How Circumcision Damages Society, Part 2
A deeper look at how the bonds between individuals are damaged
This article is mainly a follow up to my previous one, How Circumcision Damages Society. I would also highly recommend the book Circumcision: The Hidden Trauma by Dr. Ronald Goldman if you are interested in learning more about this.
Fundamental Relationships
Relationships between people are the foundation of society. There are four fundamental relationships which we experience in childhood and emulate in adulthood. If any of these are lacking, the child will have difficulties in life, and if any of them are lacking in society at large, there will be numerous societal problems.
The first of these is the bond between mother and child. This is the first relationship, upon which all other relationships are based. Under normal conditions, anyone completely lacking this bond will die. It is no surprise that when we mock nature and raise monkeys with cloth mothers, the monkeys become insane.
From the interactions between the mother and father, the child observes the sexual bond between man and woman. While the child will not understand the nature of this relationship until he is older, merely observing it will have a profound effect on his development. The child will first use this, as well as his relationships with his mother and father, as a general basis for interacting with others, but when he grows older he will use it as a model, whether consciously or not, for his own relationships with the opposite sex. One of the most damaging societal ills of our time is that fatherless children typically produce more fatherless children.
Following this is the relationship between father and child, which, while not essential for the bare necessities of life (it was in the past) is crucial for good psychological development. It is generally true that a father will treat the mother of his children the same as he treats his children, although there are of course exceptions. There are men who admirably try to maintain good relationships with their children even after divorce, and there are stepfathers who abuse their stepchildren. If a man has a good relationship with the mother of his children, he will also have a good relationship with his children.
The final bond to develop is between one and one’s body. This is a bit more abstract, but might be called sapience. At this point the child grows into an individual, separate from his parents. What he does in life is his decision to make. Fulfilling his dreams is not guaranteed, but the knowledge that he can meaningfully work towards them is what is important. On a less abstract level, this manifests as the ability to make decisions about what to eat, how much to exercise, etc. that physically change the body according to the will of the mind.
It is, perhaps, a bit melodramatic to say that someone who does not develop these bonds is doomed to a life of misery, but it is not without truth. It is difficult to both consciously and subconsciously disregard a bad example set by one’s parents, but not impossible, and certainly worth doing, especially if one wishes to have children.
How Circumcision Damages Relationships
Circumcision does not usually completely destroy these bonds, it does not usually completely destroy the penis either. It does take something that should be a source of vitality, enjoyment, and connectedness and turn it into something which causes pain, loneliness, and enervation.
All this is just on an individual level. The societal effects are massive and largely unrecognized. Much research has been done and it is easy to see the damage caused by fatherless homes. Other things are not so easy to research, not as though there is any institutional desire to do research on this subject.
The effects of circumcision on the relationship with one’s own body is perhaps the easiest to understand. In most cases, a man will deny that there is anything wrong with him. This is both understandable and a key reason why this practice continues. The penis is the literal symbol of masculinity and sexuality, and by far the single body part which a man’s self esteem is most attached to. There is almost nothing a man can do to change it, outside of losing weight if he’s obese or obtaining unethical surgeries (such as circumcision) if he’s sufficiently mentally ill.
When a man has sexual problems, he will typically seek various exterior solutions, including risky sexual practices, drugs, multiple sexual partners, and more. A common risky sexual practice is not wearing a condom where one would be appropriate, since the combination of reduced sensation from circumcision and from a condom makes the sensation almost nothing, and the sexual experience pointless. Rarely will men realize that the problem lies with their own body. This is a defense mechanism, since depression and mental anguish are sure to result. In either case, the ability for a man to be in tune with his body is almost destroyed. The main options are delusion or depression, neither of which is healthy. Needless to say, a society full of men who are delusional or depressed is not a healthy one either.
The negative effects of having part of your penis cut off as a child on sexual relationships should be obvious as well. Sex is one of the foundations of romantic relationships, and a relationship does not have much of a future if both partners are not sexually satisfied. Additionally, some things men do to compensate for circumcision are deleterious to relationships. For instance, if a man seeks other women because he believes that would fix the sexual problems he is experiencing, it tends to make his partner unhappy.
The effect of circumcision on a child’s relationship with his parents is not as clear. I would highly recommend Circumcision: The Hidden Trauma for understanding this subject.
While infants may not form memories in the way older children and adults do, what happens to them certainly has a lasting effect. When one of a child’s first experiences is being torn from the arms of his mother, strapped down, and sexually and extremely violently assaulted, it permanently traumatizes him. There are essentially two main responses to this, which mirror the response as an adult. Either the child will retreat into himself, or he will try to make the outside world match how he is feeling inside, corresponding to depression or aggression.
In either case, the bond between mother and child is permanently damaged. A mother’s first instinct, to physically protect her child, is totally subverted. This greatly contributes to the dehumanization of children, particularly male children. I recommend reading Children’s Justice by Brendon Marotta for more on this. Once this instinct is defeated, mothers are more susceptible to medical and cultural propaganda about how they should raise their children. Boys who have poor relationships with their mothers will generally be less happy and less able to interact with other people, particularly members of the opposite sex. It is also more likely that they will have difficult breastfeeding, which negatively affects physical and mental development.
The damage circumcision causes to a relationship between a boy and his father is extreme, but perhaps the least obvious. That is, of course, assuming the father is even present, which is less likely as I discussed earlier. In many cultures, including our own, this shared ritual is seen as a source of bonding between father and son, as represented in the phrase “I want his to look like mine”. In fact, this is one of the few symbolic meanings that circumcision still has in America.
But this reason is a lie. The main reason circumcision is done is to avoid damaging the ego of the father. Although it originated in tribal settings as a way of bringing the group together, today this is the only real reason it continues in America. Every other reason is a post hoc justification.
I want you to place yourself in the mind of a boy that is circumcised, to see the world through his eyes. What lessons is he taught, shortly after birth?
Being born leads to meaningless agony. Someone bigger and stronger than you can always make you suffer. Sex, pain, and violence go together. A man can put his desires over the needs of even his own children. These lessons are what most American men learn from their first sexual experience, and it is further reinforced by their fathers, their primary role models, and by American society. I leave the effect that this has on American society as an exercise to the reader.
To avoid repetition, I have included several links to learn more about circumcision.
This video is a very well done historical and medical critique of circumcision by Dr. Christopher Guest.
American Circumcision, a documentary by esteemed critical theorist Brendon Marotta, is available in all sorts of places.
Doctors Opposing Circumcision has a great website with lots of information, mainly geared towards parents and doctors.
And if these are too low-energy for you, or you just want to get angry, watch Sex & Circumcision: An American Love Story by Eric Clopper.