"Doctors who still perform circumcisions are violating the first rule of medical care: primum non nocere, first do no harm."
– Dr. George Denniston, University of Washington School of Medicine.
Throughout this book, I've been trying to inform you the reader about the horrors and atrocities that have been afflicted on humanity because of the unproven superstitions of others. There are a lot of people out there who are ignorant of the damage, the pain and long term trauma that religion has put on people's lives. People are hurt and even mutilated by other people's 'traditions' every single day, the biggest occurring to mostly male babies around the world for something that has little or not medical documentation to back it up.
I'm talking about the genital mutilation known as male circumcision. Started as religious tradition that is still being pushed on young infants as a 'medical procedure' to lower the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, young boys are still being forced to live without the foreskin that is attached to their genitals. This is a brutal and completely unnecessary act to perform on any young child. Yet this brutal practice is supported and endorsed by major religious institutions. Here is a quote from Acts 15:1 of the ESV:
"But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, 'Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved'."
This is one of many quotes that the bible has regarding circumcision, and because of this babies have had their privates mutilated for the satisfaction of an unproven higher being. This 'tradition' was in place for a very long time, long before the save guards of modern medicine which could have been used to prevent things like infections and other medical complications. There is no telling how many children died because of complications to this brutal ritual that could have been avoided. Such a senseless waste of human life all in the name of satisfying the law of a being we've never met. Even today in a nation that does have modern medicine, over a hundred children die each year from a medical procedure that isn't necessary. These are healthy children who are bleeding to death less than a month into their existence because their parents are too ignorant to defy their God, even if it kills their own child.
Even if the child survives, studies published in civilized societies have shown that circumcisions decrease the sensitivity of the male genitalia as much as seventy percent. Most of a man's sensitivity is lost as a result of this barbaric procedure because the foreskin is the most richly innervated part of the penis. To remove the one part of the of a man's reproductive organ that has the most receptors doesn't seem surprising when you look at it from the perspective of organized religion. These are the same religions that do not want their followers to have pre-marital sex or sex of any kind for that matter unless it is done for the purpose of being fruitful and multiplying. So from that perspective, it makes sense that they would want to cut off the part of the penis that has the most nerves and would bring the most pleasure to a man during sexual intercourse. This is done out of the hope that less nerves would equal less sex of course unless that was to produce more symbolic sheep for their imaginary Sheppard. Because of this procedure, the male genitalia numbs after constant exposure to things that it can rub against, which causes a man's tool to lose its sensitivity thus removing a man's the pleasure out of sexual intercourse. This seems to be the motive of the very same organized religions that has a history of outlawing any sex for pleasure, to rob men of their ability to enjoy sex and therefore respect the laws of their scripture and not stray to follow their natural instincts. Unlike wisdom teeth, human males are meant to have their foreskin and it serves a purpose to ensuring long lasting pleasure, which according to the church is a sin so it's no surprise that they would prefer we all live without that little flap of skin. It's apparently very evil and leads to sin, so it's got to go.
Despite the attempt to spread rubbish about lowering the chances of getting sexual transmitted diseases, circumcision is considered an unnecessary cosmetic surgery that is actually no longer covered by our universal healthcare program here in Canada. More and more civilized nations are starting to wake up and realize how horrible this practice is and some nations in Europe have even taken steps to outlaw the practice completely.
I am well aware of how this mutilation impairs people first hand because I happen to be one of those victims myself. The custom of male circumcision was very common the year I was born, especially in North America. The tradition of this hacking off a piece of our natural form was and in some parts of the world is still deeply ingrained to the point where people refuse to stop and think about what they're doing. Many fathers out there are not thinking about it as they only care that their son's genitals look the same as theirs rather than what is best for their offspring. Despite the difference that will be noticed between myself and my sons, I have refused to carry on the tradition of removing their foreskin. Just because I was forced to endure a dangerous procedure as an infant doesn't mean I was willing to put my boys through the same hardship. I love them too much to let my own insecurities affect them, not when I had the power to avoid it. When it comes to the atrocious tradition of male circumcision, I made sure that my family's use of the practice ended with my own. The mother of my children and I came to this decision together when our sons were born, and neither of them were forced to endure a medical procedure that has nothing to do with medicine. This barbaric practice is slowly being weaned out in certain parts of the world. German courts have made decisions that have come pretty close to an outright ban on the practice and that is a pretty good start. Even though my circumcision is archaic and unnecessary, it pales in comparison to the butchery that is the same type of procedure that is being done to the female clitoris. The idea of circumcising a woman is ten times worse anything being done to men, with zero medical reason to do it other than to sew a woman shut so she can be kept pure for her future husband. As much as I don't like what happened to me, I understand that what women are put through in certain parts of the world make my own experience look like a minor cosmetic mistake.
This is the world we live in. Where children are needlessly chopped up to satisfy the unproven superstitions of old men which is certainly not the way things should be. You cannot approve of this kind of butchery and then try to claim that you teach a moral code. You cannot approve of the pain infants, children and even teenagers are put through to satisfy the barbaric needs of religious folks and try to say you are doing good work in this world. This is one of many problems with religion: the institution's inability to stand back and realize how out of date and unnecessary a lot of their 'traditions' really are. No where in any book does it say that this kind of crap is necessary in order to please their Gods, and even if it does the book says you're supposed to stone people to death and we no longer do that... so why continue this practice?
But Religious zealots still do it out of fear they might be punished by an invisible being no one claims to have made any appearance in over two thousand years. That isn't even the worst thing being done in the name of Gods these days that would make you sick. As I stated in chapters throughout this book, atrocities have been committed often in the name of God. From mothers who are killing their own children so they do not go to hell to dictators who think that genocide is God's work, death has never been more vicious than when it's done in the name of things that are considered holy.
While many nations have gone out of their way to outlaw the barbaric practice of female circumcision, I honest think these laws should go a step further and outlaw all circumcision, period. Many civilized nations are standing up to the practice, citing the fact that there is no real evidence that proves it improves a child's life, especially in the female case and it's actually labelled as a 'cosmetic' surgery in my country, meaning if you want to have this done... it comes out of your pocket and not the taxpayers. I don't see why the government should have to pay for a religious ceremony to begin with, seeing that it serves no practical purpose.
I would no like to address other men who like myself have already been mutilated as an infant: I know it will seem weird to look a little different if you don't chop your son's Willy too, but our pain and discomfort shouldn't be taken out on our children. We suffer everyday with the numbness, the scarring and the other nasty things that come from having an exposed penis that continuously rubs against everything unprotected. Don't let what we went through force you to do the same thing to your own sons. Break the cycle and leave your child in one piece. Show him the compassion that you should have been shown yourself. Break the cycle of unnecessary human mutilation and be the bigger man that your Dad should have been. We are capable of rising above the dogma and unfounded religious bullshit and stop harming our children. Thanks to the courage and caring nature of my now ex-wife, I had the ability to look past my own feelings and make the right choice. My sons are whole and have never been forced to be scarred for life to satisfy what is nothing more than an unproven superstition.
That's the part that burns me the most; there is no basis of fact that makes any of this necessary. Absolutely none what so ever. It's not like God him/her/it/themselves came down from the heavens and ordered you to do it, right? These are myths, unproven superstitions that have no place in a civilized society. We shouldn't be looking to this at all for moral guidance, let alone to decide whether or not we should slice of a portion of our child's most sensitive organs. This is not right and it's completely hypocritical. If you truly believe in any God and that we are his creations, who the hell are you to correct it? An all knowing and all powerful God would never require us to correct something on his creation! If there was no need for a foreskin, they why would any God allow it to exist in the first place? This act of chopping anything off what the same religion calls God's perfect creation is hypocrisy. If we really are God's great creation, they why does the creation need to be corrected at all? This contradiction is more than enough evidence for anyone to abandon the act of circumcising any child.
My next message is for any woman who will one day bare more sons into the world: don't do it. There is absolutely no value to chopping off your son's foreskin and it's mean to protect the penis, not harm it. If your husband has been circumcised and is insisting that you do the same to your son just so that everyone will look the same; that is your own husband expressing his own insecurity concerning something that was horribly done to him when he was a child. What was done to him is inexcusable and wrong. This act of religious tradition is nothing more than a barbaric, sadistic and very unnecessary act of human disfigurement. It is up to us, the parents of future generations to break the chain and stop harming our children. Leave them they way the come out and the will not only live to be healthier in the future, but be able to use their body the way nature truly meant them to use it and be better for it. It us our responsibility as their parents to ignore the bullshit that is heaved at us. There is no medical benefit to chopping off the foreskin as many civilized nations have made strides to have what is commonly referring to as a 'cosmetic' procedure to be declared what it really is: a criminal act.
Female circumcisions have already been outlawed by a handful of countries and I hope one day male circumcision will follow. Rather than wait for big brother to come out and tell you that it's wrong, take a stand for the little ones you claim to love and not mutilate them right after they hatch. I beg of you to leave their genitalia in one piece and save them from future years of torment and anguish. Break that cycle and one day we'll be able to remove the disgusting 'tradition' from our lands for good. Do it for the kids. Do it not just for your children and your children's future offspring. Break the chain today and allow future generations to benefit from your courage.