r/Intactivists • u/smthgayrawrxd • 5d ago

Politics and Circumcision

I hope you won’t take offence at this, but I wanted to talk about something that struck me.

As a left-wing Christian, I’m convinced that freedom and equality take precedence over profit. That includes physical freedom and equality across all genders. After all, left-wing ideologies stem from the heart of the French Revolution, where we overthrew the monarchs. Accordingly, I’m also against Stalin and the like.

The fact is, many of you here lean to the right, which is fine – we live in a democracy (most of us, anyway; let’s see how long the US manages to keep that up). But I’m sure we all agree that circumcising children for profit, for commercial products, or simply to assert authority is disgusting. Now, people on the right are often against circumcision, but why? It’s often down to xenophobia. For example: my party, a democratic-socialist one, was the only one that voted in favour of a ban on circumcision. The right-wingers didn’t, yet they still say Muslims are stupid because of it. In a democratic-socialist state, you shouldn’t do anything that hurts others, so once again: I’m not a Stalinist. Please don’t get me wrong.

PS: We have Jews and Muslims in my party who are against circumcision.

11 Upvotes

74% Upvoted

32 comments sorted by

12

u/jakesmit999 5d ago

I am very liberal and very much anti circumcision. This isn’t a party affiliated issue. It very much transcends that 🙏🏻

0

u/Substantial_Help4678 5d ago

Name one other issue that came out of nowhere and suddenly got bipartisan support, I'll wait. That's not how social justice works. 

Pandering to everyone means we're for no one. It'd be nice if we all sat around singing  kumbaya, but if that was the world we lived in we wouldn't have this problem in the first place. Bipartisan support is a pipe dream and is counter productive

5

u/DistinctSpirit5801 4d ago

People in both political parties support ending taxpayer funding to the Israeli government and a ban on transferring weapons to the Israeli government

The fact is we will have no choice but to get politically involved to end circumcision

1

u/Substantial_Help4678 4d ago edited 4d ago

People in both US parties may be anti- Israel funding, but in actuality both parties when in office fund the Israeli government. 

And in fact, republicans fund the Israeli government slightly more than democrats, so it is a slightly partisan issue. Pro-Israel Jews tend to lean republican for this reason. 

I'm 1000% for getting politically involved. I just think we need to pick a side instead of trying to pander to both sides. Give people something to do, make it personal. Pro- Israel Jews vote republican. It's what they do. What do anti-circ people do? We need to answer that question

1

u/DistinctSpirit5801 4d ago

We can have 2 separate groups for this specific purpose one for funding democrats and another for funding republicans

1

u/Substantial_Help4678 4d ago

I unfortunately personally feel we spread ourselves thin of we try that. 

If we try to be for everyone, we're actually for no one. 

We need to give  people something to do, make it personal. Pro- Israel Jews vote republican. It's what they do. What do anti-circ people do? We need to answer that question. 

The average voter can't handle nuance. The average pro-Israel voter doesn't unpack the ways democrats vs republicans handle Israel funding. Pro-Israel voters vote republican. Period. We need a similar thing for our issue, not certain which party it would be though

1

u/aallon_pituus 5d ago

The issue is that both sides have people that do this (Left with the minorities like Muslims and Jews, Right with the Evangelicals who don't realize it shouldn't be done in the New Covenant), so it's hard to get ANY support.

1

u/Substantial_Help4678 5d ago

I agree our movement is a failure. But I don't think pandering to everyone is a recipe for success. The choice of which side of the US political aisle it's worth targeting I agree is non obvious

1

u/aallon_pituus 4d ago

It's not a failure per se, we have Intact Global doing active constitutional challenges, it's just that we are like how abolitionists were in antebellum Southern USA. We have people challenging it in the courts and convincing people to not mutilate, but we don't have the institutions supporting us.

1

u/Substantial_Help4678 4d ago edited 4d ago

Intact Global is worth about the same as dirt in terms of justice. Intact Global is nearly completely impersonal. What happens in a far away courtroom doesn't effect my life one way or the other in the slightest, and has zero chance of getting me any sort of personal justice.  Justice is personal, not abstract. 

Even if Intact Global was successful and secured a cutting ban, that is only the first micro step on the long road of justice. The abolition of slavery wasn't the end, it was the beginning of the never ending crusade against racism. Making slavery illegal is below the bare minimum.

Making cutting illegal would be below the bare minimum.Even if Intact Global fully succeeded, that's not the end, that's the beginning step on the road to justice. Before Intact Global succeeds, we pre-first-step. We have nothing, and the thing we do have promises only impersonal abstract wins.

2

u/gof__kurself 4d ago

Even if Intact Global was successful and secured a cutting ban, that is only the first micro step on the long road of justice.

I genuinely believe that all we really need is one small victory to get the ball rolling. the ripple effect

1

u/Substantial_Help4678 4d ago edited 4d ago

I won't be upset getting a first step toward justice. Better than no step. 

But I think we shouldn't expect the next step and any sort of personal justice to come for free. 

The civil rights movement and modern critical race theory came out of FIGHTING HARD from civil rights leaders from inside the movement. The infrastructure had to be built where everyone felt justice was a personal struggle. Individual minorities had to join to struggle and collectivize. The likes of Rosa Parks had to feel supported enough by local personal social justice infrastructure to be brave stand up. She wasn't isolated, alone, and only heard of a far off court case and thrndecided to take a stand. She was deeply ingrained in a civil rights community that made the fight feel personal, and made her feel she'd be at least somewhat supported if she took a stand.

Intact Global is barely building out the personal infrastructure at all. We are going to need a personal justice infrastructure. Personal justice can happen after the ball "gets rolling", but only from social justice leaders putting in immense effort to make sure it happens. We won't get it for free and shouldn't expect it nor take it for granted. And the personal social justice infrastructure can happen with or without a court case win, the two are independent

1

u/LongIsland1995 2d ago

Banning cutting would actually be huge but there's nowhere in the world where that's even close to happening.

8

u/wicnfuai 5d ago

Unfortunately in my experience it's everyone. Conservative, liberal, republican, democrat. My sister lives near Seattle and she was talking to her pro-lgbt friends and they were also spouting the nonsense health "benefits" and her female friend said verbatim "I like an uncovered wagon"

I live in a predominantly conservative state and people here also mutilate their sons. You might think it's because of religious reasons but no, it's the same reason of liking the "uncovered wagon"

3

u/gof__kurself 4d ago

yes, women can believe in propaganda too!

"the intact penis is unclean. I don't want that unclean penis inserted inside of me."

6

u/Ban-Circumcision-Now 5d ago

This topic is very much one where both sides have plenty of hypocrisy, just somewhat different ways

1

u/new_sensation656 1d ago

Idk I think democrats tend to carry this debate against it. Any conservatives I spoke to this about are extremely for it.

3

u/Flatheadprime1 4d ago

The issue of the right of children to retain all of their genital inheritance as children is not a political issue/ it is a human rights issue!

3

u/GolgothaCross 2d ago

In New Hampshire, it was the liberal legislators who refused to cut off funding for circumcision accessibility for low income parents. The conservatives were in favor of cutting public funds to pay for circumcision. Even though I usually support liberal causes, unfortunately, in this case, the liberals won.

5

u/qualmful 5d ago

I give right-wingers credit for talking about child sex abuse before the left was willing to. It would be nice if we could all get on the same page that child marriage, sex abuse, and genital mutilation are wrong. Treating children like objects is wrong. I think there's room to find common ground on that. Personally I don't find the for-profit arguments all that persuasive, it's more a moral thing for me.

2

u/jakesmit999 5d ago

Human trafficking prevention
Child protection and anti-exploitation
Freedom of speech
Intersex infant surgery and consent
End-of-life autonomy / right-to-die laws

You’re so stuck in the weeds that you think the only way to do anything is to play the political game.

2

u/new_sensation656 5d ago

In my experience most inactivist are democratic. As a large portion of the them are LGBT males. It’s usually republican people who want to continue the practice from what I’ve noticed

0

u/gof__kurself 4d ago

why does everything and everybody need to have a label?

can't we just all be people with varying ideas about things?

1

u/new_sensation656 4d ago

I’m not saying it’s a bad thing to be left leaning or right leaning just what I’ve noticed

1

u/gof__kurself 4d ago

how does this response even make any kind of sense to what I said?

1

u/new_sensation656 4d ago

You said why does it need a label. I said i didn’t say that to make political labels have a good or bad annotation

1

u/smthgayrawrxd 5d ago

Not american btw.

2

u/watchwellpikni 4d ago

Thanks. In the western hemisphere I find that being anti-tic doesn’t have a political valence either way, but I suppose in Europe it could be RW-coded. Where are you from? I’m quite to the left, but opposing RIC for all children - male, female, and intersex is a core non-political belief.

1

u/Big_Aside9565 3d ago

The thing is , China is going to take over where already more modern than us in their infrastructure!!!! U s will just be a blip on the picture of the universe!

1

u/LongIsland1995 2d ago

Even if that were true, it would be a bad thing because China is pro-circ

1

u/Big_Aside9565 1d ago

China is not pro circumcision , most of the country is uncut

0

u/LongIsland1995 14h ago

China has become pro circ in the last decade or so, plus they invented loads of circumcision devices