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There's a popular story that goes like this: Christopher Hitchens used to be in favor of the US waterboarding terrorists because he though it's wasn't bad enough to be torture.. Then he had it tried on himself, and changed his mind, coming to believe it isn't torture.
though -> thought
it's wasn't -> it wasn't
torture.. -> torture... (ellipses have three dots)
it isn't torture -> it is torture
Viliam, those would also be valid comparisons.
Please try to interpret my cannibalism comparison in the sense that it was meant. Something psychologically horrifying but physically inconsequential vs something psychologically horrifying AND physically consequential. You can't just refute a comparison by saying "those two things are incomparable".
Even if they weren't comparable, the point of the example is so that people will acknowledge that the experience of being deeply horrified by something is not just in the immediate physical consequences. And that there are other cases where we regard this phenomenon as a reaction to being genuinely violated in some way and not just a weird mental glitch.
Edit: In the documentary American Circumcision, the director did go to Africa and interview women and it was basically how you described it.
Well I could make my counter-arguments to your perspective, but first I'll post parts two and three and you can read those to see if that shifts your perspective on this. Part one is just more general points about activism and asking these activists to be held to the same standard, so it doesn't really challenge anything you just said.
Currently rate-limited by karma, so can't post part three until next week (which is fine, I'm in no hurry). But part two is up if you want to read that.
Edit 2:
It may be worth it for you to clarify whether your position is "people should tell parents not to do this but not make it illegal" or "people should neither make this illegal nor tell parents not to do it". There are even more points of nuance along the spectrum of opinion that are perhaps worth contemplating, like whether or not you would vote for the United States to stop funding routine infant circumcision (i.e. infant circumcision not in response to any problem that requires or suggests it) with medicaid, if that was on the ballot.