Circumcision
(male)
Foreskin Man vs Genital Mutilation (Circumcision)
by JOE QUINN
06 Jun 2011
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/229627-Foreskin-Man-Takes-On-Genital-Mutilation
Even though they'd be a great medium for it, comic books aren't known for
tackling sensitive social, religious or cultural topics in an overt way. People
who read comic books are looking for fantasy and escapism rather than
intellectual stimulation - just like people who read men's magazines. Maybe
that's why a new comic produced by Matthew Hess, the president of
MGMBill, an
organisation that has authored a bill that has been submitted to the US congress
to ban Male Genital Mutilation (hence MGMBill), has made the headlines recently.
Unashamedly titled
Foreskin man, the comic book series features a blonde superhero doing
battle with the evil 'Mohel' (Mohel being the Hebrew word for a Jewish person
trained in the practice of Brit milah or Bris (circumcision).
I have to admit that my first reaction on hearing about the comic was 'what a
good idea!', but when I saw the comic and the reaction it had received from
certain quarters, my reaction was more along the lines of 'this the best idea
since anti-Vegetarian man!'
It seems a little weird to me that I would actually have to write this but, I'm
not exactly a fan of genital mutilation, regardless of the justification, hence
my appreciation of Foreskin Man.
So circumcision, what's it all about?
According to the WHO, 30% of the world's men are circumcised. Apparently a
majority of Muslim men are circumcised, and while there is no specific age when
the 'procedure' should be carried out, it is commonly done at 7 years old or
later. At the very least, a 7 year old (or older boy) has some capacity to
understand and prepare himself for the event, and at that age a local anesthetic
is used because everyone knows 7 year old boys feel pain. In the case of Jews
however, the Bris is invariably performed on the 8th day after birth,
and anesthetic is NOT commonly used because, as everyone knows, 8 day old boys
feel no pain.
While some nut jobs still think that circumcision is necessary for 'health'
reasons, the origins of this repugnant idea are to be found in religion, which
just makes it all the more insane. I mean, 'god told me to cut my son's
penis'?? Or even worse, 'god told me not to use anesthetic when I have
my 8 day old son's penis cut'? Or, 'would you like to attend our son's
'Bris this weekend? The Mohel is going to chop off a part of his penis and then
suck some blood out of it with his mouth. There'll be nibbles!'
What is there NOT to repulse any normal person about that scenario? I mean,
we're talking about an extremely painful procedure on a child that has only just
been born! (in the case of Jews). What kind of first (and life-long lasting)
impression is that going to give to the child? Then again, we're probably not
talking about 'normal people' here in the sense of people free from
mind-programming of one sort or another, and the fact that
33% of parents
in the oh, so 'civilized' USA subject their children to this neanderthal
procedure is kind of unbelievable when you consider that only 2% of the US
population is Jewish. That's not to say that there may not be a rational (in a
psychologically messed up way) origin to the whole idea of 'peepee whacking', as
I've heard it euphemistically called.
The 8th day after birth idea is Jewish and apparently inspired by the wrathful
Jewish god 'Yahweh' (who, by the way, seems for all the world to be some kind of
ancient alien or something, but that's a whole other story).
In Genesis Chapter 17, verses 10 through 14, 'Yahweh' promises Abraham that
he'll do lots of wonderful things for him, on one condition: he must make sure
that all his peeps chop a chunk off their willies, or to be more precise:
"This is My covenant, which you shall keep, between Me and you and your
posterity after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. And you
shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token or sign
of the covenant between Me and you. He who is eight days old among
you shall be circumcised, every male throughout your generations,
whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner not
of your offspring. He that is born in your house, and he that is bought with
your money, must be circumcised; and My covenant shall be in your flesh for
an everlasting covenant. And the male who is not circumcised, that soul
shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant."
It's kind of funny (in a full-blown psychologically-warped way) that so many
people look at verses like that and think to themselves, 'where do I sign up!?'
Getting to the point; this kind of infant torture, especially within the first
couple of weeks of life, is obviously pure evil, but it also has scary social
health implications, and the reason is 'imprinting'.
Thanks to the work of people like
Konrad
Lorenz we know that animals like geese and monkeys are 'imprinted' early in
life with not only ideas of what a 'mother figure' is, but also with very basic
'attitudes' and 'beliefs'. For example, the geese experiments determined that,
within a few hours of birth, geese will bond with something, anything,
and forever after recognize it as their mother. Since monkeys have a broader
range of measurable reactions and monkey 'emotions' than geese (and are closely
related to humans - some more than others) those experiments produced results
that had interesting implications for humans. For example, it was determined
that if a monkey does not receive motherly stimulation before he is a
certain number of weeks old, he will grow up to be cold, aloof, and
unfriendly to his own offspring. Monkey's also have a 'mother imprint window'
during which time they will bond with almost anything that loosely resembles a
monkey mother, although the window is a few weeks, rather than a few hours,
after birth.
In the case of humans, the general idea is that, when born, the brain/nervous
system/body complex of a child is like a blank slate, but with a special natural
disposition to accepting certain types of 'writing' at certain stages. The
concept of imprinting applies to senses, motor functions, emotions and thinking
but the windows of imprinting are different for each function. There are
apparently three periods of imprinting in a child's life, in Freudian terms
these are 'oral', 'anal' and 'genital' or just the first, second and third
'circuits'.
So as concerns eighth day after birth circumcision on human babies, that would
be the 'first circuit imprinting' that is affected. This first circuit
imprinting is most often (for obvious reasons) done by what is perceived to be
the mother or first mothering object (and for humans there is usually a real
mother available). This imprinting can be conditioned by nourishment or threat,
and is mostly concerned with what is safe and what is not safe. Trauma
(as in the child getting its 'peepee whacked') during this phase can cause an
unconsciously motivated mechanical retreat from anything threatening to physical
safety and can last a life time.
In a medical paper in the 1992 Sept-Oct edition of the
Journal
of Midwifery, the authors state that circumcision involves
"excruciating pain, perinatal encoding of the brain with violence, interruption
of maternal-infant bonding and betrayal of infant trust." The
British Medical Association stated in 2006 that "it is now widely accepted,
including by the BMA, that this surgical procedure [circumcision] has medical
and psychological risks." No shit Sherlock!
In 2001, Sweden
passed a
law allowing only persons certified by the National Board of Health to
circumcise infants, requiring a medical doctor or an anesthesia nurse to
accompany the circumciser and for anesthetic to be applied beforehand.
In 2001, the World Jewish Congress
stated that this constituted the "first legal restriction on Jewish
religious practice in Europe since the Nazi era." A word of advice for the World
Jewish Congress: when the government of a country attempts to protect your
babies from excruciating pain with the simple use of anesthetic, it's doesn't
look good when you imply that they are Nazis for doing so.
All of which gives us lots of food for thought about why our society appears to
be so dysfunctional. The question is, did it have to be dysfunctional already
for such a barbaric idea as circumcision to be adopted by so many, or is it so
dysfunctional (partly) because 30% of men are circumcised?
Since people who have been traumatized during the imprinting phase of the first
circuit tend to view other people in an 'us and them' way; since they tend to
easily feel threatened by disapproval because disapproval suggests the idea of
extinction or loss of food supply; and since virtually all Jewish men were
circumcised 8 days after they were born; what can all that tell us about the
history of the 'Middle East conflict',
its causes and ongoing lack of solutions? And, finally, since those who have
been negatively imprinted at this stage tend to have a chronic muscular armoring
that prevents proper, relaxed breathing and are 'up tight', is the
Éiriú Eolas programme
their best hope for recovery?
Getting back to Foreskin Man. Unsurprisingly, the Anti-Defamation
League has been quick to defend the archaic and probably
psychopathically-inspired practice of cutting off the foreskin of Jewish babies
at a crucial and very vulnerable time by
dragging out the old 'anti-Semitism' canard:
"with its grotesque anti-Semitic imagery and themes, reaches a new low and
is disrespectful and deeply offensive," Nancy J. Appel, ADL Associate
Regional Director, said in a statement Friday."
Sure, Foreskin Man tends to vilify the 'Mohel', but it's a comic book!
It's meant to have an arch evil bad guy, and the author assures us that
other practitioners of circumcision will be dealt with in a similar way. So
someone tell the ADL to get off it's high horse, and that the only thing
grotesque, low, disrespectful and deeply offensive about this topic is the
practice of mutilating 8 day old children. So I'm with Foreskin Man. The world
needs superheroes who aren't afraid to take on the most entrenched, and frankly
screwed up, ideas that, for some ungodly reason, still hold sway over our
increasingly uncivilised world. And while I have no way of knowing, it would be
rather ironic if the creator of Foreskin Man, Matthew Hess, turned out
to be circumcised (and Jewish) because he could make a pretty good argument that
Foreskin Man is simply a result of negative first circuit imprinting. How would
the ADL deal with that one I wonder?