The trauma of circumcision

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it destiny. – Carl Jung



I typed “CIRCUMCISION” on my computer. I was not prepared for what I saw next.

A screaming baby. Contorted face. Rigid body.

A tiny, cuddly, vulnerable newborn baby who had been curled up in a ball for nine months in the womb, stretched out and tied with an outstretched eagle. Erect penis Clamps Scalpel sharp as a razor. Blood.

I turned around. I closed my eyes. One moment and he had seen more than enough for a lifetime.

Knives and blood? Genitals and screaming? Is this what is euphemistically called “circumcision”?

It was just a photo, but my whole life I was there in that moment with that baby: heart racing, adrenaline pumping, all muscles tense, fighting, twisting, struggling, screaming, crying, trying with all my might to get away from that knife. .

Knowing from my work in mental health that trauma imprinted on a mind, I saw a disaster in the making: an innocent conscience welded to feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, helplessness, loneliness, isolation, terror, panic, anger, sex, and violence.

I couldn’t help but wonder, Where is that baby now? … and How is your life today? Are you happy and at peace? Or have you lived your entire life kicking and screaming in reaction to this long-forgotten trauma? Do you avoid people? Drive them away? Run away? So you wonder why? Do you leave disaster in your wake?

Does he scream out loud or cry inside, “You really don’t love me. Leave me alone! Don’t touch me! Go away! I hate you!” Are you one of the many men who commit suicide four times more than women?

Frankly, honestly and simply, in that photo I saw a violation.

If the victim had been an adult, a girl, or even an animal, the abuser would be incarcerated and newspapers around the world would be up in arms about it. If people knew what the practice entails, they would no longer use the word disinfected, circumcision, but would call it what it is: inhuman, rape, torture, sexual mutilation, assault and battery.

I wondered: How can we seemingly be so oblivious to the harm this practice causes?

Perhaps because, like me, very few people are aware of what circumcision really is. They have given us the whitewashed version. And then I read that this baby is just one of the more than a million baby boys who get circumcised each year in the United States. One every 26 seconds.

No wonder, I sighed. It’s no wonder there are so many lonely, unhappy, desperate, confused, frustrated, and angry men.

It would be difficult to imagine a more insidious injury to the body and psyche than this common practice: routine infant circumcision, but here it is, made public on the Internet, and now on my computer screen.

Physically restraining a baby. Manipulating your genitals. Cutting her tender skin. Altering its form, structure and function. Changing your relationship with your body and your sexuality forever.

If we could view circumcision from a rational and objective perspective, we would surely have to classify it as the most extreme form of child sexual abuse: the rape of a baby. And if we were to be honest with ourselves, we would have to stop and shake our heads at the ignorance of our ancestors.

Why the hell would someone do this to a baby? There has to be a very emotional and irrational element to circumcision.

Violence. Court! An irreversible mutilation!

From my crisis counseling work, I knew that abuse is especially devastating when it happens to children before they have the words for it. Terror is attached to every cell in children’s body, and as adults, they have a difficult time in life. Circumcision leaves both physical and psychological scars.

He could only guess what the world would be like today if America hadn’t been cutting off most of its baby boys for the past 60 years. Common sense says that if we had been kinder to our babies, they may have grown into kinder, kinder, happier, and healthier adults. Earth could be a kinder, gentler, happier and healthier planet.

The implications of this terror, intentionally inflicted by human hands on babies, instantly overshadows almost all other worries I have had about my life and the world in general.

Could circumcision be the root of man’s inhumanity to man?

No matter how cruel it is, every perpetrator has been a victim first and here we are, fabricating potential perpetrators every time we cut up a baby.

Is it just a coincidence that the only three cultures that circumcise their young are at war in the Middle East? Yes, Jews, English-speaking Christians, and Muslims are the only three cultures that circumcise their young.

I had no idea what would happen when I typed “CIRCUMCISION” on my computer. It was a long and deep journey in a very short time. A quick lesson in a shocking truth. I leaned back in my chair.

That is all. A clue to exponentially improve the quality of life on this planet, to take a small step towards healing what I have always called “the inhumanity of man towards man”.

Anyway, how the hell did such a strange and horrible practice start? Going back to my computer, I started reading … and I read and read … For years I read and researched this topic, until I finally found out what had happened to me. Suddenly my men made sense, my life made sense … and then I wrote my book.

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