Framing Circumcision for the (Happliy)* Circumcised
Posted on | November 3, 2009 | 25 Comments
I am very much a non-fan of male circumcision. You can read my previous writings on the topic here, here, here and here. An unfortunate holdover from our sex-negative Victorian past, the genital modification discards the most sensitive part of a man’s sexual organ and changes the way that organ functions. This kind of thing clearly has no place in our medical community, but what torments me as a sex educator is how to advocate against circumcision in a country where many men are, unfortunately, already circumcised, myself included.
Each of us starts from a powerful basic assumption that we are normal, so it’s a rhetorical challenge of the highest order to convince a population of circumcised men or women that they are mutilated or lesser than, the biggest problem of that effort being that you might succeed: Sex is so much in the mind that the very thought that you are missing something could cause the system to malfunction much more powerfully than any excised bit of flesh. In an Italian study of circumcised immigrant women, researchers concluded that:
In FGM/C women, when their culture makes them live their mutilation as a positive condition, orgasm is experienced. When there is a cultural conflict, the frequency of orgasm is reduced even if the anatomical and physiological conditions make it possible.
For a second example, a recent study of men in the US demonstrated that giving a man false negative feedback on his erection actually had a real negative affect on his erection. In other words, a guy watches a dirty movie. Without being able to see or touch his erection, he predicts how hard he is. When the researcher tells the guy that he’s less hard that he actually is, his actual erection goes down.
(Two things worthy of more examination. First, what might be the effect of pharmaceutical companies bombarding American men with false concerns about whether our erections are good enough? Second, I always thought it was dumb when women said, “You are so hard!” Apparently, not so dumb. Keep up the good work ladies.)
Considering all these complicating factors and also not much wanting to dwell on the idea that I myself am mutilated, I have landed at the following way to frame circumcision for the circumcised:
The human body in general and the sexual system in specific is massively over-engineered. You can excise a shockingly large amount of female erogenous tissue and these women still are capable of sexual pleasure and orgasms. In the previously referenced Italian study, 95 of 137 circumcised women (69%) from a Somali community in Florence reported having an orgasm every time they had vaginal intercourse. That beats every study I’ve read of intact Western women.
My point is not that Western women should consider getting circumcised for the sake of their own sexual fulfillment. I quite obviously don’t think we should be cutting anything off of anyone. All I’m saying is that the sexual response is plenty rugged enough to absorb the fallout from humanity’s favorite indoor/outdoor sport from time immemorial: Fun with the Body.
We bind feet, we tattoo, scar and pierce skin, we stretch ears and lips and put so many rings around a neck that it can no longer stand up on its own, and in our favorite Fun with the Body game with out most rugged system, we giddily trim bits off of genitals. Once we’re done, we look at our own culture’s work and chat about how civilized and healthy and clean we are and then we point across a border to another culture and shake our heads over their savagery. It’s the standard issue, peculiar, familiar and all-too-human nonsense.
To both circumcised men and women, I would say that whatever you have, it works just fine and don’t let anyone tell you different. But at the same time, don’t let that confuse you. The fact that it works is no thanks to the guy or gal who came at you with the scalpel or sharp flint or burning ember or whatever it was. It’s thanks to the great bounty of nature that endowed each of us with a sexual response with so much excess capacity it is capable of overcoming the most unthinkable mutilation we can throw at it.
Most importantly, the fact that your sexual system was forced to overcome a certain challenge does not in any way mean that you have to throw that same challenge at your child. Fun with the Body is a game we can stop playing any time we want. We should stop.
* Nov. 8, 2009. In response to an exchange with a reader, I added a parenthetic (Happily) to the title of this post. There are men and women who have been so injured by over-enthusiastic circumcisionists. I don’t want my comments about the ruggedness of the sexual system to imply that I think any resulting dysfunction is all in their heads. This title is more accurate also, in that my particular interest in the debate over the practice of circumcision is how best to approach a population who are themselves circumcised and think of themselves as fully functioning and normal, and therefore experience strong incentives to pass their exact genital styling to their girls and boys.
Tags: Circumcision > Orgasm > pleasure > Sex Health > sex negativity
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25 Responses to “Framing Circumcision for the (Happliy)* Circumcised”
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November 3rd, 2009 @ 6:33 pm
Adrian: I think what most of us opposed to circumcision would be happy with, is first to stop Medicaid funding for it in all the States, and then second, to require the permission of the person involved, who should not be a minor, before performing the operation. As an uncircumcised man, I must tell you, I would rather lose any finger than that part of my anatomy.
November 3rd, 2009 @ 7:44 pm
I can’t agree more with what you say. I chose to write again on the topic because of the recent noise from medical societies trying to enshrine it as a salutary procedure. What a horror story. It upsets me that yet another generation of American boys will be subjected to circumcision. Thanks for reading and thanks for commenting.
November 4th, 2009 @ 11:30 am
It breaks my heart to hear about so many fathers who do it to their kids, for no other reason than that it was done to them…like the bible says, “the sins of the father are visited unto the 7th generation.” Time to break the cycle of violence!
Great last lines btw!
November 4th, 2009 @ 2:00 pm
This is relevant: some NSFW excerpts from Dan Savage’s sex advice column for a man who lost his entire glans (head of the penis) during circumcision as an infant:
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/SavageLove?oid=19705
And the follow up with advice for him on how to have an alternative sex life and achieve orgasm:
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/SavageLove?oid=19995
November 4th, 2009 @ 2:20 pm
What a great column by Dan Savage. Thanks for the pointer. The only thing I object to is his statement and our culture’s concept that female circumcision is that it’s a castration of a sort which closes the door entirely on sexual pleasure. Even the most severe forms of it leave much of the erectile tissue in place. Circumcised women do experience pleasure and orgasm. Every time I bring this up, I feel like I have to re-emphasize that I’m not for any of any of the genital modifications at all. I just don’t want to convince anyone in any physical state that their sexual life is over.
The story of the glans-less guy is horrifying. The follow-up suggestions about finding someone who will play with his ass were right on though. Paraplegic women and men with no nervous communication to their genitals can have orgasms through stimulation of the Vagus nerve, a nerve that winds through the gut, bypassing the spinal column. So regardless of the damage done, pleasure is still available. That’s the astonishing ruggedness of the system that I’m talking about.
November 5th, 2009 @ 6:26 am
I can’t imagine how the guy’s parents must feel. And I hope he sued the hospital for millions of dollars, but I doubt it, I think that sort of thing is hard to do because of the statute of limitations, unless he pursues a “sexual assault against a minor” angle but our culture, and thus our law system, isn’t quite there yet. Maybe in another generation.
One of the halloween costumes I was considering was “a knife-wielding maniac with a medical degree” but I thought that might be too much of a downer at the med-student parties I went to…
November 6th, 2009 @ 2:12 pm
Thanks for this post. Whenever I tell people I think male circumcision is comparable to female genital mutilation I get the incredulous stare and the stories about how it doesn’t hurt, etc.
I am always looking for ways to help people understand that they can say no to circumcision! Great blog.
November 6th, 2009 @ 2:19 pm
Thanks so much for commenting. It is hard for people to believe but there’s a lot of data out there.
November 7th, 2009 @ 1:41 am
I love your writing Adrian but I’m a bit torn on this one. I appreciate your attempt to defuse the psychological time bomb that is circ, but on the other hand your comment about the anatomical effects “whatever you have, it works just fine” isn’t accurate and I don’t think it’s helpful to those who are suffering sensual loss or dysfunction.
I’ve known two harshly cut men who struggled to reach orgasm and very often didn’t. This is anecdotal and therefore perhaps not reliable but i’ve heard so many people say the same thing especially in relation to a harsh American or Muslim cut which took it all and the frenulum. Most of these men, like the guys I dated have absolutely no idea circ could possibly be an issue: like the guys in Senkul’s study they see circ as a positive so the difficulty can’t be psychosomatic.
Like the women in Solinis’s study I don’t appreciate this increase in the length of sex – it makes it get dry and abrasive and i could be sore and itchy for days afterwards. Although I often stopped long after I wanted to, it was often long before he’d come which made me feel guilty… So I would try to give him really good oral which also resulted in failure… One admitted that at at 38 he’d NEVER had an orgasm in oral sex…
I’m a nice well brought up girl who likes to say things that make men feel good, but when a scarred desensitised man told me he would cut our sons because ‘it’s what we do in my culture’ I didn’t hold back. I told him everything, including that I was used to coming simultaneously with intact men (yes I used that word). He burst into tears. I think it was the right thing to do because he then went away and did some reading and decided he will not do it, even if we split (and he did subsequently ask me to marry him!).He won’t join any campaigning group though because he says he just can’t bear to think about it too much – which is understandable. If he’s in a bad mood he occasionally brings it up and says ‘you hate my c*ck’ – to which i answer, ‘he’s a war hero and i love him, but I hate those who did this to him.’
The point of saying all this is that I don’t really think it’s necessarily the right thing to do to play down the harm to make victims feel better. The Emperor needs to know his new c*ck isn’t anything like as good as his old one…. As does the doctor that sold him the new c*ck.
November 7th, 2009 @ 7:02 am
I appreciate the pushback on this one. I certainly don’t want to minimize the experiences of people suffering dysfunction from a genital mutilation, male or female, or imply that the problem is in their head. I should have titled it Framing Circumcision for the (Happily) Circumcised. The rhetorical question I’m interested in is this: In order to convince a man that he should not circumcise his son, do you have to convince him that his own circumcision is a debility? (Same question for a woman.) There absolutely needs to be a hard line arguing exactly that: “It’s a mutilation, period. So stop.” I laud those who make that argument and in making mine, I tried to be careful, perhaps unsuccessfully, not to push against it.
Instead, I’m trying to work out an argument that does directly press against the main rhetorical stance of male circumcision advocates in this country, namely that male circumcision cannot be a mutilation, as claimed by inactivists, because the vast majority of circumcised men find themselves to be sexually functional.
In short, my response is: No kidding. The body is amazingly over-engineered. Paralyzed people can have orgasms. That’s not an argument for paralyzing people.
A second cornerstone of the pro-circumcision argument is to create as much space as possible between male and female circumcision, as if it’s inherently evil to mention them in the same breath. In fact, they are very closely associated. They both began in the same little corner of Africa; as shown in studies, the female sexual system is pretty rugged in response to losing erogenous tissue, similar to the male. Both male and female genital modifications do change sexual function. And on and on.
In any case, this elaboration is certainly not an argument against anything that you said. I sincerely appreciate the pushback, as it will help me develop my arguments in this area.
And by the way anecdotes are important where stats are low or hard to obtain. Without anecdotes, no one would be worried about shark attacks.
November 7th, 2009 @ 2:56 pm
Hi Adrian – thanks, I get what you’re saying and I think you’re right to explore this idea.
The wilful damage to something we see as over-engineered is a funny one isn’t it, in every other area of life we love equipment which is complex and over-engineered, even(especially with software) to the point where we don’t even need the features it has…
Perhaps the argument to the happily circumcised man is that his son could have even more than he has – don’t give him a classic screwdriver give him an expensive multi purpose power tool – what man doesn’t want one of those?!
November 8th, 2009 @ 9:12 am
Laura, I love the screwdriver analogy, I’ll definitely use that as I develop this line of thinking.
By the way, you are a marvelous example of a woman (I didn’t want to mention this in my first response in case it seemed like I was pandering in the face of criticism). It’s a lucky man or woman who can find someone who will lovingly roll up their sleeves and get with the project of helping their partner experience sexual pleasure.
It was interesting to hear the specific symptoms of your partners: Inability to have orgasms in oral sex, long time to orgasm, need for lubricant. These are very much characteristics of my sexual experience, as detailed in How to Make Love to Adrian Colesberry. Like your partner, nothing I care to dwell on. But interesting points of commonality.
November 10th, 2009 @ 10:10 am
Andrew Sullivan covers the pending anti-circumcision bill in the Massachusetts State Legislature. They’re accepting written testimony on it now, but a public hearing will take place sometime in January 2010.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/11/mgm-news.html
November 11th, 2009 @ 12:40 am
So good to read an article so to the point and yet in a way that grabs the readers interest.
I agree with all of it and could add hundreds of pages but that is not the point, you make a good introduction, explain and conclude so well to get the minds working.
On the issue of circumcised women, an Australian lady who kept failing her anatomy exams (sorry I cannot remember all the details, Norm-UK would have it in their archives)used the latest CT scanner to analyse the tissue of women’s vagina and genitalia directly after sexual intercourse; she found that the clitoris was (although known to be very sensitive) only a very small part of the sexually sensitive parts of a woman, she found a mass of semi-erectile tissue on the roof of the vagina and areas that highlighted as though the stimulatory tissue fans out such that the clitoris is only a small part of the sexual experience. In effect she re-wrote the text books on the subject, wrong for so many decades.
Only the most severe form of female circumcision could reduce the sexual feelings of a woman to the extent of male circumcision. If you measure the available sensitive and sensual tissue on the male organ it equates to a very small surface area and compare it to the external genitals of the female it is comparable; what tends to be overlooked is the massive area of highly erogenous, nerve endowed and semi-erectile tissue inside the vagina. The loss to the male is so severe in comparison yet it continues to have large amounts of sexual tissue amputated by force. Of course it is not only about area of the male penis, it is about the function of the foreskin and ridge bands as it unfolds and interacts with movement of any kind, working together with the glans.
It beggars belief that there can be so much inequality in law and human rights that in the UK, to cut in any way the genitals of a girl or woman without medical need is a criminal offence (FGM Act2003) with up to 14 years in prison. Recently in London a baby boy died 15 minutes after being circumcised yet no prosecution, no fuss, just ‘one of those things’.
I can testify to the psychological damage aspect in that I lost my childhood to circumcision and have been tormented by it all my life. After restoring and saving my sex life by becoming more sensitive I had to deal with the comparison without and then with, realising what a dumb insensitive male part I had. I realised that if a vastly inferior new foreskin could make things so much better, how much better would the original have been that was amputated and thrown away! I have to say that I can only compare it with a grieving process that goes on and on.
No matter which way we look at the issue of cutting any genitals of a child, be they male or female, it is a vile abuse of human rights, dangerous, injurious and a scandal that it is allowed to continue.
Kevin Elks.
Dover, Kent, England (UK)
November 11th, 2009 @ 11:41 pm
Kevin,
Thanks for reading and thanks for your comment. I have learned so much from people like you sharing their stories and knowledge. Fascinating to ponder how male and female circumcision compare side by side in reality as opposed to the propaganda. (Pro-circ folks frame female circumcision as castration as opposed to male circumcision which they claim doesn’t really change anything. Appalling.)
Another of my readers, Erik, is keeping us apprised of the progress of the anti-circumcision bill in Massachusetts.
November 12th, 2009 @ 6:05 am
On the issue of comparing female circumcision with male circumcision, it is interesting to read the American Association of Pediatric’s astoundingly sexist language as it refers to each procedure. You can read the two paragraphs side by side here and compare, it’s really blatant:
http://mgmbill.org/aap.htm
It certainly made me lose all faith in the medical community. I think any medical professional who has so grievously violated the “First do no harm” clause of the Hippocratic oath has forfeited their right to practice medicine.
November 12th, 2009 @ 9:18 am
How egregious. It’s quite stomach-churning to read those two side-by-side. Thanks for the link.
November 22nd, 2009 @ 5:03 pm
For 100 years now, the USA has experienced a Foreskin Holocaust, my term for the multi-generational effort to eradicate the foreskin of the American male. Because of a very widespread belief that the preputial sac is filthy and smelly and germ ridden. Because of a belief that the foreskin makes fellatio nauseating. Because of a fear that circumcised boys will humiliate intact boys in the middle school and high school locker room. The fear that women will reject him as a sexual partner. Most of all, no one wants to have anything to do with a guy whose Dick is Weird. Whose dick looks like it is equipped with something labia-like.
Why has American medicine aided and abetted this timid and childish conformity?
Circumcision without lidocaine should become illegal forthwith. Medicaid should stop paying for it forthwith. Best of all, cosmetic circ should not be legal before one’s 21st birthday.
I am an intact American Baby Boomer, who saw all of 5 foreskins while growing up. I was extremely self-conscious into my 40s, so much so that a quarter century elapsed between puberty and loss of virginity. There is still little clinical research on sexual activity where the man is intact. I had to work hard in my 40s and 50s to come to grips with the sexual value of my foreskin. I am still working at it. For example, only in the last 12 months have I begun to suspect that some circumcised men over 40 years of age, who had no prior difficulties with being cut, begin having difficulties obtaining and keeping erections, and enjoying sex.
I give IntactAmerica and its benefactor Dean Pisani a long standing ovation.
Let me now say that the emotional energy many women have brought to intactivism moves me to tears. I especially value the support of angry Jewish women. These women seek to nurture and defend this tender little bit of masculine flesh more than most American men do. Finally, I invite all American women who have experienced both kinds of men, and who prefer intact, to find some anonymous web forum in which to relate their experiences. Try Topix, or Elizabeth Wood’s Foreskin Dialogs.
December 5th, 2009 @ 10:33 am
I’m anti- circumcision- both male and female.
If and when I have a baby boy, there’ll be none of this going on. We won’t be slicing on my little baby boy. And I would always inform him that some boys are circumcised, some aren’t. At any time he could come to me and let me know he’d really like to be circumcised and we’d help him with the decision. Hell, if this phantom child blesses my life, he’ll be in a household where people have ground needles into their skin and poked various body parts (tattoos and piercings). Discussing the body and feeling safe about any decision to modify it will be a positive experience. If he decided to have a circumcision as a child or adult, I think a medical setting with proper anesthesia, painkiller, medical attention and follow-up will be just fine- but it will be his body and his decision.
Learning about “The Girl who was born a Boy” by David Reimer (where a botched circumcision cut off the baby’s penis and the doctors said, “Oh, just raise him as a girl,”) to learning about intersexed babies has clinched this decision for me.. Doctors slice on babies so you can go home with a definitive boy or girl. A too big clitoris on a baby girl was often sliced back in the day (it may still be… I don’t have the courage to research.)
But I gotta jump on the “Don’t Lump Male Circumcision with FGM” wagon.
Please, please, describe FGM in all its many forms.
It’s very hard to do……… it ranges from village to village, country to country.
When I read blogs and comments, I often tell myself “oh, people will research this….”
I think people will be horrified and throw up in their mouth a little…. a little more than they already do when dealing with the botched male circumcisions and years of pain and discomfort (physical and psychological) that guys have had to deal with.
We seem to always have an uneasy relationship with our bodies… what’s wrong with a little poo-nay-nay stank, or smegma? If it bothers you, take your lover into the bathroom for a long sexy bath or shower.
But in the majority, the removal of a male baby’s foreskin in the West is different than what is done to pre-pubescent and adolescent girls… often with a piece of broken glass or old scissors. And what get’s sewn up. And what causes decades of pain in urination, infections during menstruation, and what still has to happen in the first sexual intercourse, and childbirth.
Adrian, please, if you have time, give a brief description of the myriad forms of Female Genital Mutilation. Maybe you have, and I just haven’t gotten to it yet… I love your blogs and I love your book. You are quickly becoming one of my fave sexperts.
December 5th, 2009 @ 9:02 pm
Thanks for reading and commenting on my blogs. I really appreciate the feedback. As I understand the current state of affairs, intersexed children are still cut up, for the exact reason you mentioned, to make them more definitively male of female. Stopping this will be an even steeper mountain to climb than preventing male circumcision. The medical profession in this country has an open invitation to modify the penis in any way it wants, so as an intersexed child’s clitoris grows to look less like a clitoris and more like a penis, it is all but begging for the knife in this country. I think there is more sensitivity these days to keeping as much erogenous tissue as possible, but what is done depends entirely on the parent-doctor interaction at birth. That’s based on my memory of an article I read in a sexuality journal a couple of years ago. Sorry not to have a reference.
I will follow your advice and discuss female circumcision in an upcoming blog. My response in short is this: Firstly, I’m an advocate of thinking globally, and acting locally. FGM is not a problem in the US. MGM is a problem here, so that’s what I talk about. FGM doesn’t have the world’s most highly funded and sophisticated medical establishment trying to spread it around the world. MGM has millions of dollars behind it and is increasing the global frequency of MGM with evangelical zeal. As for the Don’t Lump Male Circumcision with FGM Wagon, male circumcision enthusiasts are driving that wagon, so I’m not very fond of it. They depend very much on keeping our focus 3000 miles away, keeping our minds occupied with the dirty shard of glass and the infections and the horror show of infibulation and re-infibulation because if we keep thinking about that, male circumcision in a clean hospital room starts to seem like a ride at Disneyland and, combined with America’s misandrous view of male sexuality, that attitude inspires an exasperated sigh of “What are you bitching about?! at least you’re not a girl in Africa with an infection and a sewn up vagina so shut up and give me your foreskin!” It’s an excellent rhetorical device, I have to say.
Anyhow, I’ll write a longer version of this in an upcoming blog for sure and I’ll definitely describe the four types of FGM. Information is important. So happy you liked the book. I never get tired of hearing that, as you can imagine.
December 5th, 2009 @ 11:33 pm
Thanks so much for reading my blog and for this great response. I think you put your finger on it when you pointed out that the foreskin can be perceived to be labia-like. The untraceable origins of all genital mutilation are undoubtedly rooted in a wish to increase sexual dimorphism. The foreskin makes a penis look too much like the folds of the vulva and a clitoris and labia that extend beyond the labia majoris could be seen as penis-like, so cut it all off. Make the man all rod and the woman all hole; men all out and women all in. Without a foreskin, a man appears to be aroused all the time too. So that might be seen as attractive if you’re running around naked. Only we’re supposedly civilized people now and should stop it.
It’s so interesting what you say about male sexual dysfunction after 40 and circumcision. I’m sure no good research will ever be done in the US on that topic, but the off-the-charts anxiety of US males about sexual function has to make you wonder. If you ever find a study or anything about that, point it out to me. It’s always great to hear a story of someone becoming comfortable with their body, despite a seemingly late date.
June 30th, 2010 @ 8:11 am
Adrian, I saw a link to this post on facebook today. It’s wonderfully written!
One aspect of the difficulty in teaching this information, is what James Atherton describes as “Learning as loss” – when a person has to let go of previously held beliefs in order to learn new information- this process alone causes instability and anxiety (regardless what that information is!) – add the difficulty of sexuality and self image and you have a real hurdle to overcome as an educator.
Two of the flawed logic arguments frequently presented by people holding on to their beliefs about the benefits of circumcision are “If I/he had any more sensitivity than now …(he’d be a minute man/ he’d never leave me alone/I don’t know what I’d do with myself/ I have all I can handle)” and the more sexist version “I can’t imagine if he liked sex any more than he does now, if circumcision diminishes a man’s experience, maybe we are better off!”
These arguments rely on the assumption that sexual sensitivity is a detriment to a man’s sexual (and moral) self control. I find this to be a very interesting theme in the MGM mindset! If I offered a “better handling sports car” to a man, would he assume that the horsepower, center of gravity and the brakes were not compatible? Would he say, “If I had a car that went any faster I could never keep it on the road?” Is it so difficult to imagine that perhaps some of the sensitivity lost was not simply stimulation to no return… but could have been the feedback that would allow him to enjoy the sexual experience without having to invite the New York Yankees and grandma’s bridge club into his bed? Does he really believe that without circumcision men can not function? Can he go there?
People who understand the human right to genital integrity do not need to quantify harm, or morally measure the motivations of the cutters, they do not feel a need to discriminate between sexes, or even put out qualifiers for people whose bodies fall somewhere between the sexes. They do not care if the cutting tool is a gleaming sterile scalpel, a rusty knife or a piece of flint. An intactivist respects every human’s right to their whole body, free from social and religious compulsion to make them conform to some altered ideal. There is no need to separate FGM from MGM- the only line that needs to be defined is where one person’s rights end, and another person’s body begins.
June 30th, 2010 @ 8:20 am
Talk about beautifully written…
These arguments rely on the assumption that sexual sensitivity is a detriment to a man’s sexual (and moral) self control.
Exactly so.
July 28th, 2010 @ 12:52 am
adrian, i am really enjoying your blog. when i came to this post, i thought i’d better say something… i am a circumcised female (WASP, kansas, 1950s).
i often hear words of sympathy for my circumcision followed soon after by, ‘but it’s different for boys’, as if minimizing the assault on boys is supposed to make me better. i hear it way too often.
what i say to that is, ‘no – it traumatizes, whether it’s done to a boy or a girl.’
my book, ‘the rape of innocence: female genital mutilation and circumcision in the USA’ chronicles my discovery of american clitoridectomy and it also makes a case against male circumcision based on what i see as life-long effects on the psyche.
the initial act of violence and mutilation is not at all pretty. but the ‘gifts’ that keep on giving concern me even more than the immediate damage: PTSD, anger, grief, physical system disruption, misogyny and relationship disasters.
some circumcised children do better, others do worse – possibly due to the healing nature of the mother or lack of same. but terror has long-term effects. the child perceives genital cutting as a death threat. s/he feels powerless, in grave danger, excruciating pain. for the rest of his/her life s/he is looking over his/her shoulder… not trusting anyone. s/he makes life decisions based on that one incident… ‘resistance is futile… i am weak, helpless… people are bad… this is a very scary planet… nobody loves me… i’m all alone…’
i don’t think most people have any idea of the psychological effects of circumcision. they just assume the symptoms of trauma are ‘maleness’, as if off-the-chart frustration and rage, promiscuity and suicidal ideation, etc come automatically with a penis. i am convinced they come with trauma intentionally inflicted on a helpless child – of either gender. the other women i’ve met who were circumcised were also angry people. and then, to top it off – the ONLY three cultures that circumcise their young are at war in the middle east?
however, the good news is – i am a therapist and i have found that once you locate the trauma and bring it to conscious awareness, you can release the fear and healing is inevitable. my next book is about the abuses of modern birthing practices… then how to heal the trauma & the sexual effects of circumcision. i wish i could write about other subjects, but until socially sanctioned abuse is gone… writing about it appears to be my work.
thanks for your work… your stance on circumcision.
July 30th, 2010 @ 7:14 am
Patricia,
Thank you so much for posting. I am aware of your story and your activism. Amazing work. That you have emerged without all the anger but with a healing love is inspirational.