Circumcision and violence

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The relationship of Circumcision and violence has not been well explored. Violence is defined as "behavior or treatment in which physical force is exerted for the purpose of causing damage or injury",[1] however there is some information available.

Contents

Violence due to loss of body pleasure

The human prepuce is highly innervated tissue[2] and has long been known for its erogenous quality.[3] Falliers (1970) commented on the "sensory pleasure induced by tactile stimulation of the foreskin."[4] Excision of the foreskin by circumcision necessarily reduces the pleasurable sensations emanating from the foreskin.

Developmental neuropsychologist James W. Prescott, Ph.D.[a 1], (1975) connected loss of sensory body pleasure to increases in violent behavior.

As a developmental neuropsychologist I have devoted a great deal of study to the peculiar relationship between violence and pleasure. I am now convinced that the deprivation of physical sensory pleasure is the principal root cause of violence. Laboratory experiments with animals show that pleasure and violence have a reciprocal relationship, that is, the presence of one inhibits the other. A raging, violent animal will abruptly calm down when electrodes stimulate the pleasure centers of its brain. Likewise, stimulating the violence centers in the brain can terminate the animal's sensual pleasure and peaceful behavior. When the brain's pleasure circuits are 'on,' the violence circuits are 'off,' and vice versa. Among human beings, a pleasure-prone personality rarely displays violence or aggressive behaviors, and a violent personality has little ability to tolerate, experience, or enjoy sensuously pleasing activities. As either violence or pleasure goes up, the other goes down.[5]

Is circumcision itself violence?

The performance of a circumcision operation takes minimal force, but it makes up for the lack of force by the great damage to the penis and its many protective, immunological, sensory, and sexual functions,[6] and also by the extreme pain and trauma that it inflicts. Ramos & Boyle (2001) studied the psychological effects of circumcision on Filipino boys. They reported that sixty-nine percent of traditionally circumcised boys and fifty-one percent of medically circumcised boys met the criteria for a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).[7]

Adult reenactment

Famed trauma expert Bessell van der Kolk, M. D. (1989) reported that traumatized persons tend to repeat the trauma on themselves or others, resulting in harm to others, harm to self, or being re-victimized. He writes:

Some traumatized people remain preoccupied with the trauma at the expense of other life experiences and continue to re-create it in some form for themselves or for others.[8]

Lloyd De Mause (1996) argued that early trauma results in aggressive adult behavior.

That America has arranged to have more people on welfare – Gingrich’s dreaded “underclass” – than any other industrialized country is a clue to why nations need poor people to punish for their prosperity. Since it is prosperity and threats of intolerable individuation that trigger the restaging of trauma, it makes psychohistorical sense that America today – the most prosperous and freest nation of any in history – has more women and children living in poverty than any other industrialized nation. Nor is it coincidental that the world’s wealthiest country

has the highest child homicide rate and the most newborn boys circumcised, both indices of society’s hostility towards children.[9]

Religious circumcision and violence

Judaism

It is not clear when the Jews started circumcision, but is clear that it was done at in 1406 BCE at Gilgal in what must have been a highly traumatic event. According to Professor Leonard Glick, Chapter 17 (containing the alleged Abrahamic covenant) was not added to the book of Genesis until after the Babylonian captivity, which ended in 538 BCE.

The Brit Milah in which a circumcised mohel reenacts his own traumatic circumcision upon a newborn boy on the eighth day of life is a standard feature of Judaism.

Jewish philosophers Philo and Moses Maimonides both believed that reduction of body pleasure was a positive attribute of circumcision.

Islam

Although circumcision is never mentioned in the Qur'an, male circumcision is deeply rooted in the Muslim tradition. Muhammad is reported to have prescribed cutting the foreskin as a fitrah, a measure of personal cleanliness. Modern Muslims see circumcision as essential to their faith, although they have also come to lean on arguments of "medical benefits." A conference of Islamic scholars in 1987 stated that modern circumcision studies “[reflect] the wisdom of the Islamic statements”.[10]

The Muslim code of religious law (AKA Shariah) recommends performance of circumcision at the age of seven days. In practice, however, Muslim boys are circumcised by circumcised men at varying ages before puberty,[11][12] however, it is no less injurious or traumatic and it still deprives the individual of body pleasure.

Islam has a long, violent tradition of using the sword to advance Islam. The jihad is a so-called "holy war" to advance Islam against "infidels".[13] Beheadings (decapitations) may be carried out by (circumcised) Islamic warriors against infidels (non-Muslims).[14] We should not forget that the violent attack on the United States on 11 September 2001 was led and orchestrated by a circumcised Saudi Muslim named Osama bin Laden.[15]

Abbreviations

  1. ↑   Doctor of Philosophy, Wikipedia. Retrieved 16 June 2021. (Also abbreviated as D.Phil.)

References

  1. ↑   (2016). Violence, The Free Dictionary by Farlex. Retrieved 5 November 2022.
  2. ↑   Cold CJ, Taylor JR. The prepuce. BJU Int. January 1999; 83, Suppl. 1: 34-44. PMID. DOI. Retrieved 8 July 2021.
  3. ↑   Winkelmann RK. The erogenous zones: their nerve supply and significance. Mayo Clin Proc. 21 January 1959; 34(3): 39-47. PMID. Retrieved 4 June 2021.
  4. ↑   Falliers CJ. Circumcision. JAMA. December 1970; 214(12): 2194. PMID. Retrieved 5 November 2022.
  5. ↑   Prescott JW. Body Pleasure and the Origins of Violence. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. November 1975; : 10-20. Retrieved 5 November 2022.
  6. ↑   Helard, Lou (1 August 2014). Functions of the Foreskin, Intact Australia. Retrieved 7 November 2022.
  7. ↑   Ramos S, Boyle GJ (2001): Ritual and medical circumcision among Filipino boys: evidence of post-traumatic stress disorder. Work: Understanding circumcision: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to a Multi-Dimensional Problem. Denniston GC, Hodges FM, Milos M (ed.). New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers. Pp. 253-70. Retrieved 5 November 2022.
  8. ↑   van der Kolk B. The compulsion to repeat the trauma: re-enactment, revictimization, and masochism. Psychiatr Clin North Am. June 1989; 12(2): 389-411. PMID. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
  9. ↑   deMause, Lloyd. Restaging Fetal Traumas in War and Social Violence. Pre- and Perinatal Psychology Journal. 1996; 23(4): 344-92. PMID. Retrieved 5 November 2022.
  10. ↑   Gollaher DL (2000): Circumcision: A History of the World's Most Controversial Surgery. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0465043972.
  11. ↑   Morgenstern J (1966): Rites of Birth, Marriage, Death and Kindred Occasions among the Semites. Chicago: Quadrangle Books. Pp. 48-66.
    Quote: ...in modern Moslem practice the rite is performed generally between the ages of two and seven years... as late as the thirteenth year.
  12. ↑   Mehta, Depak (2000): Circumcision, Body, Masculinity, in: Violence and Subjectivity. Veena Das, Arthur Kleinman, et al. (eds.). Berkeley: University of California Press. P. 82.
    Quote: ...two to six years.
  13. ↑   Closson, Don (27 May 2002). Islam and the Sword, Probe Ministries. Retrieved 5 November 2022.
  14. ↑   Ibrahim R (11 September 2014). Beheading Infidels: How Allah 'Heals the Hearts of Believers', Middle East Forum. Retrieved 7 November 2022.
  15. ↑   Hall B (2 October 2015). Exposed Hillary Email Touches Upon Osama Bin Laden’s Circumcision, The Sit Rep. Retrieved 7 November 2022.
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