Ban all genital mutilation of children

[Forty Two]

Piercing a baby's ear lobes. The hole will be gone within days unless you make the baby wear earrings.

This is not a mysterious process. There are earrings made for babies.

[JimC]

In this case, I agree with 42...

[Forty Two]

What if they don't want it?

What if a baby doesn't want it? LOL. Babies don't think like that. What, exactly, can you say they actually "want" besides food and water?

It's just another example of violating a child's bodily automony for no good reason.

Well, there is a reason - do it at that age, so that it's done and over with, and later, when it's virtually certain that she'll want earrings, she won't have to go do it as a teenager.

Vaccination has a perfectly good reason as the recent spate of outbreaks because of idiot parents proves.So I don't know why your comparing.

I was comparing only the pain associated with the two, that's all. Was that at all unclear? What if I just said it's comparable to accidentally pinching them?

I'm sure a slap across the face also has a similar level of discomfort.

Most parents cut their kids' hair and nails, too. Occasionally, when cutting their nails without their permission one snips a little bit too much and it can hurt a little. You know, like when you're cutting your own nail and you nip the skin or cut too low? They'll even actively resist both haircuts and nail cuts - they'll flip out. While I understand it might not be progressive to disobey one's toddler's wishes and make them cut their hair and nails despite their wishes and against their obvious displeasure. But, that's the way of the world.

Can't believe I'm talking about why it's not ok to assault a child. I think I'm done here. This site gets lower every day.

I can't believe you're abusing the English language by calling small things like ear piercing a "mutilation" and "assault" and referring to whether an infant "consents" to things. LOL.

I'm talking about ear piercing here. This is not child abuse. It's not strange or uncommon, either. Millions of parents do it. It's especially common in hispanic and other latin cultures. Spanish culture, I'm told, is big on baby ear piercing, as is Cuban culture, too. Brazilian for sure, and other south American countries. There were two celebrities recently that came under some fire from the "you're assaulting and abusing your baby" crowd - Giselle Bundchen (Brazil) and Katie Price (UK). Ear piercing when the baby is little is common in both places, apparently. Stop the baby torture!

[Animavore]

I'm not abusing language at all. If someone ran up to me out of the blue and stabbed me in the ear out of nowhere that would be assault. If someone attacked me with a knife cutting a part of me off that would be assault.

You don't like the terminology because you would have to admit there is something deeply wrong going on. You think your arguments are ok because you live in a country where this barbarism is accepted and the arguments you float are just accepted without much question like arguments on stoning adulterers are seen as fair in Saudi Arabia. Come to a country where this abuse isn't acceptable and try convince mothers to slice open their babies' dicks, without anaesthesia, and see how far you get.

I'm from a country that has a shocking history of mass child abuse and looking away and burying head in the sand because of the grip of religion so I don't hate over it. I've seen how fast attitudes can change so I don't think it's a permanent situation. There's already numerous organisations, as well as victim support groups, in the US pushing toward educating people away from deliberate child mutilation, so there's hope.

[JimC]

I think Ani is channelling LP...

(probably without the same tendency for action...)

[Svartalf]

Who the fuck pierces their baby's ears?! I don't think the legal over here.

I don't know who exactly, but I've seen 5 yr olds with pierced ears, and yeah, I was shocked.

[pErvinalia]

Piercing a baby's ear lobes. The hole will be gone within days unless you make the baby wear earrings.

This is not a mysterious process. There are earrings made for babies.

It's pretty mysterious here. Sounds like it's common in the US. Another head-scratching moment about the US...

[Animavore]

Piercing a baby's ear lobes. The hole will be gone within days unless you make the baby wear earrings.

This is not a mysterious process. There are earrings made for babies.

It's pretty mysterious here. Sounds like it's common in the US. Another head-scratching moment about the US...

I think in the US there's a stronger feeling of ownership of children. The next time you see a couple up for manslaughter for praying for a child instead of taking it to the doctor read the comment section and you'll actually see scrotes defending the parents saying, it's their child, the government has no right to interfere.

So you can imagine for a greater number of people hacking off lumps of body and jabbing their ears is nothing. I can only imagine the poor child's shock from feeling safe and secure to being suddenly attacked like that. See Penn and Teller's, Bullshit on the issue to see a kid's reaction. Appalling stuff.

Some of the excuse in the US can be as shit as, I don't want him to look different to the other boys. Funnily enough this is pretty much the same excuse Ayann Hirsi Ali's granny used to have her circumcised at the age of around 6 when her parents, who were against FGM, were away. She thought there was some great shame to her not being the same.

[mistermack]

It's done because it's easiest to do at that age.

That's a pretty dumb statement.

That's not the reason it's done. It's done because the parents want it.

[pErvinalia]

yep.

[Scot Dutchy]

I always have to laugh at the excuses given. Hygiene is the basic one. Dont males wash themselves? No muslim or jew can give an answer only it is just allah/god's will.

As for girls it is a sick cultural thing of male domination in making sure women can have no pleasure after all they are worth less than a donkey and we all know how backward goat herders treated them.

[Forty Two]

I'm not abusing language at all. If someone ran up to me out of the blue and stabbed me in the ear out of nowhere that would be assault.

Indeed, which is not an accurate description of ear piercing. In ear piercing, a person does not come out of nowhere, but rather approaches professionally and calmly, with a device specifically made for the purpose of piercing ears. They make a little dot on the earlobe where the hole should go, and they sterilize the lobe. Then they put the earlobe in the device, press a button and in a millisecond it's over. It's more like someone pinching you than stabbing you in an assault.

If someone attacked me with a knife cutting a part of me off that would be assault.

Sure, and that's not what's happening in the case of ear piercing. When a woman goes to get her ear pierced she is not consenting to someone coming out of nowhere and stabbing her or consenting to being attacked with a knife to cut part of her off.

You don't like the terminology because you would have to admit there is something deeply wrong going on.

No, I don't think the terminology accurately describes what is happening.

You think your arguments are ok because you live in a country where this barbarism is accepted and the arguments you float are just accepted without much question like arguments on stoning adulterers are seen as fair in Saudi Arabia.

Ear piercing children is barbarism? It's accepted in the UK, Canada and the US, and I know it's accepted all over the rest of north and South America. Come to a country where this abuse isn't acceptable and try convince mothers to slice open their babies' dicks, without anaesthesia, and see how far you get. Where is this "barbarism" not allowed? From what I've read, it's not uncommon in France either.

Barbarism. LOL.

I'm from a country that has a shocking history of mass child abuse and looking away and burying head in the sand because of the grip of religion so I don't hate over it. I've seen how fast attitudes can change so I don't think it's a permanent situation. There's already numerous organisations, as well as victim support groups, in the US pushing toward educating people away from deliberate child mutilation, so there's hope.

Indeed, I agree. Children should not be "mutilated."

Definition of mutilate
mutilated; mutilating
transitive verb
1
: to cut up or alter radically so as to make imperfect the child mutilated the book with his scissors a painting mutilated by vandals
2
: to cut off or permanently destroy a limb or essential part of : cripple His arm was mutilated in the accident.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mutilate

Under the primary usage of the word, we're talking about a radical alteration, akin to someone cutting up a book so bad as to destroyed. If the kid took a in and pocked a hole on page 2 and another on page 100, it would not be considered "mutilated." Also, under the second usage, we're talking "permanent destruction." An ear piercing is not that. It can, in fact, close up as if it was never there. It also does not destroy the ear in any way.

I would suggest a similar distinction in relation to circumcision of boys. The way it's done, it does not constitute permanent destruction of the penis, or a radical destruction or alteration of the penis in the sense of that word.

What you're doing here, perhaps unwittingly, is called "concept creep." Where a concepts boundaries are stretched and meaning dilated, it starts to encompass things that are quantitatively or qualitatively less extreme. Where mutilation's meaning in common English usage is a radical and permanently damaging/disfiguring and violent destruction of something, you're expanded and dilated that meaning to include any sort of poke, even to include something as minor as an ear piercing. Concept creep.

[Forty Two]

It's done because it's easiest to do at that age.

That's a pretty dumb statement.

That's not the reason it's done. It's done because the parents want it.

Well, sure, that too. And, parents recognize the prevalence of kids wanting earrings as they get older, and it's much easier to do it when the child is an infant than when they are 5 or even 10.

[Forty Two]

Piercing a baby's ear lobes. The hole will be gone within days unless you make the baby wear earrings.

This is not a mysterious process. There are earrings made for babies.

It's pretty mysterious here. Sounds like it's common in the US. Another head-scratching moment about the US...

It's most prevalent among Latin cultures - Spain and hispanic countries in general, and latin countries, including Brazil. Central America, the Caribbean, etc.

So, really, dude, can you cut it, for once, with suggesting that something you don't like is a particular "problem" in the US, and nowhere else? Why don't you say "It's pretty mysterious here, sounds like it's common in Hispanic countries and Brazil. Another head scratching moment for the Hispanic countries and Brazil....?" It's a very accepted part of those cultures.

Let me also note that in Australia, apparently, it's common enough to have salons offering to pierce baby's ears at "at least 6 weeks" and they have multiple locations all over your country. https://www.essentialbeauty.com.au/ It took about ten seconds for me to find many, many locations that do this. Apparently, there's enough of a market in Oz to justify a business line for this national company in Oz. I suspect Oz is not that much different than the US, with various viewpoints on the topic.

[pErvinalia]

It's done because it's easiest to do at that age.

That's a pretty dumb statement.

That's not the reason it's done. It's done because the parents want it.

Well, sure, that too. And, parents recognize the prevalence of kids wanting earrings as they get older, and it's much easier to do it when the child is an infant than when they are 5 or even 10.

But the kid hasn't asked for it. The parents want it.