It must be made absolutely clear that involuntary circumcision is torture (from the point of view of the child). There is no question about this. I say this with respect and responsibility.
Historically most infant circumcisions were perfomed without anaestethic. Circumcision is so painful for adults that typically a general anaestethic is done. On rare ocassions an adult may die from being given a general anaestethic. Infants tolerate generals badly and the death rate would skyrocket if generals were used.
Local anaesthetic is now often used, (though by no means always) though this only slightly reduces the pain and can cause complications such as blood poisoning. A woman who had a C-section with a local, said it felt like being punched in the stomach. Some of the worst pain I ever felt was under a local (when I had a healthy tooth removed). As soon as the anaesthetic wears off, the pain will be present.
If a person performed involuntary circumcision on an adult without anaestethic it would be correctly be regarded as torture. Infants are more sensitive to pain than adults. Circumcision is torture.
The notion that infants feel nothing is absolute nonsense. The opposite is true, they feel everything.
Infants are sometimes reported as falling asleep during the event. This is no ordinary sleep. They fall into an unusually deep sleep. Adults sometimes black out from extreme pain. These children are blacking out for the same reason.
Beware the circumcisor who says "the infant does not feel anything". This is a projection of their own insensitivity. Remember that doctors have been conditioned to become less sensitive to feelings through their training.
A study was done which found that infants do feel pain. Infants showed extreme pain reactions to recieving pin pricks that drew blood. The question arises why do an experiment to prove something which is intuitively obvious to anyone? Another question is why actually injure the children, rather than (say) simply drop a few drops of cold water on their feet?
By the time we are adults, we have developed a whole bag of tricks we can use to block emotional and physical pain. Some include shallow or tight breathing (the more you breathe, the more you feel), physical tension in the body, a mind that is elsewhere, defence mechanisms such as rationalizations. Infants don't yet have all these defences.
In an infant, there is no foreskin really as the skin covering the glans is completely attached. In a infant circumcision the skin covering the glans has to be torn off, while in an adult, the foreskin has already seperated.
Genitals of baby boys and girls are usually very large relative to their body. Hence foreskin amputation involves removing a relatively larger part of the body.
Newborns are very small and even if a newborn screams at the top of its voice it is not all that loud. They rapidly get louder as they get older though. Ability to express pain is not the same thing as feeling pain.
Sometimes the claim is made that infants don't remember anything and hence causing pain by damaging them is ok. I'm sure it would hurt for quite some time after the event. Because it is not remembered consciously, does not mean it is not remembered unconsciously. The body does not forget an assault like that.
A popular urban myth is that older infants feel more than young children and that older children feel more than younger children. There is absolutely no basis or evidence for this.
The younger the child, the more traumatic pain is. If you are a sadist, the younger the child, the greater the feelings of omnipotence.
Circumcision is a multi-billionaire industry in the US. The fee can be up to $400 or $500. Very lucrative. In addition, foreskins are allegedly sold to drug companies and hospitals.
Everyone who has been infant circumcised has been "ripped off" literally. Its not impossible that the term "ripped off" has (unconsciously) come from circumcision.
Circumcision teaches many things to the child such as:My hunch is that circumcision makes children more prone to bullying and violence in later life, both as aggressors and victims. Of course, there is more that contributes to violence, but torturing soon after birth is a good start. I don't say this lightly.