Most Americans, when presented with the information that approximately 97% of the world's infant male population is not circumcised, are rather astounded. "But I thought everybody was circumcised. I thought it was a medically necessary thing to do," said a friend when I brought up the issue a few weeks ago.
"Nope," I replied, "not even close. The foreskin is not a birth defect needing remedy by the A.M.A. Nobody in all of Europe, non-Muslim Asia, or Latin America is routinely circumcised. In fact, the only people who routinely cut off the most erogenous part of their boys' penis are Jews, Muslims, certain tribal groups in far-flung parts of the world and... the United States. Everybody else leaves their sons intact as nature made them." This is a fact. Indisputable. Most leave their girls intact, too.
Roughly one million baby boys a year in this country are rudely welcomed into the world by the amputation, without anesthesia, of an integral, sexually important part of their anatomy. By definition, the removal of a normal, healthy, functional body part is mutilation. Pure and simple. These one million babies represent around 60% of all male infants born in this country, a figure that is down from a high reached in the 1970's and 1980's of around 90%. And what is truly astounding is that, while we become incensed over the female genital mutilations going on in Africa and other third-world countries far, far away, we ignore the routine mutilations perpetrated here against our own sons.
The sexism of this perspective is stunning. In fact, in 1996 the U.S. Congress, eager to appease feminist groups and appear to be the Great White Protectors of American Girlhood, passed a law against female circumcision or any other form of genital modification of girls below the age of consent. This was pure political theater, baby kissing, butt patting. As a society, we simply do not cut the genitals of baby girls in this country... only the genitals of baby boys. Passing a law against female genital mutilation (FGM) was a slam dunk for the politicians. They could look big and strong and macho and foursquare in favor of protecting babies... as long as the babies were girls, that is. In our culture, unlike other more civilized societies, it is perfectly acceptable to amputate the male prepuce against the shrieking protests of the victims. Our national chauvinism has blinded us to our own human rights abuses, against our sons, and does not allow us to see anything wrong.
I never saw anything wrong with it either until I witnessed my own son being circumcised. The doctor assured me it was a simple little snip of extra skin that had no function and that really didn't hurt the infant. "You want him to look like you, don't you?" Well, since I really hadn't thought much about it, and since I, too, had gone under the knife at birth, I said "Sure. I guess so. Why not?"
He didn't answer the "Why not?" but it was soon apparent to me. My newborn son was taken from his mother's warm, nourishing breast and placed naked on a cold, plastic board called a Circumstraint. His little legs were spread-eagled and strapped down with Velcro bands and his arms were strapped to his sides. He immediately protested and began to cry. The doctor draped a thin cloth with a hole in the center over his shivering body and drew his little penis through the hole.
The doctor washed my baby's penis with an antiseptic solution. He took a pair of steel hemostats and, holding the penis in one hand, inserted the tip of the hemostat into the opening of the foreskin and began pushing it between the foreskin and the glans, ripping the two structures apart. The foreskin and glans were tightly fused together by the normal balanopreputial membrane called the synechia, similar to the membrane that attaches the fingernail to the finger. It's the body's way, in part, of protecting against harmful bacteria.
My baby was shrieking now, his protest going from a simple cry to what sounded like screams of sheer terror. His body was rigid, contorted as he strained against the straps and the pain. If the Circumstraint had not been bolted down, it and my child would have crashed to the floor. Every instinct I had told me this was not right, that I should be protecting my son instead of acquiescing to the barbaric spectacle before me. But I am a "civilized" man. I have been socialized to accept what the doctor is doing. It's the right thing to do. Right?
The foreskin did not easily give up its hold on my son's glans. The doctor continued to rip the skin with the hemostat. My son was shaking, tossing his head from side to side, his fists and eyes were clenched, sweat beaded on his brow.
The doctor finally got the glans and foreskin separated, then clamped the foreskin tight with another hemostat and cut the skin vertically with scissors. The wound was bleeding profusely. He tried to insert a steel cone into the tissue but had to force it because the incision was too short. My son stopped screaming. His eyes were glazed and rolled back. He appeared to be sleeping, but he was really in a state of complete and total shock.
The doctor put a large metal clamp around the bleeding foreskin, the cone supposedly to protect the glans, and he proceeded to crush the nerves, the blood vessels and tissue of the foreskin with the clamp. He took a knife and sliced around the clamp, letting the foreskin drop onto the cloth. My son lay motionless on the board, completely disassociated into some other, more hospitable space. The doctor looked at me and winked. He left the room. A nurse gave my son back to his mother. Welcome to America, little man.
"Why not?" I ask again. I'll tell you why not. Because my son had absolutely no medical condition requiring the amputation of his perfectly normal, natural, healthy foreskin. None! There is not one child born in this country who has any condition requiring this procedure, yet out of cultural inertia, greed on the part of circumcising physicians and hospitals, flat out abject ignorance on the part of both doctors and parents, and the satisfying of psycho-sexual compulsions on the part of certain sadistic practitioners, the grisly business continues. And, it continues to fill the pockets and coffers of physicians, hospitals and clinics to the tune of approximately one billion dollars a year.
Perhaps protecting this cash cow is one of the reasons I could not get even one of our area's circumcising physicians to agree to an interview on this subject. Not one! "That's much too emotional an issue to discuss," said one. "There are concerns for legal liability," said another. Others gave no reason. They simply refused to be interviewed. Still others never returned my calls. They all seem brave enough when armed with steel knives, clamps and scissors against an infant's naked penis, but try to engage them in adult conversation on this issue and they flee into the shadows.
However, one well-known, popular family practice physician who does not perform circumcisions but who, nevertheless, preferred not to go on record for this article, said that circumcisions were done en masse in this country because "It's really a question of cosmetic surgery. It's an elective. It's tradition. There is no medical justification for it," she said. "We simply do it at the request of parents. It's their decision to make." But only if the child is a boy. Remember, girls are protected by law from such parental requests.
Not many years ago it was perfectly accepted for dog owners to amputate the tail and cut the ears of their pets for cosmetic reasons. It was the owners' choice to make. Social consensus now holds this to be inhumane treatment of animals and few veterinarians will accede to such requests. The idea that anyone would even consider circumcising their pet for any reason at all is abhorrent. Incomprehensibly, it is still perfectly acceptable for parents to consent to the cosmetic amputation of their son's prepuce, a far more injurious operation than an ear clipping or a tail docking. As a society we should be ashamed of this fact.
The idea that parents have the right to request amputation of normal, erogenous tissue is central to the debate surrounding this issue and highlights the ethical void enveloping the medical establishment. Leading medical ethicist and professor at the McGill Center of Medicine, Ethics and Law, Dr. Margaret Somerville, has stated publicly that circumcision, as performed in our country, is nothing short of "criminal assault." How could it be otherwise? If parents requested that their newborn have a healthy ear or a pinky finger or the tip of its nose amputated at birth so as to conform to family tradition or to look like Daddy or Mommy or the other kids in the neighborhood, or because it might get some sort of infection later in life, any ethical doctor would refuse to do it. If it was done, both doctor and parent would be hauled off to jail where they belong. Of course! Primum non nocere--First, Do No Harm!--the prime directive of the Hippocratic oath... until it comes to mutilating a boy's genitals. Then all ethical concerns are off.
It was precisely this ethical void that prompted nurse Marilyn Milos to establish the National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers (NOCIRC) in 1986. These centers now have branches in almost every state of the union and throughout the world. "There really was no other choice," she said. "Baby boys were and are being routinely tortured and mutilated all over this country for no medical reason whatsoever. The doctors know this, the attending nurses know this. Yet the inertia of years of social conditioning and medical practice has immunized them against the pain and lifelong trauma they inflict on normal babies. It's the most grievous medical scandal of the century!" She videotaped a circumcision to show parents what the cutting entailed. The hospital authorities promptly censored the video and shortly thereafter she was fired from her job. "I simply wanted parents to know what they were subjecting their infants to. I wanted them to know what I wished I had known before allowing my own sons to be cut. I wanted them to make an informed decision on behalf of their sons. The medical establishment knew this would be devastating to their income and to their image as providers of loving care. They fired me for my efforts because they couldn't silence me. It's the best thing they could have done, however, because now I am no longer muzzled by an economically-motivated medical community. I am free to promulgate the truth of this barbaric practice and help put a stop to it."
Help put a stop to it is exactly what she has done. NOCIRC has spawned a grass-roots movement all across this country and has been largely responsible for the drop in circumcision rates over the past ten years. Milos' efforts have also prompted other health-care practitioners to enlist in the cause. Doctors Opposing Circumcision (DOC) was founded in 1996 and now counts physicians from all over the world among its ranks. "Many doctors recognize that no one has the right to forcibly remove sexual body parts from another individual," says Dr. George Denniston, President. "They recognize that doctors should have no role in this painful, unnecessary procedure inflicted on the newborn. Routine circumcisions have been found to violate not only the Golden Rule, but the first tenet of medical practice, 'First, Do No Harm'. Amazingly, circumcision violates all seven principles of the A.M.A. Code of Ethics, and yet doctors continue to do it!" Dr. Denniston goes on to point out that, "Circumcision is not surgery, by definition. Surgical procedures have been defined as: repair of wounds, extirpation of diseased organs or tissue, reconstructive surgery, and physiologic surgery (i.e. sympathectomy). Routine circumcision does not fall into any of these categories. Therefore, routine infant male circumcision is not a valid surgical procedure."
Besides the pain of the initial crushing and cutting, circumcision harms in many other ways. First, the male glans and inner foreskin, just like the glans clitorides and inner labia of women, are actually internal structures covered by mucous membrane that, when exposed to the air and harsh environment through circumcision, develop a tough, dry covering to protect the delicate, sensitive tissue. It's sort of like if you went around with your eyelids pulled back or your tongue sticking out all the time or if a woman were to walk around with her labia pulled back exposing the clitoris and internal lining to the air. The moist, warm membranes of eye, tongue, clitoris or labia would react to the dry air and defend against it. The nerve endings would become dulled because layers of cells build-up in a process called keratinization. This keratin, a tough, insoluble protein substance, is the chief structural constituent of hair, nails, horns, and hoofs. Over time, these once exquisitely sensual organs acquire all the sensitivity of an old garden glove.
Circumcision is not simply the cutting off of useless skin. Author Gary L. Harryman innumerates what circumcision destroys:
***Its connective synechia, which fuses the foreskin to the glans while the penis develops.
***Approximately half of the smooth muscle sheath called the dartos fascia.
***Most of the erotogenic nerve endings on the penis, including the densely innervated ridged bands, reducing the sensitivity of the penis to that of ordinary skin.
***Specialized epithelial Langerhans cells, a component of the immune system.
***Thousands of coiled fine-touch receptors, including the Meissner's corpuscles.
***Estrogen receptors--the purpose and value of which are not yet fully understood.
***Ectopic sebaceous glands, which lubricate and moisturize.
***The protective covering of the glans, normally an internal structure. The foreskin shields from abrasion, drying, and callusing, and protects from dirt and other contaminants.
***The entire immunological defense system of the soft mucosa, which may produce antibacterial and antiviral proteins such as lysozyme, also found in mother's milk, and plasma cells, which secrete immunoglobulin antibodies.
***Lymphatic vessels, the loss of which interrupts the lymph flow within a part of the body's immune system.
***The frenulum, the sensitive "V" shaped tethering structure on the underside of the glans is also usually amputated, severed, or destroyed.
***The apocrine glands, which produce pheromones, nature's powerful, silent, invisible signals to potential sexual partners.
***As much as 50% or more of the total penile skin, radically immobilizing and desensitizing whatever skin remains.
***The "gliding" mechanism. If unfolded and spread out flat, the average adult foreskin would measure 15-20 square inches, the size of a postcard. This abundance of specialized, self-lubricating skin gives the natural penis its unique-hallmark ability to smoothly "glide" back and forth within itself, permitting non-abrasive intercourse, without drying out the vagina.
***The pink to red to dark purple natural coloration of the glans.
***10% to 20% of its circumference because its double-layered wrapping of loose foreskin is now missing making the circumcised penis thinner.
*** As much as one inch of the erect penis' length due to scarring and shrinkage from loss of the mobile, richly vascularized foreskin.
***Several feet of blood vessels, including the frenular artery and branches of the dorsal artery, the loss of which interrupts normal blood flow to the shaft and glans of the penis, damaging its natural function and possibly stunting its growth.
*** An estimated 240 feet of microscopic nerves, including branches of the dorsal nerve.
*** Perhaps most importantly, between at least 10,000 to 20,000 specialized erotogenic nerve endings of various types, which can discern slight motion, subtle changes in temperature, and fine gradations in texture.
And occasionally a boy will lose his life from this needless operation. It has been estimated that as many as 209 babies die every year from circumcision and related complications.
It's no coincidence that circumcision has its greatest detrimental effect on sexuality. Maimonides (or Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, a twelfth-century philosopher, legal scholar, and physician often called "Judaism's Aristotle") said: "As regards circumcision, I think one of its objects is to limit sexual intercourse and to weaken the organ of generation as far as possible, and thus cause man to be moderate... The bodily injury caused to that organ is exactly that which is desired; it does not interrupt any vital function, nor does it destroy the power of generation. Circumcision simply counteracts excessive lust; for there is no doubt that circumcision weakens the power of sexual excitement, and sometimes lessens the natural enjoyment; the organ necessarily becomes weak when it loses blood and is deprived of its covering from the beginning."
The "weakening" of sexuality was precisely the reason circumcision was introduced into medical practice in the United States as a "prophylactic" during the 19th century. Until that time, the practice was virtually nonexistent. Here in good ol' God-fearing, Puritanical America, masturbation was not only considered sinful, but was deemed a major health peril as well. Countless maladies were thought to accrue from this "degenerate" practice, and, in 1888, J. H. Kellogg--the All Bran laxative king--together with other Victorians of his ilk, began proselytizing for mass circumcision as a deterrent to "self abuse." Their purpose was to keep the male youth of America from masturbating, going blind and insane with hair growing on the palms of their hands. Kellogg said, "Tying the hands is also successful in some cases... Covering the organs with a cage has been practiced with entire success. A remedy which is almost always successful in small boys is circumcision... The operation should be performed by a surgeon without administering an anesthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind, especially if it be connected with the idea of punishment."
These self-promoting defenders of public health and morality claimed that circumcision also cured a vast litany of masturbation-related ills and proselytized for its mass acceptance as an "immunizing inoculation." They claimed it cured everything from alcoholism to asthma, curvature of the spine, enuresis, epilepsy, elephantiasis, gout, headache, hernia, hydrocephalus, insanity, kidney disease, rectal prolapse and rheumatism. In the face of rationality and modern research, contemporary circumcisionists have abandoned most of these claims but have now updated their list to include cancer, urinary tract infections, sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, and premature ejaculation.
The cancer argument has been an especially effective scare tactic, prompting officials of the American Cancer Society to write a letter to the American Academy of Pediatrics condemning the promulgation of the myth that circumcision prevents penile cancer. "The American Cancer Society does not consider routine circumcision to be a valid or effective measure to prevent such cancers... Perpetuating the mistaken belief that circumcision prevents cancer is inappropriate."
Of course it is. Penile cancer is an extremely rare condition, affecting only one in 100,000 men in the United States. Penile cancer rates in countries that do not practice circumcision are lower than those found in the United States. Fatalities caused by circumcision accidents may approximate the mortality rate from penile cancer, and, for circumcised men who do contract penile cancer, the lesion may occur at the site of the circumcision scar. Portraying routine circumcision as an effective means of prevention distracts the public from the task of avoiding the behaviors proven to contribute to penile and cervical cancer: especially cigarette smoking and unprotected sexual relations with multiple partners. The ACS has recently reiterated this position on their web site and also notes that "...circumcision is not medically necessary."
On a recent BBC radio broadcast of "Case Notes", pediatric urologist Rowena Hitchcock pointed out that "Even using the figures of those who support circumcision one would have to perform 140 circumcisions a week for 25 years before you could prevent one case of cancer. Of those cancers, 80% are treatable and they are avoidable by simply pulling the foreskin back and washing it, which I would prefer to 140 circumcisions a week for 25 years."
The "cancer prevention" argument would have greater persuasive appeal if applied to breast cancer in women. The American Cancer Society estimates that 44,000 women will die of breast cancer in 1998. This same year, by comparison, an estimated 200 men, most of them beyond 70 years of age with poor hygiene habits, will die of penile cancer. If amputating healthy tissue is an antidote to cancer, it would make far more "sense" to routinely perform radical mastectomies on adolescent girls and remove the breast buds of all newborn females than to amputate the foreskin of male infants to prevent such comparatively paltry numbers. But nobody in their right mind would suggest this as appropriate therapy... except when applied to infant boys, that is. Go figure.
The HIV scare is another in the continuing effort of circumcision advocates to view their favorite "surgery" as a hedge against disease. Despite the fact that the United States is a "circumcising country," where the majority of sexually-active men are cut, we nevertheless have the highest HIV infection rate among advanced industrialized countries. In fact, the U.S. has an infection rate 3.5 times greater than the next leading country, or 16 cases per 100,000 population. None of the other advanced industrialized countries circumcise routinely. France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, Norway, New Zealand, Finland and Japan all have near-zero infant circumcision rates, yet their AIDS infection rate goes from 3.5 cases per 100,000 down to 0.2, respectively. Consequently, not only is it clear that circumcision does not prevent HIV or AIDS, the infection rates suggest that circumcision may actually contribute to HIV infection by depriving the penis of the natural immunological protection of the foreskin. But rest assured, as soon as medical science debunks these latest "benefits" for mass mutilations, the pro-circumcision industry will invent new reasons and new diseases for continued use of their favorite treatment of nonexistent ills.
Such persistence in the face of overwhelming evidence against routine circumcision should alert us to the fact that irrational, more emotional and compulsive forces may also be at work. These forces have been identified and were alluded to earlier: the seldom mentioned psycho-sexual pleasure derived by some, possibly many, circumcising physicians.
The notion that the ranks of circumcising doctors harbor what have been termed "circumsadists" and "circumfetishists," comes as a shock to many parents who never considered the notion. They realized they were being pressured insistently by their pediatrician or urologist to have the procedure done, but it never entered their minds that darker motives may have been at issue. "The idea that we turned our son over to some pervert who got off sexually by handling and cutting our baby's penis just makes me sick," said one mother when learning of this possibility. "I had no idea such people existed."
Few people outside the medical profession do realize this. As with the Catholic church and the pedophiles lurking within the folds of its priesthood, the medical profession has coalesced around a wall of lies and silence that allows these sadists to do their work in obscure anonymity.
One person who does recognize their prurience is John Erickson. He has done extensive work on this subject and maintains a web site dedicated to the Memory of the Sexually Mutilated Child. "It would never occur to most parents that the doctor's real reason for wanting to circumcise their child might be sexual," he says. "They hold their doctors in such high esteem that this whole area of surgical sexual perversion never comes up."
Carla Miller, founder of Patients in ARMS, a non-profit advocacy group dedicated to reforming medical standards and eradicating patient abuse, who herself was sexually mutilated by an American doctor, has also given serious thought to this issue. She echoes the words of others who likewise have been victimized...
http://www.fathermag.com/health/circ/gmas/gmas06.shtml oh fuck it, pwn yourself.
