Assorted Writings Page B

By Alan David Doane

Would you let doctors cut off part of your child's penis for no real reason at all?

In 1995, my wife and I discovered (by accident, courtesy of a sloppy ultrasound technician) that we were going to have a boy. It was our second pregnancy, and we were asked fairly early on if we wanted him circumcised.

I had long been vaguely annoyed that I had been circumcised without my consent as an infant, and had long since come to the conclusion that there is no real reason for this procedure. I am not of the opinion that males are born "defective" and need to be "fixed" before they can live their lives as males.

It took some months of convincing my wife about this; despite the fact that she was not born with a penis, she bought into all the rote arguments made in favour of the procedure. I showed her enough scientific evidence that it is unnecessary, even cruel, and she and I eventually agreed that our son would live his life intact, with all the parts his DNA instructed his growing, unborn body to have.

Convincing my wife was easy; the real arguing didn't happen until late in her pregnancy, when we were asked to come in to the doctor's office specifically to discuss the issue of circumcision.

We were taken into a quiet office and a middle-aged woman sat down...I don't remember now if she was a nurse or physician's assistant, but she asked us to tell her what we wanted to do regarding my son's foreskin.

We told the woman that we were not going to have him circumcised. Looking very discomfited and somewhat condescending, she asked us to explain our obviously ridiculous decision.

Assuming as the parents we were allowed to make this sort of decision, I somewhat flippantly told her that "I don't believe boys are born with things that need to be snipped off of them."

At that point, the brow-beating began.

The argument (and I am certain this was a standardized meeting that occurred with all parents negligent and degenerate enough to make the sort of decision Lora and I did) basically boiled down to three points:

1. "He won't 'look like you.'"

2. "He may need to have a circumcision as an adult."

3. "He'll have to learn to clean his foreskin."

My responses to those grave concerns:

1. I don't want him "looking at my penis." I frankly don't want anyone looking at my penis. Even me.

2. What are the odds? I made her look it up. 7 out of 100, she informed us. "So there's a 93 percent chance that if we don't cut off part of my son's penis, he'll grow up happy and healthy?" She had no convincing rebuttal to that argument.

3. This one really pissed me off. My response: "He'll have to learn to clean his ass, too; should we cut that off too, while we're at it?" My wife was not amused.

Call me a prick (many have), but I didn't find any of these three arguments particularly compelling. One of my main points all along had been that Americans generally find it laughable and horrifying that there are African tribes that circumcise baby girls, and yet think it is normal, in fact necessary, to do the same thing to boys.

To me it is all symptomatic of the post-intelligent, Planet of the Apes-style culture we live in. The vast majority of sheep-like Americans follow the mystical rituals laid down by our "Fore (skin) fathers" eons ago, without ever really questioning whether anything we're doing in the name of Jeezus or Cleanliness in fact is desirable, ethical or even just not laughable.

My son turns 12 later this year. His intact foreskin has never once been a problem for him, and I have successfully managed to not have him see my penis once in all those years. Snip-happy doctors aside, I think we both prefer it that way.

~*~

By Jed Diamond (excerpt from The Warriors Journey Home)

I began to gather information for this chapter; I would regularly break into tears for no apparent reason. Gradually, the tears bean to form themselves into unspoken, long-hidden questions which bubbled to the surface. What is it like for an infant boy-a boy born perfect, whole and complete-to have part of his body removed? What is the effect of having a large person, most often man, spread the baby's little legs and cut away the end of his penis? Could the trauma of this event have anything to do with men's later feelings of shame about their bodies, their concern about the size of their penis, their anguish over sexual performance, their frozen feelings, or the male ability-which is really a liability-to ignore pain?

These questions are unavoidably personal. How had circumcision affected me? Was my own sexual confusion and anger related to this event? What had I really done to my son when I had him circumcised with so little inquiry? Would I be stirring up old wounds if I looked more deeply? Would people ridicule me if I talked and wrote about circumcision as an important men's issue?

Despite my fears, I decided to move ahead. Surely, I thought, with all the focus on men these days, there must be a lot of discussion on circumcision in the literature on men. Just because I had avoided this issue, surely others must be talking about it. As a writer, I have accumulated a fairly good-sized collection of books on men. I was sure I would find a lot of information right here.

Out of the 58 books I had on my shelf which were specifically focused on men, only 8 mentioned circumcision at all. Of those, 5 of the references were so brief that I had trouble finding them when I looked up the page number. In only 3 of the books was circumcision discussed in any depth, and from none of my books did I feel I had gotten a clear understanding of the effects of circumcision on men's psyches and men's lives.

In Search of the truth about circumcision.

What I learned in the months since I began asking questions has shocked and upset me. The foreskin, I learned, was not some useless appendage that could be discarded without harm. Actually, the foreskin provides protection for the glans, and is abundantly supplied with nerve endings. These afford unique sensual stimulation. During masturbation and intercourse, the foreskin stimulates the glans and acts as a natural gliding mechanism which provides a great deal of pleasure. Like the clitoris, the glans is naturally an internal organ and should be treated as such.

The reasons usually given for circumcising baby boys-the intact penis is difficult to keep clean; circumcision prevents future medical problems, such as urinary tract infections, venereal disease, penile and prostate cancer, and cervical cancer in partners, are based on faulty medical data.

Jews have traditionally circumcised their infant boys in fulfilment of a covenant with God. The original practice involved a symbolic removal of the tip of the foreskin. The more radical surgery practiced by modem Jews and the medical establishment, in which the entire foreskin is removed, is not in keeping with the original practice.

The surgery itself, far from being benign, causes extreme pain and trauma. It is not as risk-free as we have been told, and instances of mutilation and death have been reported. The United States is the only country in the world that still practices routine medical circumcision for infants. Three thousand three hundred boys each day-that's 1.2 million per year-undergo this so-called elective surgery that's done without the patient's permission. Though the rate of circumcision declined from a high of 85 percent in 1980, it has remained constant around 60 percent since 1988.

Some of you may feel that I'm devoting too much space to this topic. Before I learned the facts, I would have agreed with you. Consider the following:

• The facts about circumcision are still unknown to most people: it's only misinformation that allows the wide practice of this surgery to be continued.
• The effects of circumcision on the male infant are traumatic and long-lasting. Since the trauma occurs before language development, it is difficult for men to remember what happened, and hence difficult for them to heal their emotional scars.
• The act of circumcision itself is abusive, contributing to later problems with addiction and violence.
• Ending this practice is one of the most important things we can do to ensure that the next generation of boys has a chance to grow up healthy and free.

Words from those who were there.

Most of the men reading this book have been circumcised. Many of us had our sons circumcised when they were born. Learning the truth about circumcision is difficult. It's easy to feel angry, guilty, and shameful. Yet, I know that we each did the best we could, and our parents did the best they could, given the knowledge available at the time. Hearing from those who have had the courage to remember can help us get back in touch with the feelings we have so long suppressed. What we feel we can heal.

I began by asking my wife what she felt about circumcision. Her three sons from a previous marriage were all circumcised routinely as infants. I was surprised by the strength of her feelings.

“I thought it was done for health reasons. I knew it was done for boys, because I had two younger brothers and assumed they were circumcised to protect them, like getting an immunization shot. With Dane, my first-born, it wasn't until we left the hospital and I changed him at home that I saw what had been done. I had been given instructions in the hospital about keeping his penis clean, but I was shocked when I saw how red and swollen it was. Every time he peed, it seemed to irritate him. The wound would begin to heal then become irritated again and break open.

It didn't seem right. A baby should cry when he is hungry or cold, not because his penis

is hurt. With each child, I had more and more doubts, though the social pressure kept me agreeing. All the many guilts I have felt about not being a good enough mother pale in comparison to the guilt I feel for not being strong enough to do my own investigating. If I had, my boys would still be whole and complete. Any discomfort they might feel in the locker room because they look different is nothing compared to what I let them go through as babies.”

By the time she finished talking, we were both crying. The tears continue to flow as my body, if not my mind, remembers what was done to me as an infant. Listen to the experiences of others.

“Unfortunately, I'm another son of another new mother who fell into the automatic circumcision trap. It makes me wonder where the hell my father was, or if he ever knew what was going on. I want it back!

“They strapped him down, which we hated. We massaged his head, stroked him, and talked to him the whole time. My husband said it was the most awful thing he'd ever seen or done. I stood outside the door while they were doing it to him and listened to him scream and cry. That's the first time I really began to wonder what the hell I had let them do to my baby! Since then I have asked myself that a million times.”

“I am a 17-year-old male who is circumcised. I got to thinking, what am I missing? Most likely, I'll never know. It makes me sad because I'm not whole, as I was intended to be. I try not to be bitter about it. I try not to blame my parents, but who can I blame? I had no say in the matter, and after all, it is my penis. It's a part of me that I'll never know.”

“I'm a victim of infant circumcision, and even though I'm 55 years old, I'm forcefully and painfully reminded of this atrocity, perpetrated upon me deliberately by my mother, who ordered it done, every time I take a shower, dress and undress, look at myself in a full-length mirror, or masturbate. And my studies indicate this atrocity even takes all the fun out of the last item above. I am still dealing with deep anger and rage over this.”

“I was deprived of my foreskin when I was 26. I had ample experience in the sexual area, and I was quite happy-delirious, in fact-with what pleasure I could experience, beginning with foreplay and continuing, as an intact male. After my circumcision, that pleasure was utterly gone.

Let me put it this way. On a scale of 10, the uncircumcised penis experiences pleasure that is at least 11 or 12; the circumcised penis is lucky to get to 3. Really-and I mean this in all seriousness-if American men who were circumcised at birth could know the deprivation of pleasure that they would experience, they would storm the hospitals and not permit their sons to undergo this unnecessary loss. But how can they know this? You have to be circumcised as an adult, as I was, to realize what a terrible loss of pleasure results from this cruel operation.”

Marilyn Milos is the mother of three circumcised boys. She was a student nurse in 1979 the day she first saw the operation performed. "It was a day that changed the course of my life," she says now.

“We students filed in the newborn nursery to find a baby strapped spread-eagle to a plastic board on a counter top across the room. He was struggling against his restraints-tugging, whimpering, and then crying helplessly. No one was tending the infant, but when I asked my instructor if I could comfort him, she said, "Wait til the doctor gets here." I wondered how a teacher of the healing arts could watch someone suffer arid not offer assistance. I wondered about the doctor's power which could intimidate others from following protective instincts. When he did arrive, I immediately asked the doctor if I could help the baby. He told me to put my finger into the baby's mouth; I did, and the baby sucked. I stroked his little head and spoke softly to him. He began to relax, and was momentarily quiet.

The silence was soon broken by a piercing scream-the baby's reaction to having his foreskin pinched and crushed as the doctor attached the clamp to his penis. The shriek intensified when the doctor inserted an instrument between the foreskin and the glans (head of the penis), tearing the two structures apart. (They are normally attached to each other during infancy so the foreskin can protect the sensitive glans from urine and faeces.) The baby started shaking his head back and forth-the only part of his body free to move-as the doctor used another clamp to crush the foreskin length-wise, where he then cut. This made the opening of the foreskin large enough to insert a circumcision instrument, the device used to protect the glans from being severed during the surgery.

The baby began to gasp and choke, breathless from his shrill, continuous screams. How could anyone say circumcision is painless when the suffering is so obvious? My bottom lip began to quiver, tears filled my eyes and spilled over, I found my own sobs difficult to contain. How much longer could this go on?

During the next stage of the surgery, the doctor crushed the foreskin against the circumcision instrument and then, finally, amputated it. The baby was limp, exhausted, spent. I had not been prepared; nothing could have prepared me, for this experience. To see a part of this baby's penis being cut off-without an anaesthetic-was devastating. But even more shocking was the doctor's comment, barely audible several octaves below the piercing screams of the baby: "There's no medical reason for doing this." I couldn't believe my ears, my knees became weak, and I felt sick to my stomach. I couldn't believe that medical professionals, dedicated to helping and healing, could inflict such unnecessary pain and anguish on innocent babies.”

Since that day, Marilyn has dedicated herself to providing information to parents and medical professionals so they can have all the facts available before they decide whether circumcision should be' performed. She is the Director of the National Organisation of Circumcision Information Resource Centres. Among their various activities, they have put together two international conferences on circumcision.

What the health professionals say now.

The most authoritative book on the subject, Say No to Circumcision! 40 compelling reasons why you should respect his birthright and keep your son whole, was written by Thomas J. Ritter, M.D., in 1992. "I am a general surgeon," he writes. "The prime dictum in medicine is 'Thou shalt do no harm.' The intent of this book is to explode the myth that routine newborn circumcision does no harm." After years of having gathered information, he draws the following conclusion:

“The operation of routine, infant circumcision of males involves a paradox of absurdities completely at variance with sound medical-surgical-legal practice; a normal structure is operated upon; no anaesthesia is used; the patient does not give his consent; he is forcibly restrained while a normal segment of his body is removed; the parental consent is of quasi-legality since the part removed is a healthy, non-diseased appendage; there are no legitimate surgical-medical indications for the operation; the patient and the part operated upon are subject to a host of possible complications, including death; the genitalia are now irrevocably diminished in appearance, function and sensitivity.”

Dr. Ritter is not alone in his opinion. Here are the words of a few experts who are calling for an end to the cruelty we are inflicting on our baby boys,

My own preference, if I had the good fortune to have another son, would be to leave his little penis alone.” -Benjamin Spock, M.D., author, Baby and Child Care

“Circumcision is a very cruel, very painful practice with no benefit whatsoever.

-Ashley Montagu, Ph.D., anthropologist, author of The Concept of the Primitive

“In addition to the obvious discomfort involved, there is now serious concern this routine procedure may actually deprive adult men of a vital part of their sexual sensitivity.”-Dean Edell, M.D., National radio and television personality.

“All of the Western world raises its children uncircumcised and it seems logical that, with the extent of health knowledge in those countries, such a practice must be safe.”-CO Everett Koop, M.D., former U.S. Surgeon General.

“In this case, the old dictum that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" seems to make good sense. Minor surgery is one that is performed on someone else. Using the surgical treatment of circumcision to prevent phimosis is a little like preventing headaches by decapitation. It works but it is hardly a prudent form of treatment.” -Eugene Robin, M.D., Stanford University Medical School.

“Even if you found that there were absolutely no harmful psychological effects, it would still not justify doing an unnecessary procedure. You just should not be cruel to babies.”-Paul Heiss, M.D., University of Southern California Medical School.

“No one seriously advocates removing the breasts of female infants to prevent the more common malignancy of breast cancer. Circumcision must be recognized as an equally serious mutilation of men with equally insubstantial justification for continuing the practice.”-James Snyder, M.D., past president, Virginia Urologic Society.

“We cannot but wonder why such a torture has been inflicted on the child. How could a being who has been aggressed in this way, while totally helpless, develop into a relaxed, loving, trusting person? Indeed, he will never to able to trust anyone in life, he will always be on the defensive, unable to open up to others and to life.”-Dr. Frederick Leboler, author Birth Without Violence.

There is a relationship between the later experiences men have with shame-I'm too short, too fat, too tall, too hairy, not hairy enough, not a real man-and the first experience that gave us the message that our penis was wrong.

Stage 5 recovery: healing men's shame.

To accomplish the task of healing our body and soul, we must work with the following issues:

. Recognize the hidden purpose in circumcision and other forms of male shaming.

. Learn to accept and love our bodies.

. Begin moving toward a healthy, shame-free diet.

. Discover how to earn a shame-free living.

Recognise the hidden purpose in circumcision and other forms of male shaming.

Male genital mutilation is the first way in which men are shamed. It is also the most damaging, and lays the foundation for later assaults on our body and soul. In order to heal, we must understand why we continue to condone such behaviour in the United States.

"Circumcision," says Dr. Nicholas Cunningham of the Departments of Paediatrics and Public Health at the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, "is probably an idea whose time has gone." Yet the practice continues, and the majority of baby boys in America are still subjected to this cruel and unusual punishment. We must ask why.

"Male babies need to be circumcised" is a mythic statement, not a statement of fact. Mythic statements are not just untrue and superstitious, but connect with our deepest desires and fears. Social Psychologist Elizabeth Janeway says that it is characteristic of mythic statements generally to be prescriptions more than descriptions reflecting reality. "For it is the nature of myth," she asserts, "to be both true and false, false in fact, but true to human yearnings and human fears and thus, at all times, a powerful shaping force.”

To change behaviour based on social myth, we need to uncover the roots and understand the real reasons why a given behaviour is valued in a culture. This is explored in greater detail below.

The tame-and-shame syndrome: hidden reasons for cutting boy's genitals.

We can get clues about the hidden agenda supporting circumcision if we understand why the practice began to spread in the U.S. in the late 1800s. Circumcision gained importance only after the medical profession, playing upon prevailing sexual anxieties, urged it as a "cure" for a long list of childhood diseases and disorders, including polio, tuberculosis, bedwetting, and a new syndrome which appeared widely in the medical literature of the time, "masturbatory insanity." Circumcision was then advocated along with a host of exceedingly harsh, pain-inducing devices and practices designed to thwart any vestige of genital pleasure in children, and to ensure that they remained under parental control.

I found the religious roots and reasoning for circumcision by looking to my Jewish heritage. The thirteenth-century Rabbi Moses Maimonides was more honest than almost anyone since in his reasons for supporting circumcision:

“The bodily injury caused to that organ is exactly that which is desired, it does not interrupt any vital function, nor does it destroy the power of regeneration. Circumcision simply counteracts excessive lust; for there is no doubt that circumcision weakens the power of sexual excitement, and sometimes lessens the natural enjoyment.”

We need to recognise that decreasing sexual pleasure and increasing sexual pain has a very useful purpose in a dominator culture. It produces men who are numb, cut off from their feelings, with a great deal of repressed rage. The real purpose of circumcising baby boys is to begin a process of taking the "wild" out of them.

This has been the goal of all the dominator cultures that have arisen over the last 10,000 years. As we have tried to wipe out the indigenous wild cultures of the world, kill the wild animals, and destroy the naturally occurring plant life, so too have we tried to tame men's "wild sexuality." What better way to destroy the hunter-warrior in us all than to attack the basis of our manhood, our genitals? What better way to make us docile enough to be willing to go off to desert wars, or fight in the jungles of Wall Street to keep the over-consumptive, addictive, American dream alive?

Shame of all kinds serves the same purpose. If men can be convinced that they are inherently bad, that there is something wrong with us at our core, then we are more easily controlled.

The final step in the shaming process calls for us to forget the source of our shame. The first step in healing is to remember what was done to us, feel the feelings we have so long repressed, and allow ourselves to grieve for what we have lost.

~*~

By Laird Harrison

I don't know what I thought circumcision would be like. A haircut? Trimming toenails? The fact is that it hurts. I could hear it in my son's scream when he felt himself cut. My gut tightened as his tiny hand clenched around my finger. And I'm amazed now that I didn't expect that.

That knot inside me relaxed a little when the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended this month that babies being circumcised should get painkillers. The academy is the most influential group of children's doctors in the country; people who write books about childcare defer to the academy on questions as trivial as "When can you give a baby fruit juice?" So the chances are good that a lot more newborns are going to get anesthesia from now on.

But the academy refrained from answering the really big circumcision question: Should a healthy boy be circumcised? Millions of parents spend millions of hours debating this issue. It bedeviled my wife and me so much that we ended up circumcising one of our sons and not the other. And even the academy's taskforce on circumcision, after two years of poring over crates full of scientific reports, essentially couldn't make up its collective mind. "Existing scientific evidence demonstrates potential medical benefits of newborn male circumcision," the academy wrote. "However, these data are not sufficient to recommend routine neonatal circumcision....Parents should determine what's in the interest of the child."

The ethnic and the scientific

Wishy-washy as it sounds, I think that's a wise position. I spent days mucking around in the scientific literature on circumcision until I realized that some questions just can't be answered in the laboratory. To satisfy the normal rigors of scientific research, you would have to randomly select babies to be either circumcised or not circumcised, then follow them for several years to see which group was healthier. Obviously, no sane parent would consent to such an experiment.

So researchers are left trying to answer the question by comparing people whose parents (or doctors) chose to circumcise them to those with their foreskins intact. But that leaves too many variables unaccounted for. For example, educated people, until recently, were more likely to have their kids circumcised than uneducated ones. Whites are more likely to be circumcised than blacks, Midwesterners more than Californians, and of course, Jews more than Christians. And all of these social, geographic, and genetic factors influence a child's health.

"It is legitimate for parents to take into account cultural, religious and ethnic traditions, in addition to the medical factors, when making this decision," the academy wrote. And that's where I disagree. I think the ethnic factors are the only ones worth taking into account.

Binding the tribe

Let's assume for a moment that you could design a truly scientific experiment and prove that removing a boy's foreskin reduces his risk of a serious disease, such as cancer of the penis. It still wouldn't make any more sense to remove a boy's foreskin at birth than it would to remove his breast tissue (breast cancer in men is about common as penis cancer), his tonsils, or his appendix.

Why do we discriminate against the foreskin in this way? Why is circumcision the only surgery commonly done without anesthesia? Why are only a tiny fraction of European boys circumcised while more than a half of American males go under the knife? And why have advocates changed their minds about what circumcision is supposed to prevent, from masturbation in the 19th century to sexually transmitted disease in the 1940s to urinary tract infections today? The reason, I think, is that circumcision is not a medical procedure and it never has been.

Even when performed by white-coated doctors in antiseptic hospital rooms, circumcision is a ritual. Like scarring, branding, tattooing and piercing, it sets members of one group apart from another. It binds the tribe.

Getting our own answers

My wife is Jewish. I'm...well, let's say ethnically Christian. But more important, I was circumcised at birth. My father was circumcised, and his father before him. So when Rachele wanted our son, Dashiell, circumcised, I went along with it. And because I believed then as now that the procedure served only a religious function, I insisted that we hold a bris, the traditional Jewish ceremony, performed by a mohel, in our living room, with a bagel brunch.

While Rachele ducked into the kitchen, I watched the mohel slice away a little bit of my son. That was five years ago, and it's true that Dashiell has no conscious memory of that pain, no sense of loss. He doesn't miss what he never knew he had. But I miss it. I miss it because as soon as the blade bit into him I knew I had transgressed. I knew that it was wrong to take away a healthy, living piece of a human being's body all against his will. I knew that I would never let that happen to another son of mine.

Every tribe looks to its priests to approve its rituals; we look to our scientists. But the panel we anointed to authorize this particular rite has modestly abstained. We have to look beyond them to whatever or whoever creates the human conscience. Over the years, together and separately, like any couple, Rachele and I have turned to that authority with any question that really matters. Our sons will always bear the record of the one time we got different answers.

~*~

We have five living sons and one daughter. Although Bruce was circumcised at birth, we jointly agreed not to have our sons circumcised.

BRUCE - I studied the subject extensively before marriage, and the only half-valid reasons the american medical community could give for the procedure was so-called cleanliness reasons - which experience has taught are false. After studying the history of the introduction of circumcision as a common procedure - that of curing masturbation as well as headaches and back aches and a list of about fifty other disorders not even related to that part of the body - I decided the american medical community didn't have a real clue - it was a matter of 'everyone else does it'. I also discovered America is alone in routine infant circumcision! All other countries have abandoned (or are abandoning) it as not only unnecessary but as a harmful procedure! (Of course, it is still practiced by Muslim and Jewish communities.)

Being a religious person, I turned to the Bible - God created mankind and pronounced the creation "very good". It's true circumcision was a sign of the covenant God made with Abraham, but today's procedure is not the same procedure! In Abraham's day only enough of the foreskin was removed to expose the tip of the glans (or, the 'head'); the same amount usually loose at birth! The Maccabees, during their famous revolt against the Greek domination of the Jews, changed it to the procedure known today and forced it on all Jewish men on pain of death! It became a political sign of revolt against the Greeks instead of the spiritual sign of having made a covenant with God! And there were many who chose death rather than meddle with God's ordinance!

In the New Testament, the Apostles announced (Acts chapter fifteen) that the ordinances of the Law of Moses we no longer required. The Book of Mormon is even more direct, the subject being addressed by the resurrected Christ Himself: "the law of circumcision is done away with in me." (Moroni 8:8).

In Europe and some parts of Asia the procedure is gaining popularity - not as a health proedure but as a cosmetic operation to look more american! This is being done mainly among the pornography industry in an attempt to become profitable in the American market - there's no mention of any so-called health reasons! Among the non-pornography society in Europe, Asia, and the rest of the non-U.S. world, circumcision is not only ignored but actively discouraged! Several European countries will treat foreskin problems even to the extent of hospitalizing the patient long before they'll even consider removal.

So, all my pre-marriage study showed plainly that there's no valid medical, social, or Christian reason to circumcise my sons! And as far as Judaism and Islam goes, they are not practicing the covenant God established with Abraham - they are practicing a political substitute! There are many Americans who have the false notion that circumcising our sons shows we aren't anti-Jewish. I grew up with many Jewish friends, have I've been to Israel multiple times and even made friends there - they all knew that even though I am Christian I still had a deep love for the Old Testament and a fierce love for all the children of Abraham - and my circumcision status has never been sought after and has never been required to prove anything! My love for Israel, the Jewish people, and the Old Testament is from the heart, not the groin. I think the Jews and Israelis I know would be horrified at the thought that we would mutilate our bodies to show religious and/or political support! (This action would even be forbidden by the Law of Moses!)

LAURIE - I didn't really know what circumcision was until Bruce explained it to me shortly after we were engaged, and at that point I didn't really care. (Bruce says we talked about it before we were married, but I don't remember.) To be frank, it just plain made no sense to destroy what God had created. I would never inflict such torture on such an innocent person who could never protect themself! And that's all it is: useless, senseless torture!

With our first several sons, we followed the advise of american doctors; that of pulling the foreskin back, forcing it to let go of the glans and routinely cleaning it. But after more independent study we gave it up - non-american medical writings make it plain that as boys grow and as the need is present, then the foreskin detaches on its own. As long as the urinary opening has access to the 'outside world', the foreskin should be left alone! And with our boys, the wisdom of the European doctors has proven true. We've had no infection or disease because of our decision. While bathing the child I would push the skin back to clean only as far as it had already let go as I would the rest of the body. But I only did it weekly at the most; the foreskin was just too good at keeping the glans clean all by itself! The glans is kept perfectly clean and healthy by letting Nature alone!

One item of interest to those changing diapers: It's all too common for a baby boy to urinate just as soon as the diaper is opened. But with our intact sons, there isn't any sudden air temperature change on the glans, and so there isn't anything to trigger the response to urinate! Through the diapers of five boys, we have yet to be wet on! I've taken great delight in watching mothers with circumcised babies get wet on nearly every time they open the diaper! (Great sport in a boring hospital room.) My husband refuses to change a diaper on anyone else's son unless they're intact because of this; he refuses to be wet on!

BRUCE - One great fear a lot of fathers voice is having to explain the difference between their circumcision and their son's intactness. This is trivial - when each of my boys were three and four and we were still bathing together, every one of them have asked. I've simply told them that when I was a baby the doctors thought it was a good thing to cut it off but now we know better. With that, the subject has always dropped until they were old enough to have more extensive health discussions - I didn't make a big deal out of it, so they saw no reason to make a big deal out of it. As far as pains of jealousy, etc. - yes, I went through them, but I've gotten over it and am glad I made the decision I did - and, I'm even considering one of the many restoration techniques. As far as being uncomfortable - what is there to be uncomfortable about? My parents made their decision and I made mine; what they did is water under the bridge, and I've corrected it with the next generation. And I doubt very much my sons are jealous of my circumcision.

From talks with my oldest son (16 years old at this writing) I've discovered that he's not experienced ninety-nine percent of the unintentional stimulation's I went through as a teenager! We circumcised men well remember those puberty years when just turning and having our underwear rub our exposed glans was enough to set off erection after erection. There were times when just walking or riding a bicycle was enough rubbing across the glans (and I wore loose, modest clothing) to trigger the reaction. (This is rough for paper boys!) My son, with his glans safely tucked away and covered against undue stimulation, tells me he's never experienced this and was horrified over my stories. So much for circumcision being a cure for masturbation; as far as I'm concerned circumcision is a major cause of masturbation!

Some people are afraid their son will feel 'uncomfortable' in the school shower. With the trend in non-circumcision we've been experiencing in the last twenty years, more likely your son will have plenty of company and will be envied. Again I've consulted my oldest son, and he tells me boys his age are so paranoid about being caught 'looking' and being branded with a sexual-orientation accusation that today's boys are overcautious and almost afraid to look at anyone below the navel - he went an entire school year without being able to tell me if any of the boys in his gym class were also intact!

And as far as your son having to match the other men in the family - how often does the need to match come up? Wedding pictures? Christmas card photos? Unless you're a family of nudists this really isn't a problem! This excuse is really a declaration of either jealousy on the part of the men in your family (misery loves company) or the fear to tell your family you've made a decision with which they're not going to agree. Let the relatives know to back off - we had to! My father was horrified the first time he saw a foreskin on a grandson, but we held our ground. And my mother-in-law put us through the ringer, sure her grandson was in for a lifetime of horrible health problems. Five sons later, we still haven't seen a single one of them.

LAURIE - The biggest thing new parents must remember is that the doctor is not the one in control. And, american doctors will even admit that they aren't even trained in knowledge or theory concerning the function, use, or maintenance of the foreskin; they're only taught to cut it off for reasons that weren't even valid 80 years ago when a non-medical 'authority' decreed it to be the ultimate cure for all male ills. Simply tell the doctors and the nurses 'No'. You do not owe them any explanation. My husband I was once threatened with child neglect; in return he threatened that nurse with child molestation and mutilation. [BRUCE - My experience is that the biggest problem will be with the nurses. They are the ones with the plans, schedules, and programs, and by not having your son circumcised you will be upsetting those plans, schedules, and programs. And my experiences tells me that a nurse with an upset program or schedule is not a happy nurse.]

Everyday in the hospital the nurses will ask if you want the procedure done; just tell them no. When they badger you tell them to back off - they have no right to tell you what to do! Don't let them bully you; you tell them what YOU want and make sure it gets done! After all, they are there to serve and not to dictate. Every morning when they take the babies away for the doctor to check them, make sure they know you don't want it done.

LAURIE and BRUCE - DO NOT SIGN ANY CONSENT FORMS WITHOUT READING THEM COMPLETELY! AND READ THE FINE PRINT; consent to this procedure often shows up in the fine print!! Also, many consent forms give the medical professionals the right to perform any procedure they deem necessary - no not sign these forms! (We don't even sign them today for scout, school, or church activities!) Too many consent forms are all-inclusive and give the doctor or scout leader the right to treat your child any way he or she deems correct - trash those forms and only consent to procedures on a one-by-one basis. (For field trips and scout trips we specify they are only allowed to perform life-saving emergency procedures without our presence and/or specific permission.) In many places you can cross out and add items to consent forms; if you live in a place where you can do this, then do it! And remember that you cannot be forced to sign anything. Not by doctors, school teachers, or even scout and religious youth group leaders. (BRUCE - Since first sending this writing out on the internet, a lawyer contacted us and advised us that here in the United States it IS legal to cross off anything on a consent form you don't agree with; he said to make sure you initial the cross-off to show that you did in fact cross it off and not someone else. I say just hand the form back and make them, the service-provider, give you a form without the items to which you object. YOU are the customer; they can interrupt their schedule and program to provide for you.) When an institution tells you that you have to use their pre-printed release form, laugh at them and ask them who is the customer and who is the service-provider. I've had to tell scout leaders that they will use the form I approve of and am willing to sign and that's that. I've done the same with schools, church, and hospitals. A lot of these organizations have changed their forms because of my stubbornness.

LAURIE - In the military hospitals our children have been born in, they've put a sign in bold letters on the baby's basket: "NO CIRC". Make sure your hospital has some way of quickly identifying your son so no one 'accidentally' wheels him in for the procedure.

I've discovered that all the instructions American doctors give concerning stretching the baby's foreskin and daily washing are wrong. With our last two sons we followed the advise of non-american doctors and the results have been healthier than when we meddled with Nature.

BRUCE - The internet web sites and e-mail groups on this subject have been abuzz lately with what I feel are the real reasons circumcision is still alive in this country - hospitals are actually making money selling the foreskins. Some are going for skin grafts for burn patients. Some are going to cosmetic companies - all that testing no longer done on animals is now being done on the foreskins of the American male! So, after billing you for removing healthy tissue from your son, they turn around and sell it and make even more money off that healthy skin!

What it came down to for us is that there is simply no reason for the procedure and that modern research has proven what the rest of the world knew all along. As parents it's up to us to do what's best for our children. Whether they are male or female, leaving their reproductive organs intact so they can function correctly is the right moral and medical decision.

Today there is a growing 'civil rights' movement of allowing persons of both genders to make decisions about their body. Men - it's time we better educate ourselves on this subject and then take hold of our parental right and not leave it up to ill-informed doctors and too-trusting mothers (I don't say this to insult any woman!) - it's not a dirty or embarrassing subject; it's mass mutilation based solely on gender! It's our son's health we're talking about; open your mouth and be heard! (And do it before you even marry! As a man, you need to educate your future spouse on male sexuality and its needs and rights.) Five years ago, in response to a magazine article, I wrote that when we men demand and hold out for the right to control our body (as women so demand) as a heritage for all men, then this practice of mutilation will end!

Women - every time I hear you announcing your rights in controlling your bodies (which I am not denying), I can't help but hope you'll grant this same right of personal control and decision to your sons - as you already do to your daughters! If the U.S. Congress can give African women refugee status so they can remain in the U.S. to escape female circumcision, then maybe it's time to reconsider the ignorant manner in which we mutilate our sons at birth. Why do we so thoroughly mass-mutilate our own sons while at the same time take to the streets and write our government, insisting on the protection of foreign women from the same form of mutilation?

~*~

It's amazing the number of things you never have to consider before becoming a parent - breastfeed or formula feed; cloth diapers or disposables; vaccinations; when to start solids; organic vs. conventional foods; public school, private school or homeschool; and, of course, if you are having a boy - whether or not to circumcise.

I hope to write about my feelings, opinions and choices regarding circumcision and my son, knowing full well that everyone who reads this blog will not agree with me. I think that anyone who has a son will have their list of reasons for why they decided for or against circumcision. I simply wish to share my reasons here (and some of the information I came across along the way) for deciding against it.

I hope that by including some links below to reputable sources, other parents who are trying to decide what is best for their son can make an informed decision - whether it be to circumcise or not.

===========================================

The short and sweet answer as to why Jody and I are not having our son circumcised is that we can't find a single reason to indicate that it is a necessary procedure.

I believe that the body we are born with, in its entirety, is that way for a reason. I think that each different part has a unique purpose for existing. If we didn't need a certain part, I believe that over time we would evolve so that it no longer existed.

In doing my research on circumcision, I came across a lot of interesting information. Some of it has to do with the origins of circumcision in the United States, some about the actual procedure, some about the effects of circumcision and about the current rates of circumcision in the U.S. I read a lot more than I will blog about here, but these are some things I thought were worth mentioning.

"Circumcision started in America during the masturbation hysteria of the Victorian Era, when a few American doctors circumcised boys to punish them for masturbating. Victorian doctors knew very well that circumcision denudes, desensitizes, and disables the penis. Nevertheless, they were soon claiming that circumcision cured epilepsy, convulsions, paralysis, elephantiasis, tuberculosis, eczema, bed-wetting, hip-joint disease, fecal incontinence, rectal prolapse, wet dreams, hernia, headaches, nervousness, hysteria, poor eyesight, idiocy, mental retardation, and insanity.

In fact, no procedure in the history of medicine has been claimed to cure and prevent more diseases than circumcision. As late as the 1970s, leading American medical textbooks still advocated routine circumcision as a way to prevent masturbation."

-- Paul M. Fleiss, MD The Case Against Circumcision

Uh, I'm not a guy and no expert, but I am pretty sure that circumcision does NOT prevent masturbation.

"Today the reasons given for circumcision have been updated to play on contemporary fears and anxieties; but one day they, too, will be considered irrational. Now that such current excuses as the claim that this procedure prevents cancer and sexually transmitted diseases have been thoroughly discredited, circumcisers will undoubtedly invent new ones. But if circumcisers were really motivated by purely medical considerations, the procedure would have died out long ago, along with leeching, skull-drilling, and castration. The fact that it has not suggests that the compulsion to circumcise came first, the "reasons," later." -- Fleiss

The fact that new reasons to continue the circumcision practice are being invented is rather disturbing if you ask me.

One website I came across in my research shows step-by-step (graphic) pictures of an actual circumcision of a newborn boy. What Happens During Circumcision There is also a video there, but the pictures alone were more than enough for me. I don't think I could've stomached the video. I had never thought much about the actual procedure itself. I figured that the foreskin was clamped and removed without much effort and the baby was left to heal over the next week or whatever. I didn't think about the baby needing to be restrained, whether or not any type of anesthesia is used, the foreskin needing to be pried apart from the penis, the amount of bleeding involved, the raw exposed penis, etc. Not to mention the child crying in pain. :( It was not easy to look at.

There's a laundry list of "things" that are lost forever when a circumcision takes place. While all of these things in the list are noteworthy, I thought I would mention a few here that stood out to me:

"When a baby boy's natural and intact penis is "circumcised," this is what is lost forever:

** An estimated 240 feet of microscopic nerves, including branches of the dorsal nerve.

** Several feet of blood vessels, including the frenular artery and branches of the dorsal artery. The loss of this dense vascularity interrupts normal blood flow to the shaft and glans of the penis, obviously damaging its natural function and possibly stunting its complete and healthy development.

** The immunological defense system of the soft mucosa, which may produce antibacterial and antiviral proteins such as lysozyme, also found in mothers milk, and plasma cells, which secrete immunoglobulin antibodies.

** The essential "gliding" mechanism. If unfolded and spread out flat, the average adult foreskin measures about 15 square inches, the size of a postcard. This abundance of specialized, self-lubricating mobile skin gives the natural penis its unique hallmark ability to smoothly "glide" in and out within itself—permitting natural non-abrasive masturbation and intercourse, without drying out the vagina or requiring artificial lubricants."

-- Gary L. Harryman - What is Lost to Circumcision

I know some parents may be concerned about whether or not an intact penis requires special care. Personally, having no experience with an uncircumcised penis in the past, I had no idea what the answer was before asking friends of mine who's sons were left intact. FYI:

"The natural penis requires no special care. A child's foreskin, like his eyelids, is self-cleansing. For the same reason it is inadvisable to lift the eyelids and wash the eyeballs, it is inadvisable to retract a child's foreskin and wash the glans. Immersion in plain water during the bath is all that is needed to keep the intact penis clean." -- Fleiss

Also worth noting that the foreskin should never be forced to retract before it is ready.

"As noted, the foreskin and glans develop as one tissue. Separation will evolve over time. It should not be forced. When will separation occur? Each child is different. Separation may occur before birth; this is rare. It may take a few days, weeks, months, or even years. This is normal. Although many foreskins will retract by age 5, there is no need for concern even after a longer period. Some boys do not attain full retractability of the foreskin until adolescence."

-- Newborns: Care of the Uncircumcised Penis

Regarding the rate of circumcision in the world and U.S.:

"Circumcision is almost unheard of in Europe, South America, and non-Muslim Asia. In fact, only 10 to 15 percent of men throughout the world are circumcised, the vast majority of whom are Muslim. The neonatal circumcision rate in the western U.S. has now fallen to 34.2 percent." -- Fleiss

"The nationwide circumcision rate had been fluctuating in the low 60 percent range for some years, but a decline in the percentage of boys circumcised started in 2002 and continued into 2003. From 2002 to 2003 declines occured in all four census regions. Non-circumcision has been the norm in the Western Region for more than a decade."-- U.S. Circumcision Incidence

I think it's important to note that the circumcision rate is dropping in the United States because the old parental concern of not wanting a child to be teased because they look differently from the other boys will no longer be an issue if the ratio of circ'd boys to uncirc'd boys is approaching 50-50. I know in my own circle of friends, the ratio of circ'd boys to uncirc'd boys (babies and toddlers I mean) is probably more like 20 (circ'd) to 80 (uncirc'd) or even slightly higher in favor of the uncircumcised boys. Some parents I know (both in "real life" and on message boards) had their first son circumcised before they had done much research on the topic, and then, after learning more about the procedure, chose not to circumcise their second son.

(And now at the risk of sharing TMI...) Having never been with an uncircumcised man (yes, you can infer from that that Jody is circumcised), I was very interested to learn that not only is the pleasure of the male affected by circumcision, but also the pleasure of the female. (I mentioned a bit about this above as well.)

"One of the foreskin's functions is to facilitate smooth, gentle movement between the mucosal surfaces of the two partners during intercourse. The foreskin enables the penis to slip in and out of the vagina nonabrasively inside its own slick sheath of self-lubricating, movable skin. The female is thus stimulated by moving pressure rather than by friction only, as when the male's foreskin is missing."-- Fleiss

Like I said above, I couldn't find a reason to convince me that circumcision is necessary for our son. I don't feel the need to provide a list of all of the reasons against it. They are easy enough to find online. By reading through some of the links I provided below, you can read more information for yourself if you so desire.

I feel it is worth noting that I tried to find some pro-circumcision websites to include in my list (to keep it balanced), but 99% of the information I found "out there" is anti-circumcision. The one site (a members-only list serv "where circumcision is discussed and always supported") I did find turned out to be centered around pornography associated with circumcision so I removed it from my list. The fact that it is a porn site is not apparent from anything posted on the public side of it.

In conclusion, I don't feel that it is my right to make the decision to remove a part of my son's anatomy without his consent. I believe that circumcision is a personal choice - one that should be made by the person who owns the penis. By leaving my son intact, he can always decide when he gets older that he wants to have a circumcision. If I were to circumcise him as a baby, he wouldn't have the option of taking that back. I feel it is his body, his penis, and his choice.

Resources:

National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers

Circumcision Resource Center

The Case Against Circumcision - an eye-opening, very informative (IMO) article By Paul M. Fleiss, MD, MPH (interesting to note that Fleiss is Jewish)

My Son: The Little Jew with a Foreskin - By Stacey Greenberg

The Case Against Circumcision Discussion Forum on Mothering.com

What Happens During Circumcision? - Graphic photos/video of the circumcision process on a newborn

Protect Your Uncircumcised Son: Expert Medical Advice for Parents

Circumcision Information and Resource Pages

Doctors Opposing Circumcision

~*~

Some of my friends and family have given me crap about not circumcising our little baby, and the ignorant comments are fairly irritating. There are so many stupid myths that people in this country believe about circumcision. I did my research and agreed with my husband that the minimal possible benefits were not worth the risks of the surgery. I think I have heard every possible argument for why it should be done, and I have a response for each one.

"It's harder to take care of an intact penis" - Actually, in the first few weeks it is easier to care for an uncircumcised newborn. At birth the foreskin is fused to the head of the penis and no special care is required... no Vaseline to mess with, no worrying about if the penis is healing properly. It usually takes several years for the foreskin to naturally retract, sometimes up to puberty. Forcefully retracting the foreskin can cause pain, bleeding, and lead to infection and other complications. Once the foreskin is able to naturally retract, it takes maybe an extra 30 seconds to clean.

"The Bible says you have to circumcise" - Unlike Jews, Christians are NOT required to circumcise. It states this several times in the New Testament.

"He should look like his father" - This is one of the most ridiculous arguments I've heard. If John lost one of his fingers in an accident, we wouldn't have our baby's corresponding digit removed.

"He'll get an infection if he's not circumcised" - As long as no one forcefully retracts my son's foreskin (if that happens, someone's looking for a beat down), he has less than a 1% chance of having an issue. There is a greater chance of having a problem resulting from circumcision surgery.

"He'll be different from all the other boys and will get teased in the locker room" - There's nothing wrong with being different. It is becoming increasingly popular to leave boys intact. My pediatrician estimates that our area has about a 30% intact rate, and some other parts of the country are closer to 50%. I have spoken with several intact men and parents of intact boys, and locker room teasing isn't any worse for intact boys than circumcised boys. If one boy says something about another boy's penis, the teaser is usually made fun of for looking. Some boys might compare size, but intact penises generally look larger.

"If he needs/wants to be circumcised later, it'll be more painful" - If our son wants or needs the surgery later on, he'll have a higher pain threshold, will be able to be unconscious for the procedure, and will be able to have some nice drugs for pain management.

"Routine infant circumcision is no big deal... they don't feel pain and they won't remember it anyway" - I find it absurd to have surgery performed on a perfectly healthy infant. Circumcision is a painful cosmetic surgery with some serious risks. Many hospitals (including the one I delivered at) do not use anything to numb the skin or relieve the pain, and infants definitely do feel pain! I have seen how they do the procedure, and it's awful. Even if he won't remember the pain, that does not justify it. I wouldn't make him go through it alone, and I couldn't stand to see my little guy have the most sensitive part of his body cut up.

"He'll be rejected by women as an adult" - Some women think that intact penises look ugly, but penises in general don't really look "pretty". Any chick who doesn't want to be with a guy simply because he has an unaltered and NORMAL penis is a shallow, ignorant bitch. I wouldn't want my son with someone like that.

"He'll be more likely to contract an STD" - If you look closely at the Africa HIV study; you'll see that the circumcised men had a lower HIV infection rate because their sexual behavior was less risky. All in the circumcised group were circumcised as adults, and the majority of those not infected had complications from the surgery that made it difficult or nearly impossible to have sex. There has been a study done that shows that when males are circumcised as infants, they are no less likely to contract STDs in adulthood than intact males. It is responsible sexual behavior that protects against STDs, not the lack of a foreskin!

"He'll hate you for not circumcising him" - There may be a very small percentage of intact males who wish they'd been circumcised as infants, but most intact men like their foreskins. We should all be able to choose our own unnecessary body alterations, and I refuse to take away my son's choice in this matter for the miniscule chance that he might be bitter about it down the road. I got to choose all of my optional physical modifications, and so will my son.

I could not find a single justifiable reason for having our son circumcised, but plenty of reasons to leave him intact. Most people in this country circumcise their son without really thinking about it simply because it's what the majority does. Some people berate me for not going with the majority. Well, those people can kiss my ass! You make the best decision with the information you have, and I had more information than most on this issue. I am confident that my husband and I made the best choice for our son in leaving him with a natural and normal penis. I am very glad that I brought my son home from the hospital in one piece. No one is going to change my mind, so those who disagree with me can step off.

~*~

By Suzanne Cook

I have never gotten so worked up about a particular issue as I have with circumcision. Since the birth of my first child, I have learned more about circumcision than I ever wanted to know. I am glad that I have been able to make a truly informed decision on behalf of my children. None of my children have been circumcised. At the time my first son was born in 1992, all I knew about circumcision was what I learned in a pamphlet - that it was not medically necessary and was painful for the baby. That's all I needed to know to say no to circumcision. Caring for my intact baby boy couldn't have been easier. Just external washing was all that was needed. I knew his penis was still developing and retraction wouldn't be possible or even needed until his teen years, when he would be perfectly capable of doing it for himself. I have 100% confidence that my sons will be capable of cleaning their own genitals.

What bothers me most about the circumcision issue is the fact that most parents have no idea what circumcision is or what the foreskin is for. Even those who have been given ample opportunity to learn the facts still brush them off and refuse to accept them. They do this so they can continue to circumcise their children without guilt. I mean, how many parents are actually going to admit that they chose unnecessary surgery for their newborn baby that removed healthy, normal, functioning tissue from his genitals which caused unnecessary pain and suffering and a life-time of problems from the lack of foreskin? Not many.

Instead, they hide behind the myths of "it's cleaner", "he will be teased if he is not circumcised", "he'll have to have it done later in life so better to do it when he's still a baby". Years ago, it is understandable that the majority of parents were ignorant about the issue because they were specifically told that circumcision was cleaner, healthier, etc. Today, there is no excuse. No medical organization in the world recommends routine infant circumcision. There are no valid medical reasons to circumcise a newborn baby, yet the cutting continues. Why? The excuses used today are mostly so the baby will look like his father, if the father has been circumcised. That has got to be the stupidest excuse I have ever heard. I know parents who have used this excuse and guess what? The boy looks more like his mother than his father! In hair color, eye color, general facial appearance. Why his penis has to be cut up to match his father's is absolutely ridiculous! It's obvious a hang-up on the father's side. Maybe by circumcising his own son it justifies his own circumcision. He is the one that doesn't want to feel like the odd one. I just cannot believe these factors actually play a role in deciding whether to put a little baby through medically unwarranted surgery. Where is their common sense? Where are their parental instincts to protect their child? It's absurd.

"Our task is not to fix the blame for the past, but to fix the course for the future." -- John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963)

I often hear from circumcised men saying "There's nothing wrong with MY penis", "I am glad I am circumcised". That's fine. No one is trying to make you feel bad about being circumcised. No one wants you to feel inferior because you are missing a part of your penis. What I oppose is these attitudes contributing to harming more baby boys. A father's preferences for his own penis should have no effect on deciding upon surgery for his newborn baby! Surely if he had an appendectomy or tonsillectomy, he would not insist that his child have one too. When he looks objectively at the facts, he will see that circumcision is not in the best interest of his son. He was circumcised in a time when it was thought to be preferable...healthier, cleaner. We now know better. Fathers and sons will always have differences and the difference in their circumcision status' can be easily explained along with the other differences. A child is a product of their parents' love for one another, not a clone!

I do feel that circumcision is a form of abuse. It has become a social ritual here in America. People cling to their personal opinions and fears in order to continue the practice of circumcising baby boys. If it were any other part of the body in which parents were deciding to amputate healthy tissue without the presence of disease or severe infection, you would hear a lot more outcry from the public. Since circumcision has been ingrained into our society as "normal", many people don't even think twice about it. In fact, many people don't even want to think about it at all! They don't want to think about it, or talk about it, or hear about it. Just do it, get it over with, and forget it ever happened.

The foreskin is the only tissue in which amputation is performed without medical justification. Rarely do problems occur that necessitates circumcision later in life. As with any part of the body, problems can occur and as with any other part of the body, problems can be treated medically rather than surgically. Surgery should be a last resort. But often with any and all problems related to the foreskin, circumcision is offered as the only solution. Parents in favor of infant circumcision state the men they know who HAD to have a circumcision later in life. In this society, it's no wonder. They either get them at birth or get them later in life. Either way, they WILL get them. Why the obsession with foreskin cutting? I think the issue is deep seated and may never be understood.

Improper treatment of an intact boy is a major cause of later problems and later circumcisions. Many parents and doctors harm little boys by retracting their foreskins before they are ready. The foreskin is attached to the head of the penis at birth. As the penis grows and develops, it gradually separates from the head (glans) and becomes retractable. There is no exact age when this occurs. There is also no reason to retract the foreskin before this separation is complete. Even after completion, retracting and rinsing does not need to begin until adolescence, when during puberty the body goes through tremendous change and personal hygiene needs to be given more priority in both sexes. I have never retracted either of my son's foreskins nor attempted to retract them. Any medical professional who has examined my sons has been told outright not to retract their foreskins. I really wouldn't think this would be necessary except that the sad situation exists that many doctors, nurses, etc. are uninformed about the normal male penis and their incompetence could harm my child through forced retraction. I have heard from many parents, horror stories about how a doctor forced their child's foreskin back to the point of causing pain and bleeding. This is abuse. Doctors are taught in medical school how to cut off the foreskin but they are not taught how to simply leave it alone! The responsibility is now placed upon us as parents to ensure that our children are not harmed. This is so important.

Every male is born with a foreskin. If he is not, he is considered to have a birth defect called aposthia. Interesting that to be circumcised is considered to be "normal" yet to be born circumcised and it's considered a defect. The foreskin protects the penis throughout life and aids in sexual functioning. The male glans is meant to be an internal organ, similar to the female clitoral glans. The double layered foreskin protects the male glans, just as the female foreskin, also known as a clitoral hood, protects the female glans.

Many parents don't even realize how much tissue is removed from their child's genitals during a circumcision. Many men have scar lines from the circular cut at mid shaft on their penis.

What they don't realize is from that point forward is all scars, including the entire glans, since the foreskin had to be unnaturally separated and torn away from the glans before it could be cut off. The fact that this tissue has to be torn away should send red flags up to anyone. It is not supposed to be removed, especially at birth. During the diaper years, the foreskin protects the penis from urine, feces, and abrasions from diapers. Throughout life, the foreskin protects from abrasions from clothing, secretes antibiotic chemicals, and provides a sensual rolling and gliding mechanism during intercourse and masturbation. From birth to adolescence, the penis is self-cleaning. The foreskin keeps the penis clean. Nothing gets up in there that isn't supposed to be there. External washing is all that is needed and is easily accomplished during a bath or shower. In adolescence and after the foreskin becomes retractable, a simple retract and rinse is all that it needed to maintain genital hygiene.

Another part of this issue that I am concerned about is human rights and sex discrimination. Because of the facts concerning circumcision: that it is not medically necessary, that it removes normal, healthy, functioning tissue, that it is painful and traumatic, and is permanent, I feel that a child's rights have been violated when he is circumcised. Why should anyone have the right to remove a part of his body that he needs to function properly? Why should he be subjected to genital alteration for his parent's cosmetic preferences? It is HIS body. HE has to live with the consequences from the lack of foreskin and any complications from the circumcision surgery itself. When we speak about female circumcision, which is illegal in this country by the way, we are appalled that little girls are held down and ritually cut, regardless of the reasons to why it's being done. We know there are no medical reasons for it and it is very painful. The American Academy of Pediatrics has taken a solid stance against female circumcision and specifically states that parents religious, cultural or personal beliefs should not be taken into consideration. But with male circumcision, the AAP states that a parent's religious, cultural and personal beliefs SHOULD be considered and any decision to circumcise is appropriate. That is sex discrimination. It's not o.k. for girls but it is o.k. for boys. I've heard the argument "but female circumcision is much more severe; you can't compare the two." Yes, some forms of female genital mutilation are very severe but we are not comparing severity we are comparing soveignity. In the state of Washington, it was proposed that a local hospital be given permission to perform what is called a "sunna" circumcision, in which the clitoral hood (foreskin) of a girl is slit. No tissue is removed. This would satisfy the parent's cultural expectations and spare the girl a more drastic mutilation. The public was outraged and the hospital was not given permission to conduct the circumcisions. People were outraged that a little girl's genitals would be cut, yet they say nothing about the amputation of the entire male foreskin. They were outraged because the sunna circumcision was saw as barbaric, having no medical value and violating the child's right. The same could be said for male circumcision. Some people still refuse to see that but facts are facts.

Most people are also totally unaware that the majority of males in this world are not circumcised. America is the only country who routinely circumcises the majority of male infants for non-religious reasons. I don't feel an infant should be a martyr for their parent's religion. It would be anti-Semitic to oppose circumcision for some boys but not for all, just because the reasoning differs. Some Christians mistakenly believe that they must circumcise, as God commanded. Many references in the Bible can attest to the fact that circumcision is not a requirement for Christians. In fact, Paul preached about this "yoke of bondage" in Acts 15. When Jesus was crucified on the cross, he freed us from the laws of the Old Testament. In the New Testament, it is talked about as "circumcision of the heart". Surely they don't mean for you to cut open your chest and make a circular incision in your heart! Honestly, I really doubt that circumcision of the penis was ever commanded! Yes, it does say in Genesis "you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin", but in says nothing about "penis". And in other portions of the Bible, it talks about "foreskin of your heart". Just my views but I really doubt that such a loving, caring God would ask people to intentionally harm innocent children through circumcision. The foreskin was not put on the penis so it could be cut off. God made man in his image. He did not make a mistake as far as the genitals are concerned. The foreskin has a life-long function and is supposed to be there.

Because of my strong views about this issue, I volunteer a lot of my time trying to educate others. As a parent, I always welcome any information that effects the health and well being of my children. If I were a newborn baby boy, I sure hope someone would tell my parents that genital surgery is not needed! I think we need to move past the point of debating circumcision and on to healing those who have been harmed and keeping all boys and girls intact.

~*~

by Kelley Mason

I am constantly dumfounded by new mothers I know who have strong feelings against circumcision yet choose to leave the decision up to their husbands thinking that they should make the choice since they are men. This, in many cases, leads to their baby boys being altered and leaves the women feeling sorrow. This concerns me. Why aren't women standing up for their infant sons? As a Christian I believe that the husband is ultimately the head of the house hold and decision maker (after consulting with the family of course). I respect him for this, for his role as provider etc. and he respects us mothers as the barers and caregivers of the children. But this does not mean that we are to forget or ignore our God given instincts as mothers to protect the purity of our sons bodies as God created them.

I believe that women are more capable of making an informed, unbiased, decision about circumcision than many men are. Yes that is what I said!! I believe that many men have underlying feelings that may effect their rationality to make an unbiased, informed decision. And of course this only applies to the decision to circumcise not the decision not to since the decision not to is really not a decision at all it is merely letting things remain the way they were intended to be. And I applaud the many men who have allowed their sons to remain whole, they are not the ones that I refer to in this article.

You would think that men, being the ones with the penis's, would be the best qualified to make a decision regarding it. And this is true if he were choosing whether or not to circumcise himself. But as a man, circumcised or not, he is already biased. The man, who was circumcised as an infant, doesn't know what it is like to be uncircumcised and is not only unfamiliar with it, but probably a bit intimidated by it as well. He doesn't know whether or not he has less sensation during sex, or what effect the pain of the procedure had on him as an infant or what side effects it may have had (unless of course he is still suffering from those side effects). He only knows that he is circumcised, and most of his buddies are and that he is fine and happy and has no problems. I am sure he has even been herd to say "I am circumcised and I am fine". Being circumcised it all he knows. This is also the case with the uncircumcised man who chooses circumcision for his son (thought this would be quite rare indeed) based on, in some part, the experiences he has had being intact. A man, feeling a certain way about his "manliness" has preconceived notions about how his son would feel if left intact. These notions seem to overpower any facts that he has read about how unnecessary and harmful circumcision is. Let me give you an example of what I am talking about. The cars that we own are Volvo's, we have 2 of them. If a friend, about to buy his first car, were to ask my opinion what do you think I would say? I would recommend Volvo because it is what I know and love, and have had only good experiences with them. I really don't have much experience with many other types of cars. Volvo's have worked great for us. So my friend buys a Volvo as his first car and he HATES it! It is not fast enough, not sleek enough, and he wishes he would have bought that Mercedes he was looking at instead. I cannot fathom anyone not loving Volvo's. But hey, everyone is different. Fortunately for him he can go and buy a different car. The same can't be said for the boy who has been circumcised.

In looking at the reasons men choose to circumcise I am not talking about health, hygiene or religion (Jewish excluded) since these can be explained away with facts that these men cannot refute. We know for a fact that there are no significant health benefits as a result of routine infant circumcision. We know for a fact that the uncircumcised penis is no dirtier than a circumcised one and is, in fact, very easy to clean. And we know that for Christians circumcision is not required of us. This is blatantly obvious in the New Testament. For a man to try to use health, hygiene or religion as his reasons to circumcise is moot. He would have no argument because facts would not support him. Most of the reasons I hear about in the mans argument to circumcise their sons are purely cosmetic and egotistic. The biggest excuse I have heard, and the one that holds the least amount of weight, is that the man wants his son to look like his peers (despite of course the fact that in the US today 4 of every 10 boys are uncircumcised). He is afraid that his son will be made fun of in the locker room etc. Well I am not a guy, but I know for a fact that I never paraded around stark naked in front of my girl friends. So in my effort to understand that argument I have come to several conclusions. Perhaps these men made fun of their peers for various reasons in the locker room. Perhaps they were made fun or witnessed someone else being made fun of and they feel and are trying to protect their sons from having to experience this first hand. The flaw in this thinking is that our children are not us. Trying to protect them by having a surgical procedure performed on their genitals is not the answer. They have to find their own way. Rather than submitting your son to an irreversible procedure on the mere chance that someone will see his uncircumcised penis and make fun of him, it is better to educate him about it, let him feel proud of the fact that he is intact and perhaps he will not be the one feeling inferior after all but will feel pity for his peers who have had a piece of them cut off without their consent.

Another reason men choose circumcision for their sons is that, being circumcised themselves, they want their boy to look like them. No offense but this is obviously an ego driven decision. Does this man feel so inferior by his own circumcision that he needs to surround himself with men who look the same way? Does the idea of having an uncircumcised male in the house make him feel like he is not as much of a man? Maybe he thinks his son will feel odd if he looks different from his father. Once again I have to ask . . . so what? This can again be dealt with by educating your son about the fact that something was done to his father without his consent and that they didn't want to subject him to the same thing. Allow him to feel proud of how he was created instead of assuming that he will be ashamed of it.

I am convinced that we as women and mothers are much more capable of making a decision on circumcision. We are an objective third party. We can see the pros and cons with an opened mind not having preconceived notions. We can appreciate the perfection of our child's body because it grew inside us. We understand that our child was perfect at birth just the way God created him. We are talking about the removal of a part of the sexual organ of your infant son and doing so without his consent. This cannot be remedied or fixed. Yes, as parents we are in a position of authority over our children but we are also their caregivers and protectors. Who will stand up for our sons if not us? This is why I have such a hard time understanding why so many women step aside and leave the decisions up to their husbands who may not be able to make that decision without bias. Aren't we betraying our sons by not following our hearts and God given instincts and standing up for their well being?

But how can we protect our sons while respecting our husbands. There is such thing as compromise. A Godly husband will consider his wife's opinion in all his decisions. He understands the wisdom that God has given women and respects it. Compromise can be reached if both parities are willing to look at the facts. Perhaps you, as the mother, can take responsibility for teaching your son about your decision to leave him intact if his father is uncomfortable with doing so. Since this is dealing with the private sexual organs of your son why not let him make the decision himself. Perhaps when he is older if he expresses poor feelings about being intact he can be allowed to be circumcised. At least then it will be his decision. Maybe you can offer to give up something that you had desired. Can we not compromise some of our personal wants to protect our sons?

Don't give up!! These are extenuating circumstances!! Be persistent, be honest, share your convictions and your feeling!! Be respectful but don't back down!! Try to understand your husband so that he can understand you. Whatever compromises are needed lets protect our sons, and lets pray for our husbands. Don't give up on them. As women we have a great power of persuasion and much wisdom. Nothing is ever hopeless. God willing our husbands will eventually come around and our sons will retain those perfect little bodies they were born with. No scars, physically or emotionally.

~*~

~*~

By Peter Neilson

Summary

During the 1980's, American medicine circumcised almost 90% of her infant males without question. Circumcision is a ritual cutting of the genitals and customs vary among primitive cultures. American circumcisers remove most of the foreskin, a functional and important part of male genital anatomy, in the name of "health." Without choice, the majority of American males were left to experience life without their foreskin, and both men and women of her society know very little about its natural function.

Over 85% of the world's men know what the foreskin is and why it is there. For America the foreskin is a forgotten organ and few know what a normal penis feels like. A combination of ignorance, conformity, sexism, pseudoscience, dogma, social acceptability and denial has led to rationalized gender-based child abuse. Many boys are traumatized upon learning about their circumcision and a growing number of circumcised men envy nothing more than the normal human body, a body these men had before their society inflicted its American "birth defect."

Introduction

The foreskin is normal and does not present a problem for the rest of the world that enjoys having one. The U.S.A. just happens to be the last industrialized nation to continue the practice of routine infant male circumcision, for non-religious reasons.(1) All other English speaking countries that once practiced it gave it up and some recommend that it not be practiced. Cutting off an arm, a nose, or any body part, is an extreme measure to solve a problem when alternatives are almost always available.

Parents in Europe and non-Muslim Asia have never forced their boys to be circumcised. To them, cutting off a part of their boy's penis would be like cutting off parts of their ears.(2)

A growing number of men in the United States, Austraila, Canada and other nations are begining to speak about what it means to be missing this sensitive, useful, protective body part. One of the greatest injuries is that they were never given a choice when it was taken from them. Wicked Envy strives to come to terms with what our society has done, that continues to do to our sons, and hopes that wisdom, truth, and common sense will prevail to end this very strange and very personal violation for all genders.

Rationalism

• The belief that all knowledge and truth consist in what is ascertainable by rational processes of thought. The doctrine that true and absolute knowledge is found only in reason. (What do we call rationalism when its thought processes are based in dogma and ignorance?)

Most boys are never even told that they are circumcised until they ask why they look different. We are not told outright it was done or why, by the adults that had it done to us! When boys do ask, they are given certain rationalized reasons as a matter of fact. The strangest thing to an innocent boy is why one would do such a thing to the PENIS... something about it seems perverse, like the penis is bad... and had to be punished.

The rationalized explainations don't even make sense.

(boy)

• Because all boys are...
• To keep you clean...
• To help prevent infection...
• Women's preference
• ...(something you hear when older)

Dr. Kopelman of The AAP's Bioethics committee on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) has summarized four reasons cultures use to "explain" the custom of female circumcision.

(girl)

• (1) To preserve group identity.
• (2) To help maintain cleanliness and health.
• (3) To prevent immorality.
• (4) To further marriage goals. (Men's preference)

When coming to terms with the loss of a body part we want to understand how and why it happened. To see if there was a way to prevent it and to find a better safer way of doing being to make sure it doesn't happen again. Personally I believe an amputation by accident would be easier to accept than an intentional one, such as a mutilating crime.

If a person was to forcibly cut off a man's foreskin without his consent, let's say while he is asleep, would our American laws protect his person and allow him justice?

How different is this crime from that of an infant strapped to a board who has his genitals "circumsised" (mutilated) for life? The only difference is America has rationalized it. They tell him that it is okay, that it was done FOR him not TO him, that they did it for his "benefit," and that is only after he starts asking questions. Where will he find justice when his society says "don't complain!" ??

Today, newborn foreskins supply an multi-million-dollar-a-year industry of skin manufacturers and biotech researchers who say their product is produced from "medical waste" and purport the benefits of this new procedure that grows skin (for burn victims) and interferons (anti-virus protiens) from, in all truth, a stolen body part.(5) That anyone, especially science, can rationalize and justify taking a healthy body part from a baby in the name of rightous medicine, disgusts and infuriates me. This practice is NOT Robin Hood morality, it is rationalized insanity!

Rationalism based on truth of ignorance.

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we have been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth... It's simply to painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. - Carl Sagan - Demon Haunted World

Science and Medicine Today

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) says from their study of female genital mutilation (FGM) that it is has been characterized as a practice that violates the rights of infants and children to good health and well-being, saying that it is part of a universal standard of basic human rights. (11)

The AAP stated that routine male "circumcision" is purely elective and has no conclusive benefits, but did not suggest that there were any negative aspects to the practice. (12)

There is a clear discrepancy here concerning our American "ethical" issues toward female circumcision (aka.,FGM) and male genital mutilation (aka.,circumcision).

(see "hypocrisy" below)

In 1996 the Canadian Pediatric Society says "Circumcision of newborns should not be routinely performed"

"To circumcise... would be unethical and inappropriate" says the British Medical Association

Male circumcision is now purely a matter of personal choice, which means it is not a societal one or a parental one.(5) Most intact men when they arrive at adulthood value their wholeness, and those that had the "procedure" performed after they reached adulthood found that sexual pleasure was utterly gone. Here's a little insight from a 26 year old, who had himself circumcised on the advice of his doctor.(8)

"I had ample sexual experience, and I was quite happy as an intact male. After my circumcision, that pleasure was utterly gone. On a scale of 1 to 10, the uncircumcised penis experiences pleasure of at least 11 or 12; the circumcised penis is lucky to get a 3. If circumcised men knew the loss of pleasure they would experience, they would storm the hospitals and not allow their sons to undergo this." ---Rick Thomas

Dogma

• Asserting views as if they were facts especially in an arrogant way. || To believe in something as if it were fact || (What good is Belief if you don't challenge it?)

No one likes to think that their doctor could be giving wrong advice, but that is why people seek second opinions. Unfortunately most doctors practicing circumcision don't have all the facts or don't want to think that what they have been doing may, in fact, have been harmful. Denial, in this case, is a dangerous thing and your son will be its victim. If you are unsure about the facts surrounding circumcision become better informed about it and visit the Circumcision Resource Pages and the National Organization of Circumcision Resource Centers at www.NOCIRC.org for more information.

For decades doctors have promoted the benefits of circumcision to "prevent" urinary tract infections (UTI), yet UTIs are uncommon for men according to the National Institutes of Health. "UTI's may occur in infants who are born with abnormalities of the urinary tract, which sometimes need to be corrected with surgery. UTI's are rarely seen in boys and young men. In women, though, the rate of UTI's gradually increases with age. Scientists are not sure why women have more urinary infections than men. One factor may be that a woman's urethra is short, allowing bacteria quick access to the bladder. Also, a woman's urethral opening is near sources of bacteria from the anus and vagina."(9)

UTIs can be treated with antibiotics, the amputation of a boy's foreskin is permanent and more damaging than the UTI itself. It is more likely that a boy will get a UTI due to an abnormality of his urinary tract than his foreskin. The Canadian Pediatric Society suggests that breast feeding may play an important part in reducing UTIs in boys and girls.(10)

Which method is less invasive and more conservative? Breastfeeding or amputation? What about sexually transmitted diseases? Condom use or amputation? A real scientist would never propose to conduct an irreversible, non-therapeutic surgical procedure unless he is of the pseudoscientist type that promotes contraceptive sterilization. A male with his foreskin (most of the world) should think carefully before disfiguring his body for the benefit of his partner and his partner should know who she is sleeping with.

Dogma is a facisinating human attribute. Notably, a most profound defense mechanism used by those who have their belief system challenged. Dogma also occures to those who don't have a sound belief system based on their own inner sense of authority or conscience. when science became the authority in medicine, something unfortunate happened. People stopped asking questions of conscience and deffered to those who they believed knew what was right and what was wrong. These people gave up something most dear and may never have the ability to believe in themseleves again. They, too, were circumcised that day.

Medicine now uses dogma to perpetute circumcision, looking as hard as they can to find a reason to keep doing it, and asserts their views, their "medical opinions," as if they were facts. They ignore the history, ignore the deaths, ignore the amputations, ignore the pain they have caused in body and spirit, ignore the cultural influences that perpetuate it, ignore the similarities to female genital mutilation, ignore the human rights issue, ignore the baby that bleeds, ignores the beauty of the intact male body, and ignores the screams for humanity.

Dogma has no belief, it has no truth, for something cannot be true if it has not a false. Dogma is the loudest silence ever heard and the greatest silencer. Dogma says to its followers "do not question me or my authority. Do not look beyond, for you may not like what you see." Dogma uses fear to control its followers, limiting their potential. It claims to keep people safe in the pretend harmony they seek. All they will find is stagnation and a false god.

There is no place for dogma in science and there is no place for dogma in religion. Morality is not just for religion and science cannot claim that it is not one for it is. Just because science is based on the provable does not mean it will not function like a religion. The beauty of morality and conscience is that one bases his beliefs on an inner awareness of what is right and wrong. Now science, through self-evident truths will be able to show that it has helped perpetuate a most serious crime against its god.

Leo Tolstoy

"An event took place opposed to human reason and to human nature. Millions of men perpetrated against one another such innumerable crimes, frauds, treacheries, thefts, forgeries, issues of false money, burglaries, incendiarisms, and murders as in whole centuries are not recorded in the annals of all the law courts of the world, but which those who committed them did not at the time regard as being crimes."

"Each man lives for himself, using his freedom to attain his personal aims, and feels with his whole being that he can do or abstain from doing this or that action; but as soon as he has done it, that action performed at a certain moment in time becomes irrevocable and belongs to history, in which it has not a free but a predestined significance."

Hypocrisy

• Pretense of virtue, benevolence, or religious devotion.
• Saying one thing while behaving otherwise.

Such is the case of current law that protects the female of our society from Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) euphemistically called "circumcision" by the countries that practice it. Why is this law only protecting the female of our society? Is it because Male Genital Mutilation (MGM) or "circumcision" is over six times more frequent worldwide (4) and has been for such a long time that we have forgotten why it is even done or how it was started by medicine?

Our society recoils when we hear cases of female circumcision but hardly flinch when we do it to our baby boys. When will we realize that this practice of circumcision violates basic human rights and that all genders should have a right to keep their bodies protected?

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), Committee on Bioethics provides a policy statement for "Female Genital Mutilation" (FGM) and one for routine male infant circumcision titled "Circumcision Policy Statement." In the Bioethics policy they state that FGM is the ritual cutting and alteration of female genitals on infants and older individuals. They recommend that physicians oppose all forms of FGM, which according to their definitions, Type I female circumcision is identical to male circumcision (while the severity of the mutilation for the male is closer to Type II). Why then is female circumcision called FGM while male genital mutilation is called "circumcision?" Are they only wearing the hat that is in style?

The difference between the two Policy Statements is so staggering, it speaks nothing but with hypocrisy. They say that protection of the girls physical and mental health should be the overriding concern and suggest that performing a lesser procedure to satisfy cultural demands, such as pricking the skin of the clitoris, would just perpetuate the practice. The only reason the AAP presents themselves this way is because male circumcision is pandemic here in the USA. To perpetuate this practice requires that society deny the reality of what is happening.

The AAP's task force on circumcision, mentions nothing about the physical or mental well being of the male. Only that there are "anecdotal reports" that penile sensation and sexual satisfaction is decreased for circumcised males. They turn around from their position on FGM and say that it is legitimate for the parents to take into account cultural, religious, and ethnic traditions and to perform circumcision based on parent demands, this time with procedural analgesia. (12)

Doctors have an obligation to educate parents on circumcision and say no to circumcision, and state that it should be the boy's choice not ours. (see www.doctorsopposingcircumcision.org) If the father has problems with normal male anatomy, compassionate psychological counseling would help. (2) He, as I did, may need to come to terms with his loss, and be allowed to want a normal body for himself without fear of ridicule or accusation. A woman who had just lost a breast would receive the greatest the medical community can give and is allowed the right to grieve over her loss.(5) Why not so for a man?

When a person has grief that is not openly acknowledged or socially sanctioned this grief is called disenfranchised grief and it is a very real condition.

Whose body, whose rights?

Forced female and male genital cutting is a human rights violation according to "The Declaration of Human Rights." However, scientific dogma, myth, and "pandemic ignorance"(2) has lead to social acceptability of gender-based abuse in America.

On December 10, 1948, after decades of war and atrocities, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In it they state that "common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance," and that all schools should teach it.

In the U.S.A, basic human rights are violated everyday. Baby boys are welcomed into our country by strapping him to a board, lovingly called a "circumstraint", and amputating a NORMAL healthy part of his body WITHOUT HIS consent!

Imagine this...

Simply change the age of the baby, imagine a 20 year old. Now strap him down and with or without anesthesia remove a normal part of his penis while he screams for the doctor to stop. You can "put a pacifier dipped in sucrose"(12) to reduce his cries if they bother you. Also, "a more physiologic positioning"(12) of the adult male in a padded environment may decrease distress while he observes you cutting his penis without his permission.

You don't even need the Declaration of Human Rights to tell you what is wrong with this image! And it's done to over 3000 baby boys a day, whom will someday realize no one asked their permission.

What is the difference other than age? The baby may not remember it completely but a 20 year old might do the same thing being subjected to such trauma. An infant can't speak to say "NO, thanks" but his screams mean the same thing. That's it. I guess America is not so outstanding or progressive in human rights as one would like to think.

Whose penis is it?

I have heard it stated that some women "prefer" the circumcised due to various reasons such as "her" stimulation or "her" attraction. That a man should commit himself to a mutilating ritual to make his partner happy is the same as the attitudes held in parts of Africa where women are circumcised for the preference of men!(5) Are we such hypocrites as to say that one is any less worse based on gender?

Some fathers will say "I want my son to look like me." Come on dad, let your son decide that for himself when he's old enough. How often do you obsess about your penis not looking like your dad's? Do you feel the same way about your eyes your feet or your lips? You will both be happy that you gave him the choice.

Ignorance and Education

Unfortunately, most male doctors in America are circumcised and have little experience or knowledge about foreskin function. We need education in this country about normal male anatomy, even for doctors, so they may adequately explain to the questioning parents why circumcision is unnecessary. Then explain to the parents how to care for the newborn male's intact anatomy, which is really easy.

For those who need to know how to care for child male anatomy (i.e., most of us in America...). It's simple, never force retraction of the foreskin on the individual. The first person to retract a boy's foreskin should be the child himself. In early years the tissues are connected by a common membrane called synchnia and will separate naturally.(3)

Forcing the foreskin back will damage the tissue and cause complication to the individual in future. (This type of damage can be seen on circumcised men). Care for the boy is just as it is for a girl. LEAVE IT ALONE! Give his body the respect it deserves and he'll grow up a happy, healthy boy, with ALL his parts. Find out more childcare info at NOCIRC's website.

Circumcise and forget about it?

Here in America I feel that men and women are not only expected to "act like" a man or a woman, we are expected to like it. I always got the impression that I was supposed to like having been circumcised; to complain was to disrespect those who "knew best". It was part of being a man and I should like being a man (A man as defined and accepted by my society). Well guess what, I'm tired of playing that game.

In my pro-feminist society, who is pro-circ, anything that has to do with male is to be ridiculed and denigrated; man is heathen, man is brute, man is disgusting like his penis, man defiles, man is impure, man has no right to feel hurt for he has been the oppressor and now must pay his price. So goes the theory obviously, because why else would a virgin pure become otherwise.

American men frequently internalize their cultures attitudes towards male genital cutting, which is sexist in nature but made not to seem that way. He may not feel that his experience, while painful, "qualifies" as painful. However, just because a man doesn't call it rape doesn't mean he doesn't feel violated. He may not have the language, or he may never even have been asked. The culture he lives in forces a gender conditioning on boys that does not allow feelings like these to be expressed by men.

We will never have equal rights until we have equal rights for what it means to be human. There is no difference between man and woman or intersex, heterosexual and homosexual or bisexual, we are one complementary whole. Color is equal unto itself for all colors are in the same spectrum. There is no god too small to teach, for he may be so humble as dirt that we crush him with our feet.

And so in an effort to bring about wholeness and healing I now ask...

Do you have any negative feelings about being circumcised?

Denial

I'm not missing anything by being circumcised.

- or am I?

My parents did what was best for me.

- they love me

I'm glad I'm circumcised, I think it would feel weird to have a foreskin.

- I wish I knew what it felt like...

It helps keep me clean...those uncircumcised guys better be careful.

- I feel awkward when I see a man with his foreskin, he doesn't seem that dirty to me...

I am glad it was done when I was a baby, that way I don't remember anything.

- I don't remember it right? why do I feel so sad?

I don't feel self-conscious about my penis! Guys don't do that.

- well I have wondered what that dark line was and why the skin is connected to the glans like that...

It's the thought that counts...

- did my parents or my society even think about what I wanted?!!!! MY BODY

I don't have any negative feelings about my circumcision, My son is circumcised; what's good for me is good for him.

- if I do it to him then it proves that it was good for me, right?

I'm not mad; I'm fine with it. If I was mad then that would show I'm weak and that my feelings were hurt. Guys don't do that...

- but the little boy inside really wants to cry now, it really, really hurts

MEN don't cry!

- why not?

I have to be strong, to prove I'm a man.

- I'm not asking you to prove you are a man, that much is obvious. Would a victim of female genital mutilation have any negative feelings? What I'm asking is, do you have any negative feelings about being circumcised? It takes courage to face your feelings. Hiding from them or pushing them away only makes it worse. Face your fear, face your sadness, or you will never truly feel joy.

I had many of these thoughts and more. The hard part was trying to hide from them. When I admitted they were there, trying to express them was just as difficult, or even more so. I had become an expert at hiding from my feelings and hiding them from others. This website is part of my expression.

Impartiality

I don't care if the baby boy is circumcised, it's the parents choice.

(It's unnecessary, abusive and painful. It goes against human rights...)

I'm circumcised, why shouldn't he be?

(It's not fair! I don't want him to have more than me...)

I'm a woman, I've been oppressed for years.

(Does that mean I should also oppress? How can we be equals when either half of the population is made to suffer?)

It doesn't affect me why should I care?

(Knowing about a violation and choosing not to do anything about it is worse than ignorance itself.)

Disbelief

I'm circumcised? They cut off part of my what? My penis??

Why my penis? Wait, wouldn't that hurt? Why my penis? This is really weird. But they told me it was to help keep me clean... how hard is it to clean? Why my penis? Why would doctors get rid of an organ just because they can? (They are not doctors they are circumcisers...) Why my penis? Of all the things to cut or remove, this is a weird one. Why not remove the tonsils at the same time? Why not the breasts of a girl? She might get cancer. Why the penis? Why my penis?

They don't circumcise in other countries? Men are fine there? Do men like having their foreskin? What would mine look like? That skin tag is because of circumcision? I would not have that if it were not for my circumcision? The pitted parts of my glans are from my circumcision? My glans is supposed to look glossy and smooth!? My erections are tight and the hair on my penis is not normal? The dark line is from my circumcision? The light colored skin is supposed to cover my glans? Why did they do this? Don't they know? Why my penis of all organs? My sexual organs! Why? I don't even want to pierce my ears for God's sake, why would I want to do this to my penis!?

I want to get away, this can't be happening, someone help me. Make it stop! I want to run away, to leave this body. Why didn't someone save me? I cried, couldn't somebody hear me! I screamed, I tried to get away…

Comprehension

But I don't want to be circumcised! Why didn't someone tell me? I had to find this out on my own? Why did they do this? Why didn't they ask me! I'm mutilated! I hate this! How can I say it, who should I tell? What has been done to me! What about my friends! Why don't the women know? Why didn't my mom protect me? Didn't dad know, why did he do this? Why didn't they let me decide? Doctors did this!? Shouldn't they know better! This is sick; they cut part of my PENIS off! They cut it off of BABIES! They don't do this to girls! How can they do this to boys but not to girls? They don't even question when it's done to boys! My society did this to me! My society, that believes in freedom and EQUAL rights!

America didn't circumcise when it was founded! How did this violation of our most precious freedoms come to pass without our knowledge? How could my society be so blind to this sort of gender-based child abuse? It has become accepted and even desired! Medicine that says "First, do no harm!" but I have been harmed in one of the most personal and horrible ways! If I were born 200 years ago I would have a normal body, or if I was born in the future I hope I would have had a normal body. Of all the times to be born in I just had to be born into medical medievalism.

Oh my god, what have they done?

Realization & Grief

When I first began to explore circumcision information I found my behavior perplexing. I was scared, I didn't want anyone to know I was looking into it and I kept telling myself I was fine with it. It was no big deal. Interesting though were the body responses I had when anticipating some information or writing in my journal. I started trembling, yet I kept a state of mind that noticed my physical reactions but did not feel their emotions.

It was not until six months after I began foreskin restoration that I realized I had not yet felt any of my feelings. That this was a pattern of behavior I kept in most aspects of my life. I did not allow myself to feel even good feelings. When I cried for the first time in a long time, it was difficult. I had been so afraid to show my feelings (even to myself) that I often just kept it in, or was unaware even to the existence of these feelings. By fighting and resisting my emotions I made them stay in place and I was unable to make progress.

During my youth I had many strange experiences that left me wondering where certain emotions and physical reactions came from. I went through periods of depression or sadness that manifested at strange times. Once, when I was spanked, about 4 years old, a combination of the desire for it not to happen and the pain from punishment, induced a strange memory like experience. I later sat on the stairs in my two-story house, crying unable to understand these disconcerting feelings that were hidden inside me.

My teenage years were very troubling sexually. I had very tight erections due to the tight "cut" I received as an infant, frequently from the age of 12 that would persist. I did not learn how to masturbate to orgasm until I was 15. I thought men had sex just to get the annoying painful erection to go away. Masturbation was mostly confusing and dissatisfying, as if I was doing something wrong, though I was told it was okay to do... Then one night in the summer of 1993, after masturbating, and a painful session at that, combined with the desire for orgasm not to happen, I fell into a depressed state, with feelings of helplessness and fear. This really confused me. Where did it come from! I had no reason to fall into depression. I could not eat normally for two weeks. (Some would like to blame a chemical imbalance but the timing and trigger speak volumes to me now). Struggling I buried my feelings, unable to find the reason for my sadness. This is when I stopped feeling, it was really the only thing left to do. I put on my mask of pretense and said I was okay, all the while a part of me was looking through hoping to get to breath again.

In December of 2001, when I began to allow my feelings to surface about being circumcised and notice what was there, I would pull back and hide from some of them. Over several weeks I worked with these feelings and discovered new ones. Something happend one night when I was crying and feeling the pain fully in all its variety. It was like I could remember something I had forgotten. Like a snap or flash, and I could remember. I did not believe it could be a memory at first, but it was as if a block had been released. I could experience it, if I allowed myself to.

Scientifically, I want proof that I do remember, that what I have done was to uncover the memory not fabricate one. Due to the nature of memory, there will always be that question. I cannot believe myself if I do not challenge theory with question. The way the memory surfaced and the way I was experiencing my emotions at the time, was not an attempt to remember, and what I found was something that I do not enjoy remembering. The fact remains that my behavior through childhood, my strange emotional surges, my self-doubt, my inability to say no, my quickness to say "there is no use to speak up it will happen anyway no matter what I want," were huge influences on my character that really have no adequate environmental explanation. My childhood was pretty standard, no traumatic domestic violence other than being mutilated as an infant.

True, my gender conditioning had other influences apart from these that I had developed over time, and hiding from my emotions was an easy escape because "men" are supposed to be able to do hide from everything but anger, desire and bravery.

To make the connection that I had remembered, that it may have been possible, was a profound relief. A relief because now I knew why I was having some of these feelings and that there was an explanation for the problems I had before. At once a relief yet at the same time troubling, because the memory was the most horrible thing I have ever experienced. I cried every night and sometimes during the day when no one was watching. I experienced pain in my genitals; sensitivity to sound and twice woke up trembling. It took a long time for me to accept that I could remember and I have to say that there will always be a part of me that says maybe it is false, but even so, I am still circumcised. I was assaulted and mutilated and I had no idea I was mutilated until much later. I just remember a horrible thing happened and I didn't know what it was or why.

I could hardly go to work, I felt this deep pain in my chest, like heartbreak, all the time. I entertained thoughts of suicide; I experienced loss of appetite and libido. I looked at everyone as being a hypocrite and resented anyone who was intact. I looked at other men and wondered intact or circ'd? Eventually I began to speak about my feelings with family and friends. Expressing my feelings was knew to me as well since I had become so accustomed to keeping it all bottled up. This continued through March 2002. February was when I was able to write down the memory completely, before that I could remember most of how it felt physically but emotionally the memory was different, filled with confusion. I had to work with the emotions separately to identify what I had been feeling at the time. I supposed at such an early stage of development, I did not have the language of feelings. The best way to describe it is like a storm of electricity and fire.

If you are experiencing similar problems, counseling is available and support groups are being formed. Visit NOHARMM and the Circumcision Resource Center for more information on counsel and NORM for local support groups.

Anger

• "Just because a woman doesn't call it rape doesn't mean she doesn't feel violated. She may not have the language, or she may never have been asked." Nahid Toubia

I hate being circumcised, and my whole outlook on my society has changed. I tried not to be angry about it but once again I was just denying my true feelings. I had become so accustomed to hiding from, or pushing away, my feelings that I had to learn what certain feelings were and where they were coming from. Then allow myself to feel them, no matter what they were. A flood of early childhood memories proceeded one connecting to the other and I allowed myself to observe what came to the surface and what feelings they produced.

I think I, and every other circumcised man and women, have every right to be angry with what was done to OUR BODIES, against OUR will. It was a horrible experience and naturally it has affected my life. I have trouble in relationships, aversion to touch, resentment and sometimes a feeling of misogyny. I'm really angry and I'm even angrier that there will be more boys and girls who will have to experience the same thing. I care deeply for the innocent, and I hope I can use my experiences to help them, to help their parents, to expose the crime, to break the silence around this violation of their human rights.

It seems like such a simple solution. Let the boy/girl/intersexes keep what is theirs that nature intended. No other primate on this planet would ever do such a disgusting thing to a child, not that I know of. It makes sense, like breastfeeding makes sense. There is a reason for it! Where in the hell did doctors ever come up with the idea of redundant organs! Just because you don't know the name or function of a plant doesn't automatically make it a weed!

Victorian Doctors knew what they were doing. Doctors that circumcise today are apparently idiots or evil. Hopefully historians will view biotech in the 21st century, which currently profits from refining infant foreskins, as primitive, heinous, disgusting, abhorrent and infamous. I see it akin to the way we view ancient Aztec human sacrifice. They will liken circumcision to social hysteria and sexual perversion. They will shake their heads in disbelief that Doctors of this era would amputate healthy epithelial tissue for money and not use anesthesia so as to preserve the specimen for secondary sale. That they could do such a thing to an infant only magnifies the crime to proportions that medical students of the next few centuries will be hard pressed to find a more despicable practice ever conducted by their profession on a mass scale. They may wish to change medicine's name so as not to be confused with the wrong crowd.

Envy

• - An innocent desire to share another's good || a feeling of antagonism towards someone (in this case intact men and women) because of some good which he himself is enjoying but which one does not have oneself

I envy not just the intact men and women, I envy that they did not have to go through the horrors of circumcision. The confusion it caused when growing up and the trauma of being reminded that it happened. To be changed because someone didn't like you they way you were made. I desire it more than anything else; to just be comfortable in my own skin, to not have sensory input from the glans. How irritable it makes me! Always there, masking all other input that comes in. To be flaccid and contained, to have grown up with this sort of comfort and security, innocence and trust, is invaluable to me. That is what I miss.

I wrote that before I started using the tape ring restoration method. I highly recommend it to those who have enough skin and find sensations from the glans uncomfortable or painful. Having the glans covered feels so much better!

I feel grateful that I have this ability to restore myself to a more normal state. I feel it is my duty to despise the ignorance of those who abused children's genitals beyond repair. I get so angry that other people can be compelled to destroy another person's property (especially genitals!) for any reason. Circumcision "mishaps" are tragic disasters; the first one should have been a wake up call. Medicine was able to dissuade parents into its belief system which is in its own state of religious dogma and denial. If medicine were based in true natural science, without an agenda, I believe none of this would have happened.

Truth

Do not pay attention or investigate; leave mind in its own sphere...

Do not see any fault anywhere,

Do not take anything to heart,

Do not hanker after the signs of progress...

Although this may be said to be what is meant by non-attention,

Yet do not fall prey to laziness;

Be attentive by constantly using inspection.

• -sGam.po.pa, The Jewel Ornament of Liberation, trans. Herbert V. Guenther (Berkeley, Calif.:Shambhala, 1971),pp. 216-17

What is truth? What is belief? What is faith? What is love? What is hate? Who am I? Who are you? What is right? What is wrong? What is science? What is conscience? What is justice? And whose interest does ignorance serve?

During this difficult period of remembering and repeating I found M.K.Gandhi's writings to bring great inspiration. His views on truth and non-violence are beautiful and a society that practices these natural processes is one I want to live in. During my introspection I learned how truth is real. What I want is to know truth no matter how painful it is.

It came as a relief to find the motive for specific patterns of behavior I expressed during my life so far. I feel as if I can stop repeating these patterns and move on. Sex and orgasm has turned from a confusing unpleasant experience into something joyful and pleasing. I look forward to the coming years of restoration to achieve a more natural feel. Before my memory surfaced, sex was not an experience, it was a function. It was if I could not understand it or that I knew something wasn't quite right. I have had years of problems and I know I am not alone.

I remember as a little boy, before I knew the truth about circumcision, I used to push my glans back under the penile shaft and hope it would stay. How odd it is to look back and wonder, was there an instinctual knowledge or did I unconsciously know the truth back then and wasn't mature enough to be able to handle it?

I have come to despise ignorance, hypocrisy, greed and dogma. I especially despise these parts of myself that I have developed over time as a protective defense from the pain. I endeavor to acknowledge these traits whenever I may use them and hope that I can free myself from their limitations.

Activism

"We men are tired of seeing parents misled by doctors. We men are tired of being lied to and ignored by doctors on this issue. As men who were circumcised as infants and who live with the long-term physical and psychological consequences of a surgery we did not choose, we have a right and a responsibility to speak up about a practice we know has harmed us and continues to harm others." MEN WILL NO LONGER BE SILENT! - Tim Hammond, Founder of NOHARMM (National Organization to Halt the Abuse and Routine Mutilation of Males)

One of the only ways I can heal my emotional scars is being able to educate others to help end one of the most strange and sickening practices that medical science and culture has done to our children. Religion has no right to behave in this manner either. If genital cutting is a requirement of a religion then it should be after the individual has matured enough to decide on his or her own whether or not he or she wishes to be in that religion. In my case my person BEING circumcised has violated MY religion and there is no going back! Parents have no right to force anything on children, and altering their sexual organs or any other part of their body should be condemned.

Ethics is the greatest obstacle to achieving illicit power and the influence to convince people to comply with agonizing, abnormal agendas. Silence perpetuates, protects and hides the unethical.(15)

You may be call me an "activist" but I am only asking that people do what is natural and moral. Maybe I prefer the term "normalism" or "normalist?" I am ashamed to be human when I think that I am asking parents and doctors not to harm their children's genitals! If there is a god, I think he cries every time his creations are violated and vandalized in such manner and must feel the pain they feel, one at a time, hundreds of millions in total.

"It is easy enough to say, ‘I do not believe in God.’ For God permits all things to be said of Him with impunity. He looks at our acts. And any breach of His law carries with it, not its vindictive, but its purifying, compelling punishment." - M.K. Gandhi

Acceptance, Forgiveness, and Restoration

Until I stopped being afraid of my pain, or until I recognized that I was afraid, I've never felt more real and genuine. My pain is real but so now is my joy.

I am still working on this part, acceptance and forgiveness will take more time I guess. The sections I have written so far are still incomplete. I am always asking questions about truth, faith, love and forgiveness.

Foreskin restoration has been part of the healing process for me. I'm was a victim, now I am survivor.

I don't feel like I am ready to forgive or maybe I never will. If that is so then maybe acceptance never really happened, but who is to say when it has or hasn't anyway.

Part of the restoration process is not just my physical body, but the restoration of the society in which I live. Blinded by so many things, we have truly harmed the most precious thing we have, our children. Children are not objects for us to control, raise for our benefit, manipulate, or take pride in who they become. You can admire them for their being but you cannot take credit for it.

All of America is an injured child right now. Look at the actions we have taken. Where are we going? What are we doing? Why are we doing it? Our views of life are becoming more astray and more distorted. We are lost and looking for the one who was supposed to protect us.

Forgetfulness, Recurrence

If it was possible for humanity to FORGET the original reason why circumcision was done and then to not even QUESTION it being done to our own children, then it can and will happen again. On top of all this, "medicine" is now able to harm children in a cold calculated way, by stealing infant foreskins and profiting with impunity.

Will we work so hard to show people their mayhem, their hysteria, their blindness, only to forget what has occured? Or for it to be trivialized? To overlook that part of the past we would rather not look at? It is one of my greatest fears.

I can hardly stand living in this society. It is like we are all asleep and numb to reality. I was numb; I didn't want to believe what had happened. A truly horrible abuse; perverted and despicable. Boys and girls worldwide are mutilated by the very adults who are supposed to protect them, who in turn do it to their children because it was done to them.

The politics of "government" only further perpetuates the crime and more children continue to be hurt by apathy. Democracy is a cowardly institution today befitting the name of hypocrisy rather than the pretense of freedom.

Circumcision is medical medievalism. I and millions of Americans were born in the dark ages.

Today Science and Technology are seen as crucial products of "civilization." However, more and more people are becoming dependent on others to explain these advancements. No one thinks for him or herself or regards him or herself as the authority. How else could mothers and fathers mutilate their children and be happy they did it. Flip the coin and Doctors who circumcise against their conscience lose that part of themselves called authority.

"We might get away with it for a while but this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces..." - from Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World

Source Notes

(1) Sheila Kitzinger, Alfred A. Knopf "The Complete Book of Pregnancy and Childbirth" (New York 1996) p.365

(2) Paul M. Fleiss "The Case Against Circumcision" (Mothering Magazine 1995)

(3) NOCIRC Information Series #4 "Answers to Your Questions About Your Young Son's Intact Penis"

(4) T. Hammond "A preliminary poll of men circumcised in infancy or childhood" (National Organization to Halt the Abuse & Routine Mutilation of Males) - (NOHARMM)

(5) Jim Bigelow "The Joy of Uncircumcising" (Hourglass Books) - Founder and Director of (UNCIRC)

(Note from webmaster: I highly recommend this book to the circumcised or intact.)

(6) Mark Jenkins "Seperated at Birth" (Mens Health July/August 1998) p.132

(Note from webmaster: A difficult article to read. Describes the cold distant nature of a circumciser, I'm sure a state of mind that is very difficult to keep.)

(7) Marilyn Milos, RN. 1999 Mutilating Male Sexual Performance (The Compleat Mother Fall'99) p.47

(8) Mark Jenkins "Seperated at Birth" (Mens Health July/August 1998) p.132

(9) National Institutes of Health 19 - November 1999 - http://healthlink.mcw.edu/article/943045175.html

(10) Neonatal circumcision revisited Canadian Medical Association Journal 1996; 154(6): 769-780 Reaffirmed February 2001 Canadian Paediatric Society (CPS) http://www.cps.ca/english/statements/FN/fn96-01.htm

(11) AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS Committee on Bioethics; Female Genital Mutilation (RE9749) Policy Statement; Pediatrics Volume 102, Number 1 July 1998, pp 153-156

(12) AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS Task Force on Circumcision; Circumcision Policy Statement (RE9850);Pediatrics Volume 103, Number 3 March 1999, pp 686-693

(13) THE POPULATION COUNCIL LIBRARY CATALOGING DATA Sexual Coercion and Reproductive Health a focus on research / by Lori Heise, Kirsten Moore [and] Nahid Toubia. -- New York: Population Council. 1995. 59 p.

(14) Psychological, neurological, and sociological impacts of circumcision

Geoffery Falk http://www.cirp.org/library/psych/

(15) "Is Circumcision ethical or unethical? What others others have to say about it." Medical Ethics Network Inc.

(16)p.16, (17)p.77, (18)p.82 Ron Goldman Ph.D. "Questioning Circumcision, a Jewish Perspective"

(19) Mark Epstein M.D. "Thoughts Without a Thinker" (Basic Books, 1995)

~*~

Dear Sir,

Pardon the presumption in contacting you, for it has been many years since we were last in each other's presence. You probably do not remember me, but I will remember the choice you made for the rest of my life. Although I know little about you, I do know some things about you that you yourself don't even realize.

You believe the design of the human body is inherently flawed and needs to be surgically corrected. This leads you to think that it is your right to amputate a perfectly normal and healthy body part from an individual without their consent.

Now maybe you don't think you believe this, but as evidenced by the permanent scar on my body and many others, you do. I do not remember what happened when I was with you, yet every time I use my penis I must face the irreversible consequences of what you did.

Let me refresh your memory: Shortly after I was born you took me away from my mother and carried me to a secluded room where she could not see or hear what was going to happen. You strapped my arms and legs firmly to a form-fitting board so that I couldn't move. You held my penis in your hand. You then forcibly separated my glans from my foreskin. You then cut around my penis amputating my foreskin and most of my frenulum. You threw the amputated parts of my penis into the trash. You collected a monetary sum for this.

Though at the time I couldn't speak or defend myself, I am a man now and you will listen to what through my profuse crying you should have understood then, "I don't want part of my penis cut off. Get your cold gleaming steel blade away from me. It is my body and you have no permission, authority, or right to cut off part of it. Stop!".

However, you never even paused to ask yourself whether I, the person whose body it is, want part of my body cut off or not. Instead you proceeded blithely against my explicit vocal opposition to cut off part of my infant body. I consider your actions, at minimum, tantamount to battery for which you should be held legally accountable.

You don't believe you are responsible for this because you were only doing what was asked of you. My parents are not qualified to make medical diagnoses. If they had asked you to cut off any other part of my body you would have refused to have done it, because you have 'morals' and also since it would have been criminal assault. As a medical professional it is your responsibility to be aware that no medical organization including the ones you belong to, consider this justifiable for health reasons which makes this by definition, cosmetic surgical amputation being performed on an infant. No matter how you want to try to rationalize it in your own mind, my blood from your sexual assault upon my infant body was and still is on your hands.

Despite all of this I know that you are a person who probably meant well and just got caught up in a cultural ritual. I know you would not have done this to me if you knew that I did not want it. In fact it is even likely that you too are missing part of your penis as well. Though you have permanently simplified and damaged the way my penis functions, you were probably ignorant and not malicious so I forgive you. However from my letter at least, you are ignorant no longer; therefore you now bear full ethical and moral responsibility for any future partial penis amputations you perform on infants. Please reconsider your decision to continue amputating a natural and functional part of someone else's body without their consent and instead let it be a choice each individual makes for himself when he reaches an age where he can decide what is best for his own body.

May you understand and heed for the first time what I and every other baby restrained helplessly before you has tried through our screams and tears so many times in vain to say to you.

Sincerely,

A Man missing part of his body

~*~

UPDATE: Some studies are beginning to be done; here is a one from Denmark. I think it is interesting how they find it surprising this hasn't been studied more before. I think this just shows how much of a taboo there still is in researching circumcision's functional effects.

"Yet, prevention of the rare cases of pathological phimosis remains a leading argument for proponents of routine circumcision. Other claimed benefits of circumcision, such as reduced risks of balanoposthitis, sexually transmitted infections and penile cancer, can be achieved without tissue loss through the maintenance of good penile hygiene combined with proper use of condoms, and whether circumcision reduces the risk of urinary tract infections in infancy has been questioned.

Despite the fact that no professional medical organization recommends routine circumcision, not even in the USA where most newborn boys undergo the operation, it remains a widespread belief that circumcision provides superior penile hygiene and protects against urinary tract infections, phimosis, paraphimosis, balanoposthitis, venereal diseases and cancer. Considering the organ involved with its sensitive anatomical structures, surprisingly few population based studies have been carried out to evaluate circumcision’s possible sexual consequences. A number of methodologically questionable reports have led to claims of impaired, improved or unaltered sexual function in circumcised men and their female partners."

Highlights include:

• Women with circumcised partners more often than women with uncircumcised partners reported that their sexual needs were incompletely fulfilled; women with circumcised men also reported more difficulties such as orgasm difficulty, lubrication difficulty, irritation, infections, and painful sex (dyspareunia).
• Circumcised men were more likely than uncircumcised men to report frequent orgasm difficulties.
• The two most common sexual difficulties, premature ejaculation (reported as an occasional or frequent difficulty by 61%) and erectile difficulties (reported by 40%), were equally frequent in the two groups.
• The only behavioural difference was that circumcised men were more likely than uncircumcised men to report a lifetime history of 10 or more sex partners.
• Considering all sexual function difficulties together revealed no difference, but circumcised men were three times more likely than uncircumcised men to experience frequent orgasm difficulties which, according to an international expert panel, are either psychogenic or due to reduced penile sensitivity.
• Robustness analyses showed that these difficulties of circumcised men were not explained by an excess of anxiety or depression in this group. This suggests that reduced penile sensitivity may, at least in part, explain the difference, a situation that has been recognized for centuries and supported by recent neurophysiological studies.

You can see its abstract here: http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/06/13/ije.dyr104.abstract

End of UPDATE

__________________

Poll of Circumcised and Uncircumcised Men

Overview

There are many factors that affect sexuality(stress, drug use, emotional and physical health etc), the question is, is circumcision among them. Ask most mainstream American Doctors(who were likely circumcised at birth and have received no education on foreskin in medical school) whether circumcision has any effect on sexuality and they will confidently tell you "No". However they say this, with their being little modern research done in this area(almost all modern research focuses on searching for health benefits of doing circumcisions and only extremely rarely does anyone ever think to research why foreskin might be useful to have).

To help fill this void, I have conducted my own poll of cut and uncut men. I tried to make my survey as thorough as possible within 8 questions, but clearly there are many more pertinent aspects to studied. There are also limitations such as putting circumcised males all in one group when in reality, each circumcision can vary substantially in how much and what is removed depending merely on the predilection of the circumciser. In particular whether or not the circumcised man is left with all part or none of his highly erogenous frenulum may have a significant impact on how he judges his experience of being circumcised.

This poll was conducted over a period of three months starting in late June 2006. It was hosted and tabulated by a free polling site. The poll takers are users of the site who saw this poll listed and decided to take it. Of the poll takers, 422 are circumcised and 209 are uncircumcised. About 20 circumcised and 4 uncircumcised guys only partially completed the poll. Because this poll was done informally online, it is not meant to be taken as a scientifically-publishable poll that would have poll-takers randomized from the general population. It is meant to be taken that how circumcision affects men's experiences is, in the very least, a valid topic to research and should no longer be taboo in American universities.

1 When fully erect, I have coarse pubic hair

Cut Uncut

2% 0% on more than half my shaft.

4% 2% approximately half way up my shaft.

18% 9% approximately a third way up my shaft.

69% 41% approximately a quarter way up my shaft.

7% 48% not on my shaft at all.

2 When fully erect, my testicles

Cut Uncut

11% 2% are pulled close to my shaft and it often feels uncomfortable.

47% 36% are pulled close to my shaft and it does not feel uncomfortable.

42% 62% are not pulled close to my shaft.

3 During masturbation as an additional lubricant, I usually use

Cut Uncut

34% 3% a commercially-sold product

21% 8% my own saliva

13% 22% my pre-cum fluid

32% 67% none at all

4 I would like my penis to be

Cut Uncut

64% 11% more sensitive to physical stimulation.

34% 77% as sensitive as it is now.

2% 12% less sensitive to physical stimulation.

5 The approximate duration of my usual experience of orgasm is:

Cut Uncut

14% 2% Less than 5 seconds.

46% 4% Between 5 and 10 seconds.

30% 29% 10 to 20 seconds.

6% 39% Between 20 and 40 seconds.

3% 17% 40 to 60 seconds.

1% 9% More than 1 minute.

6 The approximate location of my usual experience of orgasm is felt

Cut Uncut

7% 0% barely anywhere at all.

28% 7% only in my genitalia.

43% 27% in my genitalia and surrounding area.

18% 47% throughout most of my body.

4% 19% throughout my entire body.

7 My usual experience of orgasm is more closely associated with these words

(Select as many as apply):

Cut Uncut

6% 0% Disappointment, unfinished, depressed, frustration.

37% 23% Relief, release, emptying. pumping, automatic pressure release.

54% 16% More physical than emotional.

12% 37% More emotional than physical.

17% 24% Feelings of love, closeness, and union with my partner.

9% 23% Waves of bliss.

2% 10% Transcendence, Oneness with the universe.

0% 1% None of the above

8 Circumcised Men: Choose one:

44% I am content being circumcised.

37% I would rather be uncircumcised but I will live with it as it is.

15% I would rather be uncircumcised and I am considering restoration.

4% I would rather be uncircumcised and I am actively restoring.

8 Uncircumcised Men: Choose one:

86% I am content being uncircumcised.

7% I would rather be circumcised but I will live with it as it is.

6% I would rather be circumcised and I am considering having it done.

1% I would rather be circumcised and I am definitely going to have it done.

Conclusions

To varying degrees of effect(it may well be that the effects correlate with how much and what was cut off, particularly whether one still has their highly sensitive frenulum), circumcision: increases the amount of coarse pubic hair on the shaft, pulls the scrotum forward during erection, increases the need for lubrication, decreases penile sensitivity, decreases the duration location and intensity of orgasm, and decreases owner satisfaction.