Comedian Lawrence Mooney thinks circumcision is no laughing matter

Australian comedian Lawrence Mooney makes people laugh for a living but his performance at the 2016 Melbourne International Comedy Festival showed that he is clearly not in the slightest bit amused by the fact that he was routinely circumcised as an infant.

Mooney assured his audience that he had done his research on the issue and he didn’t disappoint. In a wide-ranging rant, Mooney mocked the Abrahamic covenant with god which calls for all males to be circumcised, showed utter disdain for the notion of circumcision as a 20th century fashion statement and lamented about the impact that having a foreskin-free penis has on his sex life.

Mooney began his sketch by revealing that ‘When I was but a few hours old, my parents gave me to a complete stranger. And he took me into a room and hacked the top of my cock off. Let’s just sit with the loneliness and brutality for a moment shall we?‘ He concluded by saying ‘My knob has been rubbing against my undies for 50 years, and it is dead to the touch. Alright? It is. No seriously, you could hit it with a hammer and I wouldn’t bat an eyelid. I could bang you for two hours…and nothing.‘

Mooney’s performance was powerful but predictably awkward. Those assembled laughed sheepishly at times but appeared somewhat embarrassed about having such a sensitive issue unexpectedly foisted upon them.

It was a brave and commendable effort by Mooney. He somehow managed to seamlessly weave serious social commentary with disarming humour, which is always the hallmark of a quality entertainer.

Watch Lawrence Mooney’s anti-circumcision tirade below.

Sydney Children’s Hospital Foundation attempts to hide the truth on circumcision

As I paced the hallways while waiting for my daughter to recover from her surgery at the Sydney Children’s Hospital in Randwick, Sydney, I read a poster on the wall which outlined the hospital’s policies around its care for its patients.

I was reassured to read a number of points in relation to the quality of care that the hospital promised. In particular, I was pleased to read a point which was highlighting the right of bodily autonomy. While I can’t remember the exact wording, I recall that it was something like this:

“Children’s bodies are their own.”

Infant circumcision for non-medical reasons was banned in NSW public hospitals in 2006, and as the Sydney Children’s Hospital is a public hospital there should be no non-therapeutic circumcisions being performed there. However, the doctors who practise there can easily bypass this ban by operating out of one of the private clinics surrounding the hospital. I wondered how many of these doctors walked past these posters every day, then walked over to a private clinic to perform this life-changing and damaging procedure on a non-consenting infant.

Nonetheless, I was pleased to read that the hospital seemed to understand the concept of bodily autonomy – that children owned their bodies, and that in the absence of a clear and immediate medical need, they should get to determine what happens to them.

So I was surprised to see that for the foundation’s Gold Telethon 2015 they would be promoting a story of a child rushed to the emergency department as a result of a procedure that is an assault on that autonomy – infant circumcision. Here is a screen shot from the foundation’s website on 5 March 2015:

While the exact timing is unclear, sometime before 23 April 2015 (according the the web archive), the foundation updated the page to remove any reference to the circumcision. This is how the page appeared from that date, and still appears at the time this post was published:

Note that the red underlines have been added to both screenshots to highlight the differences.

When approached for an explanation, a spokesperson for the foundation responded with “We updated the original story as we believed the detail to be irrelevant to the focus of our story – Eli and his treatment for Haemophilia”.

It appears to be unlikely that this reason alone is why the story was changed. In my experience, these types of articles are updated to correct important omissions or errors, or to remove details that are distracting to the story – not merely irrelevant.

The two other stories used to promote the 2015 Gold Telethon also contained information that could easily be determined as ‘irrelevant’. Why were those details not also removed?

The real reason for the revision is open to speculation. An obvious response to the unedited story would be to question why (in its own words) a ‘perfectly healthy baby’ was subjected to unnecessary surgery in the first place. I imagine it was easier for the foundation to sweep this distraction under the carpet rather than address the issue.

The other obvious unanswered questions are ‘who?’ and ‘where?’. It would be difficult for the foundation to claim how heroic the doctors at its hospitals were in treating the child if the situation they were treating was caused by an unnecessary surgery performed by one of its own doctors. Through its spokesperson, the foundation confirmed that the procedure was not carried out at either Sydney Children’s Hospital, Randwick or The Children’s Hospital at Westmead, but they did not respond to the question of whether it was performed at a private clinic by one the doctors who also practises at one of its hospitals.

Paul Mason, Chair of the Australasian Institute for Genital Autonomy, said “This report and the hospital’s suppression of a central fact about the case are deplorable. All across the world “adverse events” from unnecessary genital surgery on babies and children are shrouded in mystery. It is simply not possible for anyone to pretend that any “benefits” outweigh the obvious risks of these dangerous practices if the risks remained hidden and unknown. Parents are entitled to know the truth and the whole of the truth.”

I hope that in the lead up to the Gold Telethon 2016, the foundation chooses a better example of how the medical profession is helping, rather than hurting children.

Image courtesy of Goldy at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Anti-genital mutilation protester shut down at Oprah’s Adelaide show

An intactivist protester at Oprah Winfrey’s show in Adelaide tonight was apparently shut down by police only 2 minutes after arriving.

The man was objecting to Oprah Winfrey’s endorsements of a face cream derived from human foreskin.

A hand-written sign held up to crowds outside the Entertainment Centre read:

“Foreskin Facecream Oprah’s Shame”

He was apparently threatened with arrest, although the police could not provide information on the details of the charge, so he was allowed to leave with his sign tossed onto the footpath.

We understand this was the first anti-genital mutilation protest to be held in Adelaide. A facebook post of the short-lived encounter has been met with support, and generated interest in organising a larger protest in the future.

 

 

New intactivist website launched in Australia

We would like to congratulate our friends at ‘Intact Australia’, who launched their brand new website on August 1st 2014. ‘Intact Australia’ is a grass-roots organisation which has similar goals to those of us here at ‘Intactivists of Australasia’. Their mission statement quite rightly points out that ‘all human beings, regardless of age, sex, gender, ethnicity, size, background, family, or ability to defend themselves, come into this world with the basic human right to genital autonomy’. The ‘Intact Australia’ website is full of great information and resources including ‘intact care’, ‘functions of the foreskin’ and a ‘history of circumcision in Australia’. ‘Intact Australia’ are also seeking to create a list of ‘intact-friendly’ doctors across the country. We wish them all the best for their new venture and thank them so much for the work that they are doing to raise awareness about this important human rights issue. Click here to visit the ‘Intact Australia’ website.

New petition demands government action on male circumcision

Intactivists of Australasia have launched a new petition on change.org which calls for Australian governments (at all levels) to take action to prevent the non-therapeutic circumcision of male minors. Click here to sign the petition and show your support for this important human rights cause. If we reach our target of 100 signatures, the petition will be forwarded to all Federal, State and Territory health ministers. The timing of this petition is important, since the Federal Government is currently undertaking a review of the Medicare Benefits Schedule.

The Intactivists of Australasia petition reads as follows:

It is important that Australian Federal and State Departments of Health support the human rights of all people, regardless of their age or sex. Infant Male Genital Cutting (IMGC or “circumcision”) raises human rights issues. Many men hate that it was done to them before they could resist. Its medical benefits are highly debatable – slight reductions in rare and/or late onset diseases that can be better prevented by other means and/or treated as they occur. In the 1950s, IMGC was nearly universal in Australia and is now done to fewer than one boy in 8. Over the generation that this has happened, men’s health has improved and none of the ailments for which it was supposed to be effective have shown any significant increase.

No national medical association in the world (including the American Academy of Pediatrics) recommends IMGC, but the AAP’s position was so ambivalent and culturally biased, 38 paediatricians (heads and spokespeople for the paediatric associations of Austria, Britain, Denmark, England, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands, and senior paediatricians in Canada, the Czech Republic, France and Poland) were prompted to write a rebuttal to the AAP journal “Pediatrics” (1) which concluded that:

“There is growing consensus among physicians, including those in the United States, that physicians should discourage parents from circumcising their healthy infant boys because non-therapeutic circumcision of underage boys in Western societies has no compelling health benefits, causes postoperative pain, can have serious long-term consequences, constitutes a violation of the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child, and conflicts with the Hippocratic oath: primum non nocere: First, do no harm”.

Resources:

1. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/…/12/peds.2012-2896

2. http://www.circinfo.org/Medicare_circumcision_review.html

Recommendations:

1. Withdraw any support for non-therapeutic infant genital surgery (including circumcisions done for “cultural reasons”) from all medical facilities in the Federal and State Departments of Health’s charge.

2. Ensure that the non-therapeutic circumcision of minors is not included in Medicare rebates.

3. Ensure that medical students in all teaching hospitals and medical schools are appraised on the structure and functions of the foreskin, and on proper care of normal boys, especially the avoidance of premature forcible foreskin retraction and unnecessary circumcision.

Minority Reporter: How Brian Morris fought a personal war against the human foreskin (and how he lost)

Brian Morris is a former Professor of molecular biology at the University of Sydney. He has spent much of his adult life attempting to defend the practice of routine infant circumcision. He has, in essence, fought a personal war against a normal part of the human anatomy (the male foreskin). Morris has utilised a wide range of tactics in order to prosecute his case in relation to this issue. He has mastered the art of optimising media opportunities to promulgate his views on the subject. He has also surrounded himself with like-minded individuals, whom he has hoped would provide credible support for his war against the foreskin. Morris and his allies have attempted to harness scientific research in order to underpin their opinions and they have been unrelenting in their attempts at discrediting those who express views that contradict their own. Despite his dedication and persistence, the evidence provided below demonstrates quite clearly that Morris has lost the battle. The ‘courts’ of science, medicine and (perhaps most importantly) public opinion have ruled against him.

Public visibility has been a major weapon in Brian Morris’ war against the foreskin. He has used his ‘status’ as a professor with great efficiency in this regard. Every notable story/article about circumcision that has appeared in the mainstream Australian media over the last few years has featured Morris. His recent television appearances include segments on the Nine Network’s ’60 Minutes’, the Seven Network’s ‘Sunday Night’ and SBS’s ‘Insight’. In addition, to the best knowledge of this author, Morris has also been quoted in every mainstream Australian print media article on the subject of circumcision in recent times. Morris has benefited from the fact that all mainstream media outlets attempt to set up a ‘polemic’ debate about seemingly controversial issues. It might, therefore, appear to some that Morris’ media war against the foreskin has been a success but public responses to his input tell a different story. In every relevant forum, the overwhelming majority of commentators have been scathing of him and his position. It is therefore obvious that Morris’ mainstream media war against the foreskin has been a dismal failure. He has lost.

Morris has also been very proactive in using internet weaponry in his war against the foreskin. In the first instance he created a website called ‘CircInfo.net’. That site is still active and contains nothing other than pro-circumcision propaganda. Until recently, ‘CircInfo’ contained an entire page devoted to tasteless ‘circumcision humour’, which included a photo of an underage boy with his penis trapped inside a mobile phone. There was clearly no educational value that image, which leads this author to question Morris’ motivation in posting it. ‘CircInfo’ was originally hosted on University of Sydney servers but, after a complaint from a member of the public about a conflict of interest, Morris was ordered by his employer to move it to another server.

Morris continues to use that site (and the internet in general) to try and discredit those who speak out against his war against the foreskin.  ‘CircInfo’ has a whole page devoted to this endeavour. There are many misrepresentations and much misinformation offered on that page. When one assesses the character of some of Morris’ own associates (see below) it would appear to be quite hypocritical for him to attempt to discredit the entire anti-circumcision movement on the basis of ‘guilt by association’. Morris has even gone so far as to attempt to discredit the profession of paediatrics. He claims on his website that (quote) ‘most paediatricians are well-intentioned. However, clearly this specialty would attract male medical graduates with a sexual predilection for children’. Aside from the fact that such a comment reeks of a smear campaign, there seems to be something grossly incongruous about the fact that, on one hand, Morris has sought to denigrate paediatricians, whilst on the other hand, he has since put his name to a statement which congratulated the American Association of Pediatricians for issuing a statement which alleged that the health benefits of newborn male circumcision outweighed the risks. It is, therefore, apparent that Morris is a cynical opportunist of the highest order.

Another example of Morris’ ruthless attempts at discrediting those who oppose him occurred in 2004, when respected scientist Dr Karl Kruszelnicki published a short article titled ‘May the foreskin be with you’. Morris objected to  Kruszelnicki’s highlighting of the fact that the foreskin is ‘a uniquely specialised, sensitive, functional organ of touch’ and accused him of promulgating ‘blatantly biased propaganda’. Morris’ hypocrisy in this instance was breath-taking, given the one-sided nature of his own web site. Morris lodged an official complaint with The Australian Press Council but it was dismissed in its entirety. Given all of the above, it is clear that Morris’ propaganda war against his opponents has been a dismal failure. He has lost.

Morris has fought his war against the foreskin under the banner of ‘an evidence based appraisal’. Clearly however, his use of scientific studies to support his argument in favour of circumcision has failed the credibility test in two hugely important regards. First, Morris has only ever referred to studies which purport to give credibility to his position (most of which are authored or co-authored by Morris himself). There is no impartiality or balance in Morris’ so-called ‘appraisal’. No acknowledgement is given to the massive amount of credible literature which calls Morris’ position into question. Furthermore, Morris has not met the professional standards required in order be regarded as an expert on the issue of circumcision.

Morris has regularly used ‘sleight of hand’ in order to fudge statistics and other information to suit his argument. To provide just one example, Morris once co-authored an article which claimed that a UK study had found that ‘cumulative prevalence (of UTI’s) to age 16 was 3.6% in uncircumcised boys’, however the article in question actually made no reference at all to the circumcision status of the boys included in its study. That document also claimed that circumcision ‘protects against recurrence’ of UTI’s. It cited an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) as supporting evidence for that claim, however the JAMA article in question stated quite clearly that ‘the lack of circumcision documentation in 47% of male children limited our ability to accurately assess risk based on this important factor’. These serious misrepresentations of supporting evidence clearly call into question the credibility of Morris and the other authors of the article referred to here.

Morris and his views on circumcision are clearly out of step with the majority of medical professionals in Australia. The Australasian Association of Paediatric Surgeons describes neonatal circumcision as ‘inappropriate and unnecessary’. Furthermore, in 2012, the results of a poll released online by the ‘Australian Doctor’ revealed that only 2% of those surveyed supported the view that infant circumcision should be mandatory. Conversely, 51% of respondents ‘likened the procedure to child abuse’. Morris must therefore most certainly be regarded as a ‘minority reporter’. One observer has even gone so far as to aptly label him ‘Professor 2%’. It is clear that Morris’ pseudo-scientific war against the foreskin has been a dismal failure. He has lost.

Morris has developed extensive networks with others who share his desire to fight a war against the foreskin. Clearly, his choices in this regard have often been less than ideal. Morris was previously closely associated with the UK based ‘Gilgal Society’. Until recently, the Gilgal Society was led by Vernon Quaintance. In 2012, Quaintance was found guilty of possessing child pornography (including images of males under the age of 16). In April 2013, Morris claimed on a Facebook page called ‘Yes, I’m Circumcised’ that he had ‘never met’ nor spoken to Quaintance however, curiously, he then went on to confirm that (quote) ‘Quaintance offered to assist in the production of professional quality brochures and that…(he)…accepted his offer’. Until shortly after Quaintance’s conviction those very brochures were available for download from Morris’ website and they carried the ‘Gilgal Society’ name and logo.

In 2010, Morris helped found an organisation known as the ‘Circumcision Foundation of Australia’. The President of CFA is Dr Terry Russell. Russell is the principal operator of ‘Circumcision Australia’, a small group of Doctors based in Brisbane and Melbourne who proudly claim that they have performed ‘over 30,500 circumcisions’ in the last 20 years. Russell himself has been performing circumcisions for more than 35 years. As such, Russell clearly has a significant financial vested interest in the promotion of circumcision. In 2004, Russell was reprimanded, ordered to repay $4,488.88 and to undergo counselling by the Professional Services Review (PSR), an independent Commonwealth body established to ‘protect the integrity of the Medicare and Pharmaceutical Benefits schemes’. The PSR found that Russell ‘opportunistically diagnosed tongue-tie’ in patients referred to him for circumcisions. It found that 90% of such procedures performed by him (for which a Medicare rebate was claimed) were ‘inappropriate’ on the grounds that there were ‘no clinical indications for the services’ rendered.

In addition, Morris has co-authored ‘peer reviewed’ papers with others who have no relevant formal academic qualifications, most notably Jake Waskett. In April this year, Morris confirmed via the ‘Yes, I’m Circumcised’ Facebook page that Waskett is ‘an IT expert’ who ‘did not complete his degree’. Morris attempted to validate his association with Waskett by suggesting that he ‘has an academic level knowledge of the medical literature on male circumcision’. Despite Morris’ protestations, it is clear that Waskett is neither a doctor nor a scientist. As such, he is in no way qualified to contribute to publications which claim to possess mainstream medical or scientific credibility.

Ultimately, social and ethical issues are decided in the court of public opinion. In the case of Morris’ war against the foreskin, the jury has spoken loudly and clearly. In Australia, routine infant circumcision rates have been in dramatic freefall since the 1970’s. At that time, around 85% of boys were subjected to the practice but that figure has now fallen to around 15%. The practice is banned as elective surgery in public hospitals in most jurisdictions. This situation is mirrored in all other Western democracies. Circumcision is now firmly entrenched as a minority practice in all of Europe, the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand. Even in the United States (where circumcision has traditionally been most firmly entrenched as a cultural norm) the tide is turning. Routine circumcision now impacts upon less than 50% of the neo-natal male population in America and that number continues to fall. These statistics provide clear evidence that Morris’ public relations war against the foreskin has been a dismal failure. He has lost.

On his own website, Morris makes the following observation: ‘Imagine holding a set position for years, a good portion of one’s life dedicated to that cause, only to find out the effort had little effect’. Ironically, that comment summarises Morris’ current position perfectly. He has fought a long, hard and sometimes dirty personal war against the human foreskin but, as the evidence provided above clearly shows, when judged against any relevant measure, Morris has lost the fight. It is, therefore, surely time for him to raise the white flag and officially surrender.

Footnote:  A screenshot of Morris’ comments on the ‘Yes, I’m Circumcised’ Facebook page is available upon request. To obtain a copy, send us an email via the ‘Contact Us’ page on this site.

How to tell if you live in a culture of genital cutting

Are you perpetuating the genital cutting culture in Australia?

Take the test by answering the following questions.

Do you believe that girls should be able to decide for themselves if they want to have parts of their genitals cut?

Do you also believe that boys should be able to decide for themselves if they want to have parts of their genitals cut?

If you answered yes to the first question but no to the second, perhaps you are considering the issue with a gender bias.

Let’s try another set of questions:

Do you think that religious sensitivities should be respected when determining if Muslim parents should have the right to cut the genitals of their baby girls?

And do you also think that religious sensitivities should be respected when determining if Jewish parents should have the right to cut the genitals of their baby boys?

If you answered no to the first question but yes to the second, then perhaps you are looking at this issue with a religious bias.

And if after answering both sets of questions you have both a gender and religous bias towards genital cutting, then perhaps we do have a genital cutting culture in Australia.

stopthecutting

I have received an overwhelmingly positive response to my first real attempt to explain to my family and friends and the world my very negative feelings about the fact that as a newborn, I was subjected to male genital mutilation (MGM).

Oddly enough, the most push back I’ve received has been from my own family. Maybe this is the first time that they’ve come to grips with the fact that their sons may grow up to feel that they were violated by MGM.

I sure hope that no one grows up to feel like they were violated, but I am not the first to feel this way about the fact that I was subjected to MGM, and until the practice is stopped, I will not be the last.

View original post 1,423 more words

60 Minutes segment raises concerns that male circumcision is child sexual abuse

The Nine Network’s ‘60 Minutes’ program has tackled the issue of routine infant circumcision again (Sunday March 3rd, 2013). Participants in the segment included former Tasmanian Commissioner for Children, Paul Mason, who made the point that circumcision ‘is child abuse, it’s sexual abuse’ and Elwyn Moir, who highlighted the negative impacts that being subjected to genital cutting as an infant have had on his (and many other men’s) life. Presenting a pro-circumcision opinion (which directly contradicted the stance of Australia’s peak medical bodies) was Brian Morris. 60 Minutes has aired several segments on this issue in the past. Do you think that this latest installment sufficiently took into account the mounting evidence against infant circumcision as an ethical ‘surgical’ procedure?

Click on the link below to see a preview of the segment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_AHvKiKas8

Circumcision and foreskin restoration hit the mainstream media in Australia

The related issues of male circumcision and foreskin restoration have hit the headlines in mainstream Australian media outlets today (October 2^nd, 2012). Multicultural public broadcaster SBS will use its current affairs program ‘Insight’ as the venue for an open forum on circumcision tonight at 8.30pm. In addition, News Limited’s online opinion page ‘The Punch’ today published a new testimonial from an Australian man, which once again highlights the impact that infant circumcision has on men once they reach adulthood, as well as the role that the ‘tried and true’ process of foreskin restoration can play in helping those affected to reverse some of the damage.

Click the link below to read the complete article:

‘I was circumcised and I want my foreskin back!’

Despair, embarrassment, grief and survival: A personal account of the impact of infant circumcision

In this extremely personal post, an Australian man talks about the impact that circumcision has had on his life. He wishes to remain anonymous but he hopes that sharing his story will have two main impacts. He hopes that expectant parents who read his story will think long and hard before they subject any male offspring to genital cutting. He also hopes that adolescent and adult males who have been negatively affected by circumcision will read his story and be reassured that they are not alone in their experience.

Here is ‘Richard’s’ story:

The first time I ever saw an intact (uncircumcised) penis was in the change rooms at Primary School. I remember thinking ‘that’s weird, I don’t look like that’. I had no idea why he looked different, I just thought that maybe he looked different because he was from England. All the Australian boys looked the same as I did. I didn’t really think much more about it until I was around 8 or 9 when, for reasons unknown, I asked my mother what circumcision meant. I think the word ‘circumcision’ got mentioned on television. She didn’t really explain it very well. All she said was, ‘you know what Chris (the intact boy who lived next door) looks like…that’s because he hasn’t been circumcised’. I didn’t really think very much about it at the time. Shortly after that, I remember my father saying to me ‘you are circumcised, just like your dad’. I said to him ‘why daddy?’ and his response was ‘oh, just because it is nice and neat’. Once again, I didn’t really think that much about it at the time but my world was about to come crashing down around me.

Like most of us, my sexual awareness really kicked in around the time that I reached puberty. I had been having something resembling sexual relations with another boy since we were around six years old. I remember him saying to me ‘we are poofs you know’. I had heard the word ‘poof’ before and knew what it meant but that was the first time I had considered the idea that the word ‘poof’ applied to me. Having sexual contact with another boy seemed like the most natural thing in the world to me and I couldn’t reconcile my identity (or behaviour) with the negative connotations which I knew that the word ‘poof’ was associated with.

At around this time I became racked with guilt and confusion…but much worse was to come. Not long after all of that , for whatever reason, I really inspected my penis for the first time and the grim reality hit me instantly. I suddenly realised what had happened to me. I suddenly realised what circumcision really meant. I had a dark band of scar tissue that went all the way around the shaft of my penis and there was also a ‘gap’: a second band of much lighter ‘depressed’ scar tissue. I was instantly devastated, instantly enraged and my whole outlook on the world suddenly changed. Many years later (thanks to the internet) I discovered that the second band of ‘depressed’ scar tissue had been caused by an ‘improper closure’. The wound had not been stitched together tightly enough and had to be re-sutured. I almost certainly suffered severe blood loss and I probably went into shock.

Almost overnight, my whole personality changed. I became extremely depressed and I became anti-social. Looking back at it now, I think that I had something akin to a mental break-down. I became increasingly dependant on alcohol and cannabis, in order to maintain something that resembled happiness. I had been an outstanding student in Primary School but over the next couple of years my academic results went badly downhill, to the point where I began failing subjects. I became an introvert. My childhood friends fell by the wayside and the small group of friends that I had made at High School couldn’t understand why it appeared that I was sabotaging myself so badly. I remember one of them saying to me, ‘you are smart, you are funny and you are a good-looking guy, so why are you behaving like such a twat?’

There was no way that I could provide an honest response to that question at the time.

My faith and trust in my fellow human beings had evaporated. I had become wracked with despair, embarrassment and grief and I hated myself. Instead of going on to complete High School and studying law at university, as I had always intended to do, I dropped out and became a full-on ‘party animal’. I took loads of drugs. I didn’t recognise it at the time but I had gone into self-preservation mode. I tried to ‘do the right thing’ and stay employed but I couldn’t. I had developed a severe anxiety disorder. I couldn’t even do the basic things in life properly. I couldn’t feed myself properly. I couldn’t keep my clothes or my house clean. I actually couldn’t do anything properly.

During those dark years, my negative self-image also resulted in me avoiding having sex, even though I really desired it. I suppose my homosexuality complicated the situation at the time. I feared that any male partner would see my penis and reject me. Eventually, a guy came along who I really liked. We had built up a good friendship and so I thought I could trust him. I was wrong. When we got naked I noticed that he had an intact (and I must add rather large) penis. When he saw my penis his behaviour changed immediately. He kept staring at it and wouldn’t touch it. At that point, I put my clothes back on and walked home. After that experience, I didn’t even attempt to have sex for over ten years and when I eventually did so, I felt the need to be in absolute control of the situation…in order to avoid a repeat of my previous humiliation.

The good news is this: my quality of life has improved somewhat over the last few years. To some extent, distraction ended up being a positive factor. At the age of thirty I finally made it to university and completed an Honours Degree in International Relations. That achievement (and the recognition from others that it created) has helped me realise that there is more to my existence and my identity than just my status as a circumcised man.

On a different level, the internet has been a great resource for me. All of a sudden and ‘out of the blue’, I realised that I was not alone. I discovered that there is an international ‘brotherhood’ of circumcised men whose life experiences have been as traumatic as my own. I also discovered that there are a large number of intact men (and also some women) who empathise with me and respect me for who I am. These people do not judge. These people inspire. These people are my friends. I no longer perceive myself as being just a victim. I now perceive myself as being a survivor.

So here I am: a 50 year old man who feels that he has been through hell (which is pretty weird considering that I am an atheist) and lived to tell the story. I now believe that my quality of life will continue to improve, even if it means sometimes taking two steps forward and one step back. I no longer judge myself in the way that I once did. In the end though, I know that I will always have to live with the burden of something that occurred in only a short few minutes of my life and which was imposed upon me without my consent.

Anyone who reads this post will probably sense that I retain some self pity. They are right…but I now use at least some of my emotional energy help to prevent as many boys as possible from experiencing problems similar to my own, as a result of their being circumcised as an infant.

I work for progress and I live in hope.