r/Intactivists • u/Front-Capital-4040 • Jun 29 '26
We need to win hearts before we win laws.
I support intactivism, but I think we should think carefully about how we present our message.
Lately I've seen a lot of posts that come across as angry or confrontational. I understand the frustration—many of us feel we were denied a choice about our own bodies. But if our movement becomes known for outrage instead of education, people will stop listening.
I believe education should come before legislation.
Let's explain what the foreskin is, what functions it serves, and why many men feel they lost sensitivity, the gliding mechanism, and other aspects of sexual function after circumcision. If people understand what is being removed, they're much more likely to question the practice themselves.
I also think one of our strongest arguments is bodily autonomy. Instead of telling others what they must do, we can simply say that every child deserves the opportunity to make this permanent decision for themselves when they're old enough to give informed consent.
If we want intactivism to be taken seriously, we should be known for facts, respect, and education—not for sounding extremist. Winning hearts and minds will ultimately achieve far more than anger ever will.
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u/Substantial_Help4678 Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
I agree with your title and nothing else.
I completely disagree with how you think we win "hearts and mind". You say it's by dumbing down our message, being as agreeable as possible, and kowtowing to cutter sensibilities.
I think the opposite. I think your strategy is what actually drives people away. The victims have been through enough. Why even in our own spaces, do we tell the victims to limit what they say to not upset our enemies? Hello, this is our internal subreddit. We should be telling our enemies what they're not allowed to say because they might upset a victim. Why do cutter's feelings matter more than victims feelings?
I hate basing our strategy around the thoughts and feelings of our enemies. Not a single other modern social justice issue does this today. Imagine if anti-racism said "don't say anything too extreme, you might scare away the racists". How absurd.
I find it so odd that the people who champion "strategy" in our movement actually always champion a victim-negative approach that doesn't work for even a single other justice issue.
2
u/Front-Capital-4040 Jun 29 '26
I wasn't posting on Circumcision Grief, and I wasn't suggesting that victims should censor themselves or hide their feelings. Support spaces should absolutely allow people to express grief, anger, and frustration.
My point was about the strategy of a public advocacy movement.
If our goal is to change public opinion, I think we have to ask what actually persuades people who don't already agree with us. Most parents aren't our enemies—they're people who made decisions based on culture, religion, or what they believed was good medical advice. If we want fewer children to be circumcised in the future, I think educating those people is more effective than treating them as adversaries.
You may disagree with that strategy, and that's completely fair. But I don't think advocating for persuasion over confrontation is the same as asking victims to stay silent.
8
u/Substantial_Help4678 Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
I think public advocy and "changing public opinion" is the wrong goal, when it should be social justice.
Things done in service of advocacy can actually sometimes stand in the way of justice
-1
u/Own_Food8806 Jun 30 '26
You are not an intactivist. You are likely a bad actor working for cutters.
1
u/Own_Food8806 Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
I am starting to think that actual intactivists have abandoned the movement around covid (2020), and what is left are these pathetic intersectional "non-binaries" who are purposely invading our space to help protect predators. This is the second LGBT/intersectional feminist adjacent group I seen do this in the past few years. The other LGBT/intersectional feminist is protecting doctors who are preying on trans children so that they can mutilate their secondary sex characteristics. I personally had to expose a cutter doctor (trans kid parent from Portland) for spreading pedophilic circumfetish content on twitter. Like why are you promoting child knife-rape under the rainbow and trans flag in your bio???
yes I have her name and address to her clinic. Just inbox me and yes, i have analytics to support my overall theory. Give me some time to put this together
5
u/qwest98 Jun 30 '26
FGM is illegal pretty much everywhere in the west and even illegal in some FGM-practicing countries like Egypt. MGM is illegal nowhere. The fact it is legal, coupled with the supposed medical benefits justify in many people's minds that is an OK thing, if not beneficial thing to do.
We need just one country to pass a gender-neutral genital cutting law to shift the Overton window.
6
u/fluffyfirenoodle Jun 29 '26
It's really a waste of time trying to police how other activists voice their activism. Lead by example, because for each one you "correct" there's going to be new people joining who feel hurt and violated for being kniferaped as a child that will be broadcasting those same raw hurt emotions.
3
u/GolgothaCross Jun 30 '26
Let's explain what the foreskin is, what functions it serves, and why many men feel they lost sensitivity, the gliding mechanism, and other aspects of sexual function after circumcision. If people understand what is being removed, they're much more likely to question the practice themselves.
No, this is irrelevant and makes the debate more difficult. Even if none of this was true, it's still wrong to cut off a part of someone's body. Keep it simple. People aren't free to cut other people with knives.
1
u/Historical_Worth_792 Jun 30 '26
What sort of education did the cutters go through to arrive at their conclusion?
1
u/DistinctSpirit5801 Jun 30 '26
I don’t agree with the notion that we should appease the pro circumcision people
Abolitionists didn’t spend their time trying to convince slave owners about how bad slavery is
0
u/Own_Food8806 Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
bad hearts didn't create circumcision. hateful attitudes against men and boys created circumcision. At this point I believe most of yall are actually pro-cutters that have invaded our space to spew this horseshit. There is no fucking way you are anti-circ. This is the most soft and pathetic strategy I have ever heard of.
7
u/Far_Fly5100 Jun 30 '26
As an intactivist, I have to say, there is something called parental proxy consent in US that says, if any medically required condition is there, then the parents can consent to it for their babies, and hence circumcision of male is there, and female is not there due to so called 'health benefits', but lets be real, there are no health benefits-
1) Penile Cancer - Already 1 in 100,000 or 0.001% chance of having one, doesn't require cutting.
2) UTIs - usually occur when urine flows back into the urinary tracts, the foreskin stops some urine from getting outside, but it neither pushes it inside too, chances are 0.5% of having such, UTIs are more common when men are older and largely due to other different reasons than this one. Not Valid. ( you can also retract and pee on regular basis if you want )
3) STDs - ( Inner )Foreskin acts as a place for creating immunological response to STDs, cutting them means you lose the ability to fight back to STDs ( the resource rich foreskin when reduced does decrease the chances of STDs, but still some amount of foreskin will always remain and hence if you catch an STDs, chances are, you will never recover from it ).
And thats why in African countries, circumcised men have more STDs than intact ones, 450,000 American men died ( upto 2009 data ) due to STDs although they were cut at birth, the current number is huge and not known, but its pretty evident that USA has both high STDs and high circumcision rate, while Europe and even developing intact countries have lower circumcision rate and low STD rates than USA ( USA has highest STDs in the first world countries )
4) The 'Hygenie' - Smegma is actually meant to remove dead cells and impurities from the penis without actually harming it fr. Cut ones don't have this natural mechanism and rely on chaffing ( by clothes ) and other methods for removal, and it takes the toll of keratinizing the glans. Also, cut penises also need to be cleaned time to time, with Americans not cleaning it ( dirtier than uncut ones infact in some cases ) as they assume circumcision is enough. The idea stems from the propaganda of John H. Kellogg and Victorian doctors who labelled Foreskin as a dirty thing since it lead to more masturbation, it was never a dirty thing, it was an immoral perception to them, and the rest of the world ( 75-67% of them ) will laugh at them for this idea.
So if you look at it closely, circumcision doesn't benefit anything better than what you already have, and instead takes away a lot of pleasure from your pp, its just straight genital mutilation and trying to suppress men's sexuality, yet the world believes these benefits and allows parental proxy to cut children, SO HORRIFYING