Circumcision is to violate the trust of a baby boy at his most vulnerable age, by the people whom he trusts the most, and to directly and ruthlessly attack the nerve endings on one of the most intimate parts of the body.
If this was done forcibly under any other context it would likely be considered some kind of torture, and the symptoms of the procedure are all classic trauma conditions, especially given the religious variants of this procedure are often done with little to no anesthesia, and most studies have shown even with anesthesia the baby still undergoes significant pain. So what happens when a child learns of this direct attack on his body integrity? Even if they didn’t remember it at birth, they can’t simply forget the fact this was done to them once they inevitably become aware of it.
They’ve really only got two options.
A. They try to rationalize away this psychotic procedure allowed done to them by their parents with religion and pseudoscience.
B. They get the picture, namely, their parents were dangerously uninformed and potentially still are.
And if you’re in some muslim country, or even good old Israel, where in a recent news story a woman was possibly facing jail time or extraordinary fines for not performing this barbaric ritual on her son, you could even be persecuted or ostracized from your own family for not participating.
In my own case, I had no idea until I was 7 or 8 years old and a friend of mine mentioned it when I told him my family was jewish. He told me about how jews practice this and how he was intact. The can of worms was opened. I was quite honestly shocked, and appalled, and I thought he was lying. I thought at the time it must have just been a tiny piece of the glans penis removed, the natural state of the penis being practically unfathomable to me, no longer having any valid reference.
The damage to my trust was already done. From that point on I was extremely sensitive about anyone seeing me down there, during bath time I would cover up or wear trunks, and I remember getting very angry at a doctor during a physical. I felt like something was wrong with me, despite in my case, trying to justify it as being fairly common and ‘normal’ in america.
The first time I saw an intact penis, ironically, I thought that person had their glans penis amputated. I was at camp, and probably every boy there was cut except for this one. Given the circumcision rates in america during the 1980s, that’s probably no big surprise. I was extremely shy about changing in front of other boys, in fact, I remember the intact kid was one of the kids trying to re-assure me we’re all normal and there’s no reason to be shy…the real truth is, the only reason I was even shy about changing in that gym class at all was due to the insecurity caused in myself after learning about this horrible practice. I probably had some weird form of childhood body integrity disorder that was completely misdiagnosed because I never talked to any adults about this subject until I was much, much older.
The damage was done though. I learned about it the ‘wrong way.’ It really does make me wonder how much different of a person I may be had I found out about it just a few years later, during hebrew school, where I was to be properly indoctrinated with this information.
I remember in 2nd grade, the religious teacher told the story of Abraham and would speak so quickly over the parts about the dirty deed at hand. I sat in disgust the entire time. I could even tell in her tone of voice there was something wrong with this story, and the fact she was given the task to indoctrinate these 2nd graders with this story, the nervous tone in her voice spoke wonders to this skeptical 2nd grader.
I later asked this teacher about dinosaurs on noah’s ark and I think I pretty much got thrown out of the class and put into the ‘special learning’ class after that. There, I hung out with the principal’s son, where we listened to nirvana and green day, and had a pet hamster. That sounds a lot better than learning about cutting babies dicks and trying to justify noah’s ark doesn’t it? Religion was pretty much dead to me at this point. There was no god, and even if there was, I wasn’t worshipping the god obsessed with cutting boy’s dicks.
And thus I am not the only one, I am only one of many males who has undergone this form of ritual abuse, and hope to escape the psychosexual damage to the psyche. However, I fear for the rest of the world still practicing this procedure, and all those who fell into category A, and rationalized away their parents mistake. I know I’m not the only one with a story like this, the internet has allowed other men to come out and expose this irrational practice for what it’s worth.
The sad thing is, they justify this abuse with religion and that puts it into a funny gray area you’re not supposed to talk about. Most americans who had this done to them can’t say it was for strictly religious purposes, so they have to rationalize the procedure with purely pseudoscience. And for all those people who try to justify this procedure on their kids for religious purposes, I am hear to speak out as someone that does not believe in their parents religion, telling you to leave your babies dick the fuck alone! You have no right to indoctrinate them, and there is no guarantee they will drink your koolaid later in life. The fact you have to go so far as to mutilate your child’s penis for your religion should be a sign you’re a lunatic, but if that wasn’t sign enough, stop thinking about your children’s genitals in the first place.
I won’t even go into the pseudo-science arguments about aids and cleanliness. The first rule of medicine is do no harm, and any doctor who resorts to routine surgery as a preventative measure on a perfectly healthy newborn child should quite frankly consider questioning why they became a doctor in the first place.
And take a look at the cultures and religions who still practice this horrible crap: Americans, jews, and muslims.
And lets see, what groups of people are constantly at war, fighting, and rationalizing the killing of innocent people, etc…? Oh, Americans, jews, and muslims.
Look, I’m no fool, I know it’s a fallacy to correlate those without any real factual basis, but the real truth is, any culture or society which lacks the fundamental respect for human rights required to banish this barbaric tribal blood ritual from general practice, also probably lacks a lot of other fundamental moral and ethical characteristics, and should probably be treated as you would a lion on a leash, not as dictators of world decision.
I can’t help but think that there’s a large amount of unattributed psychosexual damage done to the men of these societies as a whole, that leads them down not only paths of aggression, war, sexual repression and misogyny, but also inability to reach climax, and erectile dysfunction. And don’t think it’s no coincidence that America is so big on viagra. The damage done by circumcision comes in many forms, and is not always equal. For a large majority, there’s really no major complaints, but then later in life there’s that familiar american story of erectile dysfunction. What do you expect when you lop off 20,000 nerve endings?
Then there’s the well known fact that circumcision in america was often done to curb masturbation and sexuality, a lesson leftover from victorian era lunacy. And in the mean time, we’ve just been struggling to come up with diseases to use this ‘cure’ for. Everything from cleanliness to aids.
The even more sad truth is that I feel there’s an entire generation of overly confident baby boomers in america who have had this shit so ingrained into their psyche’s that it’s scary. They’ve become the new old-racist-grandparents of our generation. They’re here to tell you about how foreskins are gross and how those damn elephant necks need to be kept out of our country.
Then in comes the debate rationalizer. In every debate on this topic, there’s the person trying to come in, and pretend to be level headed, and say, hey, both sides are being too extreme, it’s really kind of a minor thing, all of ya’ll still have functional junk, just get on with it!
And/or the person who comes to discredit anyone who draws any comparison to the fact that the female version of this is banned in most civilized countries, regardless of whether the person at hand understands the similarities and differences between the two.
Way to ignore a massive human rights violation because you feel the need to play devils advocate. Ignore the cries for help in the torture chamber much? Oh wait…that’s exactly what these people are doing.
Who cares! I’m a macho man! No big deal! Let the apologetic men and the perverted religious continue their blood ritual, I’d rather be on the fence than have to offend anyone. And so the abuse continues…
It’s not anti-semitic or anti-muslim to want to ban this practice outright, rather, it’s anti-human-rights of americans, jews and muslims who want to continue their weird perverted rituals into the 21st century. We don’t make exceptions for women, why do we for men?