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Comment by hightrix | Hacker News Reader

I hate to be tone police, but can we please temper language around this procedure?

No one that was circumcised at birth made that decision themselves. Calling someone that is circumcised “mutilated” or “barbaric” is just as bad, in my mind, as making fun of any other disability that a person was born with.

Just think of the person that you are calling mutilated. They had no choice in the matter.

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FWIW, I was circumcised. I have no problem referring to the procedure as "mutilation" and "barbaric", and I also don't feel as though I am "mutilated" or "barbaric" for having been circumcised, nor do I feel that others view me, or others like me, as such when they refer to the procedure using said language.

If you don't feel mutilated, then why do you think the procedure is mutilation?

OP was suggesting that calling it "mutilation" is making fun of the circumcised individual in a derogatory manner. To my point, I am perfectly comfortable referring to my having been circumcised as a "mutilation" without my feeling "mutilated" in a derogatory sense. I don't mind others referring to the process as mutilation because it doesn't make me feel "mutilated" or "barbaric" when they do so.

> Just think of the person that you are calling mutilated.

I'm thinking of myself. I was medically mutilated as an infant. The circumcision was wholly unnecessary. It's why I chose to NOT have my son circumcised.

Well that's just poor reading comprehension, the procedure is barbaric but that doesn't automatically apply to the baby.

The barbarian is the perpetrator, not the victim.

No.

Thank you for having empathy.

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