Male Circumcision in the USA:
A Human Rights Primer
Rich Winkel rich@math.missouri.edu
May 11, 2005
"Despite the obviously irrational cruelty of circumcision,
the profit incentive in American medical practice is
unlikely to allow science or human rights principles to
interrupt the highly lucrative American circumcision
industry. It is now time for European medical associations
loudly to condemn the North American medical
community for participating in and profiting from what is
by any standard a senseless and barbaric sexual mutilation
of innocent children."
Fleiss PM. MD, MPH. Circumcision. Lancet
1995;345:927[1]
"Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity."
George Bernard Shaw
"What is done to children, they will do to society."
Karl Menninger, MD
The American medical establishment has promoted male
circumcision as a preventative measure for an astonishing array of
pathologies, ranging from masturbatory insanity, moral laxity,
aesthetics and hygiene, to headache, tuberculosis, rheumatism,
hydrocephalus, epilepsy, paralysis, alcoholism, near-sightedness, rectal
prolapse, hernia, gout, clubfoot, urinary tract infections, phimosis,
cancer of the penis, cancer of the cervix, syphillis and
AIDS.[2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] But the only rationale which has clear, well
established scientific support is the one originally and openly used by
the medical establishment when medical circumcision was introduced
as a "public health" measure in the Victorian era. That is, to punish
and control the sexuality of male children. Victorian doctors knew
something that modern medicine has chosen to ignore: the foreskin is
at the heart of male sexuality.
A typical western medical circumcision results in the loss of
approximately 1/2 of the total surface area of the penis and between
50 and 80% or more of its erogenous sexual nerves,[8, 9, 10] including:
o The Taylor "ridged band"*, the primary erogenous zone of the
male body. This unique, highly specialized and exquisitely
sensitive structure is equipped with soft ridges designed by
nature to stimulate the female's inner labia and G-spot during
intercourse.
o The frenulum, the highly erogenous V-shaped tethering
structure on the underside of the head of the penis.
o Between 10,000 and 20,000 specialized erotogenic nerve endings
of several types, which can feel slight variations in pressure and
stretching, subtle changes in temperature, and fine gradations in
texture.
o Thousands of coiled fine-touch receptors called Meissner's
corpuscles, which are also found in the fingertips.
Also lost are:
o The foreskin's gliding action, the non-abrasive gliding of the
shaft of the penis within its own sheath, which facilitates
smooth, comfortable and pleasurable intercourse for both
partners.
____________________________
*Sometimes called the "frenar band."
o The "subpreputual wetness" which protects the mucosa of the glans
(and inner foreskin), and which contains immunoglobulin antibodies
and antibacterial and antiviral proteins such as the
pathogen-killing enzyme lysozyme, a potent HIV killer which
is also found in tears and mothers' milk.
o Estrogen receptors, the purpose of which is not fully understood.
o The foreskin's apocrine glands, which produce pheromones.
o The protection and lubrication of the erogenous surface of the
penis, which is designed by nature to be an internal organ like
the vagina. Natural sex involves contact between two internal
organs.[11 ]
In essence, medical male genital mutilation (MGM) is the
pathologization and treatment of the "disease" of male sexuality.[12 ]
"Ken McGrath, senior lecturer of pathology at Auckland
University of Technology...an internationally recognised
researcher on the effects of circumcision...recently
simulated circumcision by anaesthetising his foreskin. He
describes it as a disturbing experience, going from full
sensitivity to almost none." "Foreskin's Lament" Sunday
Star-Times (New Zealand) July 29,2001 [13 ]
"I was quite happy (delirious, in fact) with what pleasure I
could experience beginning with foreplay and continuing
as an intact male. After my circumcision, that pleasure
was utterly gone. Let me put it this way: On a scale of 10,
the uncircumcised penis experiences pleasure that is at
least 11 or 12; the circumcised penis is lucky to get to 3..."
(From a letter to Marilyn Milos, RN, Founder/Director of
NOCIRC)[14 ]
"[Like] wearing a condom or wearing a glove ... sight
without color would be a good analogy ... only being able
to see in black and white ... rather than seeing in full color
would be like experiencing an orgasm with a foreskin and
without. There are feelings you'll just never have without
the foreskin." (Paul Tardiff, circumcised at age 30)[14 ]
"The 1999 British Journal of Urology Supplement has a
study of American women who have experienced sex with
both intact and circumcised partners. The results of the
survey are truly astonishing. Among other things, the vast
majority of surveyed women indicated that they
overwhelmingly prefer intercourse with a man with a
natural penis (approximately 90%) and that they were
significantly more likely to achieve a 'vagina' orgasm
during 'natural' intercourse. More astonishing is the fact
that many women actually rated circumcised intercourse a
negative experience when compared to the natural
intercourse." -Kristen O'Hara, Author of "Sex As Nature
Intended"[15 , 16]
"I swore that I would never have sex with an
un-circumcised man. The thought of it made me turn up
my nose. When I first met my partner, we tended to have
sex in the dark. [...] The sex was the best I had ever had.
With the unique 'vaginal' orgasms along with the standard
clitoris orgasms. A few months into our relationship, I
realized that he was actually un-circumcised. [...] My point
in short is, sex is incredibly better with an un-circ'ed man.
I never would have thought it, but now, with first hand
experience, I know it is. I never had a 'vaginal' orgasm,
until him." (private correspondence to Stan Emerson,
circumcision awareness educator, nocirc47@yahoo.com)
In 1888, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, a well respected physician and
founder of the Kellogg cereal company, spoke for mainstream
Victorian medicine when he wrote: "A remedy for masturbation
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 [sic, see below] attending the operation
will have a salutary effect upon the mind, especially if it be connected
with the idea of punishment."[17 ]
Whatever the current rationales for circumcision, the procedure
outlined by Kellogg in 1888 is essentially how MGM is practiced
today: without anesthesia, without patient consent, without the
presence of disease or the statistical likelihood of future disease, and
without regard for the human rights of an innocent boy or the man he
will become.
Incidentally, Victorian medicine was equally rapacious in its
claims on female genitalia. The fact that FGM didn't follow MGM in
becoming nearly universal in this country may be largely an accident
of anatomy: the surgical risks are likely higher. Yet American medical
journal articles proclaiming the benefits of clitorectomies persisted
until at least the 1950's,[18 , 19, 17, 20] and clitorectomies of minors
were covered by Blue Cross-Blue Shield until 1977. (Surprisingly, the
continuing western practice of episiotomy during childbirth, in the
face of its iatrogenic "indications" and consequences, is not generally
recognized as a form of FGM.[21 ])
In any case, MGM is not without risk either. Even today, partial
or total penile amputation or deformity, sepsis, gangrene and even
coma and death are well established immediate risks of MGM. While
American medicine keeps no systematic record, estimates of US deaths
rates range to over 200 per year.[22 , 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31]
Medical Rationales
Setting aside for a moment the human rights implications of forcibly
cutting healthy erogenous flesh from the bodies of screaming infants,
and the older, more obviously bogus rationalizations for it, one would
hope that an examination of medicine's more recent justifications for
MGM will reveal a valid scientific rationale for its continuation.
Incredibly, the opposite is true: decades of pre-emptive
censorship of male sexuality have resulted in a corresponding
censorship of natural male sexual anatomy and function in American
medical schools. Even today, intact foreskins are routinely omitted
from anatomical medical textbooks, or mentioned solely in the
context of circumcision.[32 ] As a result, many American doctors and
nurses are woefully ignorant of the routine care of natural male
genitalia, and frequently perform unnecessary circumcisions as a
direct consequence of their ignorance.[33 , 34, 35, 9, 2] Perhaps
nowhere is this phenomenon more evident than in the medical
establishment's approach to urinary tract infections and phimosis.
According to the retrospective study of urinary tract infections
(UTI's) in US military hospitals which is usually quoted in support of
MGM, it requires at least 50 to 100 circumcisions to prevent a single
UTI infection.[36 ] But even this figure is likely unreliable because
ignorant US doctors have frequently induced UTIs in intact children
by advising parents to forcibly retract the child's normally-attached
foreskin and scrub underneath[36 ] (the foreskin often remains
attached to the head of the penis for years after birth, with no ill
effect if simply left alone). This excruciatingly painful procedure,
which is done repeatedly as the raw tissues reattach, would be
hygienically comparable to breaking a girl's hymen in order to scrub
her vagina: it's an invitation to infection, and indeed bacterial strains
isolated in American boys and girls with UTIs implies that boy's
infections tend to be iatrogenic.[36 ] The study is further confounded
by the fact that MGM was so routine at one time that hospitals
frequently did it "automatically" without recording it on their charts,
and sickly children were more likely to be spared the stress of
circumcision, thus tending to select for apparent or real intactness in
the ill group. These and other systematic flaws bring the reliability of
the study into question.[37 , 34]
"The intact baby has a slightly increased chance of
developing a urinary tract infection in infancy but a lower
incidence of UTI (urinary tract infection) the rest of his
life. UTI's in females are found at rates of up to 50 times
that of males (Understanding Urinary Tract Infection,
Infect Urol 8 (4), 111,114-120, 1995) and we do not alter
their genitalia as a preventative measure. Most UTI's in
the intact male are iatrogenic (doctor caused) by
inspecting, probing and even retracting the fused foreskin
and introducing bacteria the foreskin is designed to keep
out." -Eileen Wayne, M.D.[15 ]
"Toronto researchers studied almost 60,000 boys. The
study suggests 195 circumcisions would need to be
performed to prevent one hospital admission for urinary
tract infection in the first year of life. Since a conservative
estimate of the number of significant complications of
circumcision is 2-3%, this would mean that circumcising
nearly 200 boys to prevent one urinary tract infection
would result in at least 4 boys suffering a major
complication to prevent one easily treatable urinary tract
infection." -The Lancet 1998; 352:1813-16[15 , 38]
In fact, breastfeeding and physical contact with the mother have
been shown to be far more effective at preventing UTI's than even
proponents of circumcision claim for MGM. If given a chance, nature
elegantly protects infants from infection by immunizing, via breast
milk, against the very organisms which the child's skin, in the
company of his mother, would be colonized by.[39 ] Recent research in
Japan, a non-circumcising country, has found a much lower rate of
UTI's among intact children than the earlier American studies.[40 ] Of
course, for any other bodily tissue the standard of care for infection
would be antibiotics, not amputation. Thankfully, the fact that UTIs
are far more common in girls is not used to push FGM in this
country.[41 , 42, 43]
MGM has also been routinely prescribed for "phimosis," a
condition in which the foreskin of the penis is abnormally
non-retractable. But phimosis in intact boys is greatly exaggerated in
the USA because ignorant doctors confuse it with normal attachment,
and also because they frequently cause an iatrogenic version of it,
again by advising parents to forcibly retract, leading to infections and
scar tissue. In any case, the American Academy of Pediatrics recently
admitted that true, non-iatrogenic phimosis, which occurs in less than
2% of intact males, can be successfully treated in 85-95% of cases by
the simple application of a steroid cream.[44 ] This miraculous medical
breakthrough, coming decades after the introduction of steroid cream,
is illustrative of the cavalier contempt medicine has demonstrated for
male sexual integrity.
Between iatrogenic UTI's and phimosis, many boys who survive
the high-tech birthing industry whole and intact later succumb to the
knife in early childhood, and any future younger brothers are more
likely to be circumcised immediately after birth. Currently around
80% of all US-born males have been circumcised.[45 , 46]
For decades MGM has been endorsed for the prevention of penile
and cervical cancer. But in a letter to the American Academy of
Pediatrics in 1996, physicians at the American Cancer Society wrote:
"As representatives of the American Cancer Society, we would like to
discourage the American Academy of Pediatrics from promoting
routine circumcision as a preventative measure for penile or cervical
cancer. The American Cancer Society does not consider routine
circumcision to be a valid or effective measure to prevent such
cancers. Research suggesting a pattern in the circumcision status of
partners of women with cervical cancer is methodologically flawed,
outdated and has not been taken seriously in the medical community
for decades. [...] Fatalities caused by circumcision accidents may
approximate the mortality rate from penile cancer."[47 , 48] Another,
more recent study widely trumpeted in the media as proof of an
increased cervical cancer risk among partners of intact men, has been
found to suffer from numerous methodological flaws and exceedingly
unstable statistics.[49 , 50] The primary risk factors for both penile
and cervical cancer are the presence of the human papilloma virus and
the use of tobacco.[48 ]
On the issue of sexually transmitted diseases (STD's), one
obvious point should be stressed: children are not sexually active,
thus infant MGM cannot reasonably be promoted based on STD
prevention arguments. The child can and should be given the
opportunity to judge the facts for himself when he is old enough to
give informed consent for this very important decision with the full
knowledge of the value of his intact organ. The miniscule rate of adult
circumcision provides strong evidence of what this decision would
be.[51 ]
With that said, the jury is still out: the body of medical
literature gives no clear indication of whether circumcision protects
against STDs.[52 ] Many studies have reached contradictory or null
conclusions, such as a well controlled study of 1400 American men
published in the April 1997 issue of the Journal of the American
Medical Association which found that "Circumcised men were slightly
more likely to have had both a bacterial and a viral STD in their
lifetime. While these differences are not statistically significant, they
do not lend support to the thesis that circumcision helps prevent the
contraction of STDs. Indeed, for chlamydia, the difference between
circumcised men and uncircumcised men is quite large. While 26 of
1033 circumcised men had contracted chlamydia in their lifetime,
none of the 353 uncircumcised men reported having had it."[45 ]
Regarding AIDS in particular, it should be noted that among the
industrialized nations, AIDS is positively correlated with
circumcision.[53 , 54] Indeed, of the industrialized countries, the USA
has by far the highest AIDS rate and the second highest circumcision
rate, the latter second only to Israel.[54 ] This flies in the face of
recent, widely reported but deeply flawed surveys of AIDS and
circumcision in Africa, which did not control for the strong correlation
between the circumcision status and the socioeconomic status of
African men. Muslim men, for instance, tend to be both circumcised
and non-promiscuous. In circumcising tribes, intact men may tend to
be shunned by women, and to frequent prostitutes. In more secular
African cultures, circumcised men tend to have access to the western
model of medical care, and so are less likely to have easily treatable
STDs such as gonorrhea, the presence of which causes genital lesions
which promote the passage of the AIDS virus.[55 ]
Remarkably, a strong case has been made that medicine itself
drives most HIV transmission in Africa through the use of dirty
hypodermic needles, which are far more effective in HIV transmission
than sexual intercourse.[56 ] Notwithstanding the World Health
Organization's rebuttal,[57 ] their admission of a 30 worldwide average
rate of dirty needle usage hardly inspires confidence that iatrogenic
HIV infection isn't a major public health menace in AIDS- and poverty-
stricken Africa, as well as the rest of the developing world, where
every year an estimated 10 million people are infected, and 1.8 million
die, of lethal diseases transmitted by unsafe healthcare.[58 ] The
WHO's apparent success at keeping this long-foreseen iatrogenic
holocaust, and its curiously ineffectual response to it, from "the
front pages of newspapers around the world" is a testament to the power,
prestige and impunity of the holy church of medicine.
Other recent medical research has resorted to comparing the
density of HIV receptors in the foreskin and cervix, concluding that
the higher density of receptors in the foreskin is a rationale for
circumcision. But a similar comparison between the inner labia and
glans penis would probably argue for the practice of FGM. In any
case, a causal link between intact male genitals and HIV transmission
has never been demonstrated, and confounding factors, such as the
pathogen-killing secretions under the foreskin, may well result in a net
loss of biological defenses from MGM, even before the behavioral and
structural anatomical consequences are considered.
For instance, the dried out internal organ which is the end of a
circumcised penis provides less lubrication and so increases abrasion
during intercourse, creating possible infection sites in both partners.
This may account for the nearly 5-fold difference in US vs European
male-to-female HIV transmission rates.[59 ] Abrasion is further
exacerbated by the tightness of the penile skin, which can no longer
slide freely on the shaft. Some circumcisions are cut so tightly that
erection produces tearing in the penile skin, creating further sites for
the passage of pathogens. Condoms are more likey to fall off of a
circumcised penis, and American men are less likely to USE
condoms[53 ] (the most effective line of defense against STD's)
probably because of the lack of sensitivity most of them already
endure. Circumcised men are also significantly more likely to engage
in risky sexual behavior such as anal intercourse, possibly in an effort
to compensate for desensitization.[45 , 60] Furthermore, a small
amount of inner foreskin is usually left on the penis, and it's well
known that mucous membrane is more vulnerable to infection when it
is dried out.[52 ] Finally, MGM's adverse impact on sexual satisfaction
for both partners may increase sexual promiscuity.
Finally we reach the deeply embedded cultural mythology which
may be the real driving force behind medical MGM in the USA, the
same irrational fear that drives FGM in Africa: that intact genitalia
are somehow "dirty," that expert human intervention is needed to
remedy unmentionable defects in the design of the most critical
developmental objective of millions of years of evolution, the
reproductive organs. But about 80% of the men in this world are
intact.[2, 61] If male foreskin is such a pathologically disease-ridden
piece of anatomical garbage, why aren't men all over the world lining
up at clinics to be cut? The fact is that in terms of the difficulty of
maintenance, an intact penis is somewhere between the eyes and the
mouth, in other words between low and medium maintenance. If
doctors applied the same hygienic standards to the mouth as they do
the penis, they'd cut off our lips and pull all our teeth. We spend far
more time brushing our teeth than the second that it takes for an
intact man to retract and rinse under his foreskin, and even in the
absence of running water, urination (urine is a sterile liquid, by the
way) serves to flush out the region under the foreskin and keep it
clean. A study of 1000 young intact men, published in The Journal of
Urology in 1973, found only 2% had a significant accumulation of
smegma.[62 ] Intact male genitals likely require less maintenance than
that of females. But of course the assumption is that men are
somehow incapable of keeping themselves clean. If there's a grain of
truth buried in that social edifice, could it be related to the shame
and stigma attached to male autosexuality, of which medical MGM is
only a manifestation?
On the basis of over a century of similarly ambiguous, sloppy,
value-laden and selectively publicized research, the high priests of
American medicine have successfully promoted and defended their
idiosyncratic practice of genital surgery on six generations of normal,
healthy, non-consenting boys, repeatedly indicting, but never
managing to convict the foreskin for one malady after another. HIV is
only the most recent example of this pattern. Even the US taxpayer
has been drafted into the crusade, donating more than $35 million in
medicaid payments per year for involuntary circumcisions, many of
which would likely not have occurred without government subsidy.[63 ]
But despite medicine's most strenuous efforts, MGM, the USA's most
common surgical procedure, remains in search of a disease. But in any
case, even the most enthusiastic claims of circumcision proponents
must be weighed against its scientifically demonstrable drawbacks.[64 ]
Indeed, routine circumcision can only be defended by ignoring the
crucial erogenous value of the male prepuce, to both men and women.
When all the pseudo-medical diversions are disposed of, one is
left with a number of useful observations regarding medical genital
mutilation:
o No one volunteers to be tied down to a table to have parts of
their genitals crushed and cut off without anesthesia. Therefore,
it should be obvious even to those who haven't seen a screaming
baby boy being brutalized in a soundproofed hospital room,
that "routine" infant circumcision would not be so routine if
children could defend themselves from doctors. Unburdened of
the medical and social rationalizations for MGM, and facing the
immediacy of his anguish, the child likely sees circumcision for
what it is: a particularly brutal sexual assault and forcible
amputation.
o The only operative "indications" for routine infant circumcision
are the phobias and ignorance of the parents and the
powerlessness of the infant.
o The central issue of MGM is obviously human rights, specifically
every human being's right to a natural, complete, fully
functional and ecstatic sexuality, free of forcibly imposed
handicaps. Despite the medical establishment's obsession with
the purported pathologies of male genitals, doctors have no
more right to enforce Victorian sexual mores on struggling,
screaming children now than they did a century ago.
o The most virulent, chronic and debilitating pathology associated
with male foreskin appears to be the compulsion to cut it off.
As we'll see below, the medicalization of this compulsion results
in a particularly perverse and destructive form of child abuse.
Mechanics of Brutality
Now let's examine how a typical medical circumcision is performed.
First the child, after 9 months in the fetal position, is tied down
spreadeagled and straight-backed in a circumstraint, a plastic board
molded to the outline of an infant's body, which is equipped with
velcro straps. Next he is covered with a sheet which has a hole
through which his penis is threaded. Then his penis is thoroughly
swabbed with sterilizing solution. Naturally, this frequently provokes
an erection. Some physicians deliberately provoke erections in order
to judge the "cutoff line" and to aid in the surgery itself. In any case,
in the infant's brand new, wide-open, pre-verbal consciousness, this is
his first sexual experience: a torturous nightmare.[65 , 66, 67, 68, 69]
Because the foreskin of an infant is attached to the head of the
penis by the same tissue that bonds a fingernail to a finger, it must be
skinned away before it can be cut off. So the doctor forces a metal
probe between the foreskin and the head and tears apart this flesh
(called synechia) which bonds them together. Next, the doctor has
several options for the actual amputation. One commonly used device
for this step is called a gomco clamp. This essentially functions as a
thumbscrew for the foreskin. I am not making this up. Surgical
scissors are used to cut a slit along the length of the foreskin in order
to insert the metal "bell" which serves as one jaw of the clamp. The
foreskin is pulled over the bell and the other jaw of the clamp is
attached. Then, by tightening a screw, the foreskin, one of the most
densely innervated tissues of the body, is audibly crushed along two
lines (inner and outer foreskin) around its circumference.* The clamp
is left on for a few minutes to promote blood clotting, then the
foreskin is cut off at the crush line.[70 , 71, 72] Afterwards, the raw,
bleeding, formerly internal organ is wrapped in bandages and a diaper,
and then repeatedly burned with urine and its breakdown product,
ammonia, and exposed to infectious fecal matter while healing.
For many years the mainstream medical orthodoxy, put forth
after it was no longer acceptable to torture children in the name of
"moral hygiene," was that babies don't feel pain. It wasn't until 1978
that researchers even suggested using anesthetic during circumcision,
and even today, most medical circumcisions are performed without
anesthesia, according to the AMA.[73 ] This is in stark contrast to
what is known about infant pain perception and its profound and
lasting effects on the victim, as well as the plainly obvious reaction of
the infant boy, who forcefully communicates his torment to anyone
who will look and listen. Choking and breathing problems arise due
to the continuous screaming. Surges in adrenaline and cortisol and
large increases in heart rate, all established physiological indicators of
torture, have been measured.[74 ] Some babies appear to go into
shock.[75 ] Later, problems with sleep, mother-child bonding and
breastfeeding, and increased sensitivity to stress and pain are all
commonly seen after MGM.[76 , 77, 78] To all appearances, the infant
is left in a state of post-traumatic stress. Sometimes older boys have
recurring flashbacks of their circumcision, a classic sign of PTS.
Impaired bonding at this critical stage is well correlated with social
dysfunction and even criminality later in life,[79 ] while breast feeding
is known to have many health and psychological benefits for both the
mother and baby,[80 , 81, 82, 67, 83] contrary to American medical
doctrine of only a few years ago.
In a definitive study of neonatal pain perception published in the
____________________________
*Since all the nerves of the foreskin pass through this crush line,
the pain perception may be similar to that of putting virtually the
entire erogenous surface of the penis in a vise.
New England Journal of Medicine in 1987, the authors wrote:
"Numerous lines of evidence suggest that even in the human fetus,
pain pathways as well as cortical and subcortical centers necessary for
pain perception are well developed late in gestation, and the
neurochemical systems now known to be associated with pain
transmission are intact and functional."[84 ] Research for a study on
the efficacy of various types of pain relief during circumcision,
published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in
1997, was halted early because researchers began to question the
ethics of subjecting their placebo group to MGM without anesthesia.
Of 11 infants in the placebo group, two experienced prolonged periods
of apnea, and one infant had an episode of projectile vomiting and a
sudden "lack of tone in limbs".[85 ] Other immediate pain-related
complications of infant MGM include heart injury, pneumothorax (a
stress-caused life-threatening condition involving the introduction of
air into the chest cavity), and gastric rupture.[74 ]
"I have assisted with about 200 [circumcisions] [...] Babies
scream so hard that they end up with their faces red and
mouths wide open with no sound coming out. I had to
hold their heads to the side because some vomit from the
pain. I always had to get close to their faces and stroke
their cheeks because they would stop breathing. [...]
Consoling is impossible. They shake and their eyes are
wide open with panic. [...] Many of my consults are a
result of trauma from the circs. The babies' state of
homeostasis is so messed up from the stress that they are
no longer able to suck. Every IBCLC (lactation
consultant) that I know will tell you how circumcision is a
major source of feeding problems in the days
following."[86 ]
Federal law provides more protection from suffering to laboratory
animals than to male infants. Lab researchers must adhere to an
elaborate set of humanitarian guidelines when experimenting on
animals, or risk fines and license forfeiture. Needless suffering is to be
avoided, and anesthesia is an absolute necessity for surgical
procedures, except when the animal is to be promptly euthanized.[87 ]
A veterinarian would probably go to jail for circumcising a dog
without cause, with or without anesthesia.
"Performing this extremely painful procedure without
anesthetic has allowed researchers to study the parameters
of extreme pain in experiments that would not have been
allowed on laboratory animals. Using routine,
unanesthetized circumcision as a model of stress, Porter et
al. were able to examine the relation between cry acoustics
and vagal tone in 49 (32 experimental; 17 control) 1 to
2-day-old, full-term normal, healthy newborns during the
preoperative, surgical, and postoperative periods. Vagal
tone was significantly reduced during the severe stress of
circumcision. These reductions were paralleled by
significant increases in the pitch of the infants' cries."
Male Circumcision: A Legal Affront. Christopher Price
1996[88 , 89, 90]
The immediate psychological consequences of MGM are more
readily discernable in older boys than in infants. The older child
perceives the (usually anesthetized) operation as a sexual assault, and
grief, rage, aggression, "castration anxiety," altered sexual
identification, emotional withdrawl, reduction in intelligence test
scores and regression to "more primitive modes of expression"[91 ] are
all commonly seen in recently GM'd boys.[92 , 75]
The long term psychological impact of birth-related trauma is
also relevant to the issue of MGM. Recent studies have found striking
connections between birth trauma and adult post traumatic stress
and suicide,[93 , 94, 95, 96, 75, 67, 78, 97] and adult victims of infant
MGM often exhibit a spectrum of symptoms including:
o a sense of personal powerlessness
o lack of trust in others and life
o a sense of vulnerability to violent attack by others
o irrational rage reactions
o addictions and dependencies
o difficulties in establishing intimate relationships
o decreased ability to communicate
o emotional numbing
o reluctance to be in relationships with women
o anger and violence toward women[98 ]
Neurologically speaking, the life-long sexual sensory deprivation
which results from circumcision has a profound effect on the neural
organization of the brain, similar to that found in any amputee:
corresponding neurons associated with states of sexual and emotional
ecstasy die, and adjacent neural regions grow chaotically into the dead
zone.[99 ] Furthermore, childhood victims of traumatic abuse tend to
have a variety of brain abnormalities, reflecting a generalized rewiring
of the brain to adapt to a hostile environment.[100 ] The psychological
impact of such brain damage is likely to be far reaching.
"The phenomenon of circumcision [...] serves a practical
function of lowering excitability and distractibility
quotients-sexual arousal-of pubescent males, i.e. biasing
young males toward increased tractability which would
enhance group efforts and less toward individual goals of
amorous exchanges. Neurological data suggest that early
lesions of the prepuce/foreskin tissues would generate a
reorganization/atrophy of the brain circuitry. This
re-organization/atrophy, in turn, is suggested to lower
sexual excitability. [...] Inferential data support the
hypothesis that a practical consequence of circumcision,
complementary to any religious-symbolic function, is to
make a circumcised male less excitable and distractible,
and, hence, more amenable to his group's authority
figures." Abstract: A Biocultural Analysis of
Circumcision. Ronald Immerman, Department of
Psychiatry, MetroHealth Medical Centre, Case Western
Reserve University, and W.C Mackey. SOCIAL BIOLOGY
1998, Volume 44, Pages 265-275.[101 ]
Aside from endorsing the sexual lobotomization of children for
the purpose of social control, and their bizarre silence and indifference
to the mass sexualized traumatization and imprinting of infants,
psychiatrists have helped to perpetuate circumcision by branding
anti-MGM activists as "mentally ill,"[102 ] but these orwellian
enforcers of "behavioral health" have managed to overlook two likely
and obvious psychological consequences of MGM:
o The early imprinting of excruciating pain on the pleasure
networks of the brain likely encodes for sado-masochistic
behavior in the adult.[67 , 103]
o Sexual ecstasy isn't localized to a particular part of the brain,
it's a global state of powerful low frequency waves of neural
firing involving the entire brain. There's every reason to believe
that the sex drive is also a generalized property, or at least not
localized to the neurons that the foreskin maps to. As a result,
MGM neurologically blocks the fulfillment of the sex drive
without affecting the drive itself. This is likely to be a recipe for
what psychiatrists call "obsessive-compulsive disorder."
(Perhaps the Enron of the medical cartel is only looking out for
its own future earnings. Between iatrogenic UTI's, phimosis and HIV
being used to promote MGM, the pathologization and treatment of
childbirth,[104 , 105] the hugely profitable "erectile dysfunction"
market, and psychiatry's own penchants for pathologizing junk-fed,
sleep deprived, sedentary kids and treating them with brain-damaging
drugs, and pathologizing, shocking and abusing domestic abuse victims
while working for their abusers,[106 ] the iatrocyclic business model
appears to be widespread in American medicine)
Is this the kind of men we need in this world? Amenable to
authority figures? Forever longing for possibly unattainable sexual
fulfillment? Imprinted with a tortured, dissociative, objectified and
utterly disempowered model of their own bodies and sexuality?
Unable to lose themselves in the uniquely healing and
self-transcending joy of the most fundamental communication of
human intimacy?
Clearly, there is something other than medicine going on here.
From the Third International Symposium on
Circumcision University of Maryland, May 22-25, 1994:
"Look at these hands.
These hands have taken a newborn baby from his
mother's safe warm breast and his father's sheltering arms,
and these hands have tied this baby to a cold hard platter
and served him up to the circumciser.
These hands have readied the scalpel, even as they
caressed the brow of the terrified baby as he struggled for
freedom and searched my eyes for compassion he did not
find.
A tortured being has sucked frantically on this finger in
a hopeless effort to end the agony as his flesh - his
birthright - is ripped from him and thrown in the garbage.
These hands have removed the diaper painfully adhered
to the feces-covered wound between his chubby legs.
These hands have shielded my ears from his screams.
Nurses of America, I did not become a nurse to hurt
babies, and neither did you.
In 1992, with over 20 other nurses at St. Vincent
Hospital in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I gave notice to my
employers and declared I would no longer be an
accomplice in the atrocity that is infant circumcision.
I have reclaimed my tattered soul and begun the
process of becoming whole again.
I am a conscientious objector in the war against our
infant brothers and sons, and it feels wonderful.
Nurses of America, wipe the blood from your hands
and join me!"
Mary Conant, RN
[Mary Conant is one of the 24 heroic Conscientious
Objectors to Circumcision nurses at St. Vincent's
Hospital, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and co-founder of Nurses
for the Rights of the Child][107 ]
The 1999 report of the American Academy of Pediatrics task
force on circumcision said: "Existing scientific evidence demonstrates
potential medical benefits of newborn male circumcision; however
these data are not sufficient to recommend [it]."[108 ] The word
"potential" in this context means "proposed but unproven." But this
is the state of affairs that has existed for decades, ever since medicine
began trying to find a plausible and socially acceptable rationale for
what it has been doing all along.* Common sense dictates that the
known, certain and major drawbacks of MGM outweigh the unknown,
potential and slight benefits its advocates could conceivably claim
given current knowledge. But at least the AAP has finally joined
every other major medical organization in the world by no longer
actively promoting MGM. Unfortunately, it's doubtful such cautious
backpedaling will do much to counter the pervasive culture of
circumcision in American hospitals, which often necessitates
extraordinary measures to protect the child.[109 ]
The AAP goes on to say "to make an informed choice, parents of
all infants should be given unbiased information." But the report
itself is biased in its disregard of the crucial moral, ethical and legal
question of whether parents have the right to irreversibly alter their
child's sexuality in the absence of clear and compelling medical
justification. Doctors are ethically bound to refuse such requests from
parents in any case. Furthermore, the profound ignorance of male
sexuality which pervades both American medicine[13 ] and society at
large (a telling measure of the strictly utilitarian value placed on male
lives in this post-modern Victorian empire) makes a mockery of
informed consent.
Legal Issues
The practice of MGM in this country violates numerous laws and
international treaties, including the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights,[110 ] the Convention on the Rights of the Child[111 ] and the
UN Convention Against Torture,[112 ] not to mention the prime
dictum of medicine: "first, do no harm." Furthermore, proxy consent
of the parents is likely not legally applicable to an irreversible
procedure which has no known medical
purpose.[113 , 114, 24, 115, 116]
____________________________
*Indeed, it seems medicine itself is a confounding factor which must be
controlled for in any study of circumcision.
The current state of federal law with respect to genital mutilation
is in clear violation of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution,
which guarantees equal protection for both girls AND boys under the
law.[117 ] The fact that this unsustainable legal state of affairs has
never been reviewed in a court of law should be of small comfort to
physicians, as more men become aware of what has been taken from
them in the name of medicine, and pursue legal actions against their
mutilators.[118 ] The first suit for proxy "consented" infant
circumcision was recently settled for an undisclosed sum.
Conflict of Interest
Aside from its inexplicable hatred of male sexuality and contempt for
children's human rights, the American medical establishment has a
huge conflict of interest with regard to MGM. It has painted itself into
a corner, first by profiting from the brutal enforcement of Victorian
sexual oppression, and later by refusing to abolish this flagrant
violation of human rights for fear of provoking public suspicion and
legal liability. When the facts about the anti-sexual origins of this
practice, and its explicitly targeted injury to male sexuality become
widely known, the legal consequences will be devastating for the
medical establishment. But in the process of protecting its
institutional self interest, medicine has systematically undermined the
basic social unit of society, the family, by cutting away much of the
physiological basis for the emotional bonding that parents feel for
each other. The consequences of this massive experiment in infant
sexual molestation, torture, brain damage, sensory and ecstacy
deprivation and sexual and emotional oppression can hardly be
overestimated. Plausible connections with male impotence, female
"frigidity," divorce, domestic violence, male criminality, drug
addiction, post-traumatic stress and suicide, and the general state of
inter-gender alienation are all promising topics for future research.
MGM is also a lucrative practice for medicine,[83 ] which charges,
first, for the amputation and clinical facilities, and then profits from
the sale of the baby's purloined sexuality to biotechnology and
cosmetics companies. This provides an economic incentive for the
withholding of anesthetic: the MGM aftermarket requires a pristine
product for tissue culture and research.[119 , 120]
In short, parents would be ill-advised to rely solely on medical
advice in reaching a decision on circumcision. Don't expect to be
reading about this impending social explosion in an AMA press
release, there's far too much money involved. As in politics, if you are
not armed with the facts, you will become an instrument of other
people's interests.
Human Rights Context
Human rights is not a zero-sum game. The recognition of the harm of
MGM in no way trivializes FGM. It is clear that most if not all forms
of FGM practiced in the world today are more brutalizing, invasive
and dangerous than the sterile, technologically sophisticated and
surgically simpler practice of western medical circumcision. But the
cultural and power dynamic, the disregard for the rights of the victim,
and the senseless barbarity are the same, as is the unconscious social
objective: the control and forcible diminution of young people's
sexuality. FGM is committed by older women against younger
women, MGM is committed by older men against younger men.
Genital mutilation is an equal opportunity, self-perpetuating,
intergenerational form of sexual abuse.[121 , 122, 123, 124, 125]
Human rights groups which claim to speak for the rights of
children have a responsibility to research this issue carefully, apply the
same principles of self-determination, bodily integrity and freedom
from violence to boys as they have to girls, and add their voices to the
campaign to put an end to this profoundly destructive hidden atrocity.
It is clearly not in the human rights interests of women for men
to be sexually molested, traumatized and handicapped at a pre-verbal
age and on a wholesale basis.
The Challenge
"Persons who have lost body parts must grieve their loss.
The first stage of grief is denial of the loss. Fitzgerald and
Parkes state that 'Anything that seriously impairs sensory
or cognitive function is bound to have profound
psychological effects' [...] Circumcision causes the loss of a
body part and all of its functions including a drastic loss
of erogenous sensory function, so denial of loss is not
uncommon in circumcised males. [...] This frequently
results in circumcised fathers adamantly insisting that a
son be circumcised. [...] Goldman states that some
circumcised male medical doctors misuse the medical
literature to support, rationalize, and justify their own
loss; and to defend the practice of circumcision. Denniston
reports that doctors 'who have been cut themselves may
be unable to stop cutting others.' "[78 ]
The emotional, cultural and economic forces marshaled against
the human rights of male children and their future lovers are
enormous. Clearly, the medical institutions which have led us down
this garden path are unlikely to remedy their own pathologies in the
foreseeable future. The sexual rights of future generations will be won
by a small but rapidly growing movement of human rights activists
who brave ignorance, ridicule, a century of conventional wisdom and
their own instinctive need for denial to respond to a human being's
highest calling:
the defense of the powerless.
Please join us.
(See "intact-l" below)
Social Theory and Biocomplexity
Thoughts on the social and human relational
implications of MGM
Culturally speaking, male genital mutilation does not happen at
random. It is highly correlated with authoritarian, monotheistic,
patrilineal and militaristic cultures, where children, women and
minorities are devalued, class stratification is high, and in some cases
FGM is practiced as well.[126 , 127, 61, 128, 129] (MGM world-wide is
about 7 times more widespread than _ and appears to be a precursor
for _ FGM) It's not difficult to see how genital mutilation could arise
not only as a consequence, but also function as a reinforcer of such
dystopian and hierarchical cultures.
GM is fundamentally different from other kinds of bodily
modifications such as body piercing or foot binding. It is directed
specifically at a highly emotionally-charged sensory organ, as unique
and irreplaceable as the eyes, as critical to human community and
emotional connectedness as the ability to see and be seen, to speak
and to hear speech, to hold and to be held. It is a mutilation and
truncation of one seventh of the dimensionality of one's perceptual
space (sexual and spiritual perception being sixth and seventh senses,
respectively), and the potential to experience and share love and
ego-transcendent, joyful consciousness and its numerous psychological
benefits. MGM is thus an assault not only on the individual, but on
that individual's future family and friends and, where widely
practiced, on the community's capacity for mutual goodwill, trust, self
organization and local empowerment. A kind of "social fragmentation
grenade." Perhaps this is why MGM was often inflicted on slaves and
other conquered peoples in biblical times.
Men and women who are denied emotional fulfillment in human
relationships must seek it elsewhere, and frequently channel their
energies into the abstracted and manipulable meanings and rewards of
state-sanctioned institutions such as workaholism/consumerism,*
professional sports (a surrogate for nationalism), statist religions and
the ultimate form of state servitude, soldiering. Interfering with the
sexual compatibility and satisfaction of men and women likely
strongly affects mass social organization. Thus MGM's social utility
goes far beyond mere fertility control, into the realm of generalized
social control.
Social control motivations for MGM are implied and explicit in
authoritative religious texts:
According to [certain Islamic texts], [...] there are 72 wives
for every believer who is admitted to Heaven, and not only
for a martyr. The proof is a hadith which is collected by
____________________________
*A possible link between pleasure deprivation and workaholism in
monkeys,[130] may provide a clue to the role of sexual abstinence
as an organizing principle of so many of the world's dominant
cultures and religions.
at-Tirmidhi in "Sunan" (volume IV, chapters on "The
Features of Heaven as described by the Messenger of
Allah," Chapter 21: "About the Smallest Reward for the
People of Heaven," hadith 2687).
It is also quoted by Ibn Kathir in his Tafsir (Koranic
Commentary) of Surah ar-Rahman (55), ayah (verse) 72:
"It was mentioned by Daraj Ibn Abi Hatim, that Abu
al-Haytham Abdullah Ibn Wahb narrated from Abu Sa'id
al-Khudhri, who heard the Prophet Muhammad (Allah's
blessings and peace be upon him) saying: 'The smallest
reward for the people of Heaven is an abode where there
are 80,000 servants and 72 wives, over which stands a
dome decorated with pearls, aquamarine and ruby, as wide
as the distance from al-Jabiyyah to San'a.' Ibn Kathir
explained in 'al-Bidayah wa an-Nihayah' that al-Jabiyyah
is the name of a suburb of Damascus. "That those 72
wives are virgin is proved by the ayah 74 of the same
Surah: "No man or jinn has ever touched them before."
Naomi Ragen, Jerusalem Post Sept 6, 2001[131 ]
Combining such religious teachings with the sexual frustration
likely experienced by traditionally circumcised and sexually repressed
Muslim men has obvious utility for mass social control and
manipulation.
In Judaism, MGM has been endorsed as a wedge between
married couples, where the socializing influences of "civilization" can
be brought to bear on people's most private and sacred lives:
"[...] Moses Maimonides (1135-1204), better known as the
"Rambam", was a medieval Jewish rabbi, physician and
philosopher. He wrote:
"[...] man should not be hard and rough, but responsive,
obedient, acquiescent, and docile. You know already His
commandment... "Circumcise therefore the foreskin of
your heart, and be no more stiffnecked. Be silent, and
hearken, O Israel. If ye be willing and obedient."
"[...] one of the reasons for it is, in my opinion, the wish to
bring about a decrease in sexual intercourse and a
weakening of the organ in question, so that this activity be
diminished and the organ be in as quiet a state as
possible."
"[...] The bodily pain caused to that member is the real
purpose of circumcision. None of the activities necessary
for the preservation of the individual is harmed thereby,
nor is procreation rendered impossible, but violent
concupiscence and lust that goes beyond what is needed
are diminished. The fact that circumcision weakens the
faculty of sexual excitement and sometimes perhaps
diminishes the pleasure is indubitable. For if at birth this
member has been made to bleed and has had its covering
taken away from it, it must indubitably be weakened. The
Sages, may their memory be blessed, have explicitly
stated: It is hard for a woman with whom an
uncircumcised man has had sexual intercourse to separate
from him. In my opinion this is the strongest of the
reasons for circumcision."[132 ]
In the sex-obsessed and -repressed USA, we find beautiful, often
scantily-clad models used to market everything from cars to army
careers, to circumcised men. No doubt a central pillar of our own
state religion, corporate capitalism.
These tendencies to social fragmentation and alienation,
deference to authority figures and compulsive economic production
and consumption accrue many benefits to the state, while
simultaneously impoverishing and disrupting community and family
structures, contributing to a social context in which, for instance,
authority figures in white coats, often compulsively reenacting their
own trauma,[103 ] routinely bypass the most primordial, protective
parental instincts in order to cut into the genitals of healthy newborn
boys, a remarkable feat of mass indoctrination and social
regimentation.
The disruption of social cohesion and solidarity, combined with
sex-driven religious fervor, state-reinforcing workaholism,
MGM-reinforced sexual ignorance, denial, trauma reenactment,
sadism and medical self-interest, help to make MGM a powerful
promoter of its own perpetuation, as well as that of the social context
in which it "lives." It is a node in a complex network of
self-perpetuating causality which comprises a causality loop
embedded and entangled in the social plane. In the chemical plane,
analogous structures are often called metabolic cycles.
In short, MGM is an important component of one of many
spontaneously arising, mutally reinforcing and collectively
"self"-selecting social processes which facilitate the disempowerment,
dissociation, reorganization and integration (i.e. digestion) of the
human community into the body of the state. George Orwell could
not have devised a more cost-effective instrument of social control.
Such is the natural genius of self-organizing complex adaptive
systems, when left to their own devices.
The emerging science of biocomplexity is a recognition of the
universality of self-organizing, life-like processes in the chemical,
multicellular, neural-net, social and economic spheres. Understanding
the profound implications of spontaneous self-organization _ and its
role in human relations, gender-specific oppression, the creation of
social and economic hierarchies and the origins of consciousness and
life itself _ is of vital importance if we are to retrieve the reins of
power from our own accidental creations, and ensure that society
serves human needs, rather than the reverse. [133 , 134, 135]
Epilog
Society reaps what it sows in the way it nurtures its
children. Stress sculpts the brain to exhibit various
antisocial, though adaptive, behaviors. Whether it comes
in the form of physical, emotional or sexual trama or
through exposure to warfare, famine or pestilence, stress
can set off a ripple of hormonal changes that permanently
wire a child's brain to cope with a malevolent world.
Through this chain of events, violence and abuse pass from
generation to generation as well as from one society to the
next. Our stark conclusion is that we see the need to do
much more to ensure that child abuse does not happen in
the first place, because once these key brain alterations
occur, there may be no going back.
Martin Teicher, Scars That Won't Heal: The Neurobiology of Child Abuse.
Scientific American; March 2002[136 ]
[...] Building upon the insights from these experimental
animal studies, I conducted cross-cultural studies on 49
primitive cultures distributed throughout the world and
was able to predict with 100% accuracy the peaceful and
violent nature of these 49 primitive cultures from two
predictor variables: a) the degree of physical affectional
bonding in the maternal-infant relationship; and b)
whether premarital adolescent sex was permitted or
punished. There were 29 peaceful and 20 violent cultures
in this study sample. There is no other theory or data
base that I am aware of that can provide such a prediction
of peaceful or violent behaviors and that can relate such
findings to specific sensory processes and brain
mechanisms of the individual.
It is the neuronal systems of the brain which mediate
pleasure that regulate and control depression, violence and
drug/alcohol abuse and addiction. This control and
regulation is provided through the mechanisms of
reciprocal inhibition. When the neuronal pleasure circuits
of the brain are damaged by SAD-DNS (Somatosensory
Affectional Deprivation/Denervation Supersensitivity)
then they cannot perform their normative role of
regulation and inhibition of those neuronal circuits that
mediate depression and violent behaviors.
Dr. James W. Prescott, presentation to NIH panel on Anti-Social,
Aggressive and Violence-Related Behaviors and Their Consequences.
Center for Science Policy Studies, National Institutes of Health,
Bethesda, MD, 9/93 [137 ]
[...] These findings overwhelmingly support the thesis that
deprivation of body pleasure throughout life - but
particularly during the formative periods of infancy,
childhood, and adolescence - are very closely related to
the amount of warfare and interpersonal violence [in a
given society].
Dr. James W. Prescott, Body Pleasure and the Origins of Violence.
The Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists, November 1975, pp. 10-20.
[129 , 81]
If you really want to change the world, you have to change men.
Male socialization is the key to the entire unsustainable system of
global ecological destruction, oppression and murder which markets
itself as civilization.[138 ] But you can't change men if you don't
recognize their oppression. Being conditioned by our ancient,
unconsciously self-organized social system as its instruments and
conduits of social/structural power, males are subjected to a different
set of carrots and sticks than females, but they are no more in charge
of their own socialization than women are. Men's oppression is in
some ways more subtle and psychological than women's, and in other
ways more brutalizing, but in any case no less pervasive or destructive
of the capacity for self-determination or self-actualization.
Society's systematic oppression and trivialization of men's rights
and emotional lives is crucial to the alienation and diversion of their
energy and creativity from family and community into prefabricated
establishment-sanctioned masculine roles. Indeed, authoritarian
cultures have a vested interest in the routine brutalization, pleasure
deprivation and emotional circumcision of males for the purpose of
conditioning the next generation's "collectively autocatalytic"
hierarchy of authority figures.* The colonization and recruitment of
men's bodies and minds begins with MGM.
____________________________
*Emotions are inherently self-referential. They provide our primary
self-perception of our own well being. What is the social/structural
purpose of the systematic suppression of men's awareness of their
own well being?
If you want to change men, help them come to terms with their
own victimization.
Three Experiments for the Reader
The first is a thought experiment. Suppose an adult man was
kidnapped off the street, tied down kicking and screaming to a table
and forcibly sexually mutilated. Would this be a crime? If so, why is
it not a crime when inflicted on an infant boy? At what age do males
graduate from testosterone-tainted meat sculptures to sentient human
beings?
The second is a social experiment. Try discussing this issue with
others. You may find a great resistance, even among human rights
activists of both genders, to the notion that males have rights which
are being violated in this country. Whos (or rather, what) interest
continues to be served by trivializing the human rights of one half of
the population? From the standpoint of biocomplexity, division is the
first step towards reorganization and assimilation. The tiresome
reenactment of the divide-and-conquer strategy will continue until
conscious people transcend it.
The last experiment can only be carried out by a circumcised
man. Run your fingers lightly along the length of your erect penis.
Where does it feel best? Right behind the head? Guess what: that's
all that's left of your foreskin, and it's not even the best part. Think
about it: if sexual ecstasy is nature's inducement to reproduce, where
is the sensible place to put the most erogenous nerves? On the
bottom of the feet? Behind the ears? At the back end of the penis?
No, it would be at the front end of the penis, the part that would go
inside the vagina.
Thankfully, mutilated men can greatly improve their sex lives via
"foreskin restoration", a non-surgical skin-stretching process which is
widely practiced in the USA. See the links below.
Final Note:
The medical and historical literature demonstrating the powerful
impact of child abuse and pleasure deprivation on adult violence is
extensive. In the early 20th century for instance, German parents
were heavily influenced by a purportedly scientific approach to
child-rearing promoted by German medicine. Many of the
"beneficiaries" of these methods, which consisted of systematic child
persecution and pleasure deprivation,[139 ] grew up to join Hitler's
Nazi party and willingly committed unspeakable crimes against
state-designated enemies and medically-designated "inferiors,"
seemingly without a capacity for empathy. Meanwhile, many of their
fellow countrymen who had been spared such medicalized abuse risked
certain death by attempting to rescue the scapegoats of the day.
Today, American medical interventionist and obstructionist
birthing practices have predictably been implicated in long-term
psychological problems in the child.[140 , 141, 142, 143, 79]
With the world's three dominant circumcising cultures being led into
a major resource war, the task of mitigating the sociological
consequences of wholesale child abuse and pleasure deprivation is
more urgent than ever. People of good will, who value
children as the sacred miracles that they are, must act to ensure that
humanity survives its own childhood. "Our" children deserve no less.
For More Information
"The Case Against Circumcision"
Paul M. Fleiss, MD
Mothering: The Magazine of Natural Family Living
Winter 1997, pp. 36-45.
http://www.cirp.org/news/1997:Mothering/
"Infant Circumcision: "What I Wish I Had Known"
Marilyn Fayre Milos
The Truth Seeker, "Crimes of Genital Mutilation."
(July/August) 1989; 1(3):3.
http://www.nocirc.org/articles/known.php
"The Unkindest Cut of All"
John M. Foley, M.D.
FACT Magazine, July-August 1966
http://www.cirp.org/news/1966.07:Foley/
"From Ritual to Science: The Medical Transformation of Circumcision in
America"
David L. Gollaher
Journal of Social History
Volume 28 Number 1, Fall 1994, pp. 5-36
http://www.nocirc.org/articles/gollaher.php
Sex As Nature Intended It
http://www.SexAsNatureIntendedIt.com
Circumcision Information and Resource Pages
http://www.cirp.org
In Memory of the Sexually Mutilated Child
http://www.SexuallyMutilatedChild.org
Mothers Against Circumcision
http://www.mothersagainstcirc.org
Stop Infant Circumcision Society
http://www.stopinfantcircumcision.org
Students for Genital Integrity
http://www.studentsforgenitalintegrity.org/
National Organization to Halt the Abuse and Routine Mutilation of Males
(NOHARMM)
http://www.noharmm.org
National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers
(NOCIRC)
http://www.nocirc.org
D.O.C. (Doctors Opposing Circumcision)
http://faculty.washington.edu/gcd/DOC/
National Organization of Restoring Men (NORM)
http://www.norm.org/
National Organization of Restoring Men (South California branch)
http://www.norm-socal.org
Nurses for the Rights of the Child
http://nurses.cirp.org/
Attorneys for the Rights of the Child
http://www.arclaw.org
Organizing Resources
http://www.nocirc.org/resources/
Videos from Nurses for the Rights of the Child:
"Facing Circumcision-Eight Physicians Tell Their Stories" and
"Nurses of St. Vincent-Saying No to Circumcision"
Cost: $25 each, order from: Nurses for the Rights of the Child
369 Montezuma #354, Santa Fe New Mexico 87501
Mailing Lists
restore-list@eskimo.com Foreskin restorer's support list
(to subscribe: email with subject line "subscribe" to
restore-list-request@eskimo.com)
intact-l@cirp.org Intactivist's list
(to subscribe: email with body "subscribe intact-l your name" to
majordomo@cirp.org)
References
[1]CIN CompuBulletin
Circumcision Information Network
Volume 2, Number 13, 12 April 1995
Two letters to The Lancet, Vol 345, P. 927, 8 APRIL 1995
http://www.cirp.org/news/cin/1995.04.12
[2]Circumcision: The Uniquely American Medical Enigma
Edward Wallerstein
Urologic Clinics of North America,
Volume 12 Number 1, February 1985, Pages 123-132.
http://www.cirp.org/library/general/wallerstein/
[3]Immunological Functions of the Human Prepuce
by P M Fleiss, F M Hodges, R S Van Howe
Sexually Transmitted Infections (London), Vol. 74 No. 5, Pages
364-367. October 1998.
http://www.cirp.org/library/disease/STD/fleiss3/
[4]In Physicians' Own Words: A Short History of Circumcision in the
U.S.
http://www.sexuallymutilatedchild.org/shorthis.htm
[5]Sexual Surgery, A Short History of Circumcision
http://www.cirp.org/pages/riley/sexsurg
[6]Answers to Your Questions about Infant Circumcision
National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers
http://www.nocirc.org/publish/pamphlet3.html
[7]Common Circumcision Myths Exploded
http://www.norm-uk.co.uk/myths.html
[8]The Prepuce: Specialized Mucosa of the Penis and its Loss to
Circumcision
J.R. Taylor, A.P. Lockwood and A.J. Taylor
British Journal of Urology, Volume 77, 291-295, February 1996.
http://www.cirp.org/library/anatomy/taylor/
[9]The Prepuce: Anatomy, Physiology, Innervation, Immunology, and
Sexual Function
C.J. Cold and J.R. Taylor
British Journal of Urology (1999), 83, Suppl. 1, 34-44
http://www.cirp.org/library/anatomy/cold-taylor/
[10]Separated at Birth: Did Circumcision Ruin Your Sex Life?
Mark Jenkins
Men's Health, pages 130-135,163 - July/August 1998
http://www.noharmm.org/separated.htm
[11]The Lost List
Gary Harryman NORM Southern California
http://www.norm-socal.org/lost.html
[12]Foreskin Sexual Function/Circumcision Sexual Dysfunction
Geoffrey Falk
http://www.cirp.org/library/sex_function/
[13]The Foreskin, Circumcision and Sexuality
Debunking Masters and Johnson
Hugh Young
http://www.circumstitions.com/Sexuality.html
[14]"Sight Without Color": Some Statements by Men Circumcised as
Adults
Circumcision: What Your Baby Can't Tell You
http://www.sexuallymutilatedchild.org/sight.htm
[15]Complete, As Nature Intended
Karen Squires
BirthLove, The Revolutionary Passion of Mothering
(access requires membership)
http://www.birthlove.com/pages/health/complete.html
[16]The Effect of Male Circumcision on the Sexual Enjoyment of the
Female Partner
O'Hara K, O'Hara J.
BJU International, January 1, 1999, Volume 83, Supplement 1,
Pages 79-84,
http://www.cirp.org/library/anatomy/ohara/
[17]Original motivations for "medical" circumcision in the West
Geoffery Falk
http://www.cirp.org/pages/whycirc.html
[18]Female Circumcision / Recent History in U.S. Medicine
Bottom of http://www.noharmm.org/research.htm
[19]From Ritual to Science: The Medical Transformation of Circumcision
in America"
David L. Gollaher
Journal of Social History Volume 28 Number 1, Fall 1994, p. 5-36
http://www.nocirc.org/articles/gollaher.php
[20]Female Circumcision in the United States
Bottom of http://www.cirp.org/pages/female/
[21]Episiotomy: Ritual Genital Mutilation in Western Obstetrics
http://www.changesurfer.com/Hlth/episiotomy.html
[22]Complications, risks, adverse effects of circumcision
Geoffery Falk
http://www.cirp.org/library/complications/
[23]Complications of Circumcision
N. Williams and L. Kapila
BRITISH JOURNAL OF SURGERY,Volume 80, 1231-1236, October
1993.
http://www.cirp.org/library/complications/williams-kapila/
[24]Circumcision of Healthy Boys: Criminal Assault?
Gregory J Boyle, J Steven Svoboda, Christopher P Price, J Neville
Turner
Journal of Law and Medicine, Volume 7, February 2000, Pages
301-310
http://www.cirp.org/library/legal/boyle1/
[25]Newborn male circumcision: Needless and dangerous
Robert Leon Baker, M.D.
Sexual Medicine Today, Volume 3, Number 11, November 1979, Page
35-36
http://www.cirp.org/library/general/baker1/
[26]Circumcision: A Study of Current Practices
Thomas J. Metcalf, M.D., Lucy M. Osborn, M.D., MSCM, E. Mark
Mariani, M.D.
Clinical Pediatrics 1983, Volume 22: Pages 575-579.
http://www.cirp.org/library/procedure/metcalf/
[27]Medical Journal Articles Documenting the Complications of
Circumcision
John Erickson
http://www.sexuallymutilatedchild.org/compli.htm
[28]Circumcision Complications
Hugh Young
http://www.circumstitions.com/Complic.html
[29]Estimated U.S. Incidence of Neonatal Circumcision Complications
Affecting Males Born between 1940 and 1990
(immediate and physical complications only)
Tim Hammond
http://www.noharmm.org/incidenceUS.htm
[30]The Common and Not-So-Common Complications of Routine Infant
Circumcision
Mary G. Ray
October 17, 1998
http://www.mothersagainstcirc.org/botch.htm
[31]Case Report
John H. Ngan, F.R.C.S. and Michael Mitchell, M.D.
Online Pediatric Urology, February 15, 1996
http://www.infocirc.org/fourn.htm
[32]An Analysis of the Accuracy of the Presentation of
the Human Penis in Anatomical Source Materials
(Two thirds of depictions of the human penis at five
Los Angeles California campus bookstores and two biomedical
libraries were found to be anatomically incorrect)
Gary L. Harryman
Presented at The Seventh International Symposium on Human Rights
and Modern Society: Advancing Human Dignity and the Legal Right
to Bodily Integrity in the 21st Century
Georgetown University, April 4-7, 2002
Published in
Flesh and Blood: Perspectives on the Problem of Circumcision in
Contemporary Society
G. C. Denniston, F. M. Hodges and M. F. Milos (editors)
Plenum Press; 2003
[33]Lack of consent in Louisiana
The Advocate, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 17 March, 2000
http://www.circumstitions.com/Law.html#heart
[34]Hygienic Care in Uncircumcised Infants
Lucy M. Osborn, MD, Thomas J. Metcalf, MD, And E. Marc
Mariani, BS
Pediatrics, Volume 67, Pages 365-367, March 1981
http://www.cirp.org/library/disease/hygiene/osborn1/
[35]Factors Affecting the Practice of Circumcision
Daksha A. Patel, MD; Emalee G. Flaherty, MD; Judith Dunn, PhD.
American Journal of Diseases of the Child,
Vol 136, Pages 634-636, July, 1982.
http://www.cirp.org/library/procedure/dpatel/
[36]Circumcision and Urinary Tract Infection
Geoffery Falk
http://www.cirp.org/library/disease/UTI/
[37]Myth: Circumcision Inevitable Later
Mary G. Ray, 1997
http://www.mothersagainstcirc.org/later.htm
[38]Cohort study on circumcision of newborn boys and subsequent
risk of urinary-tract infection.
Teresa To, Mohammad Agha, Paul T Dick, William Feldman
THE LANCET, Volume 352, Number 9143: Pages 1813-1816, 5
December 1998.
http://www.cirp.org/library/disease/UTI/to2/
[39]Breast-feeding and Urinary Tract Infection
Alfredo Pisacane, MD, MSc, Liberatore Graziano, MD
Gianfranco Mazzarella, MD, Benedetto Scarpellino, MD, Gregorio
Zona
Journal of Pediatrics, Volume 120 Number 1, Pages 87-89, January
1992
http://www.cirp.org/library/disease/UTI/pisacane1992/
[40]Letter from Hiroyuki Kayaba to Geoffrey T. Falk, 13 December 1996
concerning UTI rates found in:
Analysis of Shape and Retractability of the Prepuce in 603 Japanese
Boys
Hiroyuki Kayaba, Hiromi Tamura, Seiichi Kitajima,
Yoshiyuki Fujiwara, Tetsuo Kato and Tetsuro Kato
JOURNAL OF UROLOGY, Volume 156 No. 5: Pages 1813-1815,
November 1996
http://www.cirp.org/library/normal/kayaba/letter1.html
[41]Risk of Urinary Tract Infections
Among Uncircumcised Boys Remains Minimal
Mary G. Ray, 1997
http://www.mothersagainstcirc.org/uti.htm
[42]Care of the Intact Penis
James E. Peron, Ed. D.
Midwifery Today (November) 1991; Issue 17:24.
http://www.cirp.org/pages/parents/peron1/
[43]Care of Intact Boys
Answers to Your Questions About
Your Young Son's Intact Penis
Geoffery Falk
http://www.cirp.org/pages/parents/care/
[44]Conservative Contemporary Treatment of Phimosis:
Alternatives to Radical Circumcision
Robert Van Howe, MD, FAAP.
http://www.cirp.org/library/treatment/phimosis/
[45]Circumcision in the United States
Prevalence, Prophylactic Effects, and Sexual Practice
Edward O. Laumann, PhD; Christopher M. Masi, MD; Ezra W.
Zuckerman, MA
Journal of The American Medical Association
Volume 277, Number 13: Pages 1052-1057, April 2, 1997
http://www.cirp.org/library/general/laumann/
[46]United States Circumcision Incidence
Geoffery Falk
http://www.cirp.org/library/statistics/USA/
[47]Penile Cancer and Circumcision
Clark W. Heath, Jr., M.D.; Hugh Shingleton, M.D.
Letter from American Cancer Society to American Academy of
Pediatrics
http://www.cirp.org/library/statements/letters/1996.02:ACS/
[48]Penile cancer, cervical cancer, and circumcision
Geoffery Falk
http://www.cirp.org/library/disease/cancer/
[49]Electronic responses to:
Male circumcision linked to lower rates of cervical cancer
Fred Charatan
British Medical Journal,27 April 2002; Vol. 324, Page 994
http://bmj.com/cgi/eletters/324/7344/994/a
[50]Rebuttal to another biased study
Shonky statistics used to link intactness with cervical cancer
Hugh Young
http://www.circumstitions.com/Cancer-cervNEJM.html
[51]Circumcision: An American Health Fallacy
Edward Wallerstein
New York: Springer Publishing; 1980
chapter 13, pages 128, 131
[52]Circumcision and Sexually Transmitted Infections
Geoffery Falk
http://www.cirp.org/library/disease/STD/
[53]Circumcision and HIV Infection: Review of the Literature and
Meta-analysis
R. S. Van Howe MD FAAP
International Journal Of STD and AIDS, Volume 10, Pages 8-16,
January 1999
http://www.cirp.org/library/disease/HIV/vanhowe4/
[54]Circumcision Status, HIV Infection and AIDS
Geoffery Falk
http://www.cirp.org/library/disease/HIV/
[55]Probability of HIV-1 transmission per coital act in monogamous,
heterosexual, HIV-1-discordant couples in Rakai, Uganda
Ronald H Gray, Maria J Wawer, Ron Brookmeyer, Nelson K
Sewankambo,
David Serwadda, Fred Wabwire-Mangen, Tom Lutalo, Xianbin Li,
Thomas
vanCott, Thomas C Quinn, and the Rakai Project Team
The Lancet, Volume 357: Pages 1149-1153, 14 April 2001
http://www.cirp.org/library/disease/HIV/gray2/
[56]Unsafe healthcare "drives spread of African HIV"
Press Release, 20 February 2003
The Royal Society of Medicine
London, UK
http://www.rsm.ac.uk/new/pr126.htm
[57]Expert group stresses that unsafe sex is primary mode of
transmission of HIV in Africa
Press Release, 14 March 2003
World Health Organization
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/statements/2003/statement5/en/
[58]Deadly Needles, Fast Track to Global Disaster
Reynolds Holding, William Carlsen
San Francisco Chronicle
Tuesday, October 27, 1998
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-
bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1998/10/27/MN52NEE.DTL
[59]Circumcision and HIV
Hugh Young
http://www.circumstitions.com/HIV.html
[60]The importance of ethnicity as a risk factor for STDs
and sexual behaviour among heterosexuals
Hooykaas C; van der Velde FW; van der Linden MM;
van Doornum-GJ; Coutinho-RA
(authors probably misinterpreted results, see comment on CIRP)
Genitourinary Medicine, Volume 67, Number 5: Pages 378-83,
October 1991
http://www.cirp.org/library/disease/STD/hooykaas1/
[61]America Alone in Circumcising Most Newborn Males
82% of the World's Men are Intact
Mary G. Ray, 1997
http://www.mothersagainstcirc.org/majority.htm
[62]Human Subpreputial Collection: Its Nature and Formation
Satya Parkash, S. Jeyakumar, K. Subramanyan and S. Chaudhuri
The Journal of Urology (Baltimore),
Volume 110, Number 2: Pages 211-212, August 1973
http://www.cirp.org/library/anatomy/parkash/
[63]Medicaid Wastes Millions of Tax Dollars on Medically Unnecessary
Circumcisions
International Coalition for Genital Integrity
http://www.themenscenter.com/intact/2001/GIAW4.htm
[64]A Cost-Utility Analysis of Neonatal Circumcision
Robert S. Van Howe, MD, MS, FAAP
Medical Decision Making, Volume 24
Pages: 584-601, November-December 2004
http://www.cirp.org/library/procedure/vanhowe2004/
[65]Letter from Eileen Marie Wayne, MD
British Journal of Urology August 1997
http://www.sexuallymutilatedchild.org/emw2bju.htm
[66]Fetal Erection and its Message to Us
Mary S. Calderone, MD
Sex Information and Education Council of the U.S.
SIECUS Report May-July 1983:9-10
http://www.siecus.org/siecusreport/volume11/11-5.pdf
[67]Genital Pain vs. Genital Pleasure: Why the One and Not the Other?
James W. Prescott
The Truth Seeker(San Diego) (July/August) 1989;1(3):14-21.
http://www.cirp.org/library/psych/prescott2/
[68]Ending Circumcision: Where Sex and Violence First Meet
Jeannine Parvati Baker, M.A.
Birth Psychology
Association for Pre- and Perinatal Psychology and Health
http://www.birthpsychology.com/violence/baker.html
[69]Circumcision and Psychological Harm
Dr Janet Menage, MA, MB, ChB.
http://norm-uk.org/psycheff.html
[70]Circumcision procedure (Gomco)
Patient Care Magazine, March 15, 1978, pp. 82-85.
http://www.cirp.org/library/procedure/gomco/
[71]Circumcision Methods (Plastibell)
http://www.mothersagainstcirc.org/plastibell.htm
[72]Instruments Used in the Circumcision Industry
Tim Hammond
http://www.noharmm.org/instruments.htm
[73]Neonatal Circumcision
American Medical Association Report 10 of the Council on Scientific
Affairs
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/13585.html
[74]Pain of circumcision, pain control
Geoffery Falk
http://www.cirp.org/library/pain/
[75]The Psychological Impact of Circumcision
R. Goldman
BJU International, Volume 83 Supplement 1, Pages 93-102, January
1, 1999
http://www.cirp.org/library/psych/goldman1/
[76]Circumcision, Breastfeeding, and Maternal Bonding
Geoffery Falk
http://www.cirp.org/library/birth/
[77]Effect of Neonanatal Circumcision on Pain Response
Anna Taddio, Joel Katz, A Lane Ilersich, Gideon Koren
The Lancet, Volume 349 Number 9052: Pages 599-603, March 1,
1997.
http://www.cirp.org/library/pain/taddio2/
[78]Psychological, neurological, and sociological impacts of circumcision
Geoffery Falk
http://www.cirp.org/library/psych/
[79]The Long Term Consequences of How We Are Born
Primal Health
Michel Odent, M.D.
Birth Psychology
Association for Pre- and Perinatal Psychology and Health
http://www.birthpsychology.com/primalhealth/primal6.html
[80]A Woman's Guide to Breastfeeding
American Academy of Pediatrics
http://www.aap.org/family/brstguid.htm
[81]Excerpts from: The Origins of Human Love and Violence
James W Prescott, Ph.D.
Pre- and Perinatal Psychology Journal
Volume 10, Number 3: Spring 1996, pp. 143-188.
http://www.violence.de/prescott/pppj/article.html
[82]Position Statement: The Effects of Circumcision on Breastfeeding
National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers
(NOCIRC)
http://www.nocirc.org/statements/breastfeeding.php
[83]The Case Against Circumcision
Paul M. Fleiss, MD
Mothering: The Magazine of Natural Family Living, Winter 1997,
pp. 36-45.
http://www.cirp.org/news/1997:Mothering/
[84]Pain and its Effects in the Human Neonate and Fetus
K.J.S. Anand, M.B.B.S., D.Phil., and P.R. Hickey, M.D.
New England Journal of Medicine. Vol. 317 No 21: Pages 1321-1329,
19 November 1987.
http://www.cirp.org/library/pain/anand/
[85]Comparison of Ring Block, Dorsal Penile Nerve Block
and Topical Anesthesia for Neonatal Circumcision:
A Randomized Controlled Trial
Janice Lander, PhD; Barbara Brady-Freyer, MN; James B. Metcalfe,
MD, FRCSC;
Shermin Nazerali, MPharm; Sarah Muttit, MD, FRCPC.
Journal of the American Medical Association
Volume 278 No. 24, pages 2157-2162, December 24/31, 1997
http://www.cirp.org/library/pain/lander/
[86]Circumcisers: What drives their knives?
Michael Glass
http://www.cirp.org/pages/cultural/glass0/
[87]Animal Welfare Act and Regulations
United States Department of Agriculture
Agricultural Research Service
National Agricultural Library
http://www.nal.usda.gov/awic/legislat/usdaleg1.htm
[88]Male Circumcision: A Legal Affront
Christopher Price, M.A. (Oxon)
A submission in December 1996 to the Law Commission for England
and Wales
in response to Consultation Paper Number 139 - Consent in the
Criminal Law
http://www.cirp.org/library/legal/price-uklc/
[89]Neonatal Pain Cries:
Effect of Circumcision on Acoustic Features and Perceived Urgency
Fran Lang Porter, Richard H. Miller, and Richard E. Marshal
Child Development, 1986, Volume 57, Pages 790-802.
http://www.cirp.org/library/pain/porter/
[90]Newborn Pain Cries and Vagal Tone:
Parallel Changes in Response to Circumcision
Fran Lang Porter, Richard H. Miller, and Richard E. Marshal
Child Development 1988, Volume 59, Pages 495-505.
http://www.cirp.org/library/pain/porter2/
[91]Psychological Effects of Circumcision
Gocke Cansever
British Journal of Medical Psychology Vol 38: Pages 321-31.
http://www.cirp.org/library/psych/cansever/
[92]Responses to: McFadyen,A. (1998) Children have feelings too.
British Medical Journal: 316:1616
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/316/7144/1616/a
[93]Perinatal Origin of Adult Self-destructive Behavior
Jacobson B, Eklund G, Hamberger L, Linnarsson D, Sedvall G,
Valverius M
Acta Psychiatr Scand, Volume 76, Number 42, Pages 364-371,
October 1987.
http://www.cirp.org/library/psych/jacobsen1/
[94]Can adverse neonatal experiences alter brain development and
subsequent behavior?
Anand KJ, Scalzo FM
Biology of the Neonate, Volume 77, Number 2: Pages 69-82,
February 2000.
http://www.cirp.org/library/pain/anand4/
[95]Obstetric care and proneness of offspring to suicide as adults:
case-control study
B. Jacobson, professor emeritus, and M. Bygdeman, professor
British Medical Journal 1998;317:1346-1349 (14 November)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/317/7169/1346
[96]The Role of Activity in Developing Pain Pathways
Maria Fitzgerald and Seullen Walker
Proceedings of the 10th World Congress on Pain,
Progress in Pain Research and Management Vol. 24
Edited by Jonathan O. Dostrovsky, Daniel B. Carr,
and Martin Kaltzenburg
IASP Press, Seattle, 2003
http://www.cirp.org/library/pain/fitzgerald2/
[97]A Preliminary Poll of Men Circumcised in Infancy or Childhood
T. Hammond
BJU International (83, Suppl. 1), pages. 85-92, January, 1999
http://www.noharmm.org/bju.htm
[98]Neonatal Circumcision Reconsidered
John Rhinehart
Transactional Analysis Journal Volume 29, Number 3, Pages
215-221, July 1999
http://www.cirp.org/library/psych/rhinehart1/
[99]Male neonatal circumcision trauma and brain damage
Geoffery Falk
http://www.cirp.org/library/psych/brain_damage/
[100]McLean Researchers Document Brain Damage Linked to Child
Abuse and Neglect
http://www.mclean.harvard.edu/PublicAffairs/20001214_child_abuse.htm
[101]A Biocultural Analysis of Circumcision
Ronald S. Immerman and Wade C. Mackey
Social Biology 1998, Volume 44, Pages 265-275.
http://www.cirp.org/library/psych/immerman2/
[102]Insanity in the American Psychiatric Establishment
(author unknown)
http://www.math.missouri.edu/~rich/MGM/insane.html
[103]The Compulsion to Repeat the Trauma:
Re-enactment, Revictimization, and Masochism
Bessel A. van der Kolk, MD
Psychiatric Clinics of North America, Volume 12, Number 2, Pages
389-411, June 1989
http://www.cirp.org/library/psych/vanderkolk/
[104]Doctor Dangers (in childbirth)
Compiled by Leilah McCracken
BirthLove, The Revolutionary Passion of Mothering
(access requires membership)
http://www.birthlove.com/pages/doctor_dangers.html
[105]The Future of Suicide
Primal Health
Michel Odent, M.D.
Birth Psychology
Association for Pre- and Perinatal Psychology and Health
http://www.birthpsychology.com/primalhealth/primal9.html
[106]A Brief Economic Overview of Psychiatric Practice
http://www.math.missouri.edu/ rich/MGM/psychonomics.html
[107]"Look at these hands"
Deeper Into Circumcision: An Invitation to Awareness
Third International Symposium on Circumcision
University of Maryland, May 22-25, 1994
http://www.sexuallymutilatedchild.org/hands.htm
[108]American Academy of Pediatrics Task Force on Circumcision
Circumcision Policy Statement - 1999
Pediatrics, Volume 103, Number 3, Pages 686-693, March 1, 1999
http://www.cirp.org/library/statements/aap1999/
[109]Protection of Infant Boys from Wrongful Circumcision in American
Hospitals
A Guide for Parents
George Hill
http://www.cirp.org/pages/parents/protection/
[110]Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
UN General Assembly
http://www.cirp.org/library/ethics/UN-human/
[111]Convention on the Rights of the Child
U.N. General Assembly
Document A/RES/44/25 (12 December 1989) with Annex
http://www.cirp.org/library/ethics/UN-convention/
[112]UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel,
Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
http://www.hrweb.org/legal/cat.html
[113]Male Non-therapeutic Circumcision
Male and Female Circumcision:
Medical, Legal, and Ethical Considerations in Pediatric Practice
(Denniston GC, Hodges FM and Milos MF eds.)
Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 1999, New York; 425-454
http://www.cirp.org/library/legal/price2/
[114]Therapeutic and Non-Therapeutic Medical Procedures: What are
the Distinctions?
Margaret A. Somerville
Health Law in Canada, vol. 2, no. 4, 1981, pages 85-90.
http://www.cirp.org/library/legal/somerville1981/
[115]The Ashley Montagu Resolution to End the Genital Mutilation
of Children Worldwide
Petition To The World Court, the Hague
James W. Prescott, Ph.D.
Adopted by the Fourth International Symposium on Sexual
Mutilations,
University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland, August 9-11, 1996.
http://montagunocircpetition.org/
[116]Attorneys for the Rights of the Child
http://www.arclaw.org
[117]US Constitution: Amendment 14, Section 1: Citizen rights not to be
abridged
http://www.law.emory.edu/FEDERAL/usconst/amend.html#14sec-
1
[118]Circumcision Lawsuits
http://circumvent.org/Lawsuits.htm
[119]Medical Journal Articles from 1969 to 1998 Documenting
The Use of Human Foreskins in Medical, Pharmaceutical,
and Other Commercial Enterprises
http://www.sexuallymutilatedchild.org/fibro.htm
[120]Foreskins For Sale
http://www.sexuallymutilatedchild.org/f4sale.htm
[121]Similarities in Attitudes and Misconceptions toward
Infant Male Circumcision in North America and
Ritual Female Genital Mutilation in Africa
Hanny Lightfoot-Klein
http://www.fgmnetwork.org/intro/mgmfgm.html
[122]To Mutilate in the Name of Jehovah or Allah
Sami A. Aldeeb Abu-Sahlieh
http://www.cirp.org/library/cultural/aldeeb1/
[123]FGM vs. MGM
http://www.angelfire.com/ca5/intact/fgm.html
[124]Contrasting American Association of Pediatrics positions on FGM
and MGM
Hugh Young
http://www.circumstitions.com/AAP.html
[125]Male Genital Mutilation: Feminist Study of a Muted Gender Issue
Seham Abd el Salam, Cairo, June 1999
http://www.noharmm.org/muted.htm
[126]The Geography of Genital Mutilations
James DeMeo
The Truth Seeker, (San Diego) pp 9-13, July/August 1989
http://noharmm.org/geography.htm
[127]World Incidence of Genital Mutilation - Maps
Hugh Young
http://www.circumstitions.com/Maps.html
[128]CIRCUMCISION: A Riddle of American Culture
Reed D. Riner, Ph.D.
Presented at The First International Symposium on Circumcision,
Anaheim, California, March 1-2, 1989.
http://www.nocirc.org/symposia/first/riner.html
[129]Body Pleasure and the Origins of Violence
James W Prescott, Ph.D.
The Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists", November 1975, pages 10-20
http://www.violence.de/prescott/bulletin/article.html
[130]Injections Temporarily Turn Slacker Monkeys into Model Workers
Alan Zarembo
Los Angeles Times
August 12, 2004
Originally at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-workaholic12aug12.story,
now archived at:
http://www.math.missouri.edu/~rich/MGM/oldrefs/www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-workaholic12aug12.story
[131]From A Distance: Mass murder, sex and paradise
Naomi Ragen
Jerusalem Post, September 6, 2001
Originally at:
http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2001/09/06/Columns/Columns.34250.html,
now archived at:
http://www.math.missouri.edu/~rich/MGM/oldrefs/www.jpost.com/Editions/2001/09/06/Columns/Columns.34250.txt
[132]Extracts from: The Guide of the Perplexed by Moses Maimonides
Translated by Shlomo Pines
University of Chicago, 1963.
http://www.cirp.org/library/cultural/maimonides/
[133]Emergence: From Chaos to Order
John H. Holland
1999 Perseus Press
[134]Investigations
Stuart A. Kauffman
2000 Oxford University Press
[135]Signs of Life
Richard Sole and Brian Goodwin
2000 Basic Books
[136]The Neurobiology of Child Abuse
Martin H. Teicher, Scientific American, March 2002, pages 68-75
http://www.nospank.net/teicher2.htm
[137]Excerpts from Presentation by Dr. James Prescott
Panel on NIH Research on Anti-Social, Aggressive and
Violence-Related Behaviors and Their Consequences
Center for Science Policy Studies,
National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, 9/93
Birth Psychology
Association for Pre- and Perinatal Psychology and Health
http://www.birthpsychology.com/violence/prescott.html
[138]Study twelve years of "secret" history on google's archive of
misc.activism.progressive (of which I'm a moderator) at
http://groups.google.com/groups?group=misc.activism.progressive
for an idea of what I'm talking about. The disconnect between public
perception and independently verifiable reality borders on mind
control.
For example, search m.a.p for "cia torture" (without the quotes) or
"cia drugs", or "stockwell", "mcgehee", "ruppert", "palast",
"tailwind",
"northwood", "brzezinski", "9/11", "Prescott Bush" or "voting
machines". Also see:
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/02_11_02_lucy.html,
http://www.math.missouri.edu/~rich/911/
and http://www.ratical.org/. Welcome to the Matrix.
[139]The Political Consequences of Child Abuse
Alice Miller
The Journal of Psychohistory V. 26, N. 2, Fall 1998
http://www.geocities.com/kidhistory/politica.htm
[140]Immigrants go from Health to Worse
Bruce Bower
Science News
September 19, 1998
http://www.sciencenews.org/pages/sn_arc98/9_19_98/fob1.htm
[141]Immigration Blues: Born in the USA:
Mental-health deficit
Bruce Bower
Science News
Dec. 18, 2004
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20041218/fob2.asp
Archived at
http://www.math.missouri.edu/~rich/MGM/birthUSA2.txt
[142]Medicalized Birth Trauma
http://www.math.missouri.edu/~rich/MGM/birthUSA3.txt
[143]Mental Illness Strikes Babies, Too
(an exercise in iatrocyclic medicine)
Randy Dotinga
HealthDayNews
April 16, 2003
Formerly at
http://www.drkoop.com/newsdetail/93/512690.html
Archived at
http://www.math.missouri.edu/~rich/MGM/oldrefs/www.drkoop.com/newsdetail/93/512690.html
(Thanks to Dave Ratcliffe for htmlizing and giving this paper its
first home on www.ratical.org, the most visionary site on the web)
In memory of John A. Erickson, a tireless child- and
future-rights activist.
See his website at www.sexuallymutilatedchild.org
This document is online at:
http://www.math.missouri.edu/~rich/MGM/primer.html
Note: Due to the dynamic nature of the internet, some of the
above referenced links may become invalid over time. I will attempt
to keep them updated, but you should be able to find them archived
(along with much of the rest of the web) at http://www.archive.org/