Addressing the hidden trauma from circumcision. – David Smith, CO 15Square, 01/07/2007
(This page does not contain medical advice)
The creation of 15 Square/NORM-UK
In November 1994, nineteen men met in a flat in London to discuss their feelings about circumcision and an organisation was born. Up to that time, circumcision had been a subject not open to discussion. The meeting in November 1994 changed that but since then the discussion has mainly centred on the ethical debate. What has not been widely recognised or even discussed in great depth is the
hidden damage.
NORM-UK was founded by Dr John Warren after he read the book ‘The Joy of Uncircumcising’ by Jim Bigelow. Although the book was written to give details of restoration techniques, it contained a series of extracts from letters written to Jim under the heading ‘men’s voices’ and it is this section that most men are drawn to. Many can’t read more than a few letters at a time because they capture everything they feel about circumcision.
Since our formation, I have been receiving more and more messages from distressed men and I now have in excess of 1000 documents on file containing a wealth of information. The problem with circumcision is that it has been until recently the ultimate taboo subject.
Trauma in its raw form
The impact of ‘This little snip’ as so many refer to it has rarely been discussed in any detail and yet the impact has outcomes for so many people who live in total ignorance. These include parents, partners, doctors and trauma counsellors.
Our archive provides a fascinating and horrific insight into aspects of this practice that have never been acknowledged or studied in any great detail and I have used material from the archive as a basis for this article.
We have to acknowledge that many men are perfectly happy with their circumcision status. Often when I mention the work of 15 Square these men are interested. They recognise the potential for damage in others but have not experienced it themselves.
Men who are not happy with their circumcision
These men tend to fall into two categories.
The first are those who deny/bury the damage. This first group of men often react with anger when the subject is mentioned. The most usual response is ‘It has not done me any harm’ or a refusal even to discuss the topic. I think that this is the most dangerous type because these men are more likely to force circumcision onto their sons. The reasoning is similar to any form of child abuse.
The abused child has to justify the abuse by telling themselves that their parents or their doctors are good and would not do anything to harm them, so what they have done to them must be good, therefore they have to do it to their own children. Many men contacting us say that they feel jealous that their sons have something they do not.
The second type is those men who recognise that they have been profoundly damaged.
How they manifest it can be enlightening. They seem to fall into two categories, which I think could be described as introverted or extroverted.
The introverts often become solitary. They hide their feelings; they would certainly not discuss them. They are ashamed of their damage and will often not enter into relationships and will not use changing rooms and public toilets, anything to avoid anyone else seeing their damage.
These are the people who are extremely difficult for us to help simply because they won’t go public in any way. When these men contact us the situation is like buying a dirty magazine from a newsagent. They want the information so they do a dummy run then wait until the shop is empty, grab the magazine, give the exact money to the newsagent and run. The anonymity of the internet is excellent for this.
The extroverts often react with anger and this anger can take several forms. Anger is their outlet for their damage and they often struggle to find an outlet for their anger. They need to blame somebody and often the first person they blame is their mother
I found this example on an internet site but have many similar letters on my files.
‘I was satisfied with a single confrontation with my father during which I expressed my anger (he pleaded ignorance about the harm that circumcision causes).
But with my mother (who also pleaded ignorance), perhaps half-a-dozen times during that year of anger and months afterwards, the same pattern resulted: I bring up the circumcision subject and at first I am calm and rational like I normally am, but before long at some point during the conversation an intense anger suddenly comes over me, directed against my mother, and my calm voice becomes a voice of rage (I then struggle to regain control of myself).
These outbursts always surprised me, and I was puzzled as to why my mother was the target of this anger originating from my unconscious mind. Back then I rationalized that since my father was also mutilated, that was the reason I felt less anger toward him.’
Circumcision is where sex and violence first meet!
Jeannine Parvati Baker wrote an article entitled Ending Circumcision: Where Sex and Violence First Meet. She said that the work of Dr. Rima Laibow in 1991 concludes that a man carries unconscious rage against his own mother for betrayal, abandonment, and the assault itself. In other words, the unconscious mind of the son blames his mother for his circumcision, not “the tradition,” the circumcisor, or the father who wanted his son to look like himself—only the mother.
Psychologist Ronald Goldman gives many examples, including the following:
A thirteen-year-old boy in psychoanalysis was profoundly affected by his circumcision at two years, eight months and regarded his mother as a malicious attacker. Similarly, in a study of twelve Turkish boys who were circumcised between the ages of four and seven, the children perceived their mothers as he mutilators and directed aggression at them.
Some men blame their doctors but it is difficult to have a rant at an unknown medic who did the deed several years ago.
In 1996 a group of twenty NORM-UK members decided to put the blame in this direction and started the ball rolling by putting their names to a letter to the British Medical Journal. The letter began:
Dear Editor, We are all adult men who believe that we have been harmed by circumcision carried out in childhood by doctors in Britain. We are concerned about the ethics of this surgery on children and that it is commonly carried out when it is not essential.
The letter was published in the BMJ on 10th February 1996 and that morning the NORM-UK phone went mad as members of the press called for interviews. Unfortunately, the IRA chose that day to plant a bomb in Canary Wharf and once that had happened it rather buried our story.
The voices of those who have been harmed by circumcision.
We could write a book just containing extracts of letters we have received illustrating feeling of dissatisfaction and having been harmed.
Here are just a few:
I think I could have accepted a deformity that was an accident of nature, but I can’t accept that someone did that to me. The fact that other boys were circumcised too never made me feel any better. I used to think there were 2 kinds of boys: circumcised boys like me and real boys. I was circumcised when I was a year old. I remember my foreskin. I want my foreskin back. My feelings about the doctor who circumcised me are too violent to describe. What circumcision did to my body is bad enough, but what it did to my mind is worse. I was just a baby – I couldn’t stop them.
This short letter:
I am 33 and was circumcised at birth. Even after 12 years in the paras I will still avoid being seen naked if possible.
Two letters from teenagers:
I am still a teenager but my confidence is already shattered due to my circumcision at birth. My parents never really talked about it. I have been butchered and I don’t know what to do. I am afraid of ever showing another person and every single day I am upset because of this.
I am 17 and am furious at my parents for having this done to me when I was a baby. More and more every day I feel more and more violated and get more and more angry at my parents every time I see them.
One from a 50 year old:
The legacy of this operation has left me badly scarred physically and mentally as a consequence. Even now in my fifties I would consider surgery to remove the worst of the visible scarring, the effects of which goes deep although I’ve not consulted anyone about it.
Another general letter:
My feelings towards it are so bad that I don’t know how to put it into words. I could type a whole book without being able to get everything out.
And this one:
I feel deprived of a full sexual life because of what I feel was a selfish and fashion accessory for my parents.
And finally one from abroad:
I am a circumcised 17 year old boy from Turkey. In Turkey 99.9% of the boys are circumcised. My family did not force me but there are extremely much social pressure so I had no choice. I was circumcised when I was 9 with an anesthetic. I am not rejoiced with uncut penis. I wish I had lived in the country where boys are uncut.
The way people feel about circumcision
Often, the way a man finds out about his circumcision has a bearing on how he feels about it. Parents and the medics often cause this damage by the way they approach the subject and again our archive provides an insight into this aspect. This falls into two categories depending on the age the child is circumcised.
Parents almost universally do not feel the need to mention the subject to their sons. Most boys circumcised as infants are never told what has happened to them. They often discover the difference when they see their friends. Often the discovery can be devastating. They feel the need to know what has happened to them and why, but don’t feel able to broach the subject with their parents. Often they go to extreme lengths to find out from other means.
An example of this is the letter I received from a member.
“I would like to share some recent experiences of dealing with the health service.
From my reading of your magazine, I believe I am not alone in feeling negative about having undergone a circumcision as an infant and in experiencing sensation problems which have worsened in my thirties. To help counter these difficulties, I have joined your charity and have been undertaking foreskin restoration for the last couple of years.
This has been a wonderful way of doing something positive and avoiding feeling like a ‘victim’ or dwelling on the past.
However, I felt I wanted to do something more, and felt I wanted to understand why the procedure had been carried out in the first place. Unfortunately, both my parents have now passed away, so I looked into the possibility of obtaining my medical records. My GP and the hospital trust concerned were very helpful but
neither could locate any information from that long ago (I am presently aged 33). This is particularly owing to the practice of destroying medical records after 25 years in cases where there has been no ongoing treatment.
Of course, this means that in addition to the physical and psychological scars of an unwanted circumcision, I will never know why the operation was carried out and crucially whether it was needed or whether I simply had a foreskin which could not be retracted at that age which was felt to be abnormal.”
What can be done to change the status quo
A lot of people would ask why it is important to know as after all they cannot turn back the clock. Those who have experienced this will I am sure to understand fully.
They can’t come to terms with it because they don’t know the reason and because they don’t know the reason they can’t move on because they can’t lay the ghost to rest.
A number of boys are circumcised during childhood for various reasons. Their treatment is usually totally different. Often the child is not consulted.
Some of you may remember the Doctor in the House series with the pompous consultant Sir Lancelot Spratt. He was once discussing a patient with a student and asked what the bleeding time was and the student replied half-past twelve Sir Lancelot.
Sir Lancelot was discussing a patient’s case with a colleague in front of the patient and when the man enquired what was going to happen Sir Lancelot looked at the patient with disdain and told him it was nothing to do with him. Many medics still work under the Lancelot Sprat code of ethics.
These letters are classic examples:
“When I was about seven my whole life changed when I was circumcised and with it was removed my childhood innocence and security. I don’t remember when or what started it, but I do recall my mother would rub soap around my penis trying to pull the foreskin back over my penises head.
After some months of pulling, pushing and rubbing with soap, I was taken to see a Doctor. Mum and Dad didn’t tell me what was going to happen, but I do remember that they said they were taking me to the local hospital for someone there to look at it.
When we arrived we parked outside and I remember it seemed funny that Dad had brought my Teddy Bear with us. It still didn’t dawn on me, but the shock came when we went inside and they took me to the children’s ward.
After 45 years or more I still remember that horrific day as if was yesterday. I cried and tried to run from the ward, but Mum and Dad caught me and stopped me from escaping.
A nurse then asked them if they had told me why I was there, and that I was going to stay. They told her they hadn’t because if they had I probably wouldn’t even have got inside the car.
Although I had never stayed away from home on my own before, I knew then that I was going to have to stay there while they had a look at my penis, although I still didn’t know what for.
The next day a nurse came and gave me an injection which made me feel a bit sleepy. I was then wheeled to a room where I remember there were lots of bluish looking lights in the ceiling, after that I completely feel asleep. When I woke up still not knowing what had been done to me, I found there was a bandage around my penis. Can you imagine the shock when the bandage was taken off.
From then onwards I decided as my penis had been mutilated and I was so ashamed of it, it was only ever going to be seen by me.
The scars of this operation were not only physical but have emotionally affected me ever since that day forty-odd years ago when without a last good-bye, I lost my penises splendour and dignity.
What I’m left with is the constant reminder that every time I look down and hold what’s left of my penis, I have lost my amazing foreskin and the life of a normal man with a penis to be proud of.
After all these years I am now beginning to be able to come to terms with my mutilated penis and write down these undisclosed memories and thoughts, but I still can’t imagine any man with a intact or almost intact foreskin.”
The next letter says
“I had an episode of urinary retention when I was eight years old and was taken to the GP by my father.
The doctor examined me and attempted to retract my normal non-retractable foreskin. He prescribed a sickly antibiotic syrup and I was better within a couple of days.
A week later I attended the GP’s surgery again with my father. I was again subjected to the same examination before being told to go and sit in the waiting room. Obviously the discussion was nothing to do with me.
When he emerged, my father told me everything was alright but it was important to ensure that this never happened again, so I was to see a specialist.
The specialist subjected me to the now familiar attempts to retract the foreskin. I had never seen a glans and had no idea what they were looking for.
He said pompously ‘We’ll do it.’ I had no idea what was to be done, so asked my father afterwards. He told me it was a minor thing and nothing to worry my little head about. Nothing more was said until I was wakened early one morning to go to hospital.
I only awoke properly from the anaesthetic on the following morning, my ninth birthday. Words cannot describe the terror of looking down to find my penis grotesquely and permanently altered.
Suffice it to say that I have relived that terror daily ever since. A Triang-Hornby electric locomotive was little consolation for having part of my penis cut off.”
Another report details the experience of a man born during the war. Because of the wartime constraints, he was spared circumcision but his mother was determined that he would have his tonsils removed even though he had not suffered tonsillitis.
She finally took him to a private surgeon when he was 13. Seeing a fee heading his way the surgeon recommended a circumcision at the same time.
He states. “Thus, the fate of my foreskin was decided. I was not consulted – the conversation took place as if I was not in the room. Today, no doubt, a thirteen-year-old would have no hesitation in putting his point of view vociferously, but times were different then and children were still seen but not heard.”
It is sad that the experience of losing part of your body was not worth a mention or an explanation.
Circumcision also has Hidden physical damage. A trawl through our archive unearthed this little gem which is by no means unique.
“When I was a child my mother took me along to our local GP. The doctor cleared his desk and performed a circumcision operation upon me. The operation went drastically wrong and left me embarrassingly deformed.
I was left with a urethral fistula on the underside of my penis at the base of the bell. I was also left with a stricture so that even though the urine came out of the fistula and not out of the end as it should, nevertheless it sprayed everywhere under pressure. I have never been able to use a urinal or stand up to urinate.
My mother has a respect for doctors that most reserve for deity. She has always blamed me for the fistula because I evidently kicked when the doctor was performing the operation.
Looking at the scars on the bell end of my penis, together with the fistula, the doctor must have put me through hell – no matter how marvelous my mother considered him to be.”
Many enquiries received are complaints of dryness during intercourse. I remember once speaking to an advisor from Relate, the people dealing with this sort of issue. She said that dryness during intercourse was a common problem but they have never been able to pinpoint the reason, however it is nearly always put down to a problem with the woman. (For once, something that a man could genuinely take the blame for and the woman is blamed.)
I asked her if she enquired whether the men had their foreskins and she said that it had never occurred to her. They usually send the couple away with a tube of KY jelly to solve the problem, and yet the impact of male circumcision on vaginal dryness during coitus has not been investigated.
An article published in a New Zealand medical journal in 2003 by Bensley and Boyle who conducted a survey of 35 female sexual partners aged 18 to 69 years who had experienced sexual intercourse with both circumcised and genitally intact men.
Women reported they were significantly more likely to have experienced vaginal dryness during intercourse with a man who has a circumcised penis than with genitally intact men.
More evidence of psychological damage
Three further letters illustrate psychological damage.
The first two are from over 50’s The first says:
“I am a 61year old father of two. I take the view that my shagging days are well and truly behind me now due to a lack of sensitivity in my penis caused by the effects of circumcision. I am physically impotent. Even when confronted by the sight of a well endowed young lady, my penis believe it or not remains flacid.”
The next man is 50. This time the son wrote on his behalf
“My father was circumcised 2 years ago at the age of 50. I only found out yesterday that he has suffered from impotency ever since the operation. Viagra has not worked and the doctors keep telling him that it is all in his head but both my mother and father believe that some physical damage has been done.”
And just to prove that this happens to much younger men the following is from a man in his thirties.
“I am a thirty two year old man who has just recently gone through a divorce. One of the reasons for my wife’s petition was that I did not feel anything during sex.”
We had been hoping to carry out a joint study with the Impotence Association but unfortunately that charity has gone the way of many other charities and been forced to reduce their staff. We are still hoping that we may be able to do this at some stage in the future.
We are also certain that circumcision causes PTSD
Wikipedia describes post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a term for certain severe psychological consequences of exposure to, or confrontation with, stressful events that the person experiences as highly traumatic. It is a collection of symptoms recognised in some soldiers after combat and in victims of extreme terror.
PTSD and Circumcision – Dr Janet Menage
It has been shown to occur in women after gynaecological procedures and after circumcision in children of both sexes.
Dr Janet Menage did some groundbreaking work on this in 1998 and her research is detailed on our website. and I think it would be useful to quote from her article.
Janet begins her article by saying ‘Circumcision is a euphemism for genital reduction surgery or genital mutilation, performed by medically-licensed or unqualified practitioners for various reasons. She says that it is important to define it honestly, for that is how the mind interprets it, with or without superimposed denials, explanations and intellectualisation.
She goes on to say that circumcisions are performed on children, who, by definition are not able to give informed consent of the kind available to adults. They are vulnerable to coercion and manipulation and generally have little say in what happens to their bodies medically & surgically.
They are not usually allowed to say no to medical procedures because it is deemed that parents & doctors “know best”, but it is unlikely that any child, asked if they would like a person with a knife to cut off part of their penis, would agree to such an action.
That would be a normal psychological reaction to the threat of attack and is overruled at some psychological cost. It has been frequently reported in the past that babies have not felt the pain of circumcision where an anesthetic has not been administered because they have not cried during the procedure.
Janet says that when the natural tendency to protect yourself is rendered ineffective, you lose a sense of your own power over your destiny & survival, and a feeling of helplessness ensues and that the mind will “escape” by a process of “dissociation” – it is as if the mind leaves the body temporarily, so that the body can endure the attack, but the mind does not have to.
On returning to the body, the mind may then be subject to unconscious repetitions of the traumatic memories in flashbacks or nightmares. These recurring images may be triggered by any situation which reminds the sufferer of the original traumatic event. Janet describes one man she interviewed, who had been subjected to circumcision at the age of three years old, and vividly recalled at the age of thirty, how he had been undressed and his penis manipulated by a man in a mask pre-operatively, without his consent.
He had experienced an erection about which he was embarrassed, and then, post-operatively found himself with a bleeding, painful penis from which the foreskin had been amputated without his permission. This event had changed his life. He was angry that this had been done to him and humiliated by his powerlessness to protect himself from what felt like sexual manipulation and felt that he had been sexually abused.
In any other context than the medical one, the same sequence of events would be open to an interpretation of sexual abuse. To the child, the psychological impact is the same, whether it is illegal rape or legalised medical activity.
A child subjected to amputation of part of his body, whatever the reason given, is likely to experience all of these factors which contribute to the experience being traumatic. In addition, if the child perceives that the parents have failed to protect him from surgical “attack”, whatever their reasons, there is a loss of trust in the carers, and, perhaps, in all authority.
This difficulty in trusting others can lead to avoidance of relationships, sometimes lifelong, and conflict with authority. Shame of the damaged penis and embarrassment about being mutilated can lead to avoidance of sexual relationships, again, sometimes lifelong.
Amplifying what I said earlier, Janet says that a child may grow up in ignorance of his circumcision, particularly if it has been done shortly after birth and if his peers are also circumcised. However, when it is discovered that part of his genitalia has been removed without his permission, often for no good reason, there is a loss reaction amounting to grief.
The loss may be minimised and trivialised so as not to expose the mind to too much psychic pain; the pain of loss is profound. There may be a denial of its significance and, in order to maintain the image of the parent as “good”, it may be idealised as a “good thing” which parents should do to their children if they care about them.
Hence, the transgenerational passage of circumcision practice from father to son. For the cycle of mutilation to be broken, at least one generation would need to face the true nature of the activity and acknowledge the harm and the pain caused.
This is a courageous act, since it brings into play feelings of betrayal and abandonment by one’s own parents; that instead of protecting one’s body from harm, they have given their child into the hands of a stranger to remove part of his body.
Circumcision and sexual abuse
Janet’s article mentions feelings of sexual abuse and again we have a number of letters in the archive, this one is typical.
“I was circumcised at one hour old. My mother knew I suffered terrible pain she told me my screams could be heard down the corridor at the maternity home. She said that “They probably gave you a whiff of something”. Of course they didn’t, they thought I didn’t feel pain at an hour old.
Your site has shown that in medical terms I was almost certainly subjected to unnecessary treatment, or rather mutilation. I have long felt I was in some way sexually abused as a child.
I used to think it might have been a dentist who gave me gas when I was nine but now I know it was much earlier, when part of my most intimate organ was cut off by a doctor who doubtless would defend himself by saying it was “contemporary best practice” On the same level, may I say as public school masters buggering their boys to “teach them masculinity”
No wonder I am distrustful of doctors and contemptuous of what passes for medical professional ethics and standards.”
There is a charity called EMERGE whose base is near our own.
Emerge is a voluntary organisation working in partnership with the statutory sexual abuse team at South Staffs Healthcare NHS Trust. It supports adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse and their families.
Their leaflet says Childhood sexual abuse receives a large amount of media attention, but it is not a new problem. Sexual abuse has been happening for centuries. Many of the victims have suffered in silence:-
‘Who can I tell?”
“Who will believe me?”
“I can’t forget it; put it out of my mind.”
“It comes back… I’m constantly reminded by the TV, magazines, newspapers…”
“I feel guilty, dirty.”
“I told someone before and they said I should try to forget about it… I can’t.”
“I can’t tell my family. What would they think?”
“It affects my whole life.”
Does this sound familiar? Does the evidence I have presented so far fall into this category?
They go on to say:
Have you experienced any of the following:
Anger, depression, flashbacks, nightmares, confusion, guilt, sexual difficulties, marital problems, relationship difficulties, lack of confidence, low self-esteem, anxiety, feelings of isolation, suicidal thoughts?
Unfortunately, any man seeking help from the medical or psychiatric professions in the past would be met with a hurdle greater than any on the Grand National Course.
Medical attitudes to psychological harm
I am now going to move on to the attitude of medics and the way they treat our subject which I am afraid is my personal hobby horse and I am going to talk first about dysmorphophobia which I understand is now referred to as Body Dysmorphic Disorder which is just as well as I have trouble saying dysmorphophobia.
This disorder tends to occur in young adults equally in either gender. The patient becomes pre-occupied with a non-existent or minimal cosmetic defect (nose, cleft chin, blemish, breast size) and persistently seeks medical attention to fix it surgically. Some clinicians feel it is a variant of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Now remember the term non-existent defect.
The normal male body has a foreskin. Circumcision amputates a body part thus making it defective. There is yet another disorder called Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID), also known as Amputee Identity Disorder which is the overwhelming desire to amputate one or more healthy limbs or other parts of the body.
Sometimes its sufferers take it upon themselves to amputate their own limbs and/or penis. Although it most commonly refers to people who wish to amputate limbs, the term BIID also applies to those who wish to alter their bodily integrity in general. In my opinion I would say that any man wanting a healthy foreskin amputated was suffering from BIID.
Unfortunately, with the foreskin, the medical profession would take this to be perfectly normal. However, a man seeking medical or psychological treatment because his healthy foreskin had been amputated for whatever reason would be seen as suffering from Body Dysmorphic Disorder. Again, letters from our archive illustrate this.
The first one says
“The end of last year was one of the
most horrific and harrowing times I have experienced in my life. I was suffering badly with depression and uncontrollable bouts of panic and anxiety so I visited my GP and started counseling.
The first thing the counselor picked up on was my circumcision and the fact that control was taken away from me at the age of seven. There is only so much that you can keep inside before it needs to come out.
I told my GP what the counselor and a clinical psychologist have both alluded to and what I know (ie. That circumcision has right royally fucked up my life) and I reckon that I have a dose of post traumatic stress disorder. I told her in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t happy when it was done and I am not happy now.
She said that there are millions of men who are circumcised and not unhappy with it and I countered it by saying that there is a massive backlash around the world by men who are unhappy with it. She said there was nothing I could do about it.”
Another asks
“Can you tell me if you are aware of people becoming psychologically healed from the trauma of being circumcised? I am having psychotherapy and this is my main issue. My therapist, however, seems to think that the issue is that I feel I have been wronged, not only with my circumcision and that I have fixated on the circumcision.”
And finally this one:
“Before I underwent treatment to repair the worst of the damage inflicted by my circumcision, the surgeon insisted that I undergo a psychiatric appraisal.
The psychiatrist refused to believe that anyone could have negative feelings about circumcision and that I was using this as a cover for some other major problem. The interview was a total disaster. I left feeling as though I had been sexually abused by a dirty old man.”
There are a number of published reports in the medical literature dealing with this issue by the psychiatric professions. The ones I am going to quote are from the American medical press but the same situation could equally occur in the UK as I have just illustrated. I think they provide a disturbing insight into some aspects of the psychiatric profession.
In 1973, doctors from the Section of Urology and Department of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan Medical Center published an analysis of the anti-circumcision movement and they concluded that opposition to circumcision is a form of mental disorder.
Another paper from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Texas purportedly analysed the mental states of circumcised men who desired foreskin restoration. The appropriately named Dr. Mohl pointed out that most of the medical profession consider men with such a desire to be psychotic and insisted that there are no Jewish foreskin restoration seekers.
He stressed that all foreskin restoration seekers are homosexuals and recommended that foreskin restoration techniques be withheld from men until they have extensive psychiatric treatment.
He councils that reconstruction be refused to those who have “unrealistic expectations” or who display “overt, untreated psychiatric symptoms.” He defined `untreated psychiatric symptoms’ as “preference for uncircumcised partners,” and “strong feelings about the role of physicians and/or society in neonatal circumcision.”
The medical profession could be understood for suggesting that men may be projecting their psychological problems onto their circumcision. They should consider however the possibility that the psychological problems are in fact caused by the circumcision.
What do you think of a medical profession that insists that protecting babies from circumcision is a dangerous psychological disorder?
What do you think of a medical profession that insists that the desire for a whole body is psychotic?
What do you think of a society that insists on giving circumcisers access to the sexual organs of baby boys?
Healing and moving on
In her article Janet Menage says:
In order to heal losses of any kind and to avoid perpetuating harm on the next generation, it is therefore psychologically necessary to acknowledge the harm done by circumcision and to grieve its effect.
This involves a painful and protracted process, including initial denial, followed by anger & blame, then anxiety and searching, sadness & depression, and, ultimately, acceptance and reinvestment of energy into the future.
I think that most who have been affected have taken a great step forward in the healing process. I hope that you now realise that your feelings are perfectly normal.
Since our formation, the subject is now at long last being discussed. Unfortunately, the medical profession is lagging behind, and it is there that we need the most effort in education.
There are a number of members of the medical profession associated with 15 Square who have taken
the lead in this respect and stuck their heads over the parapet. They are, unfortunately, still very much in the minority.
Janet Menage says that within the medical profession some doctors justify their actions by saying
“I was circumcised/have done circumcisions – I was not harmed/have not harmed my patients – therefore to circumcise is trivial, harmless and necessary…”
If the doctor is in a process of trying to deny that he has been harmed by his own circumcision, he may be psychologically compelled to repeat the act on his patients to “prove” that circumcision is “harmless”. In addition, when a circumcision victim becomes a
circumciser, he is no longer powerless to attack – he is now the powerful attacker, thus redressing some of the balance in relation to his own fear of a repetition of his own trauma.
For a major change to take place therefore many doctors will need to come to terms with their own hidden damage if they are to ensure that patients are treated on their clinical need and not on the basis of the doctor’s personal preference or religious beliefs.