*Circumcision as Ritual Initiation: What I Learned at the Hospital
Geoffrey Levens, L.Ac.Ancient tribal rituals, as with brainwashing imprint a very deep learning through a particular methodology. First you put the initiate into an altered state of consciousness, a trance. One way of doing this is to supply them with a total sensory overload of terror and pain. If they are old enough to have developed intellectual functioning, you give them a story to contextualize the experience and help to bury the pure facts of what was done to them. Then you give them an experience that embodies the lesson you want them to learn.
In the case of tribal initiation, the learning is, "Now you are a grown-up inner circle member of a group that will love and protect you for the rest of your life. The gods, though invisible, are also here to help and protect you as are the dead, your ancestors." In the Jewish tradition of circumcision, the context story is about a covenant with God. But to an infant, stories are meaningless. This is the story used to help bury the real learning. In non-Jewish, American culture, the story of circumcision is "disease prevention and cleanliness." It used to be "masturbation prevention." (It is largely irrelevant that these stories have no basis in fact.)
The real learning is given by the experiential facts of the event. The parents, who the baby is genetically programmed to believe are there only to love and protect and serve him, hand him over to some other who then straps him down and tears and cuts the most sensitive part of his body, the part that is designed by nature to bring pleasure, and finally cuts a piece of that part off. The real lesson is, "What you want or don't want and how you feel is of absolutely no concern to anyone. Not only do we not care enough to even try to listen and understand you, but the more you protest the more we will disassociate from you and ignore you. The world is a terrifying and dangerous place."
Often, under extreme stress and pain, babies will go into deep, almost catatonic shock and look as if they are falling asleep. They become very quiet and still. Another possible learning structured into the ritual is, "If I go numb and disassociate and hold very still, the world will stop torturing me and again start to be nice to me." This is the fact of what happens so this is what is imprinted as "reality" in the trance state induced by the torture of circumcision. If, as many other babies do, he continues to scream and struggle instead of going into shock and immobility, the learning is, "If I make enough noise and struggle hard enough and long enough, then the world will stop torturing me and again start to be nice to me." Either way, the primary lesson is of a dangerous and terrifying world. Some are programmed to fight and others to freeze in response to that threatening world. Either way, disassociation, fear and anger. For some, if I fight hard enough against the world, the pain and torture will stop and I will survive. For the others, if I freeze and go numb, the pain and torture will stop and I will survive.
NOTE: For more information or to see a video of circumcision, go to www.intact.ca/vidphil.htm
A Little Bit of Skin to Cherish and Protect
The valuable foreskin protects against bacteria and leads to greater pleasure during intercourse.
By Marianne Hedenbro.
Southern Swedish News, March 5, 2001It isn't much to look at. But if I were you I'd hold on fast to your foreskin or sell it at a very high price to the pharmaceutical industry. It's more valuable than you think.
Here are some cold facts. The foreskin constitutes 80% or more of the skin that covers the penis. Just like the eyelid protects the eye, the foreskin protects the glans and keeps its surface soft, moist, sensitive and clean. It also ensures the right temperature and pH value.
On the inside, glans produce proteins that protect against bacteria and viruses, in part the same sort that are found in mother's milk and in tears. Langerhans cells and antibodies are other defenses against infection.
The foreskin is as sensitive as the fingertips and the lips. It has a richer variation and greater concentration of nerves that detect small temperature changes and movement than any other part of the penis. Both you and your partner enjoy sex more when the foreskin is present, since it increases stimulation.
Furthermore, there is a host of compellingly terrifying arguments against circumcision. Here are some of them.
The penis loses sensitivity since many of the nerves and nerve endings are destroyed. The glans is abraded, becomes inflamed, dried and hard. An older man who was circumcised as an adult has complained that it now feels "like having sex with an elbow". Blood circulation in the skin on the penis and glans is hindered. Blood flow through the large blood vessels of the penis may be blocked due to them being matted in scar tissue after circumcision. What nerve endings there are in the glans become buried under a layer of hardened skin.
According to new research findings circumcision also harms cerebral development. Circumcised boys have a lower pain threshold than girls and uncircumcised boys. Children who are circumcised without pain relief react for a long period thereafter with disturbed sleep and sometimes with a coma-like state that can continue for days or weeks. Circumcision directly after birth can also seriously complicate the bonding process for the mother and newborn child.
By Diane Baker Mason
When Do You Want Your Sons Circumcised?
My Answer Should Have Been DifferentThursday, June 10, 1999, Toronto Globe and Mail, p. A22
It's only a piece of skin. It shouldn't upset me so much. Anyway, there's nothing I can do about it now. Besides, the experts said it was the best choice. In 1986 when my twin sons were born, the operation was de rigueur.
Back then, circumcision was performed on 85 per cent of North American boys. I got the whole spiel from the medical folk. I have no religious requirements respecting the procedure, so circumcision was unnecessary in my case but not according to the hospital staff. If I didn't have my sons circumcised, I was told, they'll be plagued with infections. They'll get cancer of the penis. They'll give their wives vaginal disorders. What's more, since their dad is circumcised, they'll be confused by the difference, and suffer psychological problems. The nurses assured me it was painless, and over in a flash. The message was: do your duty, mom, and get those little boys snipped! I wish I could claim total ignorance. But even then there was discussion about circumcision being unnecessary and painful (although it wasn't a very loud discussion). Men "perhaps since they'd forgotten what it felt like to have it done" didn't speak out against it, and women seemed more concerned with" women's" issues. But even though there wasn't enough objection to make me halt the procedure, I was suspicious about the claim it didn't hurt. How could it not hurt, to have a piece of skin lopped from your genitals?
Not trusting my own judgment, I agreed to it. Shortly after the operation, however, I was in the hospital nursery, and happened to see the plastic frame used for the procedure. It was a small device (for babies are small) with a moulded form for the boy to be tied to, so he could be held down easily during the circumcision. I pictured my babies in that device, and instantly recognized what I'd done. Too late. Had I seen that thing earlier--had the hospital shown me what they were really doing" I never would have let them near my children.
Nevertheless, I put the matter aside. It was easy to forget what had been done. The boys healed up, of course, and the first sentence they spoke was not " I remember the day I was tied up and mutilated, " but more along the lines of "Lookit car mama." But recently, I've done some reading on the subject, and the whole question of circumcision came back to me. I wouldn't do it to my thirteen-year-old sons, how could I do it to my babies?
There is evidence that circumcision is a devastating event that can have intense psychological repercussions. The foreskin is a complex and sensitive tissue, not just an appendix-like, superfluous tag of skin. It has functions.
I had no idea, for instance, that the head of the penis is normally a mucous membrane that is permanently changed by the removal of the protective sheath. What remains is arguably scarred tissue.
If you're a woman, imagine having your lips removed, or "as is done in some cultures, to the dismay of many" your genital lips, your labia. Imagine the sensitive and moist areas of your body, which normally are shielded, having their shielding taken away. Yet because no baby says, "Hey, don't do that," and no man circumcised in infancy knows what it's like to have a foreskin, the procedure continues.
Yet this procedure does damage. Why do we imagine that babies don't suffer and don't remember. How dare we take such a risk with their feelings, and their potential, as to do them such an injury? Looking back, my own weakness in the face of the status quo astounds me. But what astounds me more is that 13 years later, this is still going on. We are still letting this happen to our boy babies.
Years ago, when we women suffered ignominy and unnecessary procedures in childbirth "shaving, enemas, being tied down while in labour" we banded together and said no. We changed things. We should be changing this, too. We women in particular should be advocating for our boys. These are our children, and later they become partners and lovers and friends. A man or a boy with the power to declare his choice would not agree to be tied up and submit to an unnecessary operation, without so much as an analgesic, with its attendant psychological, sexual and even physical repercussions. Surely we cannot believe our speechless babies have fewer rights.
We are the agents of our children's choice. I wish I had remembered that, when "as I held my new little boys in my arms" I was approached by the doctor who asked me, "When do you want them circumcised?"
The answer, of course, should have been: Never.
*Diane Baker Mason is a writer living in Toronto.
www.dianebakermason.com
Excerpt from Christiane Northrup,
Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom
Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing (1994).
New York: Bantam Books.
Author Christiane Northrup, M.D., an obstetrician/gynecologist, co-directs the innovative Women to Women health care center in Yarmouth, Maine. She edits the national health newsletter "Health Wisdom for Women" and is Assistant Clinical Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Vermont School of Medicine.
Circumcision of baby boys is another example of a painful procedure that is unnecessary. Circumcision is a perfect example of the triumph of emotion and outdated and unproven beliefs over common sense and scientific data that it is unnecessary. Dr. George Dennison sums up the circumcision issue very nicely: "To me the idea of performing 100,000 mutilating procedures on newborns to possibly prevent cancer in one elderly man is absurd."
The discussion of circumcision is a perfect example of the strength and influence of tribal programming on our thought and emotional responses. This programming is so ingrained that many people cannot even discuss the subject of circumcision without guilt, denial, or other strong emotions. I know that even addressing the subject of the baby boy's bodily integrity, choices, and pain if the procedure is done can cause a "kill the messenger" reaction. But this programming can be successfully questioned and worked through, if desired. Many Jewish couples have rethought the entire circumcision issue and have decided not to have it done to their sons.
I've seen circumcision done in the delivery room. Welcome to the world, baby boy"now to initiate you properly, we're going to cut off one of the most sensitive parts of your body with no anesthesia!' Circumcision is known to cause sleep disturbances for at least three days. I believe that it also has profound implications for male sexuality that I cannot begin to address adequately in this book. In fact, it is a form of sexual abuse. We certainly feel that way about female clitoridectomy, circumcision, and infibulation, but we justify male infant circumcision by pretending that the babies don't feel it because they are too young and it will have no consequences when they are older.
The foreskin is a highly innervated part of the body. There is no doubt that circumcision toughens' the delicate skin of the tip of the penis. Men who have been circumcised later in life and who therefore know the difference report a decrease in their sexual sensations. One of my friends who is NOT circ'd says that he wonders if rape is less common in countries in which the men are not circumcised. His experience is that having intercourse with a woman who isn't arounsed and well-lubricated is as painful to him as it is for her because of the delicacy of the foreskin!
Circumcision: The Root of Misogyny
By Anne V. Pyterek*
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.
*We are grateful to Jody McLaughlin and The Complete Mother for sharing this personal essay with us.
Circumcision originated at least 6,000 years ago as a tribal and religious identity symbol in African and Semitic cultures. The ballooning of the practice in 20th century America, however, was the work of pediatricians and obstetricians who gave it new status as a "medical" procedure. Circumcision received a big lift from a nationally prominent physician, John Harvey Kellogg of Battle Creek, Michigan (later a founder of the famous cereal company) who was obsessed with the evils of sex in general and masterbation in particular; he saw the painful ritual of circumcision as a discouragement. Kellogg's book, Plain Facts for Old and Young (1877) urged parents to have their boys circumcised without anesthesia--because the pain would have a "salutory effect upon the mind." Before long, the book was as common as his corn flakes in American homes.
Expressing a sharply opposing view, psychohistorian Lloyd DeMause (1991) finds circumcision one of the numerous acts of genital mutilation and violence perpetrated on infants and children in virtually every culture since the earliest times. Because it involves sexual mutilation in the family circle, DeMause claims it falls into the category of "incest" and should be seen as "an adult perversion." Other modern critics have labeled it a "betrayal of the innocent" and a "breech of trust" (Grimes, 1978; Janov, 1983). Anesthesiologist John Scanlon (1985) simply calls it "barbarism." Nevertheless, a century ago, under medical leadership, circum- cision swept through the male population.
Medical circumcision became a uniquely American phenomenon. About 80% of the world's population never adopted the practice: This includes most of Europe, and populous countries like Japan, China, and Russia. Researcher Edward Wallerstein (1995) refers to circumcision as an American medical "enigma." A urologist estimates that 90% of American males currently living were initiated into life in this violent way. Significantly, for men, circumcision is where sex and violence first meet. Swiss psychoanalyst Alice Miller (1983) sees in this kind of cruelty the roots of social violence.
Leading the crusade for circumcision over a century ago, the physician P. C. Remondino (1891) called the prepuce "a malign influence causing all manner of ills, unfitting a man for marriage or business and likely to land him in jail or a lunatic asylum." According to him, "circumcision is like a substantial and well-secured life annuity; every year of life you draw the benefit....Parents cannot make a better investment for their little boys, as it assures them better health, greater capacity for labor, longer life, less nervousness, sickness, loss of time, and less doctor bills" (Cited in Speert 1953:165). Dr. Remondino claimed that circumcision would cure about a hundred ailments, among them asthma, alcoholism, enuresis, and rheumatism (Wallerstein 1985). People were afraid and gullible.
Another physician of the day (Clifford 1893) enumerated the alleged dangers of the intact foreskin. These included penile irritation, interference with urination, nocturnal incontinence, hernia or prolapse of the rectum (from a tight foreskin!), syphilis, cancer, hysteria, epilepsy, chorea, erotic stimulation, and masterbation. This was the flimsy basis for selling circumcision to America--although none of it turned out to be true. In modern times, dire warnings are still dressed in medical language pointing to the normal foreskin as the source of sexual diseases, cancer, urinary infections, and even AIDS. Yet circumcision neither causes nor cures any of these conditions. The medical compulsion to perform the operation--usually without anesthesia--continues this long legacy of pain as many physicians are still turning a deaf ear to rational arguments from within their own profession (e.g. Grimes, 1978; Wallerstein 1985; Winberg et al. 1989; and Ritter 1992). The American record is unique.
Meanwhile, as the trade flourishes, a humane trend is clearly visible in journal publications. Numerous articles have reported empirical measures of stress during circumcision, and compare procedures and anesthetics for pain (e.g., Kirya and Werthmann 1978; Yeoman, Cooke and Hain, 1983; Pelosi and Apuzzio, 1985; Masciello, 1990). In this professional literature, one can see a growing empathy for infants, full acceptance of their pain, serious doubts about performing circumcisions, and strong recommendations for anesthetics which effectively reduce pain (Williamson and Williamson 1983; Holve et al. 1983; Dixon et al. 1984; Stang et al. 1988; and Rabinowitz and Hulbert 1995). Perhaps this is a harbinger of what is to come, and a sign that the century of denial may be ending.
A mix of cultural forces blur the future. In exploring the extent of physician influence on parental choice for circumcision, one study showed that when the doctor was opposed to circumcision, the rate fell to 20%, but when he was in favor, the rate was 100% (Patel 1966). In contrast, when four pediatricians in Baltimore did an educational experiment with pregnant mothers (Herrera et al. 1982), they were surprised at the results. While half had been taught the medical "risks and benefits" of circumcision and half received no information, virtually all the mothers opted for circumcision. The doctors concluded that deep cultural and traditional issues were working against a change in attitude in their group. Surveys examining parental motives for requesting circumcision have revealed these forces at work.
Parents typically care about "appearances," yield to pressure from relatives to continue circumcising, and believe the propaganda about medical "benefits." They hold a variety of false notions that circumcision is mandated by hospitals, by public health law, or is required for admission into the Armed Forces (Patel 1966; Grimes 1978). And parents are not warned that their infants will endure severe pain and be robbed of a functional part of their sexual anatomy for life! In the United States, while circumcision has fallen below 60% it still touches the lives of over one million baby boys each year.
*The full paper by David Chamberlain has been published in Robbie Davis-Floyd & James Dumit (Eds.)(1998), Cyborg Babies: From Techno-Sex to Techno-Tots. New York and London: Routledge.
Circumcision: Echoes in the Body
By Jeane Rhodes, Ph.D.
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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A Historic Decision
By Michael Conlon CHICAGO (Reuters) March 1, 1999; Reaffirmed by the Academy 9-1-05
The American Academy of Pediatrics Monday issued its most detailed policy statement to date on circumcision, saying the medical benefits are not sufficient to recommend the procedure. In a report published in the March issue of the academy's journal Pediatrics, the group also said for the first time that pain relief should be provided when circumcisions are performed.
The statement was based on a review of medical literature by a seven-member task force which reassessed the group's previous policy pronouncement issued in 1989. "I believe we have gone farther than in the past on two fronts," said Carole Lannon, a physician at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, who headed the task force. "With the benefit of additional medical research we agree there are potential medical benefits but they are not compelling,'' she said in an interview.
"The academy does not recommend a policy of routine newborn circumcision. We encourage parents to discuss the subject with their pediatrician and make an informed choice," she added. Secondly, Lannon said, the policy recommends for the first time that pain relief be provided when circumcision is performed. The six-page policy statement cites research showing that infants suffer pain when the foreskin is removed, a procedure done in the past with little or no regard to analgesia.
Lannon said the statement is the Academy's most detailed comment on circumcision to date. The pediatrics academy, with 55,000 primary care physicians, is the largest pediatrics medical group in the United States and Canada--two countries where circumcision is widely carried out on male children for health reasons.
Two medical reasons for which circumcision had been advocated--the prevention of urinary tract infections and penile cancer--do not appear to be major problems, the report said. While uncircumcised males run a higher incidence of urinary tract infections during the first year of life, it said, the risk is still relatively low--around 1 percent overall. And while penile cancer rates run three times higher in uncircumcised men, the disease is rare--affecting only 10 or fewer men in a million annually worldwide.
The Circumcision Resource Center, a Boston educational group, estimates that about 60 percent of males in the United States are circumcised at birth, down from a peak of 85 percent in the late 1960s. In Canada the rate is 48 percent, but the practice is uncommon in Asia, South and Central America and most of Europe, according to the pediatrics academy report. Ronald Goldman, executive director of the Boston group, said the new academy policy confirms that there is no proven medical benefit to circumcision and the focus of debate should now be turned to the "significant but generally unrecognized psychological and sexual harm'' resulting from the procedure.
He said recent studies "on infants' response to pain clearly demonstrate that it's traumatic and there is evidence that behavioral changes result that are not just temporary." One study found that circumcised infants had a much greater response to pain than infants left intact when vaccinated at the age of six months, a sign of "post-traumatic stress'' that indicated neurological changes, he said. He said there are also questions about decreased sexual sensitivity as a result of removal of the foreskin. For further information, see Goldman.