CIN (Circumcision Information Network) 3:16

Introduction
This weekly bulletin is a project of CIN, the Circumcision Information Network (formerly CIN CompuBulletin). The purpose of this weekly bulletin is to educate the public about and to protect children and other non-consenting persons from genital mutilation. Readers are encouraged to copy and redistribute it, and to contribute written material.
--Rich Angell, Editor.

"THE FORESKIN IS NECESSARY"
An article by Paul M. Fleiss. MD, MPH, and Frederick Hodges
Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, April 1996.
Contributed by typist DYKS96A@prodigy.com ( GEORGE HILL)
Fourth of a multi-part series.

Harm of Circumcision:
Circumcision is a more serious amputation than generally thought.  It
destroys all the natural mechanical functions of the penis, leaving it only
with the ability to become erect.  Circumcision necessarily involves a
preputial neurotomy, a frenar neurotomy, a posthectomy, frenectomy, a
subtotal penile shaft removal, and a penile endocrinectomy.  Circumcision
amputates three feet of veins, arteries and capillaries; several feet of
nerves; the preputial muscles and 60% to 80% of the penile skin system.

Harm to Female Sexual Partners:
Without the mobile sheath of the foreskin, the circumcised penis acts like a
ramrod in the vagina.  This is unnatural and has negative health consequences
for women.  Trauma such as vaginal abrasion, dryness, pain and coital
bleeding are unique to the female partners of circumcised men.(8,9)  Female
partners of intact men do not suffer from these problems.  Female partners of
circumcised men must resort to artificial sexual lubricants to replace the
natural lubricants lost by circumcision.  No studies have ever been
undertaken to determine the potential harm of prolonged internal exposure to
these artificial chemicals.

Harm During Masturbation:
Without the mobile sheath of self-lubricated foreskin, and without the normal
orgasmic triggers in the foreskin, circumcised males are obliged to invent
unnatural ways to stimulate the remaining portions of their penis.
 Circumcised men often must resort to using artificial chemical lubricants
and must apply physiologically dysfunctional manual friction to the glans.
 Nature did not intend sexual stimulation to be so difficult.  The health
consequences of prolonged exposure and absorption of these artificial
lubricants has never been studied.

Harm to the Brain:
The unalleviable and severe pain of the surgery has long-lasting and
irreversible effects upon the developing brain. (10-12)  The surgery
adversely alters the pain perception centers of the brain.  Developmental
neuro-psychologist James Prescott writes:

"It is not without psychobiological consequences that the brain system which
is designed for the experience of pleasure and the expression of sexual love
is first encoded with extraordinary and excruciating pain.  In such
individuals, all subsequent acts or experiences of genital pleasure are
experienced upon a background of genital pain that is now deeply buried in
the subconscious/unconscious brain...The pleasure system that has been
designed for pleasure has first and foremost become saturated or encoded with
pain that now limits and qualifies all subsequent experiences of pleasure.
 When these early experiences of genital pain are followed by a developmental
deprivation of physical affectional pleasure in the maternal-infant
relationship and in the adolescent sexual relationship, then violent
destructive behaviors are the inevitable outcome."(13)

Dr. Prescott indicates that the levels of violent crime (especially violent
sexual crimes such as rape) have increased in direct proportion to the
increase in the number of sexually active circumcised males in American
society.

Circumcision severs all nerves to the prepuce and frenulum.  This results in
sensory deprivation to the brain.  Sensory deprivation causes permanent brain
damage and/or dysfunction.  Brain atropy and/or dysfunction is well
documented by Nobel prize winners D. H. Hubel and T. N. Wiesel.  The brain
receptors that represent the sex nerves atrophy or become dysfunctional from
disuse.

Harm to Hygiene:
The intact penis in childhood requires no care.  The newly circumcised penis,
on the other hand, is left with a large circular amputation wound which
demands constant attention to avoid infections that can be serious or even
fatal.  Infections that lead to death are generally caused by tuberculosis,
meningitis bacilli, systemic blood poisoning, or gangrene.  These organisms
enter the amputation wound because it provides easy entry, not because the
child is predisposed to infection.

The amputation wound from circumcision is larger than is generally imagined.
 The wound is not merely the circular point of union between the outer and
inner layers of the foreskin.  The entire glans is also an open, raw wound.
 At birth and though childhood, the glans has no skin of its own.  The
foreskin adheres to it like the finger nail to the finger.  To perform
circumcision, the foreskin must be torn from the glans in effect skinning the
glans alive.  The result is a large area of raw bloody flesh, covered at best
with an undeveloped proto-mucosal layer.  A similar type surface exists under
the fingernails.  Pathogens. can easily enter the bloodstream and tissue
through the raw glans and even more easily through the open wound of the
foreskin stump.  Even after the wound has healed, the glans and meatus are
now forced into constant contact with feces, urine, ammoniacal, chemically
treated diapers and other environmental contaminants.

References:
8. Zizlavsky, W. "Beitrag zur Zirkumzision und Ihren Folgesustanden,"
Dermatologiste Wachenshrift 1965 151:1167-1169.

9. Laumann, Edward O.; John H. Gagnon: Robert T. Michael Stuart Michaels.
 The Secret Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States.
Chicago University of Chicago Press 1994 pp. 369-375.

10. Dixon S. Snyder J. Holve R. Bromberger P. Behavioral effects of
circumcision with and without anesthesia.   [avail. CIRP]

11. Taddio A. Goldbach M. Ipp M. Stevens B. Koren G.  Effect of neonatal
circumcision on pain response during vaccination in boys. Lancet 1995;
345:291-292.

12. Fleiss PM Circumcision Lancet 1995; 345.927.

13. Prescott JW Genital Pain vs. Genital Pleasure: why the one and not the
other. Truth Seeker 1989; 1:14-21.

SCREAM OF THE WEEK 
(Statements Documenting Infant Circumcision Pain)
Submitted by Johnny4444@aol.com

"I will die hearing my baby's screams."  (Miriam Pollack, Third International
Symposium on Circumcision, University of Maryland, May 1994)

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION call NOCIRC, the National Organization of
Circumcision Information Resource Centers at (415) 488-9883, fax (415)
488-9660.  Ask about the resource provider nearest you.  For written
information, write NOCIRC, PO Box 2512, San Anselmo, CA 94979, with SASE
and/or donation if possible.

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