A Victim Speaks Out
A Note From The Webmaster:
I have read this article very thoroughly over and over and I agree with every word the author says. From all the circumcision accounts I have read thus far, this fellow has written about my own personal feelings better than I could myself. All remarks highlighted in RED are remarks and experiences that I have personally felt myself.
"I have rarely told how devastated and outraged I feel about being circumcised and circumcision."
I find "Some Statements About Circumcision by Circumcised Men" to be especially useful. It speaks up for adult circumcision victims who are often ignored in discussing the issue. So often I've been the first person to voice to someone an extreme displeasure with being circumcised. This piece defuses the all too common retort of, "Well, everybody else accepts it, so what's wrong with you?" The rage, outrage, hurt feelings and disturbed emotions these men express are normal reactions to being severely violated. If anyone does not agree, let them ask a few rape victims about being violated, and see what they say.
I think that circumcised men who do not express at least some negative feelings about being circumcised are repressing and denying their feelings, but at what price? The nature of violence is that it feeds on itself. The victim becomes the one doing violence to himself and others. Expecting a violent act such as circumcision to have no destructive impact on its victims or others is mere wishful thinking. Denying and ignoring the problem does not make it go away! God alone knows the countless emotional disturbances, suicides and violent acts which began with their circumcision.
I have rarely told how devastated and outraged I feel about being circumcised and about circumcision. It is time that I tell all to everyone who will listen in the hope that my story will save others yet unborn from this tragedy.
This savage and deliberate attack against my being has turned my life into a sexual and emotional nightmare which has no end. How could a person sworn to be a healer rationalize such a cold-blooded act of cruelty against me and dare to claim that it was in my best interest? I'm greatly troubled that greedy, lying doctors and religious malefactors (criminals) are still allowed to commit circumcisions today. They need to be arrested and jailed like other violent criminals.
"what circumcision did to my body is only the tip of the iceberg"
I have not been able to have a satisfying sexual relationship with my partner due to penile numbness caused by circumcision, but what circumcision did to my body is only the tip of the iceberg. I am less than a whole person in a very important area of human expression. Missing a foreskin and 50% to 80% of the nerve endings in my penis is a more personal hurtful and sensitive tragedy than losing mundane parts like the toes. I feel that losing all of my toes could not have had the nearly destructive impact of losing this one intimate part. When my foreskin was amputated a huge chunk of my male psyche was also amputated and that part can never be replaced. Circumcision is an ever fresh wound inside my being which bleeds at the slightest touch. I'm emotionally affected by my circumcision in the same manner a friend of mine was affected by having been sexually abused for ten years by his step father.
In my mind there are two kinds of men in America (Canada), real men, and circumcised men. I often feel that my penis is an imitation of the real organ because of the critical part which was removed. At that point I begin to see myself as less than a real male human being. It hurts like hell! Every time I ponder my tragedy a tidal wave of rage hits me. Sometimes I pound my pillow as hard as I can with my fist and pretend that it's the person who circumcised me. I feel that the person who mutilated me cared as much for me as an alligator cares about its prey as he eats it alive. My foreskin was petty cash for the doctor and my God-given rights to an intact body, and full sexuality were as relevant to my circumciser as an ant in a buffalo stampede.
Due to my circumcision, I have no respect for any religion or belief based on the brutal Old Testament style mythology. Where is the love and good sense of any person who would ritually torture and mutilate helpless infants? As far as I am concerned, circumcision continues because too many people love their superstitious and mindless traditions more than they love their children. Otherwise how could this cruel practice have endured despite the terrible agony of infants during circumcision and the many deaths and serious injuries which occurred as a direct result of the surgery? Circumcision is a pagan fertility ritual which managed to survive into historic times among a few tribal societies. This kind of senseless cruelty has no place in any society irrespective of religious freedom or cultural claims.
America's political founders did not have torturing and mutilating babies in mind when they wrote religious freedom into the Constitution.
"to have religious freedom, one must be able to choose for himself"
To have religious freedom, one must be able to choose for himself. If an adult male is stupid enough to cut off his foreskin, he should be given that right, but ritually circumcising an infant is a violation of his religious freedom, and no one, including infants and children, should ever be circumcised by force.
I say let the people who insist on infant circumcision as a religious freedom, practice the rest of the Old Testament Law! I'm sure that animal sacrifices and stoning adulteresses would go over well in most American neighborhoods. These barbaric practices must have validity since they originated from the same source as ritual circumcision? I feel that it's an insult to God to accuse Him of starting or approving routine violence against helpless infants.
I believe that the so-called Christian Church is also the male infant's enemy. For decades while millions of little boys were being tortured and mutilated by circumcisers, ministers and priests were in their ivory towers playing church. They didn't care about the agony of these babies then, and they don't care now. This is the same blind mind set that allowed Nazis to murder millions of Jews, Gypsies, gays, soviet soldiers and others.
"I question the faith of any Christian who lets their son be circumcised"
I question the faith of any Christian who lets their son be circumcised or doesn't take a stand against circumcision. After all, it was the original Apostles of Christ who voted NO to circumcision two thousand years ago and real Christians have said no ever since. What kind of Christian would allow babies to be routinely tortured and mutilated without raising any protest?
American doctors are almost entirely responsible for starting and perpetuating the American circumcision atrocity and who are the cause of my personal tragedy.
Medical doctors are supposed to live by a code of ethics, but anyone who would perform unnecessary, painful and destructive surgery on infants and children for his own gain has no ethics whatsoever. Physicians have an ethical duty to stop circumcisions and circumcisers, but most of them have completely dodged the issue. How can such a cohort of thugs and ethical washouts be called Medical Professionals? I feel that a more apt label would be Baby Butchers and Cop-Out Cronies.
Each time circumcision has been debunked for the fraud it is, physicians have been right there to make up a new round of lies to justify and excuse this atrocity. What good are years of education, up to date facilities, miracle drugs and lifesaving techniques when physicians themselves lack ethics and have deliberately lied for decades about circumcision? They have very little if any credibility left.
The figures on circumcisions, hysterectomies and all other forms of surgery show the truth. American doctors are knife-happy cowboys unlike their counterparts in Europe and the rest of the Industrial World. Anyone who still performs unnecessary surgery on helpless infants and other uninformed persons needs to be hidden behind jail bars and not behind surgical masks.
As a circumcision victim, it would please me greatly to see every circumciser, past and present, face charges for child abuse, assault, battery and criminal conspiracy. The atrocities were deliberate and repetitious. Therefore, absolutely no mercy should be shown in most cases. This would create a crisis in the American Medical History. Perhaps then the U.S. would finally join the civilized world by having a national insurance plan to treat the ill, and not mutilate the healthy.
My feeling is that any parent who knowingly has a son circumcised, does not love that child, and should be prosecuted along with the circumciser. Circumcision is child abuse which is no different than repeatedly beating or raping a child. A parent does not have the right to consent to the removal of any part of an infant's healthy ear, nose, finger or toe. A child's penis is no different.
As a circumcision victim, I'm living proof that phrases like freedom and justice for all are meaningless American clichés. I know that most Americans care less about infant's rights except where it is expedient for them Why else is there so much talk about child abuse, but so little talk about the most frequent form of child abuse, circumcision? We must always talk child abuse, but we must never go after the number one problem. Forced circumcision is a very insidious form of religious and medical fascism. It is also de facto government policy in the U.S. because political leaders have done nothing to stop it.
Circumcision has robbed me of my complete manhood, my dignity as a human being and the freedoms the U.S. is rumored to provide its people. Even in most of the world's more repressive regimes, one has the right to keep all his healthy genitals, but not in the U.S. which is supposed to be the leader in the Free World. Just how free is a nation which forces little boys to have painful, unnecessary and mutilating surgery? Any culture which brutalizes baby boys by removing parts of their genitalia and which promotes ignorance about human sexuality is morally corrupt. In America, we are so concerned about human rights violations in other nations. Perhaps it is time that we respected the human rights of our own citizens.
The sad fact is that few men circumcised at birth will ever comprehend what normal sexuality is unless he undergoes foreskin regeneration. Trying to discuss the benefits of the foreskin to the average American male is like trying to discuss the concept of the color red to a person who was born blind. Many males become hostile and defensive at the suggestion that an important part of their penises and sexual experience is missing. Intact men who have never been violated by circumcision will never know how terrible it is. Many American women will listen, but most have never seen an adult male foreskin or experience a normal penis. These individuals really cannot relate to my suffering.
If you think I'm a deeply disturbed man, you are right.
"If you want your son to grow up disturbed like me, by all means circumcise him!"
If you want your son to grow up disturbed like me, by all means circumcise him! If you want others to grow up disturbed like me, do not speak out against circumcision. I would have like to have had the opportunity to be normal, but the right was denied me. I encourage everyone I correspond with to encourage others to speak out against circumcision as you and I do.
In other words, the person who says he/she can do nothing to stop circumcision is incorrect. If everyone who receives one of your mailings would send copies out to just ten other people, circumcision in America would end in a few years. A little effort is better that NO effort, and together we can end circumcision in America.
Lyle R. S
Lyle wrote this letter to an anti circumcision activist.
This letter was published without his permission. It was superbly written and is a tragic commentary describing the devastating effect which circumcision has on many males. I hope that all parents who read this letter will speak out against circumcision and prevent the emotional hell which many males undergo when they discover that their bodies were violated. Many males have conscious or unconscious deep resentment and bitterness towards parents who permitted it as well as the individual who perpetrated this form of criminal assault.