After being confronted by Intactivists for his views on circumcision, Josh Bowman wants to cut through the rhetoric of the anti-circumcision movement.
I wanted to reply to some comments I received on a previous post and understand why I (and other writers) have managed to raise the ire of so many commentators out there by expressing what I consider to be relatively mundane views on what I always assumed was a prominent and common practice – circumcision.
“…you let your wife harm your son without the least bit of resistance. You both should be ashamed of yourselves. “
“Just passing by to tell you that you’re a failure of a parent for letting this happen.”
“Your wife’s a bitch.”
“Inflicting this amputation on the unconsenting is a human-rights violation.”
“Welcome to our world of insanity our beloved new born boy. First we tear you away from your mother’s loving arms and we take you into another room where she can not hear you scream…”
“If adult men decide they want to get bits cut off them… fine. Their call. Doing that to kids isn’t ok, there’s nothing ok about it.”
“The circumcised ones are prone to pound away like jackhammers with a single speed setting. It is because of decreased sensitivity? I don’t know.”
“I am anti-circumcision. It violates human rights when preformed on infants/children. It is a potential human rights violation when preformed on adults. FYI I love my foreskin.”
“LOL @ “I am pro-circ” followed by “we treat our penises poorly”. Get your head checked.”
Ouch.
I never realized, as I was growing up a young circumcised Jew (and being ok with it), that I had actually joined a movement from birth. That movement, from what I can tell, is called the “pro-circ” movement, and we are the enemies of the “intactivists”. We “violate human rights”, through “amputating” the foreskin. Which, from what I understand, we absolutely loathe.
Language is a funny thing. Language can be used to cement ideology, to make abstract ideas more concrete, to give names to new concepts. The power of chanting, of repetition can be empowering, or it can be sinister. A repeated word can be a mantra, and with language we can categorize, separate, and other.
There is power in a movement. When we create terminology and language, we can begin to relate to each other and, conversely, label those who disagree with us. So, if I’m liberal, I hate conservatives, and vice versa. If I’m pro-choice, I hate anti-choicers. If I’m pro-life, I hate pro-aborts.
Binaries are easy to create, and once you start enforcing them, it becomes very hard to get back to a place of understanding. I remember arguing with my mother many years ago (during the height of my own activist fervor), because she was a second-wave feminist, and I was third-wave, and I considered her to not be trans-positive enough. She was a bad feminist, in my mind. My mom is an award-winning comedienne, writer, and has marched for more good causes than I can imagine.
And I was being an arrogant little jerk.
I had stumbled upon a movement in university, and became so self-righteous about it that I was outraged by anybody who did not immediately hold all of the views I held. I was appalled by the racism I saw around me, the trans-phobia. All of these people who were unenlightened! It was disgusting.
It was much faster and easier to judge those around me than to try to understand where they were coming from. It was great for a while, until I was judged. Eventually, I encountered people who were even more activist than me! More anti-oppression. Better feminists. I got labeled, tried, and convicted in a court of public opinion.
I took some time after that to think. I realized that change is something that happens agonizingly slowly, but it does happen. I realized that there will always be a difference of opinion, and that is wonderful, because what kind of society would we be if we didn’t disagree? I realized the dangers inherent in ideological fervor, and how hurtful we can be when we don’t take the time to recognize that not all of us are at the same place, but all of us deserve some level of respect.
I don’t know a lot about this intactivist movement, but I’m willing to listen. At the same time, I am circumcised, and that practice has a deep, cultural significance for me. I love my parents, and respect their choice to give me a bris. For many, many years, this practice has been incredibly common in North American society. So please don’t be surprised or angry when people are in favour of it. I’m not interested in violating human rights, but I get my back up when I’m attacked or labeled for views that until recently, I’ve never even thought twice about.
I believe change happens through education and dialogue over time. So, let’s talk about circumcision like the gentlemen and ladies that we are.
Photo courtesy of Michael Bentley
A woman named Kristen O’Hara wrote an entire book on the theme of this post. I do not trust her research methods and her shrill tone. I detest her blog; for one thing, it makes free use of porn video footage, and is the ugliest web site I know. But I do suspect that there is a fair bit of truth in what she writes, so that my post below could be greatly expanded. I have a dream. One day, a very smart and very funny secular Jewish woman will write a long essay about her discovery and enjoyment of… Read more »
Few middle aged educated middle class American men have foreskins. Few women from the same stratum have husbands with foreskins. Therefore polite America has a blind spot when it comes to the sexual advantages of foreskin. Last century, this blind spot badly biased American parents towards circumcising their newborn sons. The desire to circumcise springs from an inadequate understanding of human sexuality. Let me give you Yanks some lecture notes to remedy this lacuna. In the gaslight era, the English speaking gentile middle class began circumcising their boys because it was thought to make masturbation, then seen as highly immoral,… Read more »
I was circed against my will at 15 and I can tell you that if you are circed you were left with 10 – 15 percent of the feeling that God intended for you to have. Dictating how a person should or should not enjoy sex later in life is never right. Check out my website you can contact me through there. I will be more than willing to talk to anybody about the other side of circumcision. http://www.oregonintactivist.com
Just as Girls have a right to stay the way they were born, so do boys.
Decided a while back to write out the most even-handed take on the issue that I could. Verbose, but hopefully useful: Genital mutilation is a cultural and religious practice consisting of the forced surgical alteration of the genitals without medical necessity. It is usually inflicted on children. Owing to differences in anatomy, technique, and setting, female victims suffer debilitation, complications and fatalities at a much higher rate than male victims. Even in hospital settings the results for any victim can be life-altering or fatal. Anatomically, genital mutilation against females is vastly different than the mutilation of males. Ethically, culturally and… Read more »
genital mutilation of infants is wrong, nothing will ever justify destroying healthy and normal tissue from an infant. Much less so when it’s nerve dense tissue that is responsible for sexual pleasure. Even less so when it is forced only for one gender’s “benefit” while the other gender’s analogous body part remains free from such horrendous misinformation and fearmongering. Until Americans can free themselves from this sadistic idea that the parents only own their male child’s genitals and can mutilate them at the slightest whim we can never say we are a free nation, Some of us are free, while… Read more »
Totally agree with you Joshua.
Joshua, yo da man!
Laurel, to speak for others is sort of a no no. Reminds me of what happened yesterday. A man came over to talk to my friends I am staying with (who I met through Occupy Boston and have given me a place to stay instead of homeless shelters), he was ernest in his quest to talk about the death/murder of Martin Luther King Jr and the conspiracy that the Gov and CIA really did the deed. This man is white telling People of Color Working Group and anyone of color that THEY should be the ones to look into this,… Read more »
Hi Josh,
I don’t know if anyone has mentioned this yet or not, but you might find this to be a useful resource, specifically to do with the Jewish context.
http://www.beyondthebris.com/
Cheers, and thank you for opening this dialogue: interaction such as what I’ve (mostly) seen here is what will foster understanding: not hostility (which I understand, but don’t condone).
Religion is vary civilizing to a society. Ancient religions are rich and steeped in traditions. Marking and scaring the skin are probably among the oldest examples of enduring human ritual. In prehistoric times they served various ends: promoting hunting magic, storing and transmitting mythological lore and forging tribal identity.
There is no doubt that bodily modifications have been going on for a long time with humans. I have no problem with an adult electing to mark their body in any way they wish. The issue I have is when bodily modifications are done to a person who has no capacity to consent and when they are too young to understand the full consequences of the modification. Our society has determined that 18 is the legal age of adulthood. I do not believe anyone should consent to permanantly alter the body of another. If a cultural, religious or ethnic group… Read more »
very well stated! thank you.
When one understands that the anatomy of the penis and foreskin, forced circumcision becomes far more cruel than we initially think. While parents may have done this with our best interests at heart, with advice from people who genuinely may not have known better, the fact is cutting off the foreskin is a rather severe, harmful and sexually repressive act.
Ken McGrath explains this anatomy in detail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DD2yW7AaZFw&feature=plcp&context=C43b2f62VDvjVQa1PpcFPfjQgFlxd2crTP60nh3aXpmMKXnOn5ZbQ=
Yes, forced circumcision, of any gender, is cruel, even when done by parents with the best intentions. Thanks for speaking up, James.
Check out these websites
cirp.org
circinfo.org
thewholenetowork.org
drmomma.org (search circumcision, you’ll find a ton)
doctorsopposingcircumcision.org/
http://www.cirp.org/library/legal/Canada/court1/
http://www.cirp.org/library/legal/smith/
Great resources Mark!
“So, let’s talk about circumcision like the gentlemen and ladies that we are.”
Sometimes that is able to happen, but sometimes it is difficult when people simply refuse to look at what is happening to children. Since the subject revolves around babies who are helpless to defend themselves, it can be infuriating to see how callous some people can be about inflicting this onto the body of a non-consenting human being. :-/
Absolutely!
Here’s a test for the people who think that MGM is a-ok and FGM is not: Imagine you have a 12 year old daughter. One day she comes home late from school and cheerfully tells you she’s joined a new religion. She tells you a few things about the nice goddess in the sky who has chosen her people for great things and will someday grant them a land of their own. Then she tells you how a non-medical professional is going to cut off a part of her genitalia next week to seal the deal. How many seconds before… Read more »
Goddess based religions haven’t shown to be into FGM infact they celebrate sex and sexuality and embrace bisexuality too.
Maybe Egyptian goddesses.
the first anti-circ propoganda I ever saw was all out anti-semetic by a Christian group who willfully forgot that Jesus was a Jew therefor he would have been circumcised. This was around 1998. That sticks in your head when you see it. now its even more feverish with islamaphobia. during WWII how do you think they might have culled Jews hiding in plain sight. Euroupe still is very anti-semetic and anti-islam. Some of the same anti-circ people are anti-vaccination and run the risk of their child dying from a preventable illness like whopping cough or causing the death of someone… Read more »
Anyone who does not properly clean their body is subject to health problems. Anybody.
Removing a body part is no substitute for training children to properly clean their bodies.
Perhaps that’s why I’ve had so many root canals? Naw, couldn’t be. lol
“You can’t compare FGM to this as the purposes behind FGM is complete sexual repression. ” The purposes behind MGM – at least as it pertains to the history of how it got started in America – is also sexual repression. Yes, the two can definitely be compared. They both involve forcible removal of something healthy and normal from someone’s body; they both involve the sex organs, and they both involve what is defined as mutilation. Also, there are various forms of FGM – some of which are mild in comparison to what happens during infant circ. And yet girls… Read more »
Great information! Thanks!
@ Cherie
“Jesus was a Jew”
No he was not. Jesus always knew that he was the son of God so unless Jews also believe that then he was a Christian. Jews were also born with original sin I’m not even sure that Mary was a Jew.
Wow! What an ignorant statement that Jesus was not a Jew. Abba (God) provides a genealogy for Mary in the Gospels. Remember when the Pharisees crucified him they put a sign over his head “King of Jews”? To fulfill prophecy Jesus had to come from Jewish ancestry. Read the Bible.
@Cyn: good to see you here, fighting the good fight. @Cherie: Very surprisingly, many African married women who underwent a less savage form of FGM as girls have told western investigators that they climax with their husbands. If this can be believed, FGM often does not destroy a woman’s ability to enjoy vaginal intercourse. In no way does this justify FGM. It is true that in your time and mine, RIC has not been practiced to reduce male sexual pleasure. But that was not true in the Victorian-Edwardian era, when the bald penis first became fashionable among the urban upper… Read more »
I’m gay and circumcised and spent many years gleefully expanding the definition of the term “slut”. Suffice to say that I have seen a lot of dick. In my experience there are way too many men out there with foreskins that are too small – they don’t cover enough of the glans when flaccid and are pulled too tight when erect. I think the solution to this is to properly train OB/GYNs on the proper method to use. I was fortunate in that my mom’s OB/GYN was considered one of the best in the state at the time. I was… Read more »
I think if in cases where it is, in fact, necessary as a medical procedure….well then it’s a medical procedure. We don’t have long-term memory days after being born, so I don’t think that the event itself will necessarily traumatize someone. However, the after-effects of a circumcision that doesn’t go well could be traumatizing. And even if everything goes fine…we still shouldn’t be physically altering a child’s body when they can’t give consent (unless, as I said, it’s medically necessary).
”we still shouldn’t be physically altering a child’s body when they can’t give consent (unless, as I said, it’s medically necessary).”
That logic should also be applied to those whom pierce their babies ears as well.
To some degree yes, dunno why people pierce babies ears? Although the removal of tissue for a circumcision is muuuchhhhhhhhhh worse, you can’t really just let it heal over like a pierced ear.
During forced genital cutting of an infant stress hormone (cortisol) levels rinse in a child’s brain to levels we deem unacceptable in animals, this is how we regulate animal cruelty, yet baby boys are subjected to this as the most sensate part of their penis is cut off, without consent!? Parents have a role to protect their children from harm, not subject them to it, no matter how misinformed, superstitious or otherwise unaware of normal sexual anatomy and development they may be. I am gay too, lived though the seventies and saw and experienced a great many penises too. Your… Read more »
@ David in SLC
“In my experience there are way too many men out there with foreskins that are too small – they don’t cover enough of the glans when flaccid and are pulled too tight when erect. I think the solution to this is to properly train OB/GYNs on the proper method to use.”
The proper solution is not to have had the circumcision done. How can gay men especially support infant circumcision and assert that people shouldn’t attempt to alter their sexual orientation or suppress their sexual identity because they were born that way, amazing?
Well I dunno – I have a foreskin, have never had a moment of worry about having a foreskin, don’t anticipate having a moment of worry about having a foreskin and consider that cutting on an infant is cruel unless it’s necessary to save his life. I do not know why the practice exists since the race managed just fine without it for thousands of generations. I think it’s kinda weird to make a statement that basically says that God/Gia/Nature is wrong/flawed/design challenged and we know better. Personally I prefer things the way nature made them except I like it… Read more »
“Binaries are easy to create, and once you start enforcing them, it becomes very hard to get back to a place of understanding.”
Thanks for this.
Thanks Mark!!
I honestly, non-sarcastically, wonder how this comes into play when discussing Human Rights.
Cherie No one here has the slightest interest in defending the type of destructive FGM that is done in the Absurdistans of the world. Further, no one here really promotes labial reduction for cosmetic or hygeine reasons. Those issues are just distractions when the subject is MGM, except that the latter can be a useful analogy ( as if argument by analogy would ever work). IOWs, saying “women have it worse” does not really answer the argument that these type procedures are all un-necessary if the people involved have a rudimentary amount of knowledge about the normal human body and… Read more »
Exactly.
The cosmetic work women have had done is different and by influance of the porn industry and men with little understanding of female anatomy. yes some women get lebia reducuction, but that is in no way anywhere near what is done in ritualistic FGM. some countries have help curb it with nicks to the area, but still the more extreme accurrs. As westerners we have no concept of what happens and why in other countries and respond in a western manner.
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/Home/Archive/Africa_obtains_low-cost_fertility_treatment.html?cid=45728
http://www.clearpassage.com/sexual_function/female-circumcision.php
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs241/en/
men have very few if any of these problems.
So… because women have a comapratively worse form of genital cutting, then it’s okay to keep doing it to boys? Is that what you’re getting at here?
Just what *is* your point?
Why is it always porn that’s the cause of women beautifying themselves? Do you think women are the primary consumers of porn? I’m not saying they aren’t, I know alot of women who look at porn, but if that’s the case I don’t see what men have to do with it. If women generally don’t watch porn then how does it affect them? I’ve never heard of a man telling a woman “I’m sorry, your vagina isn’t tidy enough.” Chances are that if he’s gotten that far he isn’t going to be put off by funny lips. Maybe those women… Read more »
http://www.medhelp.org/posts/Dermatology/uncircumcised-penis-problem/show/243199 What is phimosis? Phimosis is a condition in which the foreskin of the penis is so tight that it cannot be pulled back (retracted) to reveal the head of the penis. What causes phimosis? Phimosis, which is seen most often in children, may be present at birth. It also can be caused by an infection, or by scar tissue that formed as a result of injury or chronic inflammation. Another cause of phimosis is balanitis, which leads to scarring and tightness of the foreskin. Immediate medical attention is necessary if the condition makes urination difficult or impossible. How is… Read more »
“And that uncircumcised males have an increased chancew of having penile cancer.”
Well, in that case we might as well go ahead and start performing infant apendectomy and tonsil removals while we’re at it. Since we’re basing the neccesity of surgeries on what ailments the kid “might” get down the road.
The data on penile cancer is incredibly misunderstood. Here’s the deal. Penile cancer is very, very rare. One of the most rare cancers, in fact. When they aggregated data about penile cancer, they found that people who had it were slightly more likely to be intact. But guess what else they found? Most of the patients were also older, and that population was more likely to be intact! It was not a study of an equal number of intact men vs circ’d men of the same ages. Therefore the study wasn’t even designed or controlled to determine causation. That’s correlation,… Read more »
Well, in that case we might as well go ahead and start performing infant apendectomy and tonsil removals while we’re at it. Since we’re basing the neccesity of surgeries on what ailments the kid “might” get down the road. Why stop there? Go ahead and remove breast tissue from girls as soon as puberty starts, remove ovaries/cervix/uterus at birth, remove the testicles at birth, etc…. Circumcision seems to be the one of the few procedures that is performed on new borns under the premise of it being “preventative maintenance” (not to be confused with say an actual necessary circumcision like… Read more »
I have also read that contributing factors to phimosis is premature retraction.
From what I have read is that health care experts are prematurely retracting the foreskins of toddlers or infants in neonatal checkups.
That is absolutely true.
Also many diagnosed cases of phimosis are by doctors who want to forcibly retract a foreskin that simply isn’t anatomically ready to do so. In almost all cases, the foreskin will retract on its own.
When forcibly retracted, scar tissue forms. When allowed to separate on its own, the fibrous tissue between the gland and the foreskin naturally degrades and no scar tissue is formed. If scar tissue is present, the likelihood of those tissues disappearing on their own is reduced.
Hence my earlier warning to parents to protect your child’s foreskin!
I got a Doberman pup a while back. When they are pups they have long happy tails and big floppy ears and if you let them, they grow into what they are which is a kind of hound. But those ears and tail can express calm and acceptance and so humans decided to put a stop to that. They wanted them to be guard/police dogs. It just seemed wrong to me to do that and I never had the trimming done. He was a cool companion dog.
Why does it matter so much whether or not I was being sarcastic? My point would stand either way. All the arguments in favor of circing boys apply to reducing excess female folds. Some studies show a reduction in susceptibility to disease. My point is that in our culture it is unthinkable to proceed as if there was something wrong or defective about all little girls from birth that needed routine surgery to correct. Whereas, for little boys it entirely different. I do not have an ultimate problem with parents deciding to go this way. Some decisions have to be… Read more »
If it’s not clear from my other comments…I am also against circumcision either for girls or boys. I was asking whether you were being sarcastic to know whether I would reply, and if I replied how to frame my reply.
@Josh – I’m going to start this in a new space only because other comments are so nested. – I’m curious as to what you’re opinions on piercings, vaccinations, and corporal punishment are? I’m also not trying to be facetious, just curious. 🙂
Hi Heather. Hmmm…I am fine with vaccinations. I am….ok with ear piercings, I think. I have no real opinion on ear piercings, to be honest. I don’t know why a two-year old needs their ears pierced, to be honest. On that note, does a nine year old need a Gucci bag or low-rise jeans or a Blackberry? Anyway…
I’m against corporal punishment. There have to be better, more constructive ways to discipline your kids, I think.
I want to say for the record, as Good Feed Blog co-editor and Senior Editor of GMP, that Josh and I went back and forth quite a bit about this piece. He even wrote one that we both decided not to run in favor of this one. Josh is saying something important here. He’s saying, “Educate me, don’t attack me.” Which is exactly what we are trying to do at GMP. I’m so incredibly proud to have Josh Bowman in our fold, not only because he is a “good man” but also because of his willingness to not only hear… Read more »
Thank you very much, Joanna and Josh.
Thanks so much Joanna, and SM.
To me, it’s terrific that I can write for the GMP, and we can discuss so many of these issues that have left us in the dark, in an open and honest way. There is a lot of stigma around men’s issues, and we need a venue to explore this stuff. It’s an amazing site because it allows us to really delve into issues that we have taken for granted around masculinity.
So…thanks, and thank you to all the commentators, pro and con, for your insight into this debate.
Agreed Joanna. This is an important conversation, will be moderated, and hopefully that will allow us all to discuss without attacks.
Well said. And good moderation.
A basic human right is bodily self-determination, that a person him/herself and no one else is to determine what is or is not done to their own body, especially something that is irreversible, such as removing a part of their body without urgent medical necessity. Violating that is stripping a person of their fundamental human rights. Advocating for this procedure being done without a person’s express consent is consistent with advocating for abortion being banned. It’s the exact same principle/rule – bodily self-determination. In the view of many, girls’ and women’s rights are inalienable (well they should be) but boys and… Read more »
Again, I want to say…thank you for this discussion.