The Tip of the Iceberg

Housman and his brothers were circumcised in 1873, when Alfred was 14, at the command of his father, who had recently remarried. His brothers "made open complaint...of the ill-treatment which had befallen them" according to his sister. Housman's own reaction is not recorded, but several facts are suggestive. His poetry is preoccupied with "lads" (who would virtually all have been intact) and their death by violence, he was fascinated by Greek and Roman antiquities, especially nude male statues, his work was the restoration of incomplete and mutilated texts, and he told an enquirer his poetry was the result of a physical condition.

Graves, Richard, "A. E. Housman: The scholar poet" 1979, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul (pp 21, 253)

John Maynard Keynes
Economist

Sir Geoffrey Langdon Keynes
Surgeon, scholar, bibliophile

Both were circumcised in childhood (Geoffrey at three; if at
the same time, Maynard was seven) to stop them from masturbating.
Geoffrey never forgave their parents.

- R. Darby, A Surgical Temptation, p 298

Alan told his friend [Fred Clayton] how much he resented having being circumcised, and also of his earliest memories of playing with the gardener's boy..., which he thought had perhaps decided his sexual pattern.

Source: Alan Turing: the Enigma of Intelligence
by Andrew Hodges, p. 77
Hodges maintains an extensive Turing homepage

At the age of seven, in 1914, about the time that he went to boarding school and his father went away to war, he was circumcised. ... Auden's operation remained an unpleasant memory.

Auden by R. Davenport-Hines, p31

Not too far from the Leith water
My mother saw the mandrake grow
And pulled it. A professor's daughter,
She told me some time after how
She had been frightened by a cow
So that the birth-sac broke too soon
And on the twenty-ninth of June
Prematurely I looked at the walls
And yelled. The Plunket nurse ran in
To scissor off my valued foreskin,
But one thing staggered that grimalkin:
Poets are born with three balls.

Letter to Robert Burns (1963)

At the age of six, Joseph Kallinger, an abandoned orphan later taken in by a Catholic couple in Philadelphia, had to go into hospital for a hernia operation. When he came home his father Stephen, a poor German immigrant working as a shoemaker, explained what the doctor had done.

For the rest of his life Joseph Kallinger ... was to suffer ... violent, overwhelming anxieties about the size and performance of his penis, with recurring episodes of impotence. ... the terror, and the rage against the terror, of being a 'No-Dick' set Kallinger's feet on the trail of the series of hideous sexual murders with which 'The Shoemaker' terrorised a 1960s America drunk on dreams of peace and love.

- Rosiland Miles, The Rites of Man p 42

My first memory? A first memory of violence, being circumcised at the age of three. There were good medical reasons for it, of course. [Perhaps.] Nevertheless, I remember it vividly - it was very unpleasant!

- quoted in Rosiland Miles, The Rites of Man p 37

"... I am circumcised, and I tell you something, I despise it. I despise it. I despise it."

A listener called in and said he had had genital crabs at one time and they were embedded in his foreskin. He claimed that he had to be circumcised because of it. [Isn't he lucky the crabs weren't embedded in his scrotum! Crabs (pubic lice, P[h]thirus pubis) infest only hairy parts of the body, not the foreskin: the call may have been a hoax.] He was only 19 years old at the time. Since he had had sex both before and after his circumcision, Howard asked him which was better. The man told Howard that sex was better after being circumcised. Howard was surprised to hear that, because he thought it would be better with the extra skin [not actually extra - standard equipment]. Howard bailed out on that call and said he didn't want to hear any more about that stuff. He took a break shortly after that.

"I may have foreskin-reattachment surgery.
I’ll either come back as a woman
or with my foreskin reattached."

Interview in OCWeekly

I lament the circumcision of my foreskin. A circumcision removes about 70 percent of genital nerve endings. That sounds like a party in my pants. There is no telling what lingering psychological effects I’ve suffered as a result of the pain experienced during my neonatal circumcision.

It’s vexing that the medical community allows the removal of a body part we could actually find useful. Why not circumcise my appendix at birth instead of my foreskin? My appendix could potentially kill me one day if it bursts and I don’t receive medical attention swiftly.

My foreskin posed no such diabolical threat. ... I say, save the foreskins.

Boston Metro March 1, 2006 or Alternavision, Feb 22, 2006

Ben Affleck was apparently circumcised after suffering some sort of injury when a doctor must have decided that removing his foreskin would be easier than repairing it. It was brought up briefly on the Daily Show, and Affleck said,

Louis Kirstein, deciding his first born son should be circumcised, calls in the family doctor instead of the traditional mohel, to carry out the procedure, but after botching the job, "septicemia set in, and Lincoln nearly dies.["] To save him, the sweat glands in his groin were surgically removed, leaving physical and psychological scars, locker-room concealments, and castration nightmares that would haunt Lincoln into adolescence.

- Gay City News, 17 May, 2007

To: circumcision_pro_or_con@yahoogroups.com
From: "philip"
Date sent: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 16:22:24 -0000
Subject: [circumcision_pro_or_con] ruined
Send reply to: circumcision_pro_or_con@yahoogroups.com

i was cut right after my 13th birthday before then i was proud of my uncut dic but was told by my Mom and Doctor how much better it would be to be cutwhat a LIE!  Now it is so ugly that i am ashamed to let anyone see it and there is almost not feelings in it anymore most times i cant even jack off for the skin is so tight and doesnt move at all and i go soft from the lack of feelings.  And the pain i suffered while it heal was almost embarable for weeks it hurt the head was so tender and hurt for so long from rubbing my briefs then the head peeled so bad as it dried out that it left sores it was horrible i hate my Doctor and Mom and always will for ever for what they did to me!

US News
December 19 , 2007

Circumcision

Posted by Benjamin in Addiction Wednesday December 19, 2007 at 02:11 PM

I am against circumcision because I was not circumcised until I was 45. They said I needed it for medical reasons. If I had it to do over I’d tell them to go to hell. I lost so much sensitivity it’s almost unbelievable. No one should do this to anyone unless there is no other way to fix the problem. An if there is no problem it should never be done. To me it is child abuse to circumcise a child for no real reason.

breastimus onYoutube, May 24, 2009

100% DONT CUT IT! I am polish/European and was born uncut. I moved to USA when I was 2 and felt different from other boys. I didn't like having foreskin so when I was 18 I got cut because I couldn't bare the insecurity. I'm no[w] 26 and TOTALLY regret doing it. I lost SOO much sensitivity. There is NO need to cut your foreskin. It's not JUST a piece of skin. It PROTECTS the penis. My girl and I are NOW expecting a baby boy and we are DEFINITELY NOT CIRCUMCISING!

Posted by gunner777 on Dallas Morning Views blog @ 8:56 PM Tue, Aug 18, 2009

At the age of 21 I allowed the US military to talk me into getting circumcised. It would prevent disease, they said, and I would be cleaner, which the girls would enjoy (not much clearer than that) and such.

What they didn't tell me was that intercourse would never be quite as enjoyable, that the reduction in sensation while excited would make the area feel almost numb compared to before, and that the increase in sensation when flaccid would lead to make the rest of life uncomfortable.

I still wish I had my foreskin back.

cirecire90 Wrote 6 months ago [February 2009]

i m jealous...i m cut n really m mad at my parents 4 having me circumsized...

My penis was butchered at birth and I resent it. Wait until men are 18 and let them make their own decision. Otherwise this constitutes forced genital mutilation. How did this barbaric religious practice spread to the general population?

These gay men ...

queerty

No. 17 · Jesse
... I myself was originally not circumcised but when I was 12 I slowly began experiencing Phimosis, the closing of the foreskin, my parents ignored it even though I kept telling them I wanted to see a doctor about ti and it wasn't until I was 14 when it began to become difficult to urinate that I finally got to see a urologist, who told me before even looking at the problem that the ONLY way to fix it was circumcision, so I got circumcised and it was a terrible experience, especially since I was going through puberty, imagine having to avoid getting an erection because it would cause the stitches to dig into your penis, AND YOU'RE 14! The age when anything will cause an erection.

It was only after I finally recovered that I learned there actually WERE other ways to stop Phimosis and that my urologist had LIED to me! In order to push a surgery I didn't need.

And being one of the few people that can remember having foreskin and now doesn't have it, I REALLY miss my foreskin, it is terrible not having it, I lost 2 inches!

Posted: Aug 24, 2009 at 2:57 pm

No. 29 · unimac
I wish my parents never had me circumcised. I didn't care about it until a few years after I started becoming sexually active, and then it hit me like a brick wall…the fact that I had something removed from me, surgically, and that it has happened to millions of other men without their consent. I thought about it a lot and became upset about it. It is a serious problem and indicative, i think, of an obscene medical system.

Posted: Aug 24, 2009 at 4:10 pm

No. 49 · Jeff K.

I can't. At least not during normal sex. Only while masturbating. I was hoping to leave that detail out, but oh well. :/

Posted: Aug 24, 2009 at 6:32 pm

No. 51 · Nobody
F*** no. It's my body and I'm still annoyed that my parents had the audacity to cut off part of my dick.

Posted: Aug 24, 2009 at 6:47 pm

No. 52 · Shawn
@Nobody: I agree, but I more mad at the doctor than my parents

Posted: Aug 24, 2009 at 6:58 pm

No. 66 · Mark
My boyfriend is cut. No, he (unlike the other, uncut ones) cannot come unless with his own deathgrip, and yes, it was a very traumatic procedure for him.

Nobody in their right mind should be advocating circumcision especially in the industrialised world.

Posted: Aug 25, 2009 at 1:40 am

I certainly have enjoyed my share of foreskins, don't like the look of scars on cocks and regret the fact that I have to wrap the head of my un[?]cut penis in silk or some other supersoft material to protect it during sweaty physical activity. Despite the callouses developed on the glans of an uncut [sic a cut?] penis, my head gets irritated very easily, on into pain, making it difficult to ride a bike or run. So yeah, I have been a bit annoyed at my parents.

- ps on homosuperior’s posterous August 29, 2009

If I’m going to bare any scarred or partially-amputated body part in the gym shower, it should be because it had to be done for medical reasons or because it was my choice. My penis is no different in this regard. I don’t want my cockhead permanently exposed to strangers because some religion told my parents how much of my penis I could keep or because I was unlucky enough to be born in some country where boys go through surgery to lose half their penis skin “to fit in”. That’s beyond crazy. Males who get penis plastic surgery at birth will never know what it’s like to be a whole man in control of his own body. For me, that control was ceded by proxy during my first week of life. From then on, I’m just a slave; I’m living someone else’s idea of how I should explore my body, develop and enjoy sex.

Worse than that, it’s taboo to complain that my (unnecessary) penis scar is crooked, or that I lost so much skin that my erections hurt, or that my penis bends because my circumcision is lopsided. Skin bridges? "Live with it." Hardened lymph fluid, fistula, cold glans? "Live with it." Meatal stenosis? "Everyone’s got it, it’s normal. Shut up."

Listen up: It’s my penis and I’ll decide how much of it I’ll keep. I’ll decide what’s “beautiful”. I’ll decide what’s clean. I’ll decide how safe to keep it from disease and especially from anyone’s scalpel. Yeah, I’m angry that doctors and my parents are too brainwashed to understand all this, but I’m really pissed off that the law doesn’t spare them from having an ethical dilemma. It sure stopped anyone from even wondering whether to cut my sister.

...I don’t feel I’m cleaner, or more attractive, or more normal for having been put through this surgery. All I really feel is that I’m permanently branded, like a steer.

- John, from Washington, DC

I was circumcised as an infant, and as an adult I feel both violated and mutilated. Not a day passes in which I fail to contemplate the fact that my genitals were modified in a way that I did not consent to nor could control - when I did not suffer from any medical issues whatsoever.

Neil Dustan, Canada on the Petition to the CDC, November 22, 2009

My penis was mutilated without my consent when I was a baby. Like many thoushands of men, I suffer pain as an adult from this horrific act...

Trevor on Student Life (Washington University), December 2, 2009

I have had nothing but grief from being circumcised at 14 days of age for no medical issue whatsoever. ... Due to the constant discomfort and irritation of having an exposed glans I am forced to pull the shaft skin forward over the glans and taping up with medical tape every day just to get relief and feel normal. ... To this day I find it difficult not to boil over with anger over the injustice of this inhumane, cruel and barbaric procedure.

Jack Mister on GlobalPost, December 2, 2009

Having been so tortured in 1950, I am only lately coming to grips with the induced PTSD. My sexual feeling has so blunted that sex is a chore now rather than a joy.

Michael Laakso, Washington on petition to the AAP (#914) December 6, 2009

I was not given a choice. Nobody asked if it was alright to disfigure me.

Joseph Rissetto, California on petition to the AAP (# 2,158) December 21, 2009

I had phimosis, and was circumcised at the age of 11. ... I never got a choice as far as how I wanted it to look. Years later, when I read about the condition online, and realized that removal of the entire foreskin was not necessary… well… needless to say, I got very bitter.

- Al on Butt magazine January 6, 2010

I really don't understand how doctors can do this and sleep at night. First do no harm! Then again the ... doctor that amputated my glands did not even apologize. He also did not have parental consent. He was sent here in the early 60's to civilize the Hillbillys by Uncle Sam. I am sure he is in Hell now. Being that he died before I reached 18 and brought suit against the bastard.

coalbear_1 on MSNBC Newsvine, January 16, 2010

No evidence of psychological trauma?? That is only because they weren't looking.

If they knew the rage that I have for my mutilator runs so deep that I would willingly "return the favor to him" in the way he did me they might change their mind.

lochinvar00465 on YouTube September 2010

I had a medical circumcision when I was 18, and I can report that there IS a difference. Afterwards I was really pissed off because at the time they offered me a new procedure where they just make a cut in the skin rather than hacking it all off.? Being totally ignorant I turned it down thinking it would be good to have shot of it. If I'd known that I'd be left with scar tissue and the end of my knob less sensitive, I would have taken it. But they never told me anything about that.

Dangerman5 on YouTubeFebruary 1, 2010

My mother was advised to circumcise. The procedure was botched according to a distressed nurse in attendance. I am over 60 and have virtually no sensation in my penis. I have no sensation during masturbation and sexual penetration and have never ejaculated while conscious. I still have occasional wet dreams. I am married to an understanding wife, we find other ways for affection.

Would some circumcision advocates please reply and explain why my circumcision was the right thing to do.

Bill on Marketing by Permission blog, February 6, 2010

I do have a circumcision. I hate whoever did this to me. It's spilled milk, though, I realize. You say that I'll never know unless I have a circumcision. Well because I do, I can attest to bleeding and complete destruction of sensitive nerve endings in the glans. Yes, even a chunk of my glans was taken along with the foreskin. I can't feel nearly as much as my husband. What else am I missing? I can only imagine.

Just so you know... I was circumcised and then abandoned to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. How is that for child abuse? How is that for "cut and run", huh?

What do you say for people like me? What sort of rationalization do you have for children who had body parts sacrificed to god or the gods of the medical establishment?

Where was my consent form? Where are my rights for bodily integrity? I will say this again:

At birth in the United States, I had less rights than dogs in Switzerland. At birth in the United States, I had less rights than dead bodies here. At birth in the United States, I had less rights than girls at birth.

The allowance of circumcision in the United States for parents' whim is sexist, ageist and places the rights of dead bodies higher than my rights at birth. Where is the outrage? My body, my rights!

nhguy78 of Hudson, NH, on Rant/Rave February 21, 2010

Okay, circumcision is bad i was circumcised at birth and after reading this article and many others i feel like a lost arm at birth. i have never felt the foreskin i am starting the restoration process but you lose so many advantages being circumcised. I now hate my parents for removing part of my body a very important part may i say. When i have kids if the woman wants to circumcise the kids i will say fuck her and ask for a divorce.

in teenage years (hitting puberty) i felt lots of discomfort in becoming erect and i ask some of my friends if they had the same problem i found out that only the ones with a circumcised penis had them and they reported occasional bleeding as well.

and so i think F@#$ MY PARENTS FOR CIRCUMCISING ME!!!!!

joe on Mark's Daily Apple March 31, 2010

Since my brainwashed parents were obedient, and my jackass doctor didn't start the cut where he ended it, I have a weird "red storm of jupiter" where he tried to change course on my penis. Thank you doc. I will never know what it's like to have the normal, natural penis I was born with. Idiots.

hotblack on Scientific American, April 24, 2010

After I received this torture, I apparently rejected my mother and my parents had a difficult time finding a replacement for her milk. Then I was so stressed out that it took extra years before I stopped bed-wetting. The result was to make me a more inward-looking, less emotional kind of person than I would have liked to be.

I am sure that I would have been a different person if I had not been circumsized.

Trowbridge H. Ford on The Local (Sweden), April 29, 2010

Be allowed? - no
If I had a son... no!!
I've done enough reading that this whole thing with circumcision is barbaric. I am jealous of guys that are still fully intact.

jayessence on Vorpal's Live Journal May 4, 2010

I don’t buy that line that male circumcision is harmless, because my Bris resulted in some pretty severe damage. I have a large irregular band of scar tissue, and when I was a teenager erections were painful and sometimes resulted in ripped, bleeding, skin, making the scars even worse. Ever since I was a little boy I knew something was wrong. I was told that circumcision was a good thing, without even knowing what it was – as it turns out, amputation of about half the skin of my penis. I did not ask for part of my penis to be destroyed, and I’m furious when I read clueless articles like this one that dismiss the harm with clueless chuckling. ...

Circumcised Jew on the Big Think May 8, 2010

I’m a man who had his foreskin removed without his consent. If this was done to me as an adult, how much money would I be entitled to and how much prison time would the perpetrator receive?

I didn’t want to be mutilated. Fuck you if you have come to terms with it and want to tell me to get over it. Fuck you. Really. That’s about all I have to say about that. Comment #145: on 05/10 at 09:30 AM

3letterjon on Pandragon May 10, 2010

I was born a muslim and was circumsised. I feel that I had something taken away from me, which is not natural. Nobody had the right to take something away from me.

Why don't we force kids with big noses to have plastic surgery? Humans deserve the right to choose what happens to their bodies once they are adults.

Johnny on Dutch News May 30, 2010

circumcision is retarded. I am circumcised and did it when I was 18 because I felt I wasnt normal. I enjoyed it for about 6 months until I started to realize how much it SUCKS. You lose SOOO much feeling. It's funny cus guys who have been circmszd since birth don't know what it's like to have a normal penis.? They miss out on SOO much. It seriously removes 200% sensitivity to ur penis. Plz remember that I WANTED TO be circumcised.

breastimus on Youtube ~June 2009

I was mutilated at birth and i deeply resent this terrible decision. Most people don’t know or even care to look but 4 out of the 5 most sensitive parts of the penis are amputated by “circumcision”, and if that wasn’t terrible enough the last remaining sensitive part “the glans” becomes “keritanized” which means that due to abrasion a substance called keratin, the same substance that forms your nails, builds up in the glans to help protect itself, further reducing pleasure. it is a crime beyond comprehension to mutilate children male or female. Lets stop this wave of mutilation. NO EXCEPTIONS.

Equa on Jersey City Independent June 11, 2010

Its just my luck that i was born into a jewish family. i cant even prove to them that circumcision is bad because their so brainwashed! I hate them for it. If they come out with a way to genetically regenera[t]e foreskins so its like you never even lost it ill be first in line

theb3rn7 on Medical Magazine - (Foreskin Restoration) July 12, 2010

fuck my parents. they said they did it to me to fit in. fuck that, likes its such a big deal to be a tiny bit different. yea i agree it might be a little more attractive to females but that is by far not a good enough reason to go through with it. not only that but as a baby it is out of your control weather it happens to you or not. thats the fucked up part. is your body and its not even your choice. its honesty fucked and i can not put into words how pissed i am

tylenator552 on Medical Magazine - (Foreskin Restoration) July 12, 2010

- Comment from Yahoo Answers July 9, 2010 removed at the writer's request.

Just turned 70 – had a badly botched infant circ excessive skin removed with significant scarring and irreperable nerve damage – result left me unable to enjoy any kind of mutual sex activity – not only is it non-productive, but it is just plain painful. There has been considerable emotional damage over the years as well, plus eventually the complete estrangement from my entire family – I feel mutilated and raped – at this point, I hope I will live long enough to see the end of this monstrous practice, and the best would be to see it made totally illegal as FGM is now -

Jon on About.com - Sexuality August 25, 2010

I was cut as a baby and have suffered because of it…. and I’m very angry with my parents because of that decision. Sure there’s a lot of risk in life. But circumcision is NEEDLESS amputation and mutilation of a normal, healthy, functioning body part.

Chad J. Rivera on Naked Nith Socks On, August 30, 2010

Circumcisers are child rapists, most just don’t realize it. My mother’s OB/GYN inflicted circumcision on me, and I’m beyond PISSED about it. How does anyone except ME have the right to cut off important parts of MY penis? If you get the urge to cut up your baby, cut yourself instead.

Integrity on Naked Nith Socks On, August 30, 2010

I said “NO!” to having my son’s 4skin removed because I hated being circumcised. I wanted him to have what I could never have.

bill bristol on aPARENTly speakingAugust 28, 2010