People's Experiences Page 2

Circumcised Men

Punishment for Masturbation

I was circumcised at the age of about six soon after my mother found me “playing with myself” when she walked into my bedroom unannounced. (At the time, the mid 1930’s, it was widely believed that circumcision would prevent or at least lessen the likelihood of masturbation, which was supposed to cause all sorts of illnesses.) When I was taken to the hospital I was told that I was to have my tonsils removed (tonsillectomy was another “fashionable” operation having purported “benefits” at that time), but nothing was said about the other operation. When I woke up from anesthesia I asked my mother, “Why does it hurt down here when I was operated on up here?” My mother looked confused; the nurse looked at my mother quizzically; and I got no answer. This experience has caused lasting psychological harm, in addition to the physical mutilation.

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Needlessly Cut

I was circumcised when I was about 4. I was fortunately left some inner foreskin and frenulum. Unfortunately he removed to much outer foreskin and my scrotal skin is somewhat pulled up onto the shaft of my penis. This means the hair came with it. My wife has complained about this for years. I only recently realized that the reason for this was circumcision. My erections used to be painful but I did some restoring for while that has seemed to have helped.

I feel betrayed and angry because I was circumcised. The doctor told my parents that I had balanitis and had to be circumcised. This was also the same doctor who told my mother to forceably retract my foreskin and scrub it. Now I found out it should be left alone in the first place and that balantitis could have easily been treated without amputation...argh. I am 45 and have a great deal of sensitivity loss and chafing when I have intercourse. The medical profession has had a real money maker for years. I hope this is a practice that dies soon.

Gary

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Surprise!

I personally had my perfectly normal, functional, significant and beautiful foreskin amputated at age 9 years, during a "routine" tonsillectomy was not forewarned that my penis would be involved in the surgery. I did know, and consent to the tonsillectomy, and it was supposed to limit my severe and painful earaches. It did not limit my earaches. I awoke in the hospital with a huge bloody dressing to my penis. I was horrified, humiliated, and felt anger, sorrow and deep personal loss. I now feel that I was raped, or at least sexually abused. I was unable to wear underwear for the whole summer. Any cloth or touch to the tender glans was painfully sensitive. I was left with ugly skin tags, skin bridges and emotional scars which remain with me nearly 30 years later. To this day I am apprehensive if anyone sees, touches, or becomes intimate with my penis. I have had a lifetime of inability to form a sexual relationship. - D.S. Hawaii

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Can't Even Try It Out

"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". - R.T. - Denver, CO

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His Ignorance = My Loss

When I was 8 years old, the pediatrician told my mother that since my foreskin would not retract, I had to be circumcised. Apparently when the day came, arrangements had been made for him to show me off to his medical school class. I have never felt such intense pain before or since as when he forcibly retracted my foreskin while pointing out to his students and my mother what was wrong. Fortunately to my great relief, the operation was done in private and compared with the pain of forced retraction was easy. After I healed up, I actually don't remember noticing too much difference as it mostly seemed an external change to my prepubescent self. I just accepted that it had be done and that was that.

I didn't give circumcision a second thought until several years later when I was a teenager. I was googling around to see if the uncomfortably tight erections I had were normal. It was then that I learned that aggressively done circumcisions were the main cause of erection tightness. I then started reading about foreskin and it floored me to learn that not only does it do useful things like protect the head from rubbing(duh, it's obvious when you think about it) and allow for easy self pleasuring without commercial lotions, it also may not be retractable until adolescence or even as late as 18 and that this was NORMAL.

So basically the reason I was circumcised is that the doc(who probably didn't have his foreskin either) didn't know how to properly medically care for foreskin. He should have just kept his probing hands to himself and left my foreskin alone. He turned his own lack knowledge into an imaginary problem for him to 'solve' via surgery on me. Man was I upset when I realized that. I've calmed down since then but still it bothers me to know that there are probably other fully normal healthy boys out there who are being inappropriately touched down there and told they have to get circumcised when in truth if their doctors were actually taught anything about foreskin care in medical school they wouldn't be so narrowly focused on amputation as the only possible course of action.

The medical profession's obsession with cutting off healthy natural parts of little boys and babies is really seriously messed when you stop and you think about it. Of course the trouble is, that here in the good ol' US of A, no one thinks seriously about routine circumcision or gives it as much as a second thought.

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Why think about what should come naturally?

When I was a child, I was very curious about my body. My penis had always been the most interesting part of my body to me, but not because it provided pleasure as you are probably thinking. I was intrigued because I could not understand the thing. I would play with it, but get bored with it because it did not seem to do much. Many times, when I would get a sharp tingle of happiness or pain from it as it rubbed against clothing, my curiosity would be renewed.

Rubbing my glans on fabric had always been painful, but it was the only way that I had known how to elicit feelings from my penis. By age ten or eleven, I gained enough courage—or frustration—to rub the top of my penis (mainly the glans) on my bed sheet. I did not know what to expect, but it was all that I knew how to do, so I did it despite the pain until I ejaculated. It did not feel good, but hurt instead making the ejaculation quite a relief! There was no pleasure though, so I never did that again.

Within a couple of years, I learned how to masturbate more traditionally as a circumcised boy. I used moisturizers and oils, which gained pleasure but it always came with a pain like that which I had experienced with the bed sheet. I did not like that feeling, so I seldom went back to lubricants. Instead, I stuck with dry stroking that lead to ejaculation, but nothing else. There was no pleasure nor orgasm, but it was safe because there was no pain and it usually meant a minor relief from my desires.

But the world kept telling me that sex was joy and beauty. “Where is my joy?,” I kept asking myself.

I thought that my joy must be visual as the appearance of women was by far my strongest sexual stimulant. Not being able to satisfy myself, I turned to pornography. For years, pornography tortured me as I felt that it was wrong but it was the only way that I could attempt to feel the way that I thought that I should sexually. Eventually, sometime during college, the excitement wore off and I was left in the same place that I had been before I turned to visual stimulation. Sometimes I came back to porn, but only out of frustration.

While still in college, I was watching a news broadcast in which they very briefly mentioned something regarding circumcision, though I recall not what. Whatever it had been, it quickly prompted me to do some internet research. I found out that very evening that I was missing a part of my body that I never knew existed. My foreskin. I learned how my penis would have functioned, and also that I might be able to regain some of that function.

I was bewildered, but determined to restore my foreskin. I have been trying for the several years since that epiphany to restore, but it has been mostly unsuccessful thus far.

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Super Tightly Cut

My name is Nickolas Kusturis.

I got circumcised when i was 18 and it has been a complete Nightmare since then. There really are no words to explain how traumatizing & devastating this has been. I did it because of various stupid insecure reasons (got made fun of in school, was told it would be a lot better etc..) not knowing at all the Hell i was getting myself into. Being young & naive i did not look into the dark history or anything else about circumcision thinking that they would tell me everything i needed to know. I also didn't know that it was really only done in America for the most part.

Well if i only knew then what i know now.... I did it strictly for the look (just to fit in) and of course the doctor did not let me know anything at all or tell me any of the consequences (which is their responsibility to do if they are operating on someone and someone's life is in their hands). I actually was told that I would have more feeling & sensation which I know now is the biggest Lie in the world Ever. I still can't believe that they told me that.

After they did it i basically had no sensation or feeling at all in my penis. I knew something was completely not right but i thought if i just waited maybe things would change but it only got worse. I was in total denial for a long while because i didn't want to believe that things were as bad as they were. One day reality hit me though. And it hit me hard. As hard as it was i knew i had to stop being in denial to move on and heal.

When i called up the doctor to tell him how upset i was he said that it's me and that kind of thing does not happen. He cut me off and said he's busy and not to call him again. Then he hung up on me. They never even charged me for having it done which i didn't understand at the time. He knew though after i talked to him that he screwed up not telling me what the consequences were and they were hoping that i didn't pursue legal action (which i did try to do a little too late). I received a statement in the mail saying "Thank you for your complete payment." I didn't even pay them yet either so i didn't understand what the hell was going on at the time.

Sexually though i seriously went from a 10 to basically a zero and i did not really understand what was going on and had no idea what to do. It was just such a shock and so traumatizing to experience such an extreme difference in feeling and sensation. I really got into a very deep dark depression and basically have been really depressed since then. I maybe have gotten a little better but not that much. I try not to be as suicidal and self destructive but it's definitely not easy because it still comes back to haunt me all the time, constantly. I have nightmares a lot too. I just can't believe people and doctors can completely ruin a person's life like that and still get away with it. It does not make any sense at all. Circumcision is just evil and should be outlawed.

I did finally try to sue but they said i waited too long. I guess i wasted too much time locked up in my room being depressed and numb. If only i had known i could and looked into suing earlier. I didn't have a computer at the time and the internet is where most of the information was. I really wish i had a computer at that time. Maybe things would have been different.

I joined NORM in Pittsburgh to get some kind of help through this nightmare and hopefully i will eventually get some sensation and enjoyment back again. I've been restoring for 3 1/2 years and i seemed to have grown a good amount of outer skin. I'm almost completely covered when soft. i think i'm at a plateau now though. I still have had no increase in sensation at all which is what i'm really worried about and don't know if i ever will.

I was cut extremely bad. I had a very long foreskin. They took my whole frenulum and practically all of my inner mucosa. I really would like to learn how to grow the inner mucosa. I know that does take a lot longer to grow than the outer skin. I don't know though if i will have any enjoyment again because of the circumcision.

I'm really trying to be patient though and to keep hoping that with time maybe i will get something back and there will be some kind of improvement hopefully. Right now though it's like i don't even have a penis. I can't even masturbate anymore and it's definitely not psychological. I know for a fact that it is because of the circumcision.

It's extremely depressing. My brain still kinda remembers how unbelievably good it always felt being intact and how i so enjoyed it then, so that makes it even worse. It's really a battle every single day to just keep it together. I know it will never be like it was but any improvement of sensitivity is better than what it's like now. I get no sexual enjoyment at all anymore because of circumcision.

[Note: You can see him talk briefly about it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAHGFx95D80]

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Loosely Circumcised versus Tightly Circumcised

I found your home page while "surfing the net" and found your remarks on circumcision interesting, as well as those of the other men whose letters you included. I am sorry that being circumcised has

been such a frustrating experience for you. To some extent, I can relate, but not entirely.

It seems to me that there are different kinds of circumcision: some much less radical than others. I have always felt, or suspected, that the kind of circumcision practiced in Hospitals in the USA has been more extreme than that practiced in Canada, although, of course, I've never done a study to prove it!

I was born in Ontario, where the circumcision rate was, until recently, similar to that in the USA 20 or 30 years ago: about 80%. Although, like all my peers, I was circumcised at birth, I have never felt particularly disadvantaged by it. In fact, I have quite a lot of foreskin remaining, have never needed lubricants, and have always had a great deal of sensation around the corona and on the shaft of my penis. This has also been the case with other Canadian men I have spoken to. In college I had an American room-mate. One night we got rather drunk and our conversation became quite free. He mentioned to me that he resented the fact of his circumcision. I was surprised, as I had never heard a man express such a sentiment. He showed me his penis: I observed that there was very little loose skin on the shaft and that the scar was extremely close to the head. Also, he had no frenulum.

SInce that time I have noticed that other American friends have a similarly radical form of circumcision.

Some years later, I met a friend who, like you, was quite concerned about circumcision. He had been circumcised in his early twenties, I'm not sure why. He, too, had an extremely "tight" foreskin (he showed it to me: I suppose that these sorts of intimacies go with being "90's" men. I showed him mine, and remarked that, so far as he was concerned, I "wasn't circumcised" (although I am). I mentioned all this to a physician friend of mine, who told me that, probably, in my case, they had probably removed the "outer" foreskin, but little or none of the "inner" layer.

I am willing to concede that routine infant circumcision is a foolish practice (I agree with you there), but, if it is to be done, it doesn't have to be a disaster: it can be done judiciously, and, while the glans is exposed and loses its sensitivity, yet a great deal of the inner foreskin can be retained with all its sensation.

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No Going Back

In 1960 at age 21, I was circumcised. I know how it was being intact and I know how it is circumcised. Why did I do it? Peer pressure in a way. In college, a majority of men were, especially in locker room environments. And..college kids often do stupid things. Besides, my roommate talked me into doing it. I guess I was kind of like kids today wanting tattoos or earrings. I really never considered the consequences. I had no medical problems with my foreskin at all. During, my childhood days, probably one-half of the boys in my little town were intact. I was never teased or made fun of. I really had no good reason for wanting the circumcision other than I just thought I would be more like the college guys in my gym classes. It did not ruin me for life but I can tell you (and I am sure many other men will also tell the same story who were circumcised as an adult) there is no comparison in feeling and sensitivity.

There is much more there than just a little patch of skin. The male foreskin does have a very important purpose which unfortunately I didn't realize until it was gone. I have regretted having it done ever since and would urge others especially those having children to leave their sons intact. If you feel you must circumcise, then please ask your doctor to remove minimal skin and leave his frenulum (a leader that runs underneath the penis and is attached all the way up to the urethra opening...sometimes referred to as the males G-spot) intact as much as possible. And, really he will not care if he does not look like his father or not! As far as the locker room, no problem. He will blend in just fine since the mix will be about 60-40 based on current national averages. Yes...an intact kid is different. He is different in that he has 100% of his body parts as nature made him....gloriously different!!

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Wasn't Really Necessary

I am now 21. I was circumcised under a year ago as recommended by my doctor and a consultant. I had absolutely no problem retracting my foreskin whatsoever, and enjoyed a happy sex life with my longish (4 years) term partner. During the hotter months of July and August I found that I secreted more smegma than usual and needed to wash my glans and foreskin twice daily to keep satisfactorily clean compared to once a day in winter. I was seeing my doctor about hay fever pills and thought I would mention the increased secretions while I was there. He offered examination to which I consented. He admitted there being no difficulty in retracting the foreskin but noted a little inflammation around the ridge of the glans. He suggested a circumcision as a permanent solution to the problem. I knew nothing of the procedure apart from the fact that a couple of my best friends were circumcised. I asked him if he could do it there and then (I didn't know it required general anaesthesia) and obviously he told me that it needed a night in hospital and a general anaesthetic. I was told it was a quick and simple operation where the excess foreskin is pulled forward, and cut back to just behind the glans. I knew what it would eventually look like as I had seen other boys circumcised penises at school when I was younger and to my mind it wasn't unsightly so I agreed with my doctor and he arranged for me to see a consultant. I saw the consultant and he examined me too - the examination took all of 15 seconds a nod from the consultant and I was told I would receive notification of the appointment in the post.

I was still uninformed to any extent of the procedure, still perceiving it to be a "quick simple snip" under anaesthetic. I got notification of the appointment at a nearby hospital after a few weeks and went along not really phased or embarrassed about what was going to be done as I perceived it as a fairly common procedure. The surgeon examined me in the morning and I went under anaesthetic in the afternoon. When I came around a couple of hours later I was aware of a tight, sore sensation around my penis. I looked into my shorts to see that a dressing had been applied and assumed the tight feeling was due to the dressing. Later on once the anaesthetic had worn off the pain was quite severe and so I asked the doctor if he could just check me out. He took off the dressing and I was horrified to see that my glans was black and blue and I had a jagged, heavily stitched cut about an inch behind the glans which was massively swollen. The doctor seemed undaunted by the horrific wounds which I had and told me he would fetch something for the pain and not to worry. I went home the next morning and was told to bathe everyday with plenty of salt to help keep the wound clean. I had 23 stitches which all came out after a couple of weeks. I fully healed after about 6 weeks and am left with a thick, jagged scar an inch back from the glans which has keratinized greatly as has the ridge around my glans. I have lost about 50% of sexual sensitivity and when erect there is little play in the remaining penile skin.

I totally regret agreeing to such an unbelievable experience which I along with millions perceive to be a "quick and simple snip". I wish that maybe I'd looked a little closer at school at changing time as I didn't realise the degree of scarring I'd be left with. I can't understand why people do this for no reason whatsoever. Although I was told circumcision would be a remedy for my trivial (even normal) irritation and underwent it for medical reasons I feel it would not have been necessary. I would much rather wash twice daily for a couple of months a year (as do most men probably) than go through circumcision. People need to know the facts about it - not the reassuring "Oh it's really a very simple procedure, nothing to worry about" but the "well there is considerable scarring, loss of sensitivity and your penis will look dried, thickly keratinized and generally unsightly" If only that is what my doctor had said to me.

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I did not consent!

Like most men I was circumcised shortly after birth (now 38) and was not given a choice in the matter. Growing up I didn't give much thought to this because I was told it was always done for health reasons. I have a younger brother who was born at home and was not circumcised. As I got older I became more curious about this and noticed that my brother had not experienced any health problems with his normal penis. Also I went into the Air Force and went overseas and found out that there most men are NOT circumcised! They do not have any major health problems and so I began my search for the truth behind this brutal ritual. What I found was shocking!

The practice is unnecessary and very painful for the child. There is a loss of feeling and even a more important loss. That of self-worth. I feel that I am not a whole man! It was like finding out that I had lost a limb or something. Something was taken from me that can never be replaced and I was not asked my opinion.

I believe EVERY man should be allowed to make such an important decision on his own. No one should be allowed to make it for him! I am very angry at the medical community for allowing this sort of brutality to continue for so long. I have forgiven my parents as they did not know the facts. The doctor lied to them and they accepted his word. This practice MUST be stopped!

Larry, Arkansas

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My Childhood Abuse

Try to imagine you are a healthy, natural boy of age 8 years. Life is good and your parents are loving. True, you suffer from too many ear infections, but no other health problems at all. During the summer of the year of your 8th year, you are told you will have a tonsilectomy to reduce the number of painful ear infections that you suffer. It’s not a great thought, but the ear infections are numerous and painful.

Imagine now that you awaken from the anesthesia and find that besides a sore throat, your most personal and private body parts are covered with a huge bloody gauze bandage. Try to imagine the horror and confusion. At age 8 you are unable to formulate words to express your feelings of abuse, assault, and fear you experience.

Yes, that is the beginning of my story. During the rest of the summer, I was unable to wear underwear because of the pain and irritation to my suddenly exposed inner body part. To the dismay of my parents, everywhere I went I held my pants away from my body to not touch the sensitive, previously protected end of my penis. My most private and personal body part was now a swollen, purulent, oozing, painful mess. I was horrified, humiliated and disgusted. Even my parents, who thought they were doing the right thing, were saddened and sorry for what had been inflicted upon me.

As I grew older, I was embarrassed by the scar on my genitals. I made certain they were always well hidden from view. At my school, we had to have nude showers after gym classes—my hands never allowed any other boys to see how mutilated I had become.

Instead of ‘getting over it’, as I advanced into adulthood, the embarrassment stayed with me, and I was unable to be sexual with anyone because of the shame of my appearance. It was many decades before I heard that others were also unhappy with their circumcision and were seeking ways to restore their brutally amputated foreskin.

What I could not express at that tender age, I now know that what I felt as a young boy was much the same emotion that one feels if one has been raped. Yes, raped. Without my consent, my gentials were manipulated, attacked and permanently altered. Fifty years later, I still suffer embarrassment, humiliation, and emotional pain.

Eventually, I became a Pediatric Registered Nurse and began an intensive study of the surgical process of genital alteration, commonly called circumcision. My only outlet is to attempt to educate and protect other innocent and unsuspecting boys from the life of pain, humiliation and embarrassment that I have suffered. Call me what you will; I know that there are tens of thousands of American men who came to realize the same thing that I did. I only realized it much, much earlier, for the sexual assault happened to me at an age that I was aware and knew how my natural body had been and was attacked and altered.

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What was I thinking?!

Yep, tomorrow is the day. Hopefully, I will get something good enough that I won't remember what's going on for a few days. Frankly, this is not something that I want to experience or remember.

Update!

The burning question: How much sensation did you lose?

The burning answer: A WHOLE FREAKING LOT.

If I had known I was going to lose as much sensitivity as I did, I would not have gotten circumsized until it was a last resort. The old saying about the palm of your hand vs. the back is an understatement- the nerve endings in my foreskin gave me a completely different dimension of sensation, but now it's gone. Crap.

So there it is, people, proof from a cognizant person who knows the before and after: Circumcision DEFINITELY reduces the amount of sensation in your penis by an large amount- maybe even half. It's not a percentage, nor is it accurate to say half- it's a whole different set of sensations that complement and add to sexual pleasure. I'm sorry for all you guys who never got to know that sensation- it's FAR superior to what I have now.

Penis, I'm sorry. I'll never forget the time we had together with our foreskin.

RIP Foreskin

The conclusion: If you hate your child, have him circumcised.

Much later update!

It's been 110-ish days since the operation, so here's a long-term update for you. I think that anything that will happen has happened by now, so this should be the last one. First off, let me say this- being circumcised was the worst decision of my life, and I can never go back on it. As far as physical changes go: I still have ugly stitch marks that haven't faded at all. They sting occasionally when that skin-penis joint it being pulled on. This is one thing that I hope goes away, but I've seen no improvement recently; so if it does happen, it won't be for a long time. My glans is fully 'roughened' now. Let's say this about loss of feeling. If you call what I had pre-surgery as normal, then what I have now feels like I'm humping a bowl of pudding. It's really that drastic. I don't know if it's a screwup during stitching but what's left of my frenulum is... exposed now. I can't think of a good way to put it, but it's just kind of stickign out in a way that you wouldn't expect it to be. Now, I'm not exactly an expert on what the underside of a penis should look like, but what I've got seems rather out of place.

Other effects: Huge decrease in libido. Seriously. Motivation is still there, but it's nothing like before. Frequency of erections is the same, but intensity and sensation are decreased markedly.

To conclude- circumcision is bad, bad news. Please don't circumcise your children unless it's medically required.

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Effects of My Circumcision

I am very unhappy that I was circumcised severely as an infant. This may not be my number one personal problem, but the fact that I am 5 months into a foreskin restoration project that I expect to take 3 years, indicates that it does have some import in my life. For those unaware, I would like to detail the negative effects I have seen personally.

It is my thought that this would be a better technique to convince people that neo-natal circumcision should not be performed than the horrible thread going through so many news groups lately. Maybe if I had not been so severely circumcised, I too like many men, would wonder what the problem is, but I'm afraid that the problems I document below are all too common. Given that the benefits of circumcision are so highly debatable that we don't really know if there are any true benefits, then I have to come squarely down on the side against neo-natal circumcision. It would be a joy to care for my foreskin, I don't think even ridding me of any hygiene "problem" is a benefit. The cancer angles have not been scientifically proven with a strict control group. And it is difficult to perform a correct circumcision, which I would define as one giving just those non-existing "benefits", and NOT causing all these problems on an infant penis, which is too small, and not fully grown, especially not through puberty. Maybe you are thinking that just cutting a little off, or just a tiny piece, will make things better, but until I see scientific studies proving what each of these types of circumcision do to or for the person years later, I will remain steadfastly against it. How do you know you will see what you believe are "benefits" if you don't cut enough? What IS the correct amount of skin to cut off?

Negative effects of my circumcision:

1) I had a skin bridge, a condition in which the circumcision incision bonds in places with the corona of the glans during the healing process. This causes the skin to be even tighter in those places, and covers up part of the penis where stimulation is the most pleasurable. Finally, 7 or 8 years ago, after contemplating it for years, I cut through the skin bridge myself. I would have done it much sooner, if I had understood what it was, and that there were no significant veins or nerves to be cut. This was significant trauma throughout my life, wondering why I had this extra hole in my penis, and how it got there. What I wanted then was a penis that at least looked like a "normal" circumcised penis. However, I was left with an external pucker midway down the shaft, at least the glans looks "normal". It's important to not feel like part of your body is disfigured, although I still feel terribly disfigured by the rest of the circumcision.

2) I was circumcised too tightly. There are several effects that this has.

a) Intercourse can be painful. Without lots of lubrication, it has always been too painful for me. Some women, my wife in fact, do not fully appreciate this, and may urge me to enter, and I have found that the anxiety produced by expecting pain, immediately ends the possibility of intercourse. Even explaining this ahead of time isn't completely sufficient, as in the heat of the moment, sometimes she forgets.

b) Sex, whether intercourse, self-masturbation, or masturbation by a partner, is not as pleasurable. Some circumcised men retain some movement of the skin during an erection, I did not. In fact, I was so tightly circumcised, that I wasn't aware that it was even normal for the skin to be able to move. When you can't move the skin, the only stimulation possible, is rubbing skin against skin. The underlying shaft can only get stimulation indirectly, instead of directly from moving the skin. Plus, rubbing skin against skin is hampered by friction, causing heat, dryness, chafing, and soreness. In fact, I have not found it possible ever to masturbate or have intercourse without lubrication. Using lubrication may be enjoyable even for an uncircumcised man, but being forced to use it, having to search for the best type and the correct amount, and having to deal with the extra mess and inconvenience, is not pleasurable. Also, prolonged stimulation, whether by masturbation or intercourse, even with lubrication, can cause problems. It even can cause problems for a partner. As women age and get closer to menopause, my understanding and experience is that less lubrication is produced. That means more friction through rubbing, more pain, or more artificial lubrication, with all of its inconvenience. I would think that women would NOT want men circumcised. It only adds to the abrasion in the vagina, which is fine while the lubrication lasts, but not as good and not natural.

c) My penis was always pulled in closer to the body, appearing smaller. This is significant, especially during adolescence in places like the gym class showers. It even affects how you feel about yourself in relation to other men. Living with such a shortened penis isn't as pleasurable, either, because it won't stay where you put it in underwear. If I were to put it down, the tight skin pulled it up at the first opportunity, and it would stick straight out. Wearing boxer shorts doesn't seem to be as comfortable in this condition, either. In any case, it takes a lot of work to overcome the feelings of inferiority of a smaller than average flaccid penis.

3) There is all the mystery, shame, and embarrassment caused by circumcision. Parents don't in my experience sit their boys down and explain what was done to them, and why. They have to learn it essentially in the streets, or in religious classes where circumcision is talked about. Even then, it is not easy to understand what was done to you. I could never figure out where the skin covering the glans came from before it was cut off. All of this is what I believe generates the cruelty that circumcised boys often deal out to the minority uncircumcised boys. Without being taught what it is, and what is was for, they have to find a way to feel good about themselves, and being better than an uncircumcised boy helps. So not only are the victims of circumcision affected, so are those who were not circumcised. What a sad way for an advanced society to operate!

4) There are many things I do not even know I am missing. For instance, the sensitivity of the glans and mucous tissue is most likely reduced. I am beginning to know what it is like to have some mobility of the shaft skin, but just barely. In my restoration program, I am most pleased with the little bit of gliding mechanism I have achieved. During intercourse I can now move in and out without the outside circle of skin having to move against the vagina. How much more comfort and pleasure can be realized by having enough skin for it to stroke the glans during intercourse? That I don't know yet, but I am eager to find out. Unfortunately, I will be missing my frenulum, as well, and I will never completely know how pleasurable my complete foreskin would have been.

Summary: There are too many problems with neo-natal circumcision for no proven benefits. Maybe some people were lucky enough to get a perfect circumcision, but I as well as many other men were not. For these and many reasons, neo-natal circumcision should not be performed. I would like to add here, that I have read victims' accounts of having been circumcised as a "punishment" for masturbation. This, and any other circumcision against the victims' will must be stopped. It is simply NOT acceptable.

For parents having their baby boys circumcised, I ask what kind of circumcision is he likely to get? Some of you know, but I expect that most do not. Why would you risk a poor job for so little benefit if any? I also think that if you ARE going to have your baby boy circumcised, that you OWE it to him to explain it to him, and be prepared to justify it. I don't think this should wait until the boy asks, either, as that is a difficult task, and the boy may already being feeling negative effects if only psychological, without you knowing it.

For those of us circumcised that either have difficulties with it, or simply wish that it had not been done, it's time to step up and let yourself be heard. Let's tell the community the pain, humiliation, embarrassment, anger, shock, guilt, inadequacy, resentment and grief that this needless neo-natal circumcision causes. If you happen to be very pleased with your neo-natal circumcision, maybe you were lucky, maybe you don't know what you are missing, or maybe your point of view has been affected by it. But those of us who ARE suffering should speak up. Otherwise, you are responsible for allowing it to continue.

This is my point of view. Anyone who wants to argue with me, good luck. I am certainly willing to listen to corrections I could make, ideas on how I could have stated this better given my sincere feelings on it, and I may entertain recanting part of it if need be. But I am against circumcision before the age of consent, especially neo-natal circumcision.

Gary Burlingame

*

Where is my head?

In the past 10 years or so, there has been a lot talk about circumcision and that it is an unnecessary procedure. I never gave it much thought, but after I began to read about it, I began to think more about my own situation, which is…

As an infant, I underwent the usual (then) circumcision procedure. Of course, I have no memory of this era. I’m from the upper Midwest area of the US where this was common practice. My mother was not one to talk about such things, but one day she related some basic information about the event.

It seems something went wrong during the supposedly “simple” procedure. My glans was sliced off, but not my foreskin. Apparently there was an attempt to re-attach the glans, but without success. So I was left without the usual head on the end of my member. My mom felt a bit guilty about this, and eventually filled me in on what had happened.

Of course, as a child growing up, I had no idea that I was any different from any other kid of my age. Ignorance is bliss. I never really began to think about the genital area until I reached high school, where the boys all showered together after gym class.

I do have some vague recollections of sticking my little finger into the end of my foreskin at a very early age and playing with myself because it felt good. Being that I never saw what was inside that covering of skin, as far as I knew, all was normal. Until my mom revealed what happened to me, I’ve always felt quite norma. Apparently, the doctor who performed the mishap felt a bit guilty about the whole affair (as he well should have) and at some point later in my infancy modified my remaining foreskin (which was apparently fairly long) so that I would appear to have a normal intact penis. Perhaps it was originally quite long and he intended only to remove the tip of skin, I can only guess. Thus, for a long time, I never knew that I was any different from anyone else.

My biological father left our family when I was perhaps 3 years old, and my mom was left to raise me as best she could. She was never comfortable talking about personal matters, so my condition was never discussed. I was pretty well left to grow up on my own without any counseling about personal, genital matters. I think the father usually handles things like this, so being that I had none, I was on my own.

After my mother’s revelation about my condition, I of course at once became greatly interested in such matters and spent lots of time at our small town library reading up on the subject of circumcision and related issues. Up to that time, I knew nothing of this, other than the fact that some guys penises seemed to look a bit different than others (what few I had ever seen up to that time.)

The skin at the tip of my penis had a small opening, so I was not able to retract it at all. I thought nothing of this, because to me, this was just the way it was. By exploring the inside with my little finger through the small opening, my condition was confirmed, along with the appearance of the shape of the end of my shaft. I didn’t have the usual bulge at the end. There seemed to be a few bumps at the end, suggesting the remnants of a coronal ridge, but that is all.

I think I felt somewhat relieved that my condition was covered over by foreskin. I didn’t have to explain to anyone about my condition because it was concealed. As a teen, I occasionally received comments from other guys in the shower about my penis looking like an ant eater, because of the way the skin hung down in a snout at the end, but I didn’t care. as long as they didn’t get too personal and I had to do some explaining.

I think the knowledge about my condition caused me to develop a lack of confidence with girls. I never dated any through high school and later in my 20s. I pretty much just got along on my own and with a few other male friends I had at the time. I was a loner. I think my mom’s disposition about not talking about sex and personal matters was ingrained in me, so I just got along without discussion of such things. I don’t really recall having any desires for women. I think this is a very unusual situation for a teen to be in, but for me it was normal and I didn’t know any better. It wasn’t until I began to surf the internet and read about other guy’s feelings, thoughts and attitudes on botched circumcisions that I began to better understand my myself.

So now I don’t know what to think. I still don’t want to get my skin back and look at what’s left at the end of my shaft. I still don’t feel good about it, so what’s the point. So that’s my story. I’ve apparently suffered more subconsciously that I could ever imagine. Reading the other experiences here brings tears to my eyes. All of my pain is deep down there hiding, and it’s just starting to come out.

*

Does Sex Feel Good Or Just the Ending?

All throughout my childhood, I could not understand my genitals. I remember that when my clothes would rub on my penis, sometimes it would briefly feel good while other times it would hurt. Eventually, I realized what erections were. When I was about eleven, I understood that society was telling me that my penis should give me pleasure. I started experimenting for the hope of finding that pleasure.

I learned how to masturbate, and for years, I searched for pleasure, but to no avail. I got into pornography. I tried everything from vibrators to lubricants. Lubricants make me feel good, but always with some pain, too. I found that I preferred the plain old flogging of molly without the aid of lubricants or devices, but not because it was pleasurable, rather, because it was the least irritating way to scratch my itch of sexual desire.

When I was about twenty, I learned about circumcision. I felt so sick. For the first time, I realized that I was missing something. After several years of more experimenting and learning, I have come to terms with the state of my genitals. I now know that I do not feel genital pleasure easily. I now know that I was using pornography in an attempt to counteract my numbness by focusing my sexual excitement visually rather than sensually. I now know that my penis is not my sexual center for it has been rendered incapable thereof. I now know why men are known for rushing: there is no pleasure but only orgasm for men like me.

Because of these realizations, I have since been able to get over porn, which I am glad about. I had merely been trying to compensate for what had been robbed.

After all of my experiences with sex, I understand that orgasms are mainly what I can achieve if I am disciplined. I have not been able to find pleasure during the act, at least not with my penis. I have read and heard that men can have pleasure during sex, but, for me, such sensations are occasional, accidental, and fleeting.

Orgasms are great, but I do not need a penis for that. I have experienced sensations that are identical to orgasms without any genital contact. You know what? Those body generated orgasms can go on indefinitely unlike what my penis generates which lasts for mere seconds.

Tell me: where is the pleasure in my genitals? I have been looking for it since it was stolen so long ago.

*

Forced Genital Cutting

I grew-up in a circumcising culture (father, brothers, other boys) and one day saw an intact boy at the urinal as a young boy in primary school. The shock recognition at the time - instantly and instinctively knowing that I was missing an important part of my penis - remains the most significant and profoundly life-changing moment I've ever experienced. 40 years later, the deep and bitter resentment of having a harmful and disfiguring surgery on my most private parts remains undiminished. For years I thought it was 'just me', but my participation in various online forums over the last few years made me aware that the harm of circumcision goes way beyond the obvious physical harms and the deep psychological distress is very real and very common. I look forward to the day when all children are protected by law from forced genital cutting.

*

It Was Like a Callous

I began restoring my foreskin at age 55 because masturbation and sex with my wife was becoming more and more difficult due to lack of sensitivity. I had no idea it was because I was circumcised at birth. I did an internet search on improving sensitivity and found so much information it was mind boggling. After some thought and discussion with my wife I decided to try to restore some of the damage that was done. I found that the reason for the loss of sensitivity was the keratonization* of the head due to the lack of protection that a foreskin provides. Years of rubbing against clothing and having to masturbate without a foreskin caused most of the damage.

The method I chose to use to restore was manual tugging and t-tape. I did have a bit of a head start because I was cut loosely. After 7 months of restoration I’m happy to report amazing progress. When flaccid the shaft skin covers about half the head which has caused the keratonization to disappear and leave me with a very shiny head when fully erect.

The sensitivity that has returned is overwhelming at times. To be very frank I never used to get any pre-cum due to lack of sensitivity. I wasn’t even aware of that phenomenon. When fully erect I am beginning to be able to learn how to use the shaft skin to stroke with during masturbation. I need to do this at this point because it is almost too sensitive to directly stoke the area with the hand like I used to. I plan on continuing this process although it probably will be more difficult to get such great results as I continue.

I am quite delighted in the improvement in gliding movement which helps me mentally cope with the knowledge of how insensitive my penis actually is.

Feelings about my own circumcision: RAGE, HATE, BETRAYAL, SEXUAL ASSAULT, MUTILATION.

On an INTELLECTUAL level, I can understand that child circumcision is a complicated issue buried in both ancient and modern mythology. There is no one particular person I can blame for my circumcision. We are the products of our past. I know that I can be just as oblivious to injustices that I don’t feel affect me directly.

However, on an EMOTIONAL level, I can place LOTS of blame. The ARROGANCE of our societies and, in particular, the medical communities which continue to circumcise children, fills me with rage. Human rights apparently mean nothing unless they coincide with one’s cultural, traditional, or religious beliefs. Human rights, by definition, are supposed to override other considerations.

*

Repressed It

I think it is terribly important that people should know about the pain and trauma experienced by a baby during circumcision. I was born into a family who circumcise their infant sons for traditional reasons and, until fairly recently, I never questioned the practice. However, throughout my childhood I had a ‘waking nightmare’ that I never understood. I would see myself lying helplessly, gazing up at a group of smiling monsters who were standing around me and staring down at me. I was completely at their mercy and I knew they were going to torture me – but I never found out how.

Then some years ago, while I was undergoing psychotherapy, I began to spontaneously relive the nightmare in its real context. The ‘monsters’ turned out to be the male members of my family. They were holding my penis and were about to cut it and I started to actually relive some of the pain, shock and, worst of all, the terrible sense of betrayal of my circumcision.

I was having psychotherapy because of sexual problems which made it almost impossible for me to have a relationship with a woman, but I never guessed where the problems had originated. After reliving the trauma of my circumcision I had my first successful relationship with a woman.

What horrifies me more than anything is that my well-meaning and smiling relatives had no idea of the pain they caused me or of the scars it would leave on my mind. I don’t have a son, but if I ever do have one he will not be circumcised. I have promised never to do to a son of mine what was done to me.

*

Why?!

I first found out about it when I was a kid at camp and didn’t like the idea that someone had cut off part of my body. Especially there. As I grew up, and learned more and more information through sex education, etc., it started to bother me more, to the point where by my late teens it would make me feel bad if I thought of it or if it ever came up. It always struck me as unfair, finding out the shabby reasons or being told it didn’t really matter much one way or the other. If it didn’t really matter either way, then why was it done to me? A lot of my friends weren’t cut.

Physically, I haven’t known any different, but I suffered psychologically from the feelings that go with having a healthy part of my body cut off without my consent. I really feel violated by it. I also hate the fact that while discovering sexuality, like all guys do around puberty, involved me finding the scar and being bothered by the fact that I was cut. I don’t think discovering your own body should involve that kind of thing at all. A kid shouldn’t have to deal with that. It wasn’t done for any medical need but because my parents happened to think it was ‘cleaner’ or ‘healthier.’ I really don’t think I’d have had trouble having to spend an extra 5 seconds in the shower to clean it if it meant having my whole sex anatomy intact the way the male body is designed. I find it appalling that the medical community allows this to continue, whose body is it anyway? It still pisses me off to this day and can upset me because it brings up feeling violated and the physicality of it is permanent. I find the attitude some people still have around it a little disturbing like its business as usual. I’m not saying worse things don’t happen, but I don’t get how some people still to this day think that cutting off a part of a healthy child’s penis is normal. Cutting off body parts is supposed to be a last resort in medicine. I really do hope that the doctors will step up and do the right thing on this. Regardless of whatever slight possible medical benefits doctors should recognize that it is wrong to cut off healthy body parts from someone who can’t consent. It should be a individual choice not a parental one. Parents have to decide a lot of things, but permanently removing part of their kid’s penis, when he’ll be able to decide for himself later, shouldn’t be one of them.

Being harmed by the actions of a doctor, I really find it hard to accept that they allow this to continue. Nobody should be harmed by medicine, and especially when there isn’t even some specific reason why they might be needing a treatment that could go wrong. I was healthy and would have probably stayed that way. And the harm I experienced was caused by the actions of a doctor ‘treating’ me for absolutely nothing except for the fact that I was born having a anatomically complete body.

*

Nothing But Sheep

The first time I heard the word circumcision was when I was still a young child, it was mentioned on TV for some reason that I cannot remember. When I asked what it meant my mother told me, “Just a tiny little piece of skin cut off the penis, you were circumcised.” I felt my jaw drop to the floor and my eyes get as big as saucers at this news. She then said “Oh don’t worry, it’s nothing. Your dad is circumcised too. Just a little useless piece of skin.” I still had the feeling in my gut that something was off, but my concerns were dispelled for the time being.

Fast forward to Middle School and the best friend I ever had. We’d talk about anything and everything and were as close as 2 straight men would ever want to get. One night when he slept over we did a little compare, he must have had a short foreskin or been partially erect because the only difference I noticed (besides the fact that he was bigger and still is) was that his glans had a sheen that mine lacked. When I pointed this out he said it was because he had never been circumcised. There’s that word again… but I didn’t continue this line of questioning and we sat down to play video games. Besides, there was no internet back then to do research on the subject.

The real epiphany came after I became old enough to legally purchase porn. In the first scene of an amateur audition the girl comments, “Uncircumcised, hmm?” as she peels back a tube of skin from the guy’s penis revealing a bright pink and very shiny glans before commencing oral sex. That was enough, I had to find out what was going on here. By that point the internet had taken off and I immediately logged on and typed circumcision into a search engine, and it changed my life forever. There it was, “…keeps the glans covered and lubricated, nerves and receptors, diminished sensations, medically unnecessary.” I felt sick. I was in complete and utter shock. For the next few days I spent hours on the net finding out everything I could about the subject. The self pity permeated my life, “Why did they do this to me, they had to know it would destroy my sex life?” It was time to talk to mom and dad.

As I expressed my outrage at what had been done to me at birth without my consent, my mother would say that all male babies were being circumcised at that time; it was automatic. She would also say that it was necessary to avoid the problems that would come up with 100% certainty if I retained my foreskin, making it sound like male babies were born broken and had to be fixed at birth. My father (a good and loving man) said nothing and kept his eyes averted. Clearly uncomfortable and surely never expecting to be confronted with this. As my mother and I volleyed back and forth the one thing I never heard anyone say is, “I’m sorry,” or “I’m sorry that they did that to you.” That day my feelings towards my parents were forever changed, they are still my family but there is a distance in my heart that remains.

To this very day I find it hard to accept the loss of my foreskin. They say you can’t miss what you never had, but what do they know? I can only imagine what it would have felt like, but I know what it feels like now. As I age I find myself experiencing the penile numbing described in other men’s stories. The responsive organ and mind blowing orgasms of my youth seem to be gone now, rushing to orgasm seems to be my goal now. I had read in another man’s story about feeling helpless in sexual situations, and tracing the cause to circumcision through primal scream therapy. I have had those same feelings, and now I know why. It makes sense when you’re still an infant and the first time someone pays attention to your genitals is to skin it alive. Knowing I have been brutally altered in this way also causes me resentment towards women since they apparently are protected from this, and men are apparently not worthy of such protection.

I have been told, “What’s the big deal? There’s nothing wrong with it.” Although I have been spared the skin bridges and excessive scarring that are the complications of “routine” circumcision, it is still a mutilation and a violation and is still a life altering event. When my cousin had her boy a few years back, she had him circumcised shortly after birth. I said to her “Why the hell would you do that?” She replied, “Better to get it over with now then when he’s older.” I said nothing, just gave her a sideways look. There was no point. Society is still populated with mindless sheep and die-hard fans of penis chopping. I am, and forever will be a victim of their unbridled stupidity. I am ashamed to be a human being

*

My Restoration Journey

Hi, my name is Tom and I’m from Michigan. Here’s my story and where I’m at now.

I always thought being circumcised was “normal.” As normal and necessary as cutting the umbilical cord on a newborn baby. As a teen, I remember often getting in an argument with a friend who was originally born in Germany about how the uncircumcised penis needed to be cut, because there was “too much” skin, and it was ugly and didnt look like a “real” penis. When I say often, I mean just about every time we’d be out hiking in the forest or were a little far from home and had a piss. I guess comparing penises is something kids do.

Anyways, I always thought I had the most perfect penis that anyone could possibly have. It never came across to me that the reason I always had to wear one-size-too-small briefs was to keep it from rubbing and causing a terrible pain or sensation with nearly every move I made. I always thought it was “normal” to have to experience that terrible pain when I moved certain ways, or every time I got up or sat down. When I was 17 I decided that if I switched to boxers like all my friends were doing things would get better. I end up wearing nothing but boxers until I was 21, and by that time, the head of my penis totally dried out. With briefs, it was always a little moist from being “snug” against my body. Also, for the first month or two after switching to boxers the constant friction and rubbing of head with every movement I made was almost too much, but I just “took it like a man.” Soon everything got better as far as comfort was concerned while moving around doing everyday activities. Four years down the line, my penis became so insensitive that to reach orgasm I would be swimming in sweat, with a heart rate similar to running a 2 mile sprint, and by almost popping a vein in my forehead. That left me feeling sexually satisfied, but the orgasm was so weak that I could barely feel it.

In 2004 I read an article at wired.com about people restoring their foreskins to regain sensitivity. It focused mainly on people wanting to restore their entire foreskin, but I didn’t want to do that because I still thought a foreskin was nasty and disgusting looking. Then there was a part that talked about regaining a ton of sensitivity just by restoring for just 3 months. I spent quite a while researching restoration and learned you can make a restoration device for a couple dollars out of rubber O-Rings, I went to Home Depot (Ed: a hardware store) and got a couple O-Rings of each different size that I thought might work for me, and eventually found the perfect size, then I kept at the routine of putting them on for 3 months.

Once in a while I’d do more research on restoration and circumcision, realizing the pro-circumcision crowd shared almost the same opinion as I did. I tried to find the most unbiased info that I could, because its obvious there’s a lot of hype and far-fetched claims on both sides. I watched the Penn and Teller Circumcision episode, along with various videos of babies and kids being circumcised against their will at their parent’s demand, and eventually learned everything I could about this ugly piece of skin.

Once I got to the 3 month point in my restoration, the ability to orgasm became much less work and my orgasms improved drastically! So I thought, this is working out great, lets keep at the restoration thing, because the feelings can only get better from here, right!? At this point, I still thought foreskins looked disgusting and unattractive, and would never want to fully restore mine no matter what. (period).

Another couple months went by, and I had enough new skin to cover a little bit of the head of my penis when I sat down, and the feelings leading to and during orgasm were indescribable—it hadn’t felt this good since I was in my early teens! Things weren’t looking too different, so I thought, lets keep going, this can only get better from here. And it did. So much that when I got the skin to cover the head of my penis halfway—I cant even begin to describe it—masturbation was much easier due to the extra skin and the orgasm was many times beyond what I’ve ever experienced in my life, and it was this good EVERY TIME I had one, never hit-or-miss like before I started the whole restoration project.

At this point, I finally gave in and accepted the look that I once thought was disgusting. When a part of you, no matter how weird or ugly you think may look or how you think other people might think of it causes so much pleasure, then looks aren’t even a concern. The pleasure that can be had with a foreskin, in my case a restored one, is so great that its true “inner-beauty” will overcome any negative aesthetic thoughts whatsoever.

So I kept going. Currently I’m at the year-and-a-half mark in my restoration project. When I’m not “sporting wood,” my penis is totally covered sitting down or standing up and is almost impossible to tell the difference between it and any of the pictures of natural, uncut penises that I’ve seen on the web. My girlfriend absolutely loves my new penis, and prior to mine, she had never seen or felt a natural penis (or even knew they existed in the first place), she is very open minded and supportive of my continued efforts in restoration.

I plan on continuing this project until I get a quarter to a half inch of skin past the tip of my penis, to help keep things nice and always covered when I do decide to stop restoring. Several months ago I would have never ever dreamt of going this far, and now that I realize what has been cut off of me as a kid for aesthetic/hygienic purposes and to “fit in” is just absolutely disgusting. Think of it, they’re basically cutting off a piece of skin that can cause so much pleasure, and denying you the experience of orgasms and sexual pleasure better than you’ve ever experianced in your lifetime (that is, assuming the reader of this message is circumcised).

I think its unfortunate mothers do this to their babies, if they only saw another baby getting circ’d and read the unbiased information on keeping their child “natural”, they might have it in their heart to change. I also think its unfortunate that in some public forums, which are dedicated to neither anti-circumcision or circumcision, a majority of the people are pro circumcision for all the same reasons I once was. Their ignorance is very “thick” like mine was, and I think the only thing that could ever change their mind is if they end up in a position similar to mine when I started out.

I wrote this message, not in the hopes to change the world, but if this message inspires just one person to try restoration, with a very good chance that they will be happy with the results - then it was worth it for me. If I can help just one guy with insensitivity or orgasm issues, that would be awesome. I’ve always been the kind of person that likes to help others out, especially if its a problem that I had and was able to overcome.

*

Primal Wound

In August, 2002, my wife and I, then ages 57 and 56, left our daughter at a freshman orientation session at her college and drove off into an uncertain future. I had planned numerous fossil-collecting excursions for our trip home, because collecting fossils had long been one of our favorite mutual activities, something boring to our daughter whose lack of interest was no longer a problem. This newfound freedom to do as we pleased was in many ways a delightful prospect, though edged with a familiar and disturbing fear. For the next three years, we mined several mutually enjoyable and engaging interests, including trips to historic places, household renovations, gardening, fossil-collecting, and hiking. I resurrected my long-latent interest in golf during those years and spent many hours on the golf course, but generally did this with annual leave while my wife was at work, not wanting to make her a “golf widow.”

Although we had sex occasionally during our time together, it had become clear to both of us over the years that for me, the desire to have sex was always at war with an inexplicable fear that often invaded our intimacy, stopping my excitement, leaving us both disappointed. I had gone to a urologist several years earlier with this concern and he had assured me that nothing was wrong with my genitals, hinting that I might have a psychological problem. I asked him what other men did about such problems and he said most men didn’t wish to discuss psychological issues related to sex. As I look back at this experience, the most remarkable thing to me is that the urologist could see nothing wrong with my penis, even though my foreskin, including more than two-thirds of my erogenous nerve endings, was completely gone, leaving the dry, dulled glans unnaturally exposed and keratinized. At that time and for years afterward, it never occurred to me that there was anything unnatural about my genitals.

It had occurred to me, however, that I had long had a psychological problem. When I was thirteen and people began to hint to me that I ought to be taking notice of and pursuing girls, I wondered why this in many ways enticing prospect filled me with a vague terror that caused me to blush and want to hide whenever in the presence of an attractive girl. For me there was never any doubt which gender I found sexually interesting, but the prospect of doing something about it made me feel not only afraid, but helpless as well… as helpless as an infant in some nameless, agonizing situation. The astonishing power of this feeling finally provoked me, at the age of eighteen, to ask my parents if I could see a psychiatrist. They were quite distraught over this and wondered if they had done anything wrong. I assured them they had not, though, in retrospect, I now see this was not entirely true.

The psychiatrist I first saw assessed that I was a “big sissy” who needed to grow up. To his credit, he did at one point ask me if “everything is okay down there” pointing at my genitals. I said “yes,” because it had never occurred to me that my genitals were unusual, since the few I’d seen in camp or swimming pool showers were generally like mine. This psychiatrist, and a subsequent one, took the course for the next several years of encouraging me to venture forth, dating and exploring the world of sex, in spite of whatever fears I might have.

I read Peale’s “The Power of Positive Thinking” and many books by Albert Ellis about getting your head on straight about sex. I read books about self-esteem by Nathaniel Branden and other authors. And I did eventually meet and marry a woman I met at graduate school where we were both English majors. Our first experiences of intercourse were during the year and a half we were married, and all-in-all we were indeed able to function sexually, but the woman I’d married was also quite shy about sex and continued to feel ambivalent about it. My concerns were that I continued to feel that I was suppressing fear in order to have sex. When my wife asked for a divorce, I was devastated, but in some ways relieved to be free for a while of this fear.

Several years later, while I was teaching English in high school, I met an attractive woman who seemed interested in having a sexual adventure with me. I remember pacing back and forth in the living room of my apartment for hours before our first scheduled rendezvous, psyching myself up for making the “move” on her I sensed she wanted. This did happen, but nervousness prevented me from being able to follow through until I finally relaxed enough to genuinely have sex with her three days later. This affair continued off and on for a year or so, but she ultimately chose someone else for a sex partner… someone less nervous. She gave me a book this other fellow had given to her, called “The Primal Scream,” by Arthur Janov. She said she knew of a place in Washington, D.C. where people were going “primal.” She thought it might help me to think about how I could solve my problem.

Within a month I was signed up for a three-week intensive of primal, gestalt, bioenergetic therapy at the Community of the Whole Person in Washington. The Center was different from Janov’s, I have learned, in that it borrowed from various related disciplines. I discovered that I could cry very easily, particularly when women in my group cried. I spent much of my time “getting into my anger,” often pounding mattresses and saying “I am a MAN!!” in defiance of whatever force it was that seemed to contradict my assertion. In the third week of this intensive, I was encouraged to make the movements a baby makes when having a tantrum. To everyone’s astonishment, I proceeded to have a full-throttle baby tantrum that ended with a wonderful sensation of having expressed a long inhibited feeling of rage at some unknown assault. No one ever suggested what this assault might have been, and I now suspect none of the therapists actually knew or even guessed that it might be something like circumcision. That awareness would only come to me thirty years later.

My first primal therapy experience gave me a degree of energy and confidence that helped me move forward in new directions socially and professionally. I began to date more frequently and developed a degree of sexual confidence in casual relationships that was new to me. During this time I introduced myself to the woman who is now my wife. A couple of years after we met, she and I got married and settled down in an apartment in Washington, D.C.

I was surprised by how frightened I was as the marriage date arrived. After our small, private courthouse wedding I sat on a curb and wept, much to my wife’s embarrassment and chagrin. I discovered that I was still unequipped for a long-term intimate relationship. Our sexual relationship seemed to awaken all the demons I’d feared in adolescence, and my uncorked anger led to episodes of violence. I sought help and got back into psychological counseling which helped me steady myself enough to pursue a good job as an editor and to behave decently toward my wife. Eventually she got pregnant and our focus shifted toward our wonderful daughter… the one who is now in college.

While on one of our fossil-collecting trips, I was resting on a bed in a motel when my wife came over to speak to me affectionately. I was astonished as I looked up at her by a profound sensation of being a baby in pain, looking up pleadingly at my mother. I hid this feeling from my wife, but the experience started a train of thought leading back through a lifetime of inexplicable fear. As we drove home from that trip, I realized that my brief experience with primal therapy had just scratched the surface. I needed more.

It turned out that the Washington, D.C. area was no longer a haven for primal or bioenergetic therapists. Determined to face my fear, I found an online guide to how to do primal therapy by Paul Vereshack, called “Help Me, I’m Tired of Feeling Bad” (the printed version has the title “The Psychology of the Deepest Self”). This guide enabled me to do what is called “self primalling,” which I began to do during long lunch breaks, driving home from work, primalling, then returning to work. I did this routine because my wife—though supportive of whatever I needed to do—was clearly uncomfortable with the idea of my doing primal therapy while we both were at home.

In a nutshell, primal therapy involves steps one can take to recall and even relive, in a therapeutic context, unresolved or otherwise forgotten traumatic experiences. Reconnecting to these early experiences helps a person become fully aware of memories underlying current reactions to experiences that are difficult to understand in any other context. Reconnecting to an early trauma turns out to be a step-by-step process over a long period of time, because assimilating the intense pain of these traumas usually cannot occur with a single episode of re-experiencing. The process involves developing a sensitivity to areas of feeling that we ordinarily are obliged to ignore. Tensions we try to disregard at work become, in primal therapy, the focus of our attention.

My experience was that my earliest years involved much crying and pleading for help, usually aimed at my mother. Although I found the experience alarming, it was enlightening to realize the extent to which, as an infant, I was desperate for my mother’s help to ease my suffering. Part of this that I could distinctly remember related to the pain of eczema, which led to scratching and bleeding at night, and pleas that my mother come to help ease the pain. My early recollections of my father were of an angry, impatient, disapproving person.

One day I decided to try to relive an episode of my reactions to my father’s angry disapproval. He once told me that he had found me at home one time in a puddle of urine I had peed onto the floor. He said he’d given me “living hell.” I didn’t consciously remember this, but I tried to establish in my mind a congruency with the situation and to react defensively to whatever his “living hell” must have been. Part of what I did to recreate this involved a flailing of my arms and legs, as if I were trying to deflect his blows. Much to my surprise, this effort immediately triggered a long series of sharp pains in a circle around the shaft of my penis. The sensations were so specific and intense that I immediately stopped my flailing in order to try to assimilate what I was experiencing. The word “circumcision” popped immediately into my mind.

Although I was 60 years old at the time, I knew next to nothing about circumcision and had always vaguely assumed that something may have been done down there when I was little but it must have been a necessary thing like severing the umbilical cord. I knew my father surely wasn’t the person who would have done this, but something about the impulse to fight back, flailing arms and legs, must have brought back the memory. I didn’t realize immediately, but soon figured out, that flailing arms and legs in an effort to ward off circumcisers is precisely what is prevented by the plastic circumstraint boards designed to restrain baby boys while doctors do their work. My effort to fight back freed feelings of rage that had been suppressed for 60 years.

I drove back to work to look up circumcision on the Internet to learn about why this is done and its value or rationale. You can imagine my astonishment upon discovering website after website decrying the barbaric practice of circumcision and its effects on male sexuality. A lifetime of inexplicable, humiliating reactions to the opportunity of sex suddenly became understandable. My genital integrity had been brutally and agonizingly violated the day of my birth. Most of my erogenous nerves and the sensitive sheathe that protected the mucous membrane of the glans had been severed and ripped from my remnant penis. I had deliberately been deprived of much of my sexual capacity because men like John Harvey Kellogg believed male sexuality was wicked and excessive and needed to be tamed or muted by medical procedures. Moses Maimonides similarly believed the love bond between men and women would be too intense if men were allowed to have all their natural genital equipment. Both men believed the weakening of the male sexual organ was a great benefit to civilization.

I would like to say that this knowledge has made me immensely happier, but in fact I have been seriously disillusioned by what I have learned. I have discovered that my parents did not do all they could have done to protect this important part of my life. In fact, I’m angry that they never owned up to or apologized for what they had allowed to happen to me. I have learned that the doctors who oversaw my birth did not care about my eventual sexual happiness and may have performed this procedure out of revenge for similar treatment they had received as babies. I have shed many tears over these betrayals of my best interests and the interests of the women I have known and the woman I am married to.

I have taken up the task of stretching my existing shaft skin to create a new foreskin and am hopeful that this will help as time goes by. But meanwhile I and my wife are growing older and our days are limited and there is much that has been lost irretrievably.

I would like to think that modern times would bring enlightenment and the practice of circumcision would seem certain to end in light of so much suffering as others besides myself must have experienced. But the daily news of studies purporting that circumcision is a cure for AIDS and the way these studies are heeded and used to justify genital mutilation makes me very angry and sad. I would like to think that my own story might make some difference, but I am doubtful that many really will care. I am glad, nevertheless, that there are organizations of like-minded men who are helping me to see that my objections to this practice are not crazy and that it is justified to do whatever one can to alert those who can read and feel that circumcision is an act of criminal violence on the bodily integrity of a human being. In the name of humaneness and human rights, this practice must end.

*

Mystery Skin

It was at age 10 that I remember asking my mother, “What is the dark ring on my thing?” I don’t recall her exact response, but it was something about it being the scar from the removal of some skin. Possibly it was for my own good, maybe authority knew best as they are the adults, etc. Nevertheless, the scar looked odd and unnatural. I remember also telling my mother, “I’ll cut it off if they try to make me go to war.” She replied, “You’ll bleed to death.” How did I survive when they removed the mystery skin? Did they put the band aid on really quickly? How did it heal so fast without me dying? Imagining that it must have really hurt, I was glad for my lack of recollection. She had also informed me that playing with my penis could lead to what happened to my mystical Uncle Benny, Grandmother’s brother. “It would turn green and fall off.” I knew that really wasn’t true.

It wasn’t an earlobe, finger, or tongue. It was different and mysterious. She was largely not credible due to my experience of self exploration, which had proven otherwise. My father, slightly less mystical than Uncle Benny, didn’t speak to me at all about down there, so I never asked.

In school, half asleep from a sugar coma or breathing related sleep disorder, those “morning erections” would commence on queue as my hormones were surging during the usual daily testosterone peak. My glans would strain against my trousers causing discomfort and agitation. The few classmates I knew intimately had scars too, and we really didn’t give it much thought. That’s just the way it was.

Seeing my father naked on one, brief occasion, I saw his glans. He wasn’t any different from myself. Much later, he told me he actually had been left intact. Was it that I had given him a mental “circumcision,” or was he in a state of retraction?

Feelings of tiredness, depression, anger, and frustration were part of my life. Emotional and sleep disturbances, self hitting, low self esteem, and learning disorders may not have been related to my genital disfigurement. But what if they were? There are no dress rehearsals, right? There were no white coats saying, “Run him through again, only this time…”

The male Greek drawings either had fig leaves covering their genitals, or something that looked pointed, worm like, and different than anything I had ever seen. There were the testicles, but I had no idea why the artists hadn’t finished. Was this cheating? Where was the helmet? They were either lazy, prudent, or acting under some law that forbade them from drawing the real penis precisely, which was taboo of course. Somehow upon discovering that theirs was the truth, and I had been the one cheated out of a real penis. Someone had erased my mystery skin. Slowly the truth became evident. My sex had in fact been redesigned by this bombastically deceptive, socially, and psycho-sexually puritanical society. My helmet was missing it’s hood. The mystery skin was revealed to be the foreskin.

Throughout my young adulthood, there was the faintest spark of sensation in my glans. Why did others say oral sex so great? I could never feel it. That’s where the action happens, right? It was as if I were a child, looking through one of the distorted glass windows in church. There were people, but no fine details. Quite fitting for a church where a man stands on a stage, shakes his fist, and rants about something concerning a man in the sky called God who I couldn’t sensate either. My penile sensations were phantom, but slightly more real than God. If the orgasm didn’t happen within a certain amount of time, the sensations in my glans would fizzle with a numb tingling, then it would be gone. And forget about a second attempt after the first success. The second would have to be the first on another day. It always seemed as if God had assembled my penis on a Saturday at 23:00, and a circuit board was missing, or there were some dislodged wires.

After learning about N.O.R.M., I began non-surgical restoration of my foreskin by dermal expansion. Within a week my glans became moist and pale pink. The sensations left me saying, “Wow! I could’ve had a foreskin!” I had solved part of the mystery. However, the newly developing foreskin would only be a panacea. No amount of restoration could never replace those nerve cells or remove the curdled, jagged scar. But there was no turning back. What I had regained was too good to lose. If this is more 3 dimensional, I thought, what could the missing nerve cells have brought to my life? My anger increased, and the investigation went further.

Studying photos left me wondering what it must be like, feeling quite cheated and wishing for baptism instead of circumcision. The former would have left a mental scar from the fear of drowning in that glass mini-pool-fish-tank behind where the man stood on the stage, but nothing visible, or irreparable. (The fabric from the Preacher’s robe would flower up in the water, reminiscent of some exotic jelly fish that had escaped the fisher’s net. Was he wearing anything under that robe, and was he “circumcised,” too?)

On my hospital records, beside the printed words “reason to operate,” are the scribbled words “live birth.” Since when is live birth a pathological disease? After filing a complaint, I am told that , “there is no reason to investigate as all of the proper forms have been signed.” Mother claims not to remember signing anything. Had they forged her signature?

Wanting to get the word out to unsuspecting parents, I enquired about booth space at a local human rights fair and was informed by the organiser, “Just because a few thousand men are unhappy with their penises doesn’t mean we should let your organisation have a space at our fair.” Trying the baby fair route, the mother-of-three-boys organiser said, “We don’t want to step on the mother’s toes.” After my questioning the safety of the babies’ toes, she turned me away. At least I can watch the sad faces in the rear-view mirror roll their eyes, snigger, or ponder morosely after they read the words “Circumcision: A Crying Shame” on my bumper.

I’m an artist, and once didn’t feel as if it were okay to draw nudes without shame. Like me, the men in my drawings had penile scars. Upon beginning restoration, my drawings were restored as well. In my act of pentimento, they magically regained their foreskins. If only that had happened before the show. However, they are more lucky. Although part of my numb glans has revived, gone are the circuit board of nerves, mucosal tissue, and unique structure which no surgeon could recreate. There is almost no ventral dermal tissue remaining, as the quack had excised around 60 percent of my total skin. And there’s a limit to what can be expanded upon by restoration. It’s a bit like pulling and retaining an extremely shrunken, loose shirt sleeve around my wrist. Everyday I use a tape ring to recreate the missing frenar band and think, “That bastard quack. If only I had been born in Europe.”

When in Europe, “the land of the foreskins,” I look at every man and think, “I know what he has, that lucky bloke! He doesn’t have to wear that damned tape.” I’ve realised that I’ll never recover, but only cope. On those trips, I wear a clear, waterproof, rubbery tape ring on my restored skin allowing me to appear authentic upon a quick glance when I’m at a urinal. (Oh, admit it, everyone looks.) But then there’s the truth, which they don’t see. Those of us with scars, hidden or visible, are forced permanently into a censored minority category for the rest of our lives.

*

Devoted to Protecting Others

The trauma of circumcision has hit me hard, reared its head many times in my life.

As a very young child I was painfully shy around strangers, and learned that I wasn't even really safe at home. My father was abusive, when I was 2 he invited me to put my finger in a live electrical socket. I did and after the resultant shock he tried to comfort me in front of my mother, pretending he had nothing to do with it.

At age 7 I found out while playing with a neighbourhood boy that I had been circumcised. The gentle explanation he gave for our physical difference went through me like a shock (of physical recognition) and when I (thoroughly shaken to my core) went into the house to question my mother, (she who had always said, "We can talk about anything in this house") became very angry with me and told me, "never to play with that boy again." I instantly learned that we most certainly cannot talk about circumcision, and that I had deeply disappointed her by being intimate with another child.

Attempting to discuss circumcision with sexual partners in my youth (I came of age in the early 70's so sexual partners were plentiful) I found a pattern. Circumcised men were almost always defensive, "At least we were cut when we were babies and couldn't feel it!" Intact men were cautious, wanting to know how I felt about it before they shared their feelings. Once they knew I was pissed about it they ventured that circumcision was a very bad thing and that they were sorry it had been done to me.

In 1993 I saw the NOHARMM video of a baby boy being circumcised and realized instantly the severity of this early abuse. I understood the shock of recognition I felt when my wise six year old playmate revealed the truth of why we were different. Seeing the barbarity of this infant boy being sexually mutilated in that video was a Eureka! moment for me. So this is what every man whose been circumcised as a baby had to go through. Torture. Human vivisection. After that there was no turning back.

In the 17 years since then I have spent most of my waking energy working to educate myself and others, to eradicate circumcision of all children while trying to make sense of it all. Personally to try and understand which parts of my personality were formed from this trauma, and to decipher the additional confusion of a father who was cruel and abusive, and a mother who I believe was also living with a great deal of deeply buried childhood trauma. (As a child my mother was subjected to two tonsillectomies, once under general anesthesia and a second time fully conscious in a "dentists chair.")

Seventeen years delving deeply into the issue of circumcision and all the related discussions about birth trauma, child abuse, religion, sexual orientation, childhood bullying, thoughts of suicide, etc did not prepare me for a recent event that brought all the trauma fully forward again.

I was editing video of a circumcision into an interview with a circumciser who had just appeared on a US talk show. The bloody and horrific images of the baby being sexually mutilated interspersed with this adult idiot in pearls blathering on about how she cut baby boys to fit in in the locker room, set something off in me. For many days after I could hardly move, a darkness set in and I felt myself loosing the ability to relate to anything or anyone.

A dear intactivist friend who works as a psych nurse cautioned me to be very careful. She said the symptoms I was describing were consistent with PTSD. She had a client, a hardened senior cop who was accustomed to some pretty horrific crime scenes, bodies etc, who helped bust a kiddie porn ring. The evidence, a large number of photos of children being violently, sexually assaulted had affected him deeply. A year after he was still having nightmares about these photos.

I didn't mean to go on at such length. I meant to write some of this as a submission, but its difficult. Its difficult realizing the extent of the trauma, and difficult being productive in a society that ignores or ridicules discussion of it. I keep my sanity knowing that a growing number of people are waking up to this. Without my intactivist friends I would be lost.

There is no end to this. I feel that the depth of these feelings is immense. I certainly do not want anyone to feel sorry for me, because I recognize how common child abuse is, how many people are trying to deal with it. Sadly our society still punishes the victims and rewards the perpetrators, so most people deal with it by squelching it. Not just circumcision but all of it.

I have to be careful. As much as I try to deal with this squarely, to speak out truthfully about it I realize how easily the strength and stability I now have can slip away."

- James Loewen

*

I was cut twice

I was born at Community Memorial Hospital in Sidney, Montana. At that time it was rare for anyone to escape the knife, although I know a few who did. It was probably considered medical malfeasance at the time if they missed you somehow. The majority of boys in the U.S. are still cut, but the rate is getting down a lot closer to half nationwide, though it’s much higher in some states and much lower in others. It’s like the luck of the draw anymore, rather than a done deal, although the chance of growing up with the dick you were born with is still poor.

Having been cut twice, I feel I am qualified to write on this topic. I remember about the time of puberty, around 12 years of age or so, how uncomfortable the glans of my penis always was in my pants. I guess because I was growing. I was always grabbing it and trying not to be obvious about rearranging it in my pants so it wouldn’t rub the wrong way. Even after half a lifetime, certain things are maddeningly uncomfortable. Before I started restoration, when I rode a bike there was just no way to keep the glans of my penis from being irritated. Cross-taping gave immediate relief and is one of the biggest reasons I began restoring. Initially, I did not care about benefits down the road. I just wanted an end to the maddening irritation.

As a child, I often wet the bed. When I was fifteen we were on welfare briefly due to my dad being between jobs or something. Some medical benefits were part of the welfare benefits. I think it always bothered my mother that I wet the bed more than it did me. She took me to a urologist to see if anything could be done about it. He said that my peehole was small and enlarging it would help. Even at the time it didn’t make much sense to me, but “doctor knows best,” so the urologist cut a small wedge out of my glans to enlarge my peehole. I now know that the condition of having a small urinary opening is called meatal stenosis and is a common side effect of genital cutting caused by the wounded glans being unprotected from urine and feces when I was in diapers. This time I got a needle in my dick for the pain, but I can tell you that the burning of the urine on the raw wound later is plenty painful, even if you don’t feel the cutting. Even with pain pills I could barely urinate for three days. How does a newborn react to this unnatural pain? He can do nothing about his discomfort besides wait for his diaper to be changed and wait for the wound to heal up. There is a growing body of evidence that abuse during development can cause deleterious permanent changes in our brains.

I’ve always wished that I’d have had the common sense to refuse this procedure, because lacking a foreskin, enlarging the peehole only exposed the even more tender flesh inside my urethra to abrasion in my underwear. My mother was concerned with my bedwetting; the doctor saw another welfare case. He has to make money to keep his “practice,” so he practices on me. At fifteen, I was too naive to think things through, so I got another unnecessary operation with nothing but pain and more irritation to show for it. To add insult to injury, the procedure had no discernible relationship to bedwetting. I went on wetting the bed until I was a senior in high school when I spontaneously began waking up at night when I had to urinate. I have no idea why I wet the bed and I have no idea why I quit.

After these experiences I was understandably interested in the topic of circumcision. Several years ago now I walked into the public library and noticed on the cover of Mothering magazine [Winter 1997, pp. 36—45] a picture of a cute baby with the caption, “Where is my foreskin?” I also heard Dr. Dean Edell’s comments about circumcision on his talk radio show. It didn’t take much research to figure out that the glans of the penis is supposed to be naturally covered and protected just like the clitoris.

Routine infant circumcision (RIC) is unique among surgeries. First, it’s the most common surgery in North America. Second, the foreskin is not a birth defect—circumcision does not address a disease, injury or abnormality of any kind. Third, it is not possible for the patient to request or to receive informed consent about the procedure. Fourth, the patient never knows whether or not the surgery has any consequence as there is no prior experience to compare with. Fifth, when I reached the age of reason I had a truncated knowledge of male genitalia. Because my peers were also routinely circumcised, I did not know that my penis was altered at birth. I mistakenly believed that my condition was normal. In fact, I always wondered why I had what I call a two-tone dick (where the scar is) and why the veins there run back on themselves in the form of a capital W or M (depending on your point of view). I thought everyone’s dick was probably this way. I personally never saw an intact penis in all my years of public school. (It’s quite likely that some kids would keep their foreskins back in the showers so I would not have known the difference. I never considered it.) It’s also quite likely that nearly all of my peers were cut at birth.

The circ rate was really that high. I heard stories about how anyone lucky enough to have escaped the knife was ridiculed and I laughed about the stories along with all my truncated peers. I was inculcated with strange notions about the foreskin, even though no one in my experience possessed a foreskin. I didn’t even know that my grandfathers and my mother’s brothers all have a complete set of genitals until I was well into adulthood. Later in life I felt betrayed by my culture’s disinformation campaign and angry that, of all things, a part of my penis was amputated. It took many years just to envision where the stolen bits were originally attached or how they might have functioned. With the advent of the internet, and as 80–85 percent of the world’s men still have the genitals they were born with, it was easy to find pictures showing that they have a lot more skin on the penis and scrotum than I do and everything moves very freely. I realized that I was cut very tightly. I wanted to understand why such a thing was done to me. Only with difficulty did I put the pieces of the puzzle together. In my youth, I had a false pretense of superiority. Now I know that my condition is one of inferiority.

Excuses aren’t adequate in this age of information. My parents can plausibly claim they didn’t know any better, but there is no longer such an excuse. No man or woman likes to think that they may be any less sexually than they could be, and no one likes to think that sexual response may be unequal because parts of their partner’s genitals are missing. The reasons you may have heard for circumcision don’t make any sense now, if they ever did. One comment I have read is, “Instead of studying circumcision, we should study circumcisers.”

It is inconceivable that nature does not have a purpose for the foreskin. Circ is not a decision I would have made for myself. I’m not underendowed, but I still find myself contemplating what it would be like to be full-sized instead of circumcised. I’ll never know. Because I had a nephew cut three years ago, I’m still holding my parents responsible until the cutting ends. Genital cutting does haunt relationships.

Well, predictably my family was not overjoyed with my discoveries. Can you say “cognitive dissonance?” We are Mormon. As it turns out the Book of Mormon specifically states that circumcision is “done away with.” [Moroni 8:8] Somehow unaccountably my family was not aware of this, but not inclined to follow it anyway. It is discomfiting and disorienting to learn that something perceived as the gospel truth is not even a part of the gospel. To say they were not receptive is an understatement. My mom and sisters shouted me to silence, including my sister Luana who did not circumcise her son because her husband had been listening to Doctor Dean Edell’s talk radio program. So as not to break ranks, Luana asserts that genital cutting is a “parent’s right.” Well so is smoking and drinking while pregnant, but no one will say that this is necessary and good. Anyway, my sisters and mother have all of their genital parts and all of their husbands were reportedly blissful when they were cut at birth so they are unable or unwilling to see the problem as a problem.

I have six sisters, also six stepsisters. My sisters are still bearing children, so I’ve been trying to protect my unborn nephews from genital cutting. My mother has been undermining my efforts by insinuating that I am a very unhappy person with psychological problems. She says, “Everyone else is okay with it, what is the matter with you?” This is very typical of what I have learned to expect from my parents—inability to empathize, accept responsibility and feel remorse. It’s better just to not think about things that are discomfiting or upsetting.

I was a lot more forgiving before I started talking to my family about this. My mother says, “That’s just the way it was,” and “What is wrong with you?” I’m to blame for how I feel about an injury that I had nothing to do with and could not have prevented. That is abusive. Saying that’s the way it was is not an apology and does not absolve people from responsibility for their actions. I can’t count the number of times my parents said to me, “If the neighbor kid jumps off a cliff, would you jump too?” Anyway, that’s not the way it was. All of my mother’s brothers are living and with a full set of genitals.

It’s too late for me, but my nephews are another story. As their uncle, I have a legitimate interest in their welfare. My mother’s characteristic behavior is to let things happen, and then play like she had nothing whatever to do with it. Before I broke off contact when my newest nephew was circumcised forty-odd years after I was done, I wrote to her in part, …”I’ve thought about what you told me at length and you are wrong. Because there are so many ways of looking at things I don’t usually use the word ‘wrong,’ but here’s why: If you hurt another person in any way, it never hurts to say that you are sorry, try to repair the situation and take steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Purposeful ignorance is inflammatory. Besides, you are no longer ignorant. You are responsible if you allow genital cutting where you have influence.”

If I had been in any way the cause of a genital injury to her, say we were involved in an auto accident, what would I do? I’d start with, “I’m sorry.”

With my unfaltering tutoring in deductive reasoning, logic, and moral responsibility, she’s begun to understand that circumcision is wrong. Instead of pretending that it will go away if she does nothing, I want her to take an interest in the safe and peaceful arrival of her grandchildren and make a little restitution by talking to my sisters. Of course they listen to her better than me, even if she had not been trying to protect herself by undermining me. She will not do this because (still, according to her) it has nothing to do with her (as if to say she has no influence). Am I in error in thinking that it has a lot to do with her? In a way, she is completely responsible. I’m the oldest grandson on her side of the family. Her dad and brothers, my maternal uncles, are all genitally intact. (Yes, they had all their sons cut.)

I don’t know where this adult fixation on infant genitals comes from. I just know it’s not healthy for me to be around these people anymore.

*

Where was my mom?

I was born in New York to Reform Jewish parents. I was circumcised at eight days in a traditional Jewish circumcision ritual. This means that my parent’s family and friends were all there to witness and celebrate the occasion of my public genital mutilation. I am told that a lovely brunch was prepared for everyone attending.

On the advice of her friends and family, my mother chose to leave the room where the ritual was taking place before the actual cutting of my genitals, and only returned after I was done screaming. Not one Jewish parent I have spoken to finds this remotely hypocritical, a fact that amazes me. The one time I asked my mother about it she said she just couldn’t stand to see me in that kind of pain. Couldn’t see it, but had no problems arranging for it and absolving herself of her clear guilt by simply not being present during it. I love my mother, and I understand that her person faith prevented her from even considered not having me cut, but the fact that she would not witness what she was cheerfully helping to prepare brunch for, makes me hate her just a little bit.

Because my genital cutting was a traditional Jewish ritual, it was done freehand with only a guide plate to prevent damage to the glans (well damage right then, circumcision could be said to “damage” the glans in the form of desensitization). It would be many years before I realized how dramatic the damage to my penis was.

Growing up Jewish, a religion I should disclose that I no longer belong to, I had no idea that circumcision was anything but the norm. I was a sexually interested child (and gay) from a young age and over the course of many sleepovers I saw many of my non-Jewish friends’ penises as well and, this being the early ‘80 they were all altered in the same way as mine.

I still remember the first time I ever saw an intact penis. I was eight years old and attending a Jewish sleep-away camp for the first time. The boys section of the camp had group showers for the different age groups, but the grounds keeping crew used the same shower rooms and they were mostly European college students who would come to America to work for two months and then spend another month touring the United States before class resumed. Most of them were not Jewish, and being European, not circumcised. The first time I saw an intact penis I had no idea what I was looking at. The only conclusion I could come to was that the man’s penis was diseased or malformed in some way. It would not be until I was a teenager, taking sex ed, and more importantly looking at gay porn, that I would realize that his penis was the “normal” one.

Looking back now, I can clearly see that my adolescent sexual development was strongly shaped by the nature of my circumcision. Because so much skin had been removed, having an erection was often painful. As strange as it sounds to others, I had no idea that this was not normal. The only penis I had experience with from the inside was mine and this was how it worked. I did not find the skin tearing or even bleeding a bit during erections or masturbation to be strange. Since I had always grown up with the idea of a circumcised penis as being the norm, surely I couldn’t be having problems connected to having been cut.

Right before I left for college, I learned about foreskin restoration on the internet. My interest at this time had nothing to do with being unsatisfied with the function of my penis. Rather as I became more and more involved in Neo-paganism and spirituality, I felt that something about my body was just wrong. Then, in several meditations I found that when I tried to visualize my body, I kept feeling that that something had to do with my genitals. Finally when I mediated with the intent of finding out the origin of this feeling I found my body being pictured as having a foreskin and the feeling of wrongness being gone. This was a strange idea for me, that having a foreskin could be more “normal” or “natural” than not.

After getting to college and becoming sexually active I would, of course, discover that pain and bleeding are NOT normal parts of having an erection. This strengthened my interest in restoration. The first several months of trying restoration were discouraging to me as I did not seem to have any change in the tightness of my skin or the discomfort of erection. This was until my partner at the time noticed that I was gaining penile length. I would eventually “gain” over and inch and-a-half of penile length, allowed for by the loosening skin freeing shaft tissue previously pushed back into my body, before any skin mobility would begin to show.

Years later, I am finally getting closer to being finished with restoration and some of the feelings of unhappiness with my genitals have eased. It has taken me years and years longer to restore than most people in part because I choose to go very carefully to minimize the impact of the radical and irregular nature of the mutilation itself. Also, I have at times given up for months at a time because of the knowledge that my restored foreskin will still not be the one that was taken from me (the possibility of re-sensitization of the inner foreskin and glans always gets me going again).

My partner of five years is intact from birth and the difference in our status caused issues early on in our relationship as I struggled with feelings of jealousy and inadequacy.

The questions I find I ask myself regarding the circumstances of my own mutilation are this, “How did my mother bath me and change my diaper for the seven days before the ritual and not find herself satisfied that I was perfect the way I was?. How did she look at my body and think to herself, ‘He’ll be even better after we cut some of him off.’”

My mother considers my anti-circumcision activism to be a personal attack on her. This is fair, since I consider her endorsement and arranging for, my involuntary genital mutilation to have been a personal attack on me.

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Unnecessary Roughness

When I was a young man trying to figure out how my genitalia worked, I remember wondering whether other guys had to hold their scrotum down when they became erect as well. When I had erections they were really uncomfortably tight with coarse pubic-area hair and my scrotum being pulled far forward onto the shaft so that my testicles were splayed out separately on each side. I also noticed, but didn't understand why, there was a brownish line around my penis, or why the skin below the line felt like ordinary skin but if I rubbed the skin above the line and below the head it felt good, or why the two skin sections were different shades.

Eventually I figured out if I rubbed the good-feeling skin enough it would lead to ejaculation. However to reach ejaculation I had to really rub it aggressively and quite often it would become raw even though I was using my saliva to keep the friction down. I remember being confused at the time as to why doing something that felt good would lead to an open cut that would hurt enough that I had to stop, but I just rationalized that this must be God's way of saying you shouldn't be doing this so often. I would have to wait about a week for the area to heal enough and no longer be sore before I could do it again. I did become better at avoiding going too far, but still every few months or so I would literally rub myself till I bled.

I never gave any of these observations and experiences too much thought beyond just initially noting them since I didn't have anyone I could talk to about these things. Plus my traditionally Christian mother went to great lengths to prevent me from viewing any tv/movie with sexual content and had me excluded from sex ed classes at school, so I had no pictures to compare to.

About the only source for knowledge about sex during these years for me was a radio program called Love Phones with Doctor Judy. I learned much from her though it didn't really clarify anything about the state of my penis since no one ever called in asking about the same concerns I had. In fact she even added to my perplexity when she mentioned that a highly sensitive and erogenous part of the penis was located on the underside of the head. I tried stimulating there but I didn't feel anything and I didn't seem to have the ridge line thing that she was talking about.

A couple of years later when I had my first serious girlfriend I remember being really disappointed because I could not feel too much during oral stimulation and intercourse. I felt embarrassed and ashamed to admit that I, as a man, wasn't enjoying sex, so I just pretended that everything was okay. However to myself at least, I had to admit something was wrong and I couldn't just forget about it and move on like before.

So I went to a urologist and he said I had been tightly circumcised and I told him that couldn't be right since my family wasn't Jewish. He said most Americans are circumcised regardless of religion and that the brownish ring around my penis I had was likely caused by the Gomco clamp method. I was shocked. Then he told me there was nothing he could do to help me which left me feeling rather disillusioned.

I couldn't recall anyone in my family ever mentioning circumcision. I was vaguely aware that it was something Jewish people and maybe some tribes did but beyond that I had no idea what it entailed or that it was done by any other groups, let alone that it was done to me.

I asked my mother if she knew I was circumcised and she said that she knew but that she hadn't thought about it since after when the wound healed up after coming home from the hospital. She said that it was done automatically and that no one had even asked her permission and she never signed any consent form.

Wanting to learn more, I went to my town library and using the card catalog I got out every book that mentioned circumcision specifically or was about sexual health. In everything I read it was basically the same story, that circumcision was recommended to be done at birth for health appearance and convenience reasons, and that the foreskin had all these things that commonly went wrong with it. I didn't find anything mentioning that anyone anywhere ever had had a problem with being circumcised. So that left me nowhere.

It wasn't until years later when the internet became mainstream that I thought to look it up again. I learned to my great relief that I wasn't alone in having problems caused directly and indirectly by infant circumcision. When I learned that only we Americans practice mass secular infant circumcision and that we only started doing it as way to discourage masturbation, I felt sick to my stomach, since in my case they really succeeded in making masturbation difficult to the point where I did it much less than I would have otherwise.

Apparently one of the foreskin's jobs is to naturally retract to accommodate erections. So it turns out the reason it seemed so unnatural for my scrotum and pubic-area hair to be pulled forward during erection was because it was unnatural what was done to my penis, I just had no way of knowing it at the time. I also learned that I didn't have any frenulum(the area previously referred above by Dr Judy) remaining which depending merely on the preference of your circumciser, may or may not be left on you.

So now everything made sense. All these years of confusion and problems just because some prudish quack doctor couldn't stop obsessing with boys masturbating. *sad sigh*

I don't know what percentage of infant circumcisions cause the level of problems I had, but even if it is only 1/10th of 1% that is still about a 100 000 men in the US right now who may be having problems like I had but because it is too taboo to talk about honestly in our society, they will likely never know that their penis problems were caused by something some long-gone surgeon did to them without their permission.

In the course of my research, I have happened on a lot postings by guys with questions about not being able to get enough stimulation to ejaculate or use condoms, being told by the sexual health expert that they have commitment issues; no one ever even suggests to look into the fact they are likely missing their protective hood for their penis's most sensitive bits.

I have been restoring now for several years which has alleviated the forward pulling, and also has allowed my glans to re-sensitize to a level where I can function sexually without the level of problems I used to have. Restoration can't restore any of the erogenous sections of the foreskin, so it is not as good as what my own foreskin would have been, but unfortunately I can't have my real foreskin back.

I am so disappointed with my society that it does not listen to men when they speak out about having problems that never would have occurred if their penises were not welcomed to America with a slice of the knife. If you want it done for your own body, then that is fine as your own decision, but partial genital amputation should never be forced on anyone regardless of age or gender.

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Uncircumcised Men

Intact In America

My name is Roy, I was born in 1967 in Kansas, and thankfully not circumcised! I never had any serious problems in the locker room while growing up. A few times when someone tried to ridicule me, I told them that it is their penis which is missing something. That usually quieted them down! Also, I have never had any problems such as infections or cancer.

It is sad that some boys are still subjected to this senseless, painful, useless and dangerous "operation". One doesn't have to read too much to find information written by medical professionals who do not support this procedure. Why a parent would want to put their child through such a

horrible practice is beyond my comprehension!!!!

Thanks for letting me express myself.

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Before It Became Routine

I was born in southern California just before circumcision became routine in the late 50's so most of my friends were intact. I moved to the Midwest in junior high school and was surprised to see everyone in gym was clipped.

I got lots of questions about why my dick was different. But when I showed how it worked and told the guys they had part of their's cut off, it sure shocked them! Apparently they never knew they had been

"fixed." I'm pretty sure some of them were pissed off about it, too.

Americans are independent and how a whole generation got talked into being clipped, who knows? I guess a lot of doctor's summer homes and Mercedes are based on cutting up some poor kid's dick.

We have two teenage boys and my wife and I wouldn't allow them to be circumcised. The doctors said they'd have problems later on. But I told them I never had any problems, why should they? Of course they never have had "problems."

I did explain to both of them when they were little that kids came in different "styles." Now they're both teenagers and they're grateful we left them intact.

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Doctor's Exam

When I was about six years old my father (a physician) took my older brother and me to a pediatrician for school physical exams. Normally my father took care of whatever medical problems we might have. We sat in the examination room wearing only our underpants. My brother was examined first and I watched as the pediatrician pulled down his underpants and VERY briefly examined his genitals. My exam was quite different. The doctor immediately grabbed my penis and pushed the skin back. It HURT and I nearly jumped off the table. I had never seen my glans before—I can’t even say that I knew that intact men had a glans. He grabbed my glans, which was extremely sensitive, and I immediately got an erection. I was shaking—scared, horrified, humiliated. Instead of my father or the pediatrician saying anything to me about how my erection was normal, etc. the two of them just stood there and LAUGHED. NOTHING was said to me. The pediatrician masturbated me for a while (moving my skin up and down repeatedly). I cannot adequately describe how absolutely mortified and petrified I felt. It is inconceivable to me that both the doctor and my father could not have noticed my distress. It was not an enjoyable sexual experience.

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Glad to be Whole

My father didn’t see any need for circumcision and I guess he just gave my foreskin the benefit of the doubt. But I doubt he was thinking I’d grow up to be really happy about his decision. I'm now 50.

As a child, about 90% of the other boys were circumcised. I think this was due to the two facts that it was the time when circumcision was most popular generally, and also that many of the doctors trained in my region had been taught that it was the “in” thing in their particular medical school. I always felt different from many of my friends; now, as an adult, I can see that I was just blaming too much of

that feeling on being uncircumcised.

In high school where we had gym class, I’d tend to be shy and try to hide my genitals in the locker room and showers. Of course, those were the strait-laced small-town 50’s and 60’s when you’d get taunted for any distinctiveness at all; heaven help you even for wearing anything other than white underpants. And it seemed as though the best athletes were “always” circumcised. Unfortunately, my teenage logic didn’t see that if most of the boys were circumcised anyway, then there would be a corresponding high percentage of circumcised jocks. Nevertheless, two or three guys were not only uncut and not only decent athletes and students, but had friendly personalities too. I guess that’s where my more positive attitude had a chance to start.

On the other side of the coin, there was talk from the circumcised guys that all “real men” were cut. It came across as some kind of trial by fire that proved you were tough and that being uncircumcised was really gross or that having a foreskin was some kind of defect that needed to be fixed. That made me feel left out. Of course, now I see that they had probably been sold a bill of goods by their parents

and other clipped peers; and I suppose the parents actually believed it too, poor bastards.

In my 20’s, when I moved to the “big city”, I cared less. Toronto is very cosmopolitan with many Europeans and, when visiting any local gym, you may see quite a mix of cultures and foreskin status. And even though I still felt like I wasn’t the norm, I also knew I was a part of the cross section.

Later on, I began to get more interested in the subject and read whatever I could on it. I now see the speciousness of circumcision and I’m very positive about being intact. Infant circumcision seems to be such a swindle.

I go to a gym quite regularly where the majority of the men are intact. Believe me, there are plenty of “real men” and I’m proud to look like them. More importantly, I’m proud to look like myself.

I’ve settled into the acceptance that having a foreskin is not only more natural but that it’s more genuine. That an uncircumcised penis is the real thing! That the foreskin is SUPPOSED to be there. That having a whole penis lets it be tough and tender at the same time, instead of just tough. There’s also something nice looking about a natural penis. Maybe it’s that continuous flow of skin from base

to tip. It just seems so... complete. And I deliberately choose to have my penis that way!

I’ve learned to freely explore where the feelings are in my penis; I have just as much sensation in my foreskin and frenum as I do in all the rest of my cock. If I pause to concentrate on it during sexual activity, I realise what a richness of feeling it is. On the other side, in an everyday setting walking down the street, there’s this feeling of rightness that my glans is nestled away in its custom sheath. At times like those, it’s a cozy and comfy feeling. I just can’t imagine being without my foreskin. From a sensation standpoint, it would be like half of my penis had died -- which I guess is unfortunately close to the truth.

I’m sure if I could give the typical circumcised man his foreskin back for a month (and the chance to use it), he’d never give it up willingly.

As for maintenance, when I was a young teen, my foreskin was too tight to retract but masturbation and my own experiments at stretching left me with a classically healthy skin. Since then, I’ve even coached a couple of buddies on loosening up too. Washing is so easy that I can’t imagine anyone saying it’s a problem; a quick pass in the shower takes a tenth of the time of combing my hair... and it feels nicer.

Oddly, I know I wouldn’t be so pro-foreskin if there weren’t these clowns running around saying that all men should be circumcised. What they’re saying is that I should be circumcised. Well, they can do what they want to themselves but they can’t go around setting arbitrary standards for me to conform to whether it’s the style and colour of my underpants or how I cut my hair or my skin. Mind your own

damn business!

I always enjoy talking on this subject and I especially like to help other men who may still feel uneasy that they haven’t had the “privilege” of being “fixed”. Lucky them -- lucky us!

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Escaped the Knife

This is a strictly anonymous communication. No name of any kind is to be attached to this.

I am married (once), childless (not by choice), and purely heterosexual (happily so). I am intact because I came into this world in a European hospital. The attending OB-GYN refused to honour my

mother's reluctant request that I be circed, a request she made purely at my circed father's behest. My American grandmother was outraged that I was intact. But she and my father never breathed a word about it to me or in my presence. I learned of their feelings only after their respective deaths. Since I have never had the least mechanical or infectious problem with my foreskin, no doctor has ever

recommended that I be cut. However 1-2 doctors manifested an unseemly curiosity about my foreskin.

I was the only intact male in my nuclear family and my parents never said anything about that. All my childhood school and playmates were circed. Hence I thought I suffered from a harmless but embarrassing birth defect. I was laughed at when urinating in first and second grade. Eventually I learned to urinate with the foreskin pulled back, and the boys quickly forgot I was different.

I dreaded the prospect of having to take PE because of the locker room nakedness. During the first few weeks of PE, I went to school with the foreskin held back with a rubber band. This proved

distracting, even marginally painful. I soon learned that my foreskin would stay back if I retracted it quickly while undressing. Hence my high school mates were none the wiser. I have felt no embarrassment in locker rooms since I turned 18 and no one has ever cracked wise at the

expense of my poor foreskin.

During summer holidays in Europe, I discovered that I looked like the boys over there. I began to notice that the male nudes in art looked like me. But I did not learn why the most emotional part of my

body, the tip of my penis, looked different from that of my father, brother and other boys until I was 13, when I chanced upon the article entitled "Circumcision" in an adult encyclopaedia. It was a

big shock to me to learn that I was the way nature intended all men to be, and that nearly all American men looked different from me because they had had a piece of skin cut off very shortly after

birth. And I soon learned that the cutting was done WITHOUT ANESTHESIA.

Because everything I read stated that uncut was unclean, I resolved to have myself circed as soon as I was old enough to order medical care for myself. I was much too embarrassed to raise this subject

with my parents. Mind you, my mother was no prude, and she spoke to me freely then about adultery, homosexuality and masturbation. In recent years, we have spoken freely about circ.

Only when I was 19 did I learn that I was sanitary, from a newspaper medical advice column. Only when I was 31 did I read Wallerstein's book and so learn that I was perfectly normal, and that routine infant circumcision was simply a mistake of American obstetrical practice, an instance of unnecessary surgery, not unlike the high rates of episiotomies and C-sections.

By the age of 21 or so, I knew that I was healthy and normal. I knew that many American men are uncut: older working class, immigrants, blacks, Latinos, and a few boys born to sophisticated or old-

fashioned mothers. But the prospect of exposing my penis to a woman of my generation as part of a sexual relation filled me with dread. Baby Boom women from the interior of N America (where I came of age) tend to the conformist, to have a safety first attitude towards hygience, and to lack sympathy for the unfamiliar. While very strongly attracted to women, I also am no sexual predator. I also am

not handsome, highly educated and have a reputation for cynicism, eccentricity and political incorrectness. Hence almost no women ever showed any interest in me.

But my foreskin led me to have mixed feelings about romantic involvement with the opposite sex. This was complicated by my attraction to Jewish women, whom I believed could never accept an

intact lover. And so I remained a virgin until age 36, when I met my future wife. Even though I knew she had been intimate with several foreign born men, it was difficult for me to talk to her about being

intact. She had no distaste whatsoever for the foreskin and was very well acquainted with it. But she (and other women with whom I have discussed this) have difficulty imagining a man being so embarrassed about having a foreskin that he would remain a virgin for nearly 20 years after he started college!

In any event, I am happily married to a woman who is as supportive of the foreskin as I am. She grew up without brothers, in a family where there was considerable distrust of the medical profession. She also sympathises with breastfeeding and low-tech childbirth.

I read Rosemary Romberg's book soon after it came out, and began a several year correspondence with the author. That is how I discovered the rising tide of indignation re RIC in this country, the growing

belief that it does sexual harm, and the emergence of a significant number of intact American boys in the '80s and '90s. Then NOCIRC came along with its passionate defense of the foreskin. Finally came

restoration, which leaves me bemused because no man has ever told me he was unhappy about being cut.

Yet I gather that now many men would be envious of me. There are women who wish they could discover intercourse with an intact partner. Women with a feminist/Wiccan/Mothering magazine perspective often say they prefer a foreskin. American women who have spent time on nude beaches overseas often acquire a taste for the foreskin. Betty Dodson, the woman who advocates masturbation and womanly genital pride, has defended the foreskin in print. Camille Paglia

recently attacked circumcision in print. There are a lot of people out there, especially west of Denver CO, who are more anti-circ than I am. I have met immigrants to the USA who have told me that

discovering circ in the USA has made them very proud of their foreskins. There are women activists who make stronger declarations of the sexual virtues of the foreskin than I do! Women who are pro

and anti circ fight brutally on the web, by the way.

In Web chat groups, a surprising number of (civil) women have said in essence "Let's stop pretending that circ has medical advantages. The real reason we as mothers circ our sons is because we find the circed penis sexier to look at and to be penetrated by. Fellatio with an intact penis is also intolerably disgusting." That is why the following web site is epochal:

www.geocities.com/Wellesley/1889 [Note: no longer available]

This site is intended to educate women under 30-35 about the foreskin. It includes graphic scanned photos. Search engines seldom turn up this site, incidentally. This site helps young women with foreign lovers and teenage girls from age cohorts where there are large numbers of boys of both kinds. The proportion of young American women with experience of both kinds of men is about to rise sharply, as the age cohorts born in the 1980s become sexually active.

More and more gay men feel cheated out of their sexual birthright by RIC. Eventually more and more straight men are going to reach a similar conclusion. A lot of young mothers will eventually have

experience of both kinds of men, and find intactness preferable or acceptable. And one day, the confluence of these three streams of opinion will attain a critical mass, whereupon RIC will go out of

fashion quite suddenly.

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Circumcised Women

Where is my clitoral hood?

”The other day I had one of many debates that I have with a particular man in my life. This debate is on how he tried to defend his newborn circumcision and his reasons why all boys should be circumcised. His final argument when he realized none of the standard careworn and overused ones were working?

"You are a woman without a penis so you really have no right to weigh in on this circumcision debate anyway."

It was then that I knew it was time to step forward and to stop hiding. I am thirty years old. I am white, not Middle Eastern or from Sudan or Malaysia or of the Muslim faith. My father is Irish Catholic. My mother is a Jewish woman who converted to Catholicism when she married my father. Both of my brothers are circumcised and my mother is adamant in her defense of their circumcision.

I step out of the shower and I stand in front of the mirror and I look like your average European American, pale skin, red hair, green eyes. I am not your average woman though.

I am circumcised.

I am a white American, non-Muslim woman who was circumcised as a toddler by the same pediatrician that circumcised my brothers and at the same hospital at which I was born. I have no clitoral hood and only a V shaped scar and the tiniest bit of inner labia they were kind enough to leave behind. I always knew something was different. I have a half sister seven years my senior and she had a normal looking vagina. Mine always looked wrong to me but I never said anything because after all, every woman is unique and different.

I also have this vague and disturbing memory from when I was two and the most uncomfortable sexual feeling even at a young age around male doctors. When I married young to my now ex-husband on our honeymoon he said, "I have never seen a vagina like yours! It is amazingly perfect, too perfect, like something is missing." That too perfect vagina was most certainly missing something, and would cause me serious sexual issues that I chalked up to a sexual assault at the age of eighteen. If only I had know that it had been assaulted by a knife long before that perhaps I could have come to terms much sooner.

It was only as I was nearing my late twenties, had been divorced and had other sexual partners all of which commented in some way or another on the difference of my vagina, that I had an uncontrollable urge to dig deeper. Then at a well woman check up with my now favorite Ob/Gyn he told me or rather asked me why I was a circumcised female. He felt awful when he realized that I did not know and he had assumed I had consented to vaginal cosmetic surgery. As an aside I am happy to report that because of my experience and continued dialogue with him he is now against MGM (Male Genital Mutilation) a practice he used to support.

After months of demanding, digging, and putting my foot down I obtained the records from my birth that told me nothing but did lead me to my childhood pediatrician. Those records revealed the ghastly truth of a two-year-old girl circumcised at her mother's request. In sadness I confronted my mother and was adamantly told that she had always done what was best for her children and had no regrets but did not want to speak of it.

I made an appointment to speak to the now retired physician only to have him move away before I could speak with him. I am still searching for him. I know he was an old friend of my parents who also did my brothers' bris. Surely he will know why my mother would request such a thing for her daughter. My father remains largely silent on the issue. "You know your mother," is the only answer I receive from him.

When my son was born I was young, I had familial and societal pressure. But I did NOT allow him to be assaulted with a knife . As a mother all that was in me cried out to truly research and know that genital mutilation is not okay. And now I know that not only as a mother but also as a survivor of FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) every instinct told me not to allow him to be cut.

I will speak out against MGM because just like those innocent baby boys my prepuce has been removed. Can I orgasm? Yes I can. Within about sixty seconds of sexual contact I orgasm. Sounds good right? WRONG. After I orgasm I experience oversensitive raw pain for the duration of the sexual contact. There is no hood to protect my clitoris. I may very well be the only woman out there who is looking for a partner who is a "one minute wonder" to spend the rest of my life with. Even now, years later, clothing, undergarments, contact... all of these irritate my overexposed clitoris. I also have to deal with the fact that if I choose to have a new sexual partner I will deal with the inevitable comments and questions which leave me feeling unattractive and just plain wrong down there.

So I say: I DO have a right to speak out against MGM and I will continue to do so. I know the continued frustration and all that is missing due to being circumcised and no baby, boy or girl, should ever have to live with this choice being forced upon him or her.”

~V. Burns

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American Female Circumcised by American Doctors

I am a white, anglo-saxon, protestant woman who was circumcised in the USA in the 1950’s. Some women advocate routine infant circumcision for males while decrying FGM in Africa. I cannot advocate cutting anyone, ever, for any reason.

What follows is my story. Thank you for reading it with an open heart.

As far as I can tell, I have scars on my labia set at 90 degree angles where flesh obviously met metal, and a “V”-shaped scar where a clitoris used to be. An expert on female genital anatomy told me I was also missing my clitoral hood.

My parents are both dead so I can’t ask them for details, but I have pieced events together and it seems to make sense that I was cut in two stages: the labia when I was one year old, and the clitoris and hood when I was six. I didn’t find out about it until I was over 50 years of age, so I lived in a bit of hell for many, many years.

My early photos show that I was the happiest of children — until I was in the first grade (see the photos on my website). Then a cloud came over me and after that time photos were full of anger, resentment and rejection. I lived that way for decades. I wanted to be dead. I rejected everyone and everything. I ran away or pushed away everyone who tried to love me… and I had no idea why. I was miserable and thought it was “normal”. I couldn’t understand how people could be happy and love each other. I had few friends. Although I usually had a boyfriend, I was always was exceedingly lonely. I am grateful that I did not turn to alcohol or drugs. A brush I’d had with an angelic voice when I was a little girl let me know suicide was not an option. Eventually, I learned all I could about healing. But nothing seemed to help me out of my own empty anger and grief.

No one could understand me, including myself. And then — a miracle! — I was wondering why most “men” were so different from most women and I realized that most of the men in the United States had been traumatized, when they were just babies, by circumcision. How cruel!. I was shocked, appalled, aghast. Due to my crisis counseling work, I knew that such a terrifying event could ruin an entire life. I felt quite safe around the people I met who were clear about not cutting children and I began to work with them to prevent circumcision. After I’d been involved for a couple of years, through a series of interesting “coincidences,” I discovered that I too had been circumcised. I had lost my clitoris, clitoral hood and labia. All of a sudden, my life made perfect sense. Knowing that I had been traumatized made sense of my feelings and behavior. A year or so ago, I met a wonderful therapist who was safe enough that I could allow myself to think about my childhood and piece together the memories. Healing the trauma came fairly quickly after that. After 50 miserable years, my little black cloud evaporated. I look in the mirror now and I see the happy smile I’d lost at age six. I am happy, at last, to be alive.

I found that I was always good at handling emergencies, so I specialized in dealing with people in trauma… at a crisis center and in private practice as a hypnotherapisst. This gave me a good background for dealing with my own situation when I discovered I’d been mutilated.

My entire life was hell before I found out I’d been cut, so when I found out, a lot of bad old feelings actually went away.. So I am hoping that healing can begin for many of my sisters and brothers who are still unaware that they were traumatized as children. Until they know the horror of it, and until they release the fear and terror around it, they might just be wondering why they kick the dog, throw the cat against the wall, yell at the wife, beat the kids, hate the boss, and frantically accumulate wealth to the detriment of their own integrity.

I hope this blog and my book will plant seeds of hope for your healng and/or compassion for the overwhelming number of people—both men and women—who have had this awful thing happen to them.

I am hoping to find out, by way of a book I wrote (and this blog), how many American women in the United States have been subjected to female genital mutilation. I suspect there are far more than we would ever imagine. I hope, if you were cut, you will get in touch with me. I am sorry it happened to you, and we can support each other in the process of healing the mental, emotional, and spiritual wounds… maybe we can ever figure out, like men have, how to restore our bodies to their original function.

If you would like, you can read more about my book here: http://rapeofinnocence.com/2010/12/17/fgm-circumcision-in-the-usa/. I hope you will enjoy it and it will be of value to you.

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Missing Pieces of Myself

I am a 57 year old, white, Canadian, Anglo-Saxon woman of Irish/English decent, non-religious but deeply spiritual. My story is still in the rough stages. It has only been a matter of weeks since I became aware that I am missing a couple of genital “pieces”. The new awareness has certainly answered many questions for me, and explained a lot about who I am. I was flipping through a book when I came across a picture of two fingers holding onto a clitoris. Impossible! They were describing the head of the clitoris as a wee button. No way! I got out a mirror and studied myself ever so carefully. I have done self explorations before, and pictures in books never looked like me. My conclusion was always that there was something wrong with the pictures! Not this time. I got onto the web, and studied as many pictures as I could find. I couldn’t find one that looked like me. I called my youngest sister. She was adamant that there was a tangible something in the clitoral region, known as the clitoris. You could touch it. It felt good to touch. Interesting. I called a childhood friend with whom I still talk regularly. She agreed with my sister. I called my other sister—two years younger. She would have nothing to do with any self-exploration, she wasn’t interested, sex had always been painful, could we change the subject, please. I have reason to believe she too endured a “cut.”

Anyway, further research on the net turned up a procedure called a clitoridectomy. From my research I determined that this procedure was quite common in the 1800’s, less common in the early 1900’s, yet still being conducted in North America into the mid-fifties, was covered by Blue Cross until mid ’70’s, and not completely banned in the U.S. until 1996. Although the tone of this paragraph sounds all whitewashed and devoid of emotion, my whole being was coming apart as I dredged up this data.

I was beginning to open the door to a truth which I had somehow managed to bury just under the surface of my consciousness. Flashbacks began. I remembered, as a child of 3 or 4, having “something” I could hold on to down there. Being of insatiable curiosity, I questioned my mother about it—as I did for just about everything that entered my line of vision. She was a staunch Roman Catholic of the extreme variety, hung up on sex and particularly masturbation. Somehow she managed to turn my question around to understand that somehow I was upset, disturbed and did not want this thing I was giving my attention to. She could make me “nice and pretty” and in this manner she solicited my agreement. I recall nothing of the actual procedure, but I have had flashbacks of events after the procedure. I recall sitting on the toilet seat and my mother tending the area, and telling me I was “nice and pretty” now. The “tending” happened over numerous occasions.

At the point I was having the above flashbacks, there was still a place in me which wanted to believe I was making all of this up. However, I had another friend who I had shared my concerns with. She had been sexually abused, and as part of her healing process, she had attended a women’s workshop, where they did shared self-exploration as part of getting to know and love their bodies. So she had seen many clitoris’s and felt that perhaps mine was simply small enough that somehow I just couldn't find it. We arranged a show and tell. She couldn’t find it either! It seems that the “head” of the clitoris is missing. The rest is still in place. She noticed something else. Part of the clitoral hood was missing! There is no scar tissue, no discoloration …nice and pretty!

That same night, as I was in the place between waking and sleeping, I experienced the most intense pain in the genital area. I could actually feel the places …which are not there! Because this experience was not a fleeting thing, taking nearly a half hour to subside, it left no question that my suspicions were true. I had yet another flashback about trying to tell my mother how much it hurt, and how it hurt to pee. It hurt for the longest time. I remembered confusion, connected to pain, connected to my mother. My mother always used corporal punishment to discipline us and she began her disciplining as soon as we could crawl. I associated pain and my mother with being a bad girl. I believe I spent the rest of her life trying desperately to please her, so that I would never endure this pain again. Then I married her clone and spent 31 years of marriage following the same pattern. Now that the pain has resurfaced, it feels like it has always been there. Anytime I want to direct my attention to that area I can feel the places …which are not there! When I am very tired the pain returns like a nagging headache. I am amazed at the degree of denial I had to exert in order to block the pain and the memory.

Something I do remember vividly is that when I reached puberty, my mother took me to the doctor without any notice or explanation where I was subjected to a visual genital exam. There I was at 12 or 13 years of age, on the examining table, fully displayed for the doctor and my mother. who were at the end of the table, discussing and pointing at my genitals. This was so totally unexpected, I was so embarrassed and humiliated, that all I could hear of their conversation was Charlie Brown’s Blah! Blah! Blah! As we were leaving the doctor’s office I asked her why I had the examination, and she told me it was “none of my business!” I can only conclude that for whatever reason related to puberty there was a need to check up on their handiwork.

I have always been a deep thinker with an insatiable curiosity. So I have noticed a number of things about myself which I could attribute to this early childhood trauma. For instance, I have always noticed myself not being fully present in the moment. Whenever the going gets rough, I get going, right into some sort of comatose-like, dissociative state where I am not fully present, not fully alive. Could this be a learned behavior from a childhood trauma?

Although I am 57 years old, there is a little girl in me who has never grown up, who is “unsure” of herself, who is easily frightened, who second guesses absolutely everything I do and say. I have done enough personal growth work that I can actually “feel” her. She is ever longing for parental love and approval. So sensitive, always needing reassurance. Years ago, a mentor once said to me how she gave me credit for all my accomplishments, but was very aware of a part of me which was still so childlike. She asked if I could explain it. I knew what she was talking about, but pretended I didn't because I couldn't explain it and was embarrassed by it. Can I explain it now? Is it arrested development as a result of childhood trauma? Will I be able to get a handle on it now? It has definitely stood between me and fully coming into my own as an adult.

And sexually speaking? Sometimes one will never know, what one never knew. I wasn’t a tomboy, but I didn’t go through the girly-girly phase either. I had no longing to dress up, make up and strut my stuff. I didn’t understand flirting. I didn’t understand the chemistry thing that happens between teens when their hormones are raging. My ex-husband picked me out of a group of girls I was with, and decided that very night that I would be his wife. I was flattered beyond words that some guy would actually pin point me in this way. I was 21, and there had only been one casual boyfriend in my entire young life. I was in love with love, and we were married a year later. In my limited opinion, he was a highly sexual man. The little girl in me wanted to be everything he wanted me to be. Perhaps that is where the real problem was! Psychologically perhaps, I just never grew up enough to be a sexually mature woman. Like I said, perhaps I will never know, what I never knew.

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Clitoral Hood Circumcision

My wife is circumsized, she is from Malaysia and I am from England. Apparently her clitoral hood has been removed which is the mildest form of the procedure, but I am unsure if any other part of the clitoris has been removed or cut in the process. What is clear though, is that she does not masturbate and has little sensitivity in her clitoris. I previously have gave her oral sex when we were first married, but as there seems to be little enjoyment from this, I no longer do. We do have sex occasionally and she gets wet and it is enjoyable for me, but she does not orgasm and it is more like a chore for her, and this is saddening to me. She even says to me to go find somebody else to have sex with, or find a second wife if I complain I don’t get it enough.

It is great to have a faithful wife which I think is supposed to be the objective of this ridiculous procedure apart from cleanliness, but disturbing we can not enjoy each other the way I have intimately felt with other women who need sex. She wouldn’t have it any other way, as it is seen as the only way to go in islam and in her family traditions, sex is seen as unclean. She simply does not know what she is missing out on. We love each other and will probably stay together, but clearly if I need sex regularly, which I do, then it must be with somebody else, either an affair or another wife. I do not want that, I would prefer it to be with my wife and only 1 wife.

I can see why muslim men need up to 5 wives, so they can have sex with each one of them occasionally to be satisfied. Sex once a month with one wife is simply not enough. Also can see why many Muslim men also play around behind their wives backs, with little protest from their wives, because their wives don’t particularly care, so long as they still provide to the family, and there is little desire from the wife, so the man is free to get it else where.

Apart from cleanliness, it only makes sense that in islam men are circumsized to avoid sexually transmitted diseases when they sleep with other women behind their wives backs. Plenty of prostitutes available for men in most underdeveloped islamic countries where prostitution is usually a booming trade. I am not circumsized which increases my risk to contract STD’s if I were to sleep with other women, so maybe better in my case to get another wife…..?

I generally have no problems with people who are Islam and love my wife, but how can we stop this stupidity of Muslims feeling compelled to have this done to reduce sexual enjoyment for women? This is the only thing I have against islamic tradition as it can damage a normally functioning husband and wife relationship. In addition, it is not a must in islam, and is more so a cultural tradition for islamic people; not all islamic people have this done. Religion wise, I believe people should be free to believe in what ever they like, but this part of islamic tradition is completely wrong, and has serious effects on marriage and behavior of people in society, both men and women.

It is saddening that Muslims in some countries feel so compelled to do this to baby girls (removing of clit hood for bullsh*t reasons cleanliness). They are that determined, that after my wife agreeing not to have it done to our daughter, then her family still had it done behind my back whilst I was not around, I found out 3.5 years later!! So I am worried my daughter will be in the same situation with her husband in years to come, and will ultimately have an unfaithful husband or a husband that needs more than one wife.

I can only hope that in my daughters case only the clit hood was removed which seems to be the case, and nothing else was cut which may ruin her sexual desire. Some people say removing the clit hood actually increases sexual pleasure, so I can only hope this is the case for my daughter.

So beware all Western people planing on marrying a Muslim, either think twice, or get a complete understanding about these issues first prior to going through with the marriage…

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IGM MGM and my own FGM

In the last ten or 15 years, there has been a growing movement among men to reclaim the foreskin and to regard circumcision as a procedure that should not be done routinely. Female circumcision, more properly called female genital mutilation (fgm), is not done routinely in the West. It is done in some Islamic countries and some non-Islamic tribal cultures. The purpose of cultural fgm is to limit sexual pleasure in women. There is no reason of hygiene to excuse it. An excellent resource on cultural fgm is the book Warrior Marks by Alice Walker and Pratibha Parmar.

Another population group that is routinely mutilated genitally at birth is intersex people. Here my language gets crude, although I am quoting from resources put together by the intersex community. When a newborn shows genital characteristics both male and female, the common philosophy is that "it's easier to make a hole than a pole", and most intersex infants are surgically altered so that they appear female. Dosing with hormones and additional surgeries may follow. These surgeries and dosings are also done on healthy boy babies or toddlers who have been mutilated. A tragic example is the late David Reimer, whose circumcision was botched. Reimer was the subject of the book "As Nature Made Him" by John Colapinto, the story of the failed attempts by Reimer's doctors and parents to make him into a girl, and his attempts to reclaim male identity.

The growing intersex activist community is making an attempt to convince doctors and other health professionals not to routinely mutilate intersex infants at birth, but only to make intervention that is needed for health reasons.

Another group that may be given a form of fgm at birth is otherwise normal girl babies, parts of whose genitals are webbed in some way. One or more surgeries may be done to restore normal, but webbed, female genitals.

FGM can range from "corrective" procedures such as removing webbing from the labia, to infibulation, which is the process of removing the labia and clitoris and sewing up the vagina so that only tiny openings for urine and menses are left, to so-called reconstructive surgery done on intersex infants and accidentally mutilated boys.

If there is anyone reading this who has the opinion that fgm is appropriate, I am here to say that it is not. I would believe that even if it were only an academic or political consideration. But for me it's personal. I was subjected to fgm when I was a newborn in Ohio. My labia were left intact but my clitoris was removed.

Feminists say with pride that the clitoris is the only part of the human body that exists solely for pleasure. To me, it is almost unspeakably criminal to remove a healthy clitoris for cosmetic reasons, which is what appears to have been done in my case. To that crime was added the crime of silence. I was not told what had been done.

I believe the fgm was done to me right after birth. The most information I've been able to get, since my earliest medical records were destroyed (something that happens often to intersex people) was that I was kept apart from my mother for the first eleven days of life. No explanation remains. My impending birth had caused the shotgun wedding of my parents, and there was no one who was looking forward to my arrival, no one who cared that I was kept isolated at first.

I didn't even hear the word "clitoris" until I was in my late teens. Sex education for me was a book that had diagrams of male and female primary sex organs and a discussion of how babies get started and grow. Plus the usual indoctrination girls get about how not to be messy during menstruation. Nothing on sexual pleasure, either alone or with a partner. The usual nasty schoolyard jokes about nice girls versus good girls, and snide comments overheard about which girls were "easy".

I became sexually active in the 1960's. Living in the usual student arrangements, with thin or non-existent walls, I heard women making all sorts of noises during sex. Sometimes women would make comments about the orgasms they'd had. All that left me, ahem, cold, and once I heard the word "frigid" I decided that I must be that, although emotionally I didn't feel frigid. My male partners were not helpful in that regard, since to this day I have not had a male partner who cared one way or the other, except to blame me if he noticed my lack of extreme response.

All along, I knew I was different. I didn't even try to sort out the causes until I was in my late 40's. I had my daughter when I was 22. The next 18 years, she came first, my job came second, and everything else got the leftovers. Then there were a couple of years when I was trying to get used to being alone again. Finally there came a time when I was able to start sorting some things out.

I started on the quest with a visit to my counselor. She helped me get motivated. I saw my family doctor. Her reaction was pretty much, "Hey, whatta ya know!" She gave me a referral to an endocrinology clinic. There I was seen by two doctors whose specialty was gynecological endocrinology (try saying that fast). They gave me a physical exam and a testosterone tolerance test. In that test they injected me with testosterone and had me sit for an hour to see if I turned into Mike Tyson. When I didn't, they diagnosed me with idiopathic clitoromegaly. In plain language, that means that I was a normal woman who had apparently been born with a large but normal clitoris. Without my early medical records, that's all they could say.

A legal note - I am not interested in suing anyone. Most of the people involved are dead. I don't want to bankrupt the hospital where it was done. And I'm not angry. Maybe I should be, but I'm not. I just want respect for my circumstances, more information about my situation, and publicity for all women who have been or are at risk of being genitally mutilated.

It's natural for a person to try to come up with a "why" when something big happens to them. Humans want explanations. I'm no exception.

Could the obstetrician who delivered me have been a sadistic woman-hater? Or did the obstetrician decide that if he left me intact, I would have so much pleasure from my normal, large clitoris that I would play with it all day rather than sit quietly and learn to be a nice girl?

Sexual minority people were among the first serious users of the Internet, and there are a lot of resources out there. I made some contacts and I also set up my own web page. I set it up on the "old" geocities, and it's no longer available, but when it was, I got maybe 2 or 3 serious contacts a month from people who were interested in either learning more or in better understanding a friend who may have been given fgm.

Another contact I received when my web page was still available was a man who asked if I'd be interested in joining an email list he was on, the Restoration List for circumcised men who are restoring their foreskins. I asked the list's moderator and he said I was very welcome, that there were a few other women on the list including at least one other woman who had been given fgm.

I've found a very welcoming community in the people of the Restoration List. I've also attended a local meeting of restorers, and I've found welcome there also. I've found that everyone who is making an effort to heal from genital mutilation has a deep kinship.

I feel compelled to reach out. All stories of genital mutilation need to be told. Genital mutilation is wrong.

I'm also hoping that by writing this I can start to get rid of some of the bad things from my past. The "family" in which I grew up was a very unhealthy one. The fact that I was never told by a family member that I had been subjected to fgm is just one of many instances of neglect. I was a very unhappy, depressed child. All my life I've been very sensitive and nervous, but as a kid all I ever got when I was upset was ridicule or physical punishment.

As I got older and was able to leave "home", I had a lot of difficulty making and keeping friends. What a surprise - I had trouble trusting people! And I still do. I have trouble being physically close to others. I know that my emotional problems have had a result of hurting people who cared about me. People have given up trying to be my friend or my lover because of my inability to trust, my freezing up at even the most casual touch.

I'm tired of hurting people and of constantly feeling pain. Suicide has been a companion and a temptation most of my life. My first attempt took place when I was four years old. I was bulimic when I was five. I'm an alcoholic. My personal life is a joke. But something makes me keep going. I want to get beyond the silence and the secrets, into the light.

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Back to Sections

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Uncircumcised Women

I felt sure I was right

My regret is not over having my own son circumcised, but for bullying my brother to get my nephew circumcised.

I feel an enormous amount of guilt. My sister-in-law wanted my nephew circumcised, and my brother said, "Absolutely not. Nobody is going to operate on my son's penis!". She appealed to my mother and me, as the oldest sister, I was also encouraged to tell him the error of his ways. Mom and I told my brother he was uneducated about the issue (we, who had NEVER read a single article on circumcisions), and that he was putting his son at serious risk. At the time, both parents were teenagers.

I don't know that what we said had a great deal of effect on my brother, but the fact remains that his son was circumcised.

When I found out I was pregnant and was having a son, my friend got a video to watch about circumcision. She watched it, and still had her son circumcised. I watched 2 minutes, almost threw up, and started doing research. I shared my research with my husband and he was not totally swayed. I showed him the video. He watched the entire thing, and said we'd never do that to our sons.

I was disgusted with myself. Had I not happened to find out about the video, would I have changed my mind? Would I have gone with status quo? Of course I would have, convinced that I was doing everything right. Why don't the doctors try to talk you out of it? Why don't they at least try to educate you on the issue? Even the professional papers of our major medical associations admit there is no justifiable health benefit to circumcision. It angers me that so many people are doing this simply because they believe if the insurance pays for it, and the doctor does it without discussion, it MUST be right.

Since then, I've tried to convince 2 people close to me not to have their son's circumcised, and I failed. I wish insurance didn't pay for the surgery; that might make people think twice about it.

Oh, my mom did change her mind after I did my research. She admitted that, like me, she had been assuming it was normal and healthy. She says she doesn't believe she would have had my brother circumcised if she'd realized she had a say in it. She really thought it was something required by law, back in 1978. So we are both reformed; it is tragic that it had to happen after my brother could have really used us on his side. All he had was his gut feeling, and we let him down.

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He had no choice

I have just started to see a man who was circumcised as a baby and was shocked when he told me that he has very little sensation at all in his penis and that he can’t really feel anything during penetrative intercourse as a result. This lead me to do some research on the internet and there is so much information and similar stories out there about this.

From what I can tell he has had the foreskin removed as well as some of the skin from the shaft rendering this area numb effectively. I was amazed too that he has never discussed his parents decision with them, as personally I would be angry and hurt that someone had made this life changing decision for me at such a young age.

From a woman’s perspective, I can see no benefit from circumcision. I prefer it when a man is complete. Failing that, I'd rather he didn't have a really noticeable circumsision scar, or such a tight circumcision that the skin looked stretched when he had an erection. If men were not meant to have a foreskin they wouldn’t have been born with it and I truly believe you shouldn’t mess with what nature provides us. I’m saddened that men have to live with the results of their parent’s decisions and the impact that this choice can have on their sexual relationships.

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Tight Circumcision and Intimacy

BOTH of my nephews (my brothers son and HIS brothers son) had botched circs and had to be re-circed at 8-9 months old under general anesthesia. My husband also had a botched circed that was never corrected. It took a while for my husband to realize that the issues he had with his were a direct result of a poorly done circ...

I've only been with ONE person. Someone with a tight circ. I thought it was normal sex. What did I have to compare with? At that time, the other women I knew, even if they'd been with multiple people they were all circ'd. So, they didn't know any better either.

I do know a couple of women who had an encounter with an intact man as well as circ'd. Those women seemed to think that the guy was particularly talentend and experienced. They never seem to make the connection. One of them was with a Romanian athlete. Anyhow, she STILL talks about those months with amazement, a glow in her eyes (she's now married to a cut american engineer with two kids, two cut little boys ). The best sex she has ever had in her life. It wasn't until after I suggested it may have something to do with the circ status that the wheels started turning.

The first encounter I had with a woman who outwardly professed the difference was with my doula. She was engaged to an intact man. She called him "super sexual", and said that the simplest touch would evoke the deepest pleasure. He was easy to please and their sex life was amazing. She was very experienced sexually (unlike myself) and told me that from her multiple experiences that she *knew* the difference first hand.

Anyhow, for all those years after I was married I thought what I was feeling was normal. That it was normal for a man to need such rough stimulation, that to pound away like that was normal. Sure, it hurt, and left me sore, but I thought that was my problem...KWIM? We had to buy extra lube, and that helped somewhat.

My husband too thought that it was normal to have a mixture of pain/pleasure during masturbation/sex as did I. Even though things would feel "good" there were also many negative/painful sensations as well. And, he couldn't O unless there was rough pounding stimulation.

The first so many years after we were married, I thought there was something "off" but tried my best to just put it in the back of my mind. Didn't want to deal with it...especially as I was going to be having sex with this person the REST of my life. I figured I'd better tolerate/get used to it. As I got older, and pregnant, the rough stuff became even MORE disturbing to me. So, I started learning more and the circ stuff explained it!

I learned about this while reading about circ, then after having a bleeding episode while pregnant (due to rough sex) I started to just get fed up with it. I resented that I had to keep reminding him to slow down, tell him that it was hurting, and I would get so overwhelmed during intercourse I was feeling like I was being raped (seriously felt disconnect) and I would cry afterwards. Here I was, pregnant, and worried that he was going to cause me to have a miscarriage. I am not kidding .

Learning all the information (I had bought the book in conjunction with a DOC book on amazon), it made me realize I was not alone. That I shouldn't have to suffer these negatives and not speak out. That what I had been experiencing wasn't really "normal", well, it was normal for a typically circumcised penis here in the US, but it wasn't normal human intercourse.

Of course, my husband was so upset at first, honestly he told me that I should just go start a relationship on the side with an intact man (I kid you not). Though, I was very reassuring that I did not want that, I just wanted him to be back to what he was meant to be so we could have the intimacy we were meant to. I told him..."if someone told you that you could have better sex and intimacy your whole life by doing this, wouldn't you at least CONSIDER it?"

So, we started the process of restoration. VERY slowly. It's already made a remarkable difference. My husband went into it, for me , not expecting anything. It's been pleasantly surprising for both of us. Whole new sensations exist for him that didn't before. There have also been many benefits for me as well.

He's definitely not as intactivist as I am, though he will speak out if asked. Not about the restoration, but he is very proud that our son is whole!

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What I could have done

A friend & I found out the same weekend in April, 1999 that we were both unexpectantly pregnant. We were shocked, yet also a little excited. This would be my second birth, her fourth. I had encouraged her to breastfeed her third daughter and supported her through their extended nursing. We had talked about how my first son was intact; there were no secrets between us. We were very open and close to each other, and I felt that if they had any questions they knew they would ask me for my opinion. That was a huge mistake I will regret the rest of my life!

My pregnancy was very stressful which resulted in my son being born 3 months before his due date. Our babies had been due within days of each other. They moved a few times during our pregnancies, but we remained close and they were a great support for me and my children. Their child was born without complications, healthy and perfect in every way. Now this is their story:

The new father and his parents were in the hospital room the day after his son’s birth when a nurse came to get the baby for his scheduled circumcision. After the nurse had left with the baby, the grandfather spoke up and told his son and daughter-in-law that routine infant circumcision was not necessary. The new, proud, and macho dad said, ‘But I am!’ to which his father responded, “I’m not.” He was shocked—he never knew that his own father had his foreskin. He had grown up in the same house for 20 years and had never known his father was intact. He immediately decided to pick up the phone to call the nurses station. They had only had the baby for a few minutes. The dad remembers that the nurse never put the phone down to check, before she said, “it’s probably too late”. The boy was cut.

My friends asked his parents why they had had him (and his brother) circumcised. His father explained that his wife didn’t want the boys to feel ‘different’ than other boys, and thought it was ‘better.’

We visited them when their son was 4 months old. In the process of changing his diapers one afternoon, I caught a glimpse of his penis—or what was left of it! There was absolutely no shaft showing and only the top quarter of the glans was noticeable. I was horrified! I couldn’t say anything, but did research on ‘it’ and discovered that he had what is known as a buried penis. I printed out everything I could find on this subject.

Neither parent of this new male child ever felt comfortable with the way their son’s circumcision looked, but never said anything to anyone about their feelings. Just before their son turned two, I received a call from the father asking me when we could get together again. I was hesitant because his voice sounded urgent. He then explained that the baby had been waking them up with groaning and moaning, but not enough to wake himself up, and knowing that I had been working with NOCIRC for a number of years he wanted my ‘expert opinion’ on their son’s circumcision. I was relieved that they had finally mentioned something to me.

I told them that their son had a buried penis, that I had been shocked when I had seen it and had accumulated a wealth of information for them. I went up the following weekend to deliver everything and talk to them. The dad said his son’s penis made him uncomfortable because it didn’t look anything like his own (I think they originally thought it would change in time). On every doctor visit they had asked the numerous doctors about his penis, and every single one of them commented on ‘the fine job’ and what a ‘beautiful circumcision’ had been done (this reinforces that doctors won’t, or don’t, want to say anything negative about another doctor, as obviously this circumcision botched this baby’s penis).

Eventually, they found a doctor to ‘fix’ the baby’s penis, it required another surgery with sedation to remove the glans and shaft from the fatty pouch in his groin, and with a long recovery time. The father had a conversation with their daughters, (the oldest was then 13) and begged and pleaded with them to promise that IF they ever have sons that they never circumcise them. I have tried numerous times without success to have them file a lawsuit for the damage done. They want to put it all behind them. I have made a promise to myself and them, that when their son is an adult that I will contact him and give him all the same information that I’ve given to the parents, including support for filing a lawsuit. I have doubts that this boy will ever have a satisfying, non-painful, erection. I regret that I didn’t speak up and discuss not circumcising if they had a boy and the benefits of natural, intact genitals! Maybe I could have saved this baby, his parents, and family from this doctor’s injustice who was too aggressive with a knife.

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Increasing Misogyny

I've always thought circumcision was dumb, pointless, idiotic, puritanical, and downright mean! It wasn't until I became the mother of a son that I began to think of it as much, much worse. It wasn't until then that I would wince at the sight of someone who has had that done to him. To me, it looks creepy; it is creepy. It looks bruised , stripped, broken. Mutilated. Unnatural. Painful and numb at the same time.

It wasn't until I became the mother of a son that I thought of circumcision as the root of all evil"or at least the root of misogyny. How could they not grow up and stomp us under their boots after we allow such a hideous, agonizing torture to be inflicted on their freshly born little bodies?

A gestating and newborn person's mother is absolutely everything to him. No matter how much dad talks to the baby in utero, or plays Chopin for him on his violin, no matter how well the baby recognizes other people at birth, mom is still the only one he really knows. Inside out. She is not just the source of life; she is life. Mom is Goddess. Her body is Eden. She is paradise, bliss, and eternity. A minute away from her is an eon of exile and agony. Without her there is no life, only interminable desolation. She looms so large and all-important that he can't see beyond her. And to imagine her as a separate being, or as weak, or as under someone else's influence is unfathomable.

So that's why if something terrible happens, it's mom who allowed it. (In our society, whatever is wrong with a person is usually "their mother's fault.") It is She who betrayed him. There just isn't anybody else. It's Woman who's responsible for Man's fall from Grace"according to the circumcised, Old Testament, patriarchal lot. It doesn't matter who actually does it--they are just pawns, devices, minions, tools, instruments of torture"it's Her Will. It doesn't matter who actually wants it or what the alleged reasons are.

How could a betrayal so huge, so profound, NOT take root in the tons and tons of societal garbage heaped upon the heads of little boys and produce such misogynous crap as wife-beating, witch-hunting, prostitution, pornography, mother-blaming, rape, sexism, endless perversions of every kind, and just general cold, unemotional, not-able-to-talk-about-his-feelings kind of guys? It couldn't.

But one, whole, feeling little boy raised with integrity will grow up to be one whole, feeling man with integrity. He will be horrified when he learns of the atrocity committed by his fellows. He will speak against it. He will have a whole, different outlook on life"one not based on pain, fear of pain, suppression of pain, or administering of pain"and therefore a life that touches others in a whole, different way. This boy will make a difference.

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Echoes in the Body

Recently, I completed a doctoral research project in which I investigated the possible link between the way children do selected yoga postures for the first time and their individual birth experiences. The body language of 22 children, five to nine years old, was carefully videotaped and analyzed. To learn about the children's birth experiences I interviewed the parents. After analysis of the data, I was able to identify spe-cific elements in the performance of the yoga postures that could be perceived as clues to the child's prenatal and birth experience.

In the course of this research, I made an unexpected observation related to male circumcision. It can only be considered preliminary at this point, as the study was not designed to focus on this issue, and, had it not been so evident in this small sample, I probably would not have noticed it. Asking about circumcision had not been on my original list of questions for the interview with parents. Fortunately, the first father inter-viewed mentioned it, so I included a question about circumcision for all of the boys in the study.

What I observed was that the seven boys in the study who had been circumcised did not place their hips on the floor when doing an abdominal-lying-arch posture (the "cobra" pose for those of you familiar with yoga postures). In contrast, the two boys in the study who had not been circumcised did it easily.

When I mentioned this observation to a colleague who is a body-worker, she said she had noticed that her clients who had been circumcised were much more rigid in the pelvic area than those who had not been cir-cumcised. If this very preliminary observation is confirmed, it would be coherent with a recent finding on the long-term effect of circumcision on pain tolerance. A team at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Ontario (1995) studied the pain responses of children having routine vaccinations four to six months after birth. They discovered that boys circumcised as infants had higher behavioral pain scores and cried longer.

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