Ashley Montagu on Penile Reduction Surgery
Ashley Montagu on Penile Reduction Surgery
Video
Featuring the late Ashley Montagu
His petition here:
Excerpt one of his essays
It is, therefore, unrealistic to refer to such beliefs as barbaric or cruel, for that is not what they are conceived to be by the peoples whose lives they govern and to which they willingly conform. Fundamentally what must be understood is that, whatever the origins of circumcision beliefs and practices, they are the doing of men, and everywhere they appear to spring from the same motivation: the desire of men to establish their superior status and supremacy over others who, by some recognizable mark of difference (such as age or sex) they regard as being in another class or caste, inferior to themselves.
This makes it a "natural" thing for the powerful to subject the helpless to their will, all this in the service and maintenance of their supremacy in the caste system, which is (in most cases) the reaction to a feeling of deep inadequacy that remains unadmitted to consciousness either at the emotional or intellectual level and becomes an adamant part of the socially constructed reality. The tyranny of the older over the younger, aided by a powerful mystique of patriotism, enables them to send untold numbers of the young off to war — for old soldiers never die, just young ones do. In a world of artificially created ultra-nationalism, when the bugle blows, all reason is abandoned. It is as simple as that.
The tyranny of well-meaning parents over their children, which often amounts to an often unintended emotional and intellectual abuse, also applies to teachers who, unwittingly enough, transmit the values of the dominant sex. It is the abuse of the power of the physically strong over the weak by those who find if difficult to love others, whose love is of the unloving masculine kind, whose tyrannies — already enshrined in the darker pages of history — continue in many despotic, not least domestic, ways. The sorry story of Middle Eastern religions concerning women, most notably in the Bible and in the Koran, the witch hunts sanctioned by the church; the subjugation of women; the doctrine of Original Sin; the dismal view of children; the religious and secular wars of mankind, in which the psychology of war has predominated in the making of peace — all this and much else testifies to the inescapable fact that, compared to women and children, men have played a mutilating role, very much in the psychological as well as in the physical sense.
In recent years, we have suddenly discovered that the abuse of children is rather more frequent than was generally believed. But with the exception of a few heroic people like Fran Hosken — who, without institutional support of any kind, has for many years valiantly attempted to draw the attention of the world to the atrocities committed upon young girls in the form of circumcision - there have been very few activists to protest against circumcision, male or female. Today, now that child abuse has come to be recognized as a widespread psychopathy in America, it may be easier for people to perceive circumcision as a form of child abuse. This operative assault — whether shortly after birth or later — is obviously a highly traumatic experience for the child. One cannot help but wonder what effects such traumatic experiences may have upon later life.
Today we have abundant evidence that the process of birth is a traumatic experience for the baby. Some of the readily detectable effects can be seen in the structure and growth of the bones, as well as in the general appearance of the child. What is called for is a well-thought-out approach to the eradication of antiquated beliefs and practices which cause so much needless suffering, mutilation, tragedy, and death - an approach that takes into consideration all those factors I have mentioned, and more. We can begin with carefully designed programs, possibly under the auspices of the United Nations (or a similar body), with the purpose of rendering obsolete the practice of circumcision, an archaic ritual mutilation that has no justification whatever and no place in a civilized society.