I saw this and had to post it...
I feel the exact same way. :(
I first found out about it when I was a kid at camp and didn’t like the idea that someone had cut off part of my body. Especially there. As I grew up, and learned more and more information through sex education, etc., it started to bother me more, to the point where by my late teens it would make me feel bad if I thought of it or if it ever came up. It always struck me as unfair, finding out the shabby reasons or being told it didn’t really matter much one way or the other. If it didn’t really matter either way, then why was it done to me? A lot of my friends weren’t cut. [Editor: Note how this young man has difficulty naming what was done to him.]
Physically, I haven’t known any different, but I suffered psychologically from the feelings that go with having a healthy part of my body cut off without my consent. I really feel violated by it. I also hate the fact that while discovering sexuality, like all guys do around puberty, involved me finding the scar and being bothered by the fact that I was cut. I don’t think discovering your own body should involve that kind of thing at all. A kid shouldn’t have to deal with that. It wasn’t done for any medical need but because my parents happened to think it was ‘cleaner’ or ‘healthier.’ I really don’t think I’d have had trouble having to spend an extra 5 seconds in the shower to clean it if it meant having my whole sex anatomy intact the way the male body is designed. I find it appalling that the medical community allows this to continue, whose body is it anyway? It still pisses me off to this day and can upset me because it brings up feeling violated and the physicality of it is permanent. I find the attitude some people still have around it a little disturbing like its business as usual. I’m not saying worse things don’t happen, but I don’t get how some people still to this day think that cutting off a part of a healthy child’s penis is normal. Cutting off body parts is supposed to be a last resort in medicine. I really do hope that the doctors will step up and do the right thing on this. Regardless of whatever slight possible medical benefits doctors should recognize that it is wrong to cut off healthy body parts from someone who can’t consent. It should be a individual choice not a parental one. Parents have to decide a lot of things, but permanently removing part of their kid’s penis, when he’ll be able to decide for himself later, shouldn’t be one of them.
Being harmed by the actions of a doctor, I really find it hard to accept that they allow this to continue. Nobody should be harmed by medicine, and especially when there isn’t even some specific reason why they might be needing a treatment that could go wrong. I was healthy and would have probably stayed that way. And the harm I experienced was caused by the actions of a doctor ‘treating’ me for absolutely nothing except for the fact that I was born having a anatomically complete body.
from blOUCH! (link)
I first found out about it when I was a kid at camp and didn’t like the idea that someone had cut off part of my body. Especially there. As I grew up, and learned more and more information through sex education, etc., it started to bother me more, to the point where by my late teens it would make me feel bad if I thought of it or if it ever came up. It always struck me as unfair, finding out the shabby reasons or being told it didn’t really matter much one way or the other. If it didn’t really matter either way, then why was it done to me? A lot of my friends weren’t cut. [Editor: Note how this young man has difficulty naming what was done to him.]
Physically, I haven’t known any different, but I suffered psychologically from the feelings that go with having a healthy part of my body cut off without my consent. I really feel violated by it. I also hate the fact that while discovering sexuality, like all guys do around puberty, involved me finding the scar and being bothered by the fact that I was cut. I don’t think discovering your own body should involve that kind of thing at all. A kid shouldn’t have to deal with that. It wasn’t done for any medical need but because my parents happened to think it was ‘cleaner’ or ‘healthier.’ I really don’t think I’d have had trouble having to spend an extra 5 seconds in the shower to clean it if it meant having my whole sex anatomy intact the way the male body is designed. I find it appalling that the medical community allows this to continue, whose body is it anyway? It still pisses me off to this day and can upset me because it brings up feeling violated and the physicality of it is permanent. I find the attitude some people still have around it a little disturbing like its business as usual. I’m not saying worse things don’t happen, but I don’t get how some people still to this day think that cutting off a part of a healthy child’s penis is normal. Cutting off body parts is supposed to be a last resort in medicine. I really do hope that the doctors will step up and do the right thing on this. Regardless of whatever slight possible medical benefits doctors should recognize that it is wrong to cut off healthy body parts from someone who can’t consent. It should be a individual choice not a parental one. Parents have to decide a lot of things, but permanently removing part of their kid’s penis, when he’ll be able to decide for himself later, shouldn’t be one of them.
Being harmed by the actions of a doctor, I really find it hard to accept that they allow this to continue. Nobody should be harmed by medicine, and especially when there isn’t even some specific reason why they might be needing a treatment that could go wrong. I was healthy and would have probably stayed that way. And the harm I experienced was caused by the actions of a doctor ‘treating’ me for absolutely nothing except for the fact that I was born having a anatomically complete body.
from blOUCH! (link)
Labels: blouch
posted by adam smith at 4:50 PM
8 Comments:
I feel the same way myself. The thing I hate most about being circumcised is the fact that I didn't provide any consent for a part of my body to be amputated.
Hey Adam, Have you posted your story on Blouch? It might make a good addition.
joe I wouldnt know where to start! there are so many bits and pieces I could write a novel. I dont want to summarize it and make it sound way less serious than it is you know
Well said.
I agree with the article's author above. I am 31 now and was circumcised right after birth. So many times I have trouble focusing on work and even sleeping at night because I get so filled with anger and there simply is nowhere to direct it. The doctor who did it might even be dead now. I find it really troubling and if I weren't so damn hit by the economics of today I would seek help for dealing with the mental part of it all. I brought it up once in conversation with my mom and sister who are very outspoken about female circumcision, yet they never took issue with it being done to me, their take on my anger was, well it's simply not as bad as what is done to women, so there, deal with it. It really makes me angry, and that's an understatement.
Thanks.
What I find quite sad is that women think there's some reason they can't oppose male circumcision as strongly as they do female circumcision.
The milder types of female circumcision are far less extreme than routine male circumcision.
Opposing male circumcision doesn't mean you oppose FGM any less!
I hate also that this breeds bad feelings between men and women. I think it's important that men who have had this horrible thing done to them know that there are a great many women, myself included, who sympathise strongly with them, and wholly support them.
Sounds like Alston needs to redirect his anger: just get a TLC, DTR, or CATIIQ, and channel your anger!
شركة تعقيم وتطهير الفجيرة
شركات تعقيم ضد كورونا في الفجيرة
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