|
|
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|
|||||||
|
Quick links to products available in the Campaign for Genital Integrity . . .
|
||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|
|||||||
|
Quick links to products available in the Campaign for Genital Integrity . . .
|
||||||||
What are MEN saying about infant circumcision?
NOTE: Links with a right-facing blue arrow 
will take you off this site.
Society
cannot hear what men do not say. Warren Farrell, Ph.D. - The Myth of Male Power, 1993 |
|
| They are coming back in droves, those who were circumcised,
wishing to be uncircumcised. Many are intelligent individuals who cannot understand this
early assault. They are challenging our primitive habits, to elevate us out of the
ignorance of the past. Anthony Orlandella,
M.D. |
Institutionalized child abuse like circumcision, which in this
country legitimizes the sexual mutilation of about 60% of male infants, is in my opinion,
one of the primary causes of unconscious male rage and violence. Aaron Kipnis, Ph.D. |
I believe no man would allow his beloved son to be circumcised if he were in touch
with the terror he experienced during his own. It amazes me that I could so completely repress such an intense experience. I'm even more amazed at my fellow men, aware that most of them are circumcised and unaware of the powerful trauma repressed in their psyches. A way out of the unconscious avenging of repressed trauma is to make fully conscious the denied and repressed emotion and to hold the perpetrator(s) accountable. John Breeding |
||||
| My preference, if I had
the good fortune to have another son, would be to leave his little penis alone. Benjamin
Spock, M.D. |
To me, the idea of performing 100,000 mutilative procedures on newborns to possibly prevent cancer in one elderly man is absurd. George C. Denniston, M.D. |
| It no longer provides a mark of (tribal or social) allegiance
because it has been carried out on males from so many cultures and societies. If it 'makes
a boy feel regular' to be mutilated in this way, then we are back to the primitive
condition of tribal scarring that we now find abhorrent. Desmond Morris - Why are Babies Circumcised? pp.192-195 in Babywatching/1991 |
| The poor hygiene practices and irresponsible sexual behaviors of a
few do not justify circumcising the majority of newborn males. It violates basic human
rights of body ownership. Tim Hammond - NOHARMM Founder |
If you haven't one, there is a whole range of covered-glans nuances you can't recapture. Alex Comfort, M.D. - The New Joy of Sex/1991 |
| Circumcision
is not primarily a medical issue but rather has its roots in deeply held religious belief
and social customs that defy rational and humane understanding. James Prescott, Ph.D. Genital Pain
vs. Genital Pleasure: Why the One and Not the Other? |
My first major loss was being severed forever from a sensitive
part of my boy's body - my foreskin. This mutilation is an initiation into the warrior
cult, which predates its medical and religious meanings and begins the wounding of our
boys into manhood. We would benefit from better ways to treat our boys. Shepherd Bliss - My War Story: A Child's Trauma |
|||
| All of the western world raises its children uncircumcised and it
seems logical that, with the extent of health knowledge in those countries, such a
practice must be safe. C. Everett Koop, M.D. |
Risks of newborn circumcision are underreported and ignored factors in this argument. Often a poor surgical result is not recognized until years after the event. Adverse long-term consequences of infant circumcision on the sexual health of American men must be recognized by physicians, parents and legislators. James L. Snyder, M.D. |
| Men who say, 'I'm circumcised and just fine' are either unaware as
to how circumcision diminishes the penis or in denial to block feelings of hopelessness.
Foreskin restoration offers men one means by which to regain authority over their body. Jim Bigelow, Ph.D. -The Joy of Uncircumcising! 1992 |
| When we commit violence against an infant girl, we call it child
abuse; against an infant boy, we call it circumcision. What is the long-term impact?
Unstudied. This ignorance persists despite the fact that a nationwide study on the
long-term impact of male circumcision could be conducted for less than it cost us to
conduct any two minutes of the Persian Gulf War. Females produce smegma under their
clitoral hood identical to males. As a result, odor and infection can occur if it is not
cleaned. But we do not circumcise the female's clitoral hood. America's reflexive
continuation of circumcision-without-research reflects the continuation of our tradition
to desensitize boys to feelings of pain, to prepare them to not question the disposability
of their bodies any more than they would question the disposability of their foreskins. Warren Farrell, Ph.D. - The Myth of Male Power, pp.221-223, 1993 |
The same type of cultural astigmatism which prevented past generations from
perceiving their actions as child abuse prevents contemporary Americans from perceiving or
acknowledging the most widespread form of child abuse in society today; child mutilation
through routine neonatal circumcision of males. William E. Brigman |
Historians of the future will find it incredible that we mutilated babies by cutting off the end of their penises in the name of medicine. There are now serious concerns that this may actually deprive adult men of a vital part of their sexual sensitivity. Dean Edell, M.D. - Radio and Television Medical Advisor |
| Justification of
circumcision in order to save a boy later locker room embarrassment seems unrealistic.
This is the latter half of the 20th Century, a time supposedly to celebrate individuality
and freedom of choice. Capt. E. Noel Preston, MC, USAF |
 |
Their penises are taken to the blade of a knife and cut. This is done to the male child prior to the age of consent. The fact that we do not know the long-term impact of this surgery and have not asked to know tells us about our attitude toward males. Warren Farrell, Ph.D. |
| Sex with a circumcised penis has been likened to 'trying to
appreciate one of Goya's masterpieces by looking at a black and white photograph?' Kenneth Purvis, M.D., Ph.D. |
| The cultural task of turning a boy into a man begins by the
disruption of the primal bond between mother and her son. The implicit message given to
the male when he is circumcised, whether the ritual is performed at seven days old or at
puberty, is that your body henceforth belongs to the tribe and not merely yourself. What
indelible message would be carved on your body, encoded within the scar tissue of your
symbolic wound? That men and women who supposedly love their sons refuse to examine and
stop this barbaric practice strongly suggests that something powerfully strange is going
on that is obscured by a conspiracy of silence. Sam Keen - Fire in the Belly, pp.29-30, 1991 |
Could the trauma from this event have anything to do with our later feelings of shame about our bodies, our concern about the size of our penises, our anguish over sexual performance, our frozen feelings, or the male ability (liability?) to ignore pain? In order to begin healing our wounds we need to remember what happened to us and to name it correctly. Cutting the genitals of newborn male babies is child sexual abuse. I encourage all men to join in ending this practice. Jed Diamond, L.C.S.W. |
|
| Circumcision represents a subtraction, removing one-third or more of the entire skin of the penis - a tragic loss of erogenous tissue. | The worst thing is that it produces circumcisers. There is a segment of physicians who have the psychic compulsion to circumcise so they themselves do not feel genitally inferior or different. | Could it be that the circumcised father is the one whose psyche is so disturbed that he suggests circumcision so his little son's genital status would not surpass his own? |
Thomas J. Ritter, M.D. - Say No to Circumcision!, p. 19-1, 1992 |
Childhood
genital mutilations are anachronistic rituals inflicted on the helpless bodies of
non-consenting children of both sexes.
Hanny Lightfoot-Klein (personal correspondence) - author,
When
a child is subjected to intolerable, overwhelming pain, it conceptualizes mother as both
participatory and responsible regardless of mother's intent. The perception of the infant
of her culpability and willingness to have him harmed is indelibly emplaced. The
consequences for impaired bonding are significant.
Rima Laibow, M.D. - Circumcision and its Relationship to Attachment Impairment
Syllabus of Abstracts Second International Symposium on Circumcision, April 30, 1991
It is not easy to see
evil in something that has the sanction of long tradition, but traditions can be bad or
good. The represent inherited error as well as inherited truth.
Archbishop Lang - United Kingdom
Isn't
it insulting to the average male's intelligence to think that surgery is preferable
because he can't be trusted with washing his genitals when somehow he manages to brush his
teeth, clean his ears and blow his nose?
Louanne Cole, Ph.D. - Sex Matters Columnist Is Circumcision Correct for Newborn Boys?
San Francisco Examiner, p.B7, August 11, 1993
Circumcision
simply counteracts excessive lust; for there is no doubt that (it) weakens the power of
sexual excitement, and sometimes lessens the natural enjoyment.
Moses Maimonides - Jewish Scholar (1135-1204 A.D.), The Guide of the Perplexed
No
one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment.
Article V, United Nations Declaration of Human Rights
What's done to children,
they will do to society.
Karl Meninger
|
More Pages Related to Male & Female Circumcision |
Top of Page | Home | Updates | FAQ | Research |
Education
| Advocacy | Litigation | Search
| Ideas | For
Media | Videos
| Bookstore |
FactFinder
Your Rights | Attorneys for the Rights of the Child
| Video
Excerpt | Dads | FGC Experts | Position
Statement | Harm Form | Class Action
Last updated: 28 February, 2012
© 1998-2021 NOHARMM. All rights reserved. Questions, or problems
using this site? Webmaster