Ever heard of an STD test? They should be routine whenever having extramarital or polyamorous sex, as well as hookups in general if you don’t know the people well. I’m not sure what you mean by “cross-contamination”, like if one person has a disease would they spread it around? If so, yes.

You also have to remember to pee after all that and clean the mixture of fluids off to prevent irritation and UTIs.

It’s not just that it’s commonplace, it’s that they understand what it means. Also, a Jew will never not be a Jew even if they convert to another religion. They can stop identifying as religiously Jewish, but ethnically they’ll still be part of the tribe.

You’re choosing to interpret what I said as passing down suffering. This shows that you don’t actually want a Jewish perspective and want to assume that circumcision causes us to suffer and that we just want to pass that down. You don’t actually want to listen to what I have to say.

I’ll try anyway. Many Jews, both secular and religious, circumcise their children because they themselves did not experience suffering from the circumcision. Some do, sure, but the vast majority of circumcisions are without complications, and those done on Jews do not cause the same level of resentment on the same scale as when non-Jews do it because non-Jews don’t have the cultural context or connection that circumcision provides Jews. That’s what circumcision is for: It’s never to cause suffering. It’s to connect Jews to Judaism in a way that only we understand because there is an inherent, intrinsic, inextricable quality to being born a new that cannot be explained to someone who isn’t Jewish, just like there is with any other culture. If you’re black, there are things about the black experience that you understand but will never be able to get me to understand. Same with being a woman, or gay, or trans.

I’ll also add this: Ask your Jewish friends if they were traumatized by their circumcision. Then all your non-Jewish circumcised friends. I guarantee that there will be some differences in their answers. In the case that a Jew was, in fact, traumatized by their own circumcision, they’ll be much less likely to do it for their own kids.

I’m the modem day, you’ll find that among secular Jews, rates of circumcision are much closer to those of religious Jews than of non-Jews. Why do you think that is?

And yet, the majority of Jews see that evidence and, even if they’re not religious, make the conscious decision to circumcise because they want their children to experience what they did, and are aware of what it meant for them. That’s what circumcision does for the experience of being Jewish.

This is a true and valid component of the decision that Jews like me struggle with.

I was wrong to imply that our culture necessitates circumcision itself. What I should have said was that the culture necessitates further discussion for an individual family to know if it’s right for them. That was my fault for using misleading language.

You should be angry and disgusted that people are doing it without the necessary context and background of having the culture that necessitates it. Only Jews can speak for the Jewish experience of having been circumcised as a Jew, and unfortunately, the experience of non-Abrahamic people having been circumcised is often negative. However, the Jewish perspective on their own experience of it tends to be more positive for reasons that you just can’t explain to someone who doesn’t have that context. That’s why even if we’re not religious and don’t believe that Abraham spoke to God and formed a covenant with him, we still do it; it connects us in a way that’s simply not gonna be the case for non-Jews. I can’t speak for Muslims though.

I can’t say this enough: If you’re not Jewish or Muslim, please don’t do it. You don’t have the cultural context that we have.

Edit: I left the comment up but banned the commenter because their comment was a hateful attack directed at Jews and Muslims, calling us “Abrahamic pigs” as a form of hate speech, which will not be tolerated here. Resorting to name-calling is not the kind of discourse that is welcome here. I understand people’s moral objections to circumcisions, and have struggled with them myself, but please don’t attack us because of our culture, religious beliefs, or ethnic background.

Another edit: I didn’t mean to say that our culture necessitates circumcision even if a lot of Jews and Muslims feel that way, but the fact that we are Jewish inevitably adds that into the conversation on the pro-circumcision side.

I left this comment unremoved as an example of what not to do when talking about this topic.