Introduction
Written By Matthew Richmond
I was five days old when I stopped breathing. I’m told by my mother that I wouldn’t eat and when she let the doctor know this, he told her to bring me in immediately. I stopped breathing during this return visit to the hospital.
Obviously, since I’m writing this, I survived that ordeal. But looking back on it, I have to wonder, what caused me to not want to eat during those first few days of life? That is certainly not normal for a newborn baby. I now wonder if being circumcised as a baby was the cause (a proven side effect of circumcision). The topic of circumcision has fascinated me ever since I found out what it was — and that it had been done to me. It is an issue that is so perplexing, so layered, so polarizing — and yet, so common.
Over the years, I’ve read a great deal about the “procedure.” I’ve heard the justified reasons why doctors recommend and perform circumcisions and why parents choose to circumcise their newborn sons. I’ve seen the list of supposed benefits that accompany being circumcised. However, I’ve never been convinced.
The one and only discussion I’ve had with my mother regarding my circumcision was an explosive one — probably not far off from how most conversations about circumcision go. I remember there was yelling. I remember my face was red and hot. I remember feeling desperate to prove my point. I remember my mother coldly saying to me, “Well, I wanted it done.”
I will never forget those words being uttered from my mother’s mouth. Much like the circular scar on my penis — which most circumcised men probably don’t even realize is a scar — those words will be with me for the rest of my life.
Now, as a 24 year old adult, I still don’t understand how my own mother (and my father), as smart and knowledgable as I know her to be, could’ve thought this was an okay thing to have done to her newborn child. I know that during the 1990s, circumcision of male infants was still at a very high peak (since then, the rates of circumcisions performed in U.S. hospitals for non-religious reasons has fallen nearly 10%). Most doctors in the U.S. recommend the procedure to parents, give them “facts” to support their argument, and parents are left thinking that they are doing the right thing.
My mother is typically over-prepared when it comes to basically everything, but especially when she is helping people make medical decisions. I’m sure that there were cosmetic reasons being factored in to my parents decision of having my circumcised. After all, my father is also circumcised and the “he should look like his father” argument (the worst and most ignorant argument of them all) is often cited as a major deciding factor in having a child circumcised. I’m also sure that my mother probably did her own research on the subject, in addition to hearing the doctor’s argument. But to me, it doesn’t much matter how much research a parent does on circumcision. This topic really comes down to good old fashioned common sense. It took me about two minutes into my “circumcision research” to realize that this mutilation of male infants is not only morally wrong — it’s criminal.
If you have ever had the misfortune of watching a video of a baby boy being circumcised, you know that listening to the helpless screams and ear curdling cries is almost unbearable — especially since most circumcisions are performed with no anesthetic — something that we would never do to an adult, an animal, or for any other procedure. In the last video that I witnessed, I was at the point of throwing up. It would be interesting to see how parents views on the subject would change if they were forced to watch how the procedure is done beforehand. My guess is that most would re-think their decision. It’s like how most people eat meat but they don’t want to actually witness how the animal is killed — they just want to put it out of their mind and not think about how excruciating it truly is.
Suppose I suggested that we start routinely removing or cutting off part of the clitoral hood in females (this is different than the procedure often called “female genital mutilation”) — the equivalent of the male foreskin? Somehow, I don’t think society would be as receptive to that as they are to male circumcision. Would we put that out of our minds just as easily? There’s no doubt in my mind that if we started doing this to newborn baby girls it would be considered child abuse.
Circumcision is simply not a medically necessary surgery. In fact, no medical association in the world — including the U.S. — recommends it. Yet somehow it remains an afterthought in our culture. Circumcision is a sexual assault. I was sexually assaulted by my parents and the doctors in the hospital that I was born in. I DID NOT CONSENT to having my foreskin cut, crushed, and amputated and my penis mutilated. As a result of being circumcised, I have never felt whole or complete as a person. I am no longer afraid to say that. I was exceedingly nervous and scared to publish this essay and when I attempted to figure out the reason behind that, I came to the conclusion that it was because of the shame of having this criminal act done to me. That shame and embarrassment is what keeps sexual assault victims from speaking out — it's the same feeling. I will no longer allow that shame and embarrassment to keep me silent on an issue that I feel so passionately about.
If you have made the decision to have your child circumcised, if you have given someone the advice that they should have their child circumcised, or if you’re a doctor that has done the procedure themselves, you have participated in the brutal sexual assault of a child, whether you admit to it or not. There is no way to justify that. Doctors who have performed this procedure have broken their sacred oath to “do no harm.” Circumcision is harmful. I’m saying this as someone who knows how it feels to have had this “procedure” inflicted on them. Everyone has the right to do what they please to their own bodies. Once a child is brought into this world, parents should have the right to make decisions for said child (assuming the child is too young to communicate verbally) only in the case of 100% medical necessity — and circumcision is not a medical necessity.
No, I’m not being dramatic. I’m not overanalyzing. I’m not exaggerating. I’m not wrong. I’m not any of the things that people usually say to victims of sexual assault to get them to keep quiet. International pop star Lady Gaga recently said, “I don't want to live in a country where the government decides if you were raped or not.” I too, refuse to live in a country where the government gets to decide if I was sexually assaulted or not. I’ve come to the conclusion that those people who are pro-circumcision have no argument whatsoever. They can keep spouting off their opinions but at the end of the day, circumcision is a criminal act — whether it’s legal or not.
The U.S. is the only country in the world that routinely circumcises newborn babies for non-religious reasons. It should be carefully noted that I am against circumcision for any reason — including religious ones. We have been so brainwashed into thinking that circumcision is a normal thing (in actuality, over 80% of the world’s males are left intact) that we hardly even consider it a surgery at all. More than 100 newborn baby boys die every year in the U.S. from circumcision related complications and that is completely unacceptable. It is astonishing to me that even with that statistic, this procedure still has yet to be outlawed entirely.
You do not cut off a healthy, extremely erogenous, and functioning (with purpose), part of the male reproductive system in order to prevent “diseases” later in life. If we’re going to use that as a basis for the argument of circumcision, then we should just start cutting off the rest of our remaining body parts until none of them remain. That argument is simply an excuse that is no longer supported by facts. Let us not forget that at one point in history, people also thought that circumcision cured blindness, deafness, rectal incontinence, tuberculosis, and prostate cancer — none of which turned out to be true, or even logical for that matter. “Are we to believe that the penis, the organ of reproduction, is inefficient, that it has a design flaw, that it’s prone to disease? This is the one part of our bodies that evolution would never tolerate any type of design flaw. It’s too important for reproduction.”
I firmly believe that the psychological effect of circumcision is far greater than most would even think to expect. How could such a traumatic event not be? Yes, the physical scar will always be visible, but the emotional and psychological scars run even deeper — even if the victims fail to acknowledge them. During my argument with my mother on the subject of my circumcision, I distinctly remember her asking me, “Do you remember being circumcised?” Looking back on that question, I wish I would’ve replied, “Would it make it any worse if I did remember it?”
Put my mother’s statement in perspective — would anyone even think of saying that to a sexual assault victim if they didn’t remember being assaulted because they were drugged or intoxicated? Does it somehow make it better that they don’t remember it? No, it most certainly does not. In fact, it makes it even worse.
It might take a long time to convince people that circumcision is an immensely harmful procedure that deserves their undivided attention, but let’s not forget that people once thought smoking was good for them. It takes a long time to reverse action and change minds when something has been done for such a long time, and the medical community, for the most part, still stands behind it — be it from fear of backlash, financial reasons, or unfounded beliefs. But just because something occurs often and over a long period of time, doesn’t make it right. Circumcision is viewed as normal in the U.S. but that doesn’t mean that we have to accept it as such. Circumcision is brutal, inhumane, and irreparably harmful — physically and mentally, and I refuse to accept it as routine. Is that really the first experience that you want your child to have in this world? One in which they are strapped down and restrained, screaming in agony, having their genitals mutilated?
You can frame male infant circumcision however you want, but it’s still an ugly picture. We are constantly telling people, “you’re perfect the way you are.” Why isn’t that true for male infants in the U.S.? It is the parent’s job to protect their children at all costs, not to inflict unnecessary harm on them. As a nation, we cannot keep allowing this heinous crime to continue happening to baby boys. If the foreskin were really just a “little piece of skin,” this wouldn’t be such a divisive issue, people wouldn’t be so feverishly emotional at its mention, and I certainly wouldn’t be writing this essay.
Maya Angelou once said, “When you know better, you do better.” We know better. It’s time to do better.
Note from the author:
After receiving feedback from various readers and taking into account their thoughts and opinions on my work, I have altered one sentence in this essay. I also wanted to note that this is not a “revenge piece” by any means. It was not my intention to hurt anyone in the process of writing this essay. I merely wanted to be as truthful as I could with the information that I had at the time of publication. Not mentioning something for fear of hurting someone’s feelings would make the publication of the essay utterly pointless. Everything that remains in the essay is something that I felt was completely relevant and necessary to making my argument.
I also wanted to note that at the time of publication I did not know the full timeline (and I still don’t) or date of when I was actually circumcised and how or if that might’ve related to me suddenly being unable to breath at the age of five days old. I was merely speculating that it could’ve been related since that is a proven side effect that has been seen and studied in infants following the procedure. My point in stating that fact still remains the same, whether or not that was actually what happened in my particular case. My mother’s reasonings for having me circumcised are also purely speculation. The only explanation she has ever given me was “I wanted it done.” That statement came during our only conversation on the topic, which I detailed heavily in this essay. Everything written was from my perspective and based solely on the information that I had at the time of writing.
Sources
1 & 3) Goldman, Ronald. Circumcision, the Hidden Trauma: How an American Cultural Practice Affects Infants and Ultimately Us All. Boston, MA: Vanguard, 1997. Print.
2) Ingraham, Christopher. "Americans Truly Are Exceptional — at Least When It Comes to Circumcision." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 26 May 2015. Web. 25 May 2016.
4, 5, & 6) Midwives, Barrie. "Circumcision The Whole Story." YouTube. YouTube, 18 June 2013. Web. 25 May 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi6A7wP7dKw>.