Circumcision and cognitive dissonance

(And other great articles from http://www.moralogous.com)

I love my penis because it feels good.
Some men have even more parts to their penises.
I don’t have that part.
I can never know what that part is like.
That sucks and makes me feel bad because anything to do with my penis is awesome.
I hate feeling bad about my penis.
I’m just going to decide that that part isn’t really that good so I can stop feeling bad.

Who would want to be in such pain?  The thing is, it doesn’t stop just there.  When circumcised men have sons of their own, they tend to want to circumcise them.  If they are aware of circumcision at all, they have subconsciously convinced themselves that having less penis is, in fact, better, despite the logical truth they’ve worked hard to bury along with their pain. 


...


I know circumcision is wrong.
I have to protect my baby.
My husband wants to do it.
I love my husband and don’t want him to be mad at me or think that I don’t like his penis.
I’m going to let him circumcise my baby to avoid this fight.
I’m going to convince myself that circumcision is actually good.

...

I love my baby.
I allowed him to be circumcised because I thought it was good.
But what if it’s not good? Then I hurt my baby.
I would never hurt my baby.
It must actually be good.

A brief history of the foreskin and circumcision



Other great articles:


One of the reasons we are both so passionate about this is because of how it affected our sex life. Sex is supposed to be one of the most powerful ways we express ourselves and that was taken from Jeff when he was circumcised. It was taken without his consent and it created a lot of damage, damage that has been repaired over time, but he will never experience sex the way nature intended. I can remember crying after sex many times and for many years. We literally could not have sex without oral sex first or without using lubrication. Sometimes I would lay in bed with an ice pack between my legs. It never occurred to me that this was from his circumcision; I thought it was my problem. I thought it was a bad combination of a large penis and a smaller vagina. I thought maybe I was too sensitive. Once he started restoring, even after just a couple weeks sex was 1,000 times better. He no longer had to thrust so hard to get feeling. Now after he’s been restoring for almost five years sex is amazing.

Couple repairs circumcision damage through foreskin restoration 




This is why the pro-circumcision camp thinks intactivists are mean: the pro-circumcision claims are so easily dismissed, and so patently stupid or immoral and based on ignorance, that it is nearly impossible to “debate” them or discuss the topic without quickly refuting every statement they make.  This is too much for the average person, who takes the anti-circumcision facts as a personal attack, and they often need to blame the intactivist in order to rationalize some way to not feel bad.  Such conversations often go like this:

Debate motives and rationalization


In the 1800s, Christian moralists and doctors began to promote the idea that ejaculation weakened men and that masturbation caused all sorts of diseases and health problems. They did not understand most of human physiology and they thought that humans had a limited amount of “vital nerve force” and that if you spent it on masturbation, you would become weak.  They tried to stop boys from masturbating by writing moralizing pamphlets, but this had limited success as masturbation is a normal and healthy activity very common in adolescence.

To understand why they targeted the foreskin to curb masturbation, you need to learn how the intact penis functions in sex and masturbation.  Intact men can masturbate without lubrication by moving their foreskins up and down over the glans (head of the penis.)  This gives immense pleasure in several ways ...
The reason why the foreskin had to go was because the foreskin was the best part of the penis that provided most of the pleasure.
...
The purpose of circumcision was to destroy the man’s sexual pleasure.  So why, 150 years later, do so many people think that circumcision does not change a man’s sexuality at all?  Circumcision became a “tradition” separate from the anti-masturbation motivation, one passed down from father to son in a sort of sad and ignorant repetition compulsion.  
...
The vast majority of Americans are ignorant of the purpose of circumcision, and when confronted with it for the first time, often feel angry.  That is understandable, but the only rational thing to do is to realize that you should be angry at the doctors for not telling you or your husband’s parents the truth. 

The purpose of circumcision is to ruin male sexuality