being shunned, as is also seen in cultures that practice adult female circumcision, is the result of emotional abuse. Mutilating your children's genitals should be considered child abuse, it should be illegal, and offenders should not only go to jail but also lose custody of their children. 


EDIT: To clarify, I mean that circumcision should be considered LEGALLY no different the female genital mutilation. It is already illegal to force FGM onto infants and children, and would not be performed by a doctor unless there was a valid medical need.

To further clarify, I don't mean that all parents who are solely motivated, but the cultural factors leading to the practice. 

Furthermore, I have now seen evidence that it may be effective in helping reduce the chance the risk of HIV infection, but that would not be a concern for a child and is only important if you do not live in the developed world. The 80% of the nerves statement is not easy to verify, but the idea that the foreskin is the most sensitive area on the penis still stands.
gpt
So, accepting that the whole “80% of the nerve endings” canard is one that you can’t source and have no reason to believe, we’re left with two questions:

(1). What is the actual harm?

Well, that’s a tough one, since we can’t actually have someone who was circumcised as an infant compare their pleasure (or ease of pleasure, or total enjoyment) to themselves as an uncircumcised person.

And without the “foreskin = clitoris” equivocation (which you admit you can’t source), there is no reason to believe that sex without foreskin is significantly less pleasurable or satisfying.

Nor would you be able to find unbiased sources for any of the other claimed mechanisms by which removal of the foreskin would reduce pleasure or satisfaction. It’s all speculation which begins with the premise that removal of the foreskin *must* make sex less enjoyable, so why, rather than proof that it *does*.

(2). What are the verifiable benefits?

Let’s go back to your CMV:

>It was generally practiced by anti-sex bigots to prevent masturbation, usually with a religious bent, as is trued with most harmful anti-sex practices. It does nothing to prevent disease

This is a weird bit of equivocation. You first posit that circumcision is “no different” from removal of the clitoris, and then refer to the lack of medical benefits from removal of the clitoris. You speak not at all to the medical benefits of circumcision.

So, I’d suggest you read the American Academy of Pediatricians’ most recent guidance on the subject, in which they concluded that the medical benefits outweighed the harm and should be left to individual parents to decide.

But the more insidious argument you make is that because a practice was done for stupid reasons in the past, it is invalidated as a medical practice even if we discover it was a good idea done for the wrong reasons.

Trepanning was done way, way, back for the purpose of letting evil spirits leave someone’s head. Now we call it a craniotomy and know it should be done to relieve intercranial pressure. We once bled people to reduce the bad humours in their body, and now know it’s a valid treatment for hemochromatosis and polycythemia.

We knew we should chew on willow bark because the spirit of the tree would heal you before we knew it was actually acetylsalicylic acid.

So let’s say circumcision *was* done to prevent masturbation in the bad old days of Kellog being crazy. Why would that invalidate real and statistically significant benefits today?

To put it another way: why do you think you have a better grasp on whether the benefits exceed the cost than actual doctors?