Connections to sadomasochistic behavior & child-hood injuries have been noted in psychology. Common elements of S-M behavior & circumcision include pain, struggling, bondage, & a loosely, originally unwanted, associated sexual context.

I do not wish to cause misery to other males by this article. This is strictly educational. This is regarding a sensitive subject, the realities of male genital mutilation or circumcision, generally hidden & continued to be accepted.

Circumcision & Trauma

A study by a cognitive psychologist from the University of Southern California & co-author of a paper featuring some of its findings in the Oct. 6, 2010 issue of the Journal Neuro Report found that when men under stress saw angry faces, they seemed to not want to engage. There’s that masculine rational fear deemed by mass society as “bad” or some kind of “illness”. Contrastingly, as usual, females were more insistent.

Psychologists have known for a long time that trauma sets, often hidden from awareness have long-term effects. Because of genital mutilation, you could be psychologically damaged & not even know it, or not know how it happened.

During circumcision (खतना, সুন্নৎ), an infant’s eyes remain tightly closed. However, levels of cortisol (the hormone release as response to stress) are high during circumcision. Increase of excessive heart beats, even over baseline, per minute have been recorded. This level of pain would not be tolerated by older patients.

During circumcision infants tremble, cry vigorously, & in some cases become mildly cyanotic – lividness or blueness of skin caused by the pressure of skin due to prolonged crying. It is an abnormal type of crying.

By the late 1800s and early 1900s, it was believed that a baby had a similar level of consciousness to a vegetable. By the mid-1940s there were changing understandings of infants. Pediatrician Benjamin Spock (1946) reported that infants are more cognizant. Infants can generally distinguish between the vowels ‘i’ and ‘a’ on the next day following birth. Infants require attendance to proper sensory responses. Infants do have their own set of well-developed thinking. It’s just of a different type.

From the Journal of Sex Research, Davison and Money of the John Hopkins University School of Medicine reported that changes due to circumcision include drastic diminished penile sensitivity. With the relatively little effect of arousal, it can be described as callused fingers a guitar player receives.

Extreme pain, bahavioural modifications, risk of complications, & loss of protective, sensitive tissue, resulting in diminished gratification are some commonly found after effects circumcision.

Circumcision Alters Our Feelings

People have close to no idea of what really happens. Facts of circumcision are naturally altered or withheld because of feelings. More damage is done due to concealing rather than disclosing the truth. There have been reports, that adult males could compare effects before the practice and after. It is similar to being incapable of holding something normally with hand due to wearing a glove.

As an intact male, it’s been my experience that my more passionate but much steadier, thoughtful & intensified sexual interest was interpreted by many females as an exaggerated, fake act by me, either that or that I had something “wrong” with me for having my passions grander. This is a common recurrence: males honestly show how much they like a female, she then sees that as “too needy”, “weakness”, or something stupid.

The concern with being a bland-minded acquirer of capital undermines concern for cultivating masculinity – better standards, promoting better self-esteem. The self-esteem of males has already been ruined by circumcision.

There are several types of memory. Painful experiences in neonates can lead to a psychological sequel. Remembering, for instance, something you saw two hours ago requires a different type of memory than knowing how to tie a knot or recalling a place you’ve been associated with heightened sensation. Memory is not limited to only intellect, but body & emotion also. Long-term memory has been demonstrated behaviorally in various mammals & other animals. Considering simpler animals have long-term memory, it’s about 99.9% likely that infants have it also.

Trauma in Newborn Babies

From the neurological & developmental analysis, newborn infants can have trauma & retain the memory of it. A sector of society has projected their inability to consciously remember that time on the infant. We store memories of that time, just generally don’t have access to them immediately. According to a psychological survey, the majority confirmed that forgetting was due to retrieving problems & not the loss of information from memory storage.

A mother explained that her child of 6 years old crawled through a tunnel & said to her: “This feels like when I was born”. Similarly, birth Primal can be studied by simulation. Psychiatrist Nandor Fodor was the first to propose accessing trauma memories by simulation.

The DSM IV classifies Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (or PTSD), as resulting from extreme traumatic stressor beyond the routine life of a given average maturation. Responses include intense fear. Instances of which are torture, etc. According to the DSM IV, PTSD includes symptoms of impulsive & self-destructive behavior, etc. By definition, in conjunction with other facts cited, circumcision is traumatic. Like other traumas, it is repressed. Psychological problems increase as the age of child decreases.

Behavioral Responses in Adults

Adult males with such experiences (circumcision) have adverse behavior responses, mainly undetected by society. The revelation is that we have a society of unhealthy males, continuing instinctive self-abuse. Just a personal anecdote: “The level of “machoness” predicted by gynocentric instincts has alienated & maladjusted me, who never had this procedure done to me. What is considered normal is the society we have.“

Symptoms of PTSD (due to circumcision) vary. The hidden – long-term effects generally not of awareness but evident in behaviour – PTSD of circumcision has a contributing factor of violence as just one of those variants.

Violence can also be exhibited in different ways, which may not even be capable of classification of crime statistics.

Subsequent distrust & aggression is connected. The systematic practice teaches to be angry or accept the loss. Trust is a prerequisite for setting discipline of commitment. Disruption of development of better communication to females for future is impaired. It is very strange that the artificial mold of masculinity is what females admire mostly.

Based on clinical neurological research, traumatic & painful experience (such as circumcision) can actually cause long-term physiological changes in the neurochemical & central nervous system. Brain-imaging studies conducted on adults with histories of sexual abuse of childhood (like genital mutilation) were reported to have reduced size of the hippocampus, which is a zone of the brain associated with memory. Also, low scores of adults who had been abused were reported on another test of verbal short-term memory. This proves that Circumcision actually alters brain development. Presence of high level of the stress hormone cortisol, which is increased 3-4 times in the bloodstream correlates with deep memory imprinting.

Circumcision Alters Boys

So when a boy undergoes circumcision he suffers from Dissociation which is erasing the associated pain from a traumatic experience, both physical & mental that results from trauma. Dissociation is a response to a psychological survival mechanism analogous to numbing a part of one’s body to inhibit extreme pain. A boy actually makes himself believe it didn’t happen, thus actually altering himself due to circumcision.

By Jessie Nagy

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