Freedomain Radio

The conversion from slave to free person can't really be pinned down to just one thing... so since this thread is about one thing, I'll choose the thing which finally pushed the last button and forever turned me away from the initiation of violence and the state: my genital mutilation.

You may rather call it infant circumcision. But regardless of what words you want to describe it with, several things remain 100% the same:

1. Human rights are violated. The amputation of foreskin / cutting of labias is permanent and lasts the victim's entire life. This is a decision which is made by the owner of the genitals, not by politicians priests or family. Because if at any time during their life the victim wishes they were intact, the circumcision becomes damaging and whoever is responsible for it is the violator.

2. Just like all other mutilated males, I have lost 75% of my sexual sensitivity. Man is naturally as sensitive as woman, and the color of man's genitals under the foreskin is naturally the same color as a woman's labia. How could they be any different? Both man and woman are humans with the same basic types of flesh and bone. Studies have proven the loss of three quarters of sexual sensitivity for mutilated men.

3. When I learned what had been done to me, I was out for a week. Just completely out of it. Doing absolutely nothing. Thinking. Crying. I forever will be an unnatural subtype of human being which was altered for the profits of other human beings. I will never know what kind of sensitivity or feeling I was supposed to have by nature's design.

4. When someone mutilates your genitals at birth, it doesn't take a lot of thought to realize at least subconciously that you've been violated, mutilated, and altered, and that anyone who is capable of doing such a thing is automatically going to do it to you for the rest of your life. It's like a "welcome to the Earth, kid" kind of moment.

How can anyone possibly reconcile this? It's not something that can be reconciled. It's not something that can be accepted and moved on from. It's not something that can be forgotten or illegitimized.

That was the moment I turned my back and never walked in that direction again.

I agree with you. It always makes me sick whenever I think of my parents willingly giving the ok for some creepy doctor to chop of part off my penis. I heard that one guy sued the doctor who performed the operation and got a good deal of cash(should have sued his parents, in my opinion). The scary thing I've found, is that many males I know are completely fine with the fact that they've been mutilated, although they most likely don't know about it resulting in a huge loss of sexual feeling.

enigma:

 The scary thing I've found, is that many males I know are completely fine with the fact that they've been mutilated, although they most likely don't know about it resulting in a huge loss of sexual feeling.

When talking to other people about that I find that most do one or both of two things - they deny the loss of sensitivity, or once they have to accept it they decide then and there that less sensitivity is better, so as to immediately resolve any unpleasant thoughts they might have about their circumcision.

I think such mutilation is beyond horrible, and will be looked upon in the future as utterly barbaric. In certain Jewish circles, this savagery is performed by the rabbi biting off the foreskin, which has actually transmitted diseases to the helpless and innocent baby.

We live in a world of savages.

As a guy who is cut, I'm not going to argue that less sensitivity is better or deny any loss of sensitivity, however, not having known any sexual feeling or stimulation until my pre-teens, all I know is that for me, it is what it is and from that point of view, I don't know any different. In many ways the old adage, "You can't miss what you never had," seems apropos.

My parents have told me that they were lead to believe that male circumcision is healthier from a hygenic point of view among other things, though I'm not sure if anyone ever mentioned any loss of sensitivity. However, I do tend to wonder how or why my parents could have been lead to believe that and go through with it since my father is not cut and obviously each of my parents knows exactly what they themselves feel.

My father's natural state, however, from what I've been able to gather from my family history, is that since he was born in Germany during WWII, circumcised males were often labeled as Jews regardless of their faith (since it's regularly practiced by Jews), so apparently being uncut may have saved his life and if the war had never happened he may have been cut, too, in spite of being born into a Catholic family.

There is and has been a lot of misinformation floating around about male circumcision, though it's getting better. As for me, I accept it and chalk it up to one way in which my parents were either dupes or knaves, or both.

I wouldn't allow it for any child of mine.

Catholics are circumsized as well.

Not that the biting off would surprise me but could you point me to any studies or preferably videos of this. After all jews were reported to eat babies at one time. Stef did this happen to you ?

Regarding Catholics, they are not routinely circumcised in Europe. It is not doctrine.

From a JEWISH document describing ritual circumcision:

Metzitzeh: (Mezzizza/Mizizah) The sucking of blood from the wound
During the Talmudic period (500-625 A.D.), a third step was added to the Orthodox circumcision ritual. It was not universally adopted by all Jewish groups, but became a practice of the more Orthodox groups. This third step was called "Metzitzah". During "Metzitzah", the mohel takes the now badly bleeding penis into his mouth and sucks the blood from the wounded pant. This was most probably adopted to collapse the major blood vessels to stem bleeding and to extract any induced bacteria from the wound and blood system. In effect, it often introduced infection, such as tuberculosis and venereal diseases, with very serious and tragic consequence, as reported throughout history. More modern day mohels use a glass tube placed over the infant's penis for suction of the blood when performing metzitzah. In many Jewish ritual circumcisions this step of Metzitzah has been eliminated.

There has been a rash of radical orthodoxy in the United States over the last 5 years or so. Several infants have been infected with Herpes and Hepetitis as a consequence of the procedure described above. You can do a search of the NY Times to find a couple very prominent cases that included lawsuits. Here is just one article, from a JEWISH newspaper, describing one such instance. There is also THIS SITE, which documents the carnage in full - not just infections, but deaths and additional mutilations resulting from circumcision practices.

Also, in the United States - at least, among Chicago's Irish Catholics - circumcision was an absolute social expectation (regardless of papal doctrine). If your child was not circumcised, you and your child would be treated like a parriah. I, and all my brothers were circumcised. All my mother's brothers were circumcised. Every Catholic male in the neighborhood I grew up in was circumcised.

As I got older, my parents rationalized their mutilation of me and my brothers as a "medical necessity", but of course, that was just a way of escaping the moral implications of what they'd done.

Gerry:

Not that the biting off would surprise me but could you point me to any studies or preferably videos of this. After all jews were reported to eat babies at one time. Stef did this happen to you ?

No, fortunately I was not circumcised, since neither of my parents were religious when I was born... You can read more about the Jewish practice in "God Is Not Great"

I was not circumcised at birth, but a number of years later.  My mother had the idea, perhaps through her obsessive consultation of contemporary parenting books, that the foreskin ought to be retracted in order to clean the glans.  I was not able to retract mine beyond a certain point without pain, and so I was whisked to a urologist, given a diagnosis of "phimosis" (a diagnosis not even remotely appropriate for a prepubescent male), and circumcised under anaesthesia in a hospital.

I remember pretty much everything about the whole process, beforehand and afterwards... I distinctly remember feelings of humiliation, exposure and pain...

I remember the smell of the gas they used to knock me out... I remember struggling... and the doctors and nurses telling me to just breathe deeply...

I remember waking up in recovery, completely exposed...

I remember being forced to immerse in hot bathwater afterwards because I "was going to have to do it sooner or later."

It's certainly one of the more gruesome aspects of my own history.

thirdear:

As a guy who is cut, I'm not going to argue that less sensitivity is better or deny any loss of sensitivity, however, not having known any sexual feeling or stimulation until my pre-teens, all I know is that for me, it is what it is and from that point of view, I don't know any different. In many ways the old adage, "You can't miss what you never had," seems apropos.

 

But we do know what we're missing. We've done studies which show that natural men have 4 times the sensitivity. What we know or don't know doesn't really matter though, because whether foreskin is nothing or everything about sensitivity, it's still removed without the permission of the genital's owner [by initiation of violence]. You'd think a baby's terrifying painful screams and then semi-mute hum afterwards would be understood as 'no', but I guess that Doctor "Do No Harm" doesn't see it that way.

I think it's far easier to miss something you've never had, because you've never personally experienced it. It could by anything. It could be the most wonderful thing in the universe.

The only real way to find out what you've missed is to experience your first part of life with active natural genitalia, and then have the procedure done voluntarily to yourself to compare the difference. This has already been done by thousands of people who are still alive to speak their experiences and they do it online all the time. If you think I am morose - read what they have to say.

thirdear:

My parents have told me that they were lead to believe that male circumcision is healthier from a hygenic point of view among other things, though I'm not sure if anyone ever mentioned any loss of sensitivity. However, I do tend to wonder how or why my parents could have been lead to believe that and go through with it since my father is not cut and obviously each of my parents knows exactly what they themselves feel.

 

Yeah, that's the excuse they are taught from doctors who want to push them into circumcising their children. The doctor wants to do it because he'll get hundreds or thousands of dollars per foreskin when he sells them to cosmetic industries. But let me ask you this... as far as hygeine goes, is it good or bad for the baby's hygeine to expose an open circumcision wound to a diaper full of human waste?

thirdear:

 

I wouldn't allow it for any child of mine.

 

Amen [from an agnostic]!

Every child should be allowed to choose for or against it themselves, so not having them cut as an infant will give them that choice.

Stefan Molyneux:

 

No, fortunately I was not circumcised, since neither of my parents were religious when I was born... You can read more about the Jewish practice in "God Is Not Great"

I am insanely jealous. Half my friends weren't mutilated, too.

Tenko:

Every child should be allowed to choose for or against it themselves...