Letters (Circumcision: The Painful Dilemma)
From Peaceful Beginnings
Letters
Readers’ Responses to Rosemary Romberg’s Circumcision: The Painful Dilemma:
“Thank you, Rosemary!
I have carefully read your book Circumcision: The Painful Dilemma. The book is a beautiful and personalized review of a subject about which so many people areaignorant. I trust that the effort which you have made will assist many and lead to a fuller and better understanding by all who read it.
All of your chapters unfold a new and different aspect, and your inclusion of a chapter on female circumcision is most appropriate. In particular, it puts circumcision of the male into a better perspective.
Similarly, your use of letters and interviews personalizes the subject in a critically important way. Your use of photographs greatly enhances your message. The photos from “The Saturday Evening Post” are dramatic, but Suzanne Arms’ photos of the mother with her infant being circumcised are most poignant. Finally, the blissfully intact youngsters, especially those made available to you by persons who have given you letters as well, demonstrate a pride and confidence which is truly beautiful. Thanks you Rosemary – you have done a good job well!”
Doug McEwen
Thompson, Manitoba, Canada
“Dear Rosemary,
Congratulations for the superb job on Circumcision: The Painful Dilemma. I spent yesterday afternoon reading it from cover to cover and the long wait (for the book’s publication) was justified. The presentation of the material is excellent and makes the reading of your original draft material so much more meaningful. Thanks for the excellent service your many years of work will bring to the understanding of routine infant circumcision.”
Jim Whipple
Bloomfield Hill, MI.
“Dear Rosemary,
Your great work arrived yesterday. It is just wonderful! I am so thrilled that you changed your first thought about your book, making it a “pro and con” issue. You and I both know it is not! I assure you, I shall recommend your book at every opportunity. I know it has been a long and very hard fight for you. I am so thankful you will have this achievement as a permanent monument to your life and work. I know it will be the best and finest reference work on the subject of circumcision for many years to come.
Paul Eastman
Kerrville, TX.
Dear Rosemary,
I was so happy to receive your book in the mail today. Thank you so much. It’s a wonderfully written book and will help to change the course of this nation. You struggled so much to get it published and I’m so proud of you to stick it out till it did. So many baby boys will benefit from the information your book will give out to prospective parents.
Thanks again for this wonderful book. It’s a humanitarian effort worthy of a Nobel prize. So many baby boys will be saved from undergoing needless torture.
Mark Yanagida
Kailua, HI.
Dear Rosemary,
I haven’t finished reading your book, but I’m so excited by it that I have to write.
I came home late after one of my 12 hour school/work days – just dying to crawl into bed. But there was your package and once I picked up the book I couldn’t put it down. Now at 3 in the morning I’m forcing myself to bed because tomorrow is another long day.
What a wonderful book! I cry at some of the stories and am horrified by others. And once again I’m so happy about my decision not to circumcise my son.
I truly appreciate what you are doing. I can’t wait to loan this book to people – like an undecided expectant father and an M.D. struggling with himself for doing them. You have marshaled all the arguments that I have emotionally sputtered out and made a totally convincing negative answer to the “question” of circumcision.
In sincere gratitude,
Linda Harrison
Seattle, WA.
Dear Rosemary,
I was thrilled to receive your book the other day and am deeply impressed by the amount of pure factual material you have managed to include. I do not see how any future work of scholarship can even attempt to compete with your book.
What an accomplishment! What a milestone! The book must become a key weapon in the continuing fight against this ridiculous ritual mutilation. I am sure that slowly the tide will turn and that future generations of as-yet-unborn American boys will owe their un-altered state to your scholarship and your determination to publicize the truth about this cruel and unnecessary practice.
(Your book) will be as interesting for the English-speaking Europeans to read about the ridiculous ritual their American cousins endure, as it is for American buyers to read the truth about this operation.
With my best wishes, and sincere thank for a marvelous book.
Chris Edmonds
The Netherlands
Dear Rosemary,
I think your book is superb! You have every reason to be proud of what you have accomplished! I hope it becomes a bestseller. I think the personal stories will touch many people who read them. I particularly gained a greater understanding of the complications by the pictures that showed things that go wrong. One picture is worth a thousand words. The pictures add a dimension that I was was present in other books on the subject. Congratulations!
Petrina Fadel
Croton, NY.
Dear Rosemary,
I’m really enjoying your masterpiece work, your book! It’s great! It’s absolutely fantastic, and undoubtedly the best book ever written on this subject. It is written in a very factual and non-threatening manner which is the most likely style for public consumption. I can’t possibly congratulate you ENOUGH for this mind-boggling, humanitarian work! Please rest assured that your work for humanity is NOT DONE IN VAIN! You are continuing the very work and message of LOVE and the “spirit of Truth” as outlined in the New Testament where the religious value and significance of circumcision is definitely debunked and desanctified.
Kurt Bomke
Oakland, CA
Dear Rosemary,
Thank you for sending me (the copy of your book.) You have done a magnificent job. You are certainly a gifted and exceptional writer. You are also a most compassionate person.
You have provided one of the greatest contributions to mankind and in particular to males who may be spared one of the greatest injustices in America today ... the amputation of a very vital and useful part of the body. Many people have worked hard to bring about equality and justice.
I was deeply moved when I read your book and will strive more than ever to combat routine infant circumcision. I was happy to see that you did not compromise by saying that if you still believe your son should be circumcised, after reading this book, get an expert to do it. This would have immediately destroyed every argument and word that was printed.
I have spent five or more years studying methods used by women in the struggle for equality, and I have yet to find them to compromise on any manner of assault on their bodies. Women in both Canada and the US have appealed to the UN to end genital mutilation of females in the world ... 50 million or more each year ... according to the National Status of Women magazine published in Canada. They have asked to have cases of female circumcision in Canada reported to them immediately and would lay criminal charges against any doctor performing them. Yet when I wrote to them and appealed for their assistance to help combat the same problem but against males in America I was totally ignored.
When it comes to sexual assault or genital mutilation there are no pros and cons. These cannot be debated, no more than rape or incest. When this principle is applied to females* there is no question about it. However, when the same situation is applied to males there are still those who claim that there are pros and cons and that parents should be given “unbiased” opinions. A contradiction indeed.
The act of circumcision (for non-religious reasons) is demeaning to males, to both those who are circumcised and those who are intact. I could understand that the Jews would also find it hypocritical. It would be a form of mockery of the Jewish faith, something akin to the non-religious partaking in a communion rite or other religious rite.
Again, thanks a million, Rosemary. The world is fortunate to have individuals such as you who are willing to do what is right, and educate others to do the same.
John Sawkey
Indian Head, Saskatchewan
Canada
(*Ed. note: The concept of female circumcision is repugnant to people in North America, Europe, and most parts of the world where it is not practiced. However, in countries where the practice persists, such as in Egypt and the Sudan, overwhelming cultural pressures are an obstacle to eliminating female genital mutilation. Although we are well aware that female circumcision is usually more physically dangerous than its male counterpart, because a more vascular area of tissue is cut, both acts had common origins and persist for identical reasons of cultural blindness and ignorance. R.)
Dear Rosemary,
I felt I must write and tell you how much I enjoyed reading your book Circumcision: The Painful Dilemma. Well, I can’t actually say I enjoyed it – I had trouble sleeping that night and felt angry for days after – but I fell much more educated on the topic now. Thank you. Now when I hear someone say, “It doesn’t hurt the baby much”, I can reply with “BULL!!”
My 13 month old son was not circumcised and I have his pediatrician to thank. He visited our childbirth education class and gave a very descriptive explanation of the procedure involved, the pain involved and the various reasons why people still have it done. I only wish more doctors shared his feelings on the subject.
I hope many childbirth educators make your book available to their prospective parents so that more male babies can have a loving, tender beginning to their lives. I am so thankful mine did!
Thank you again.
Linda Sellers
Goleta, CA.
Dear Rosemary,
I have received your new book and just finished reading through Chapter 3. I can’t read any more. There is so much sorrow inside of me for all the victims of circumcision. I’m starting to cry about it.
My firstborn son was circumcised. I still remember the morning at the hospital after he was born (my second Cesarean), when the nurse approached me with the circumcision consent form. She asked me if I wanted Benjamin circumcised and I replied with, “Oh, yes.” I can still clearly remember the confused feeling inside of me because I didn’t have the faintest idea what circumcision was, but associated it with the penis. And, of course, I was too embarrassed to admit my ignorance! My husband and I had never discussed circumcision. I didn’t think to delay the surgery until we talked together. How young he and I were then!
Something inside of me finally woke up. When I became pregnant with our third child I refused a third Cesarean and had a home birth. When our son, Sean was born we refused circumcision, silver nitrate drops, vitamin K injection and PKU. We are ambivalent over immunizations, but have allowed this. I nurse him whenever he gets his shot and that seems to help.
Now, two years later, I am pregnant with number 4. Once again we will birth at home and reject the routine state requirements (i.e. silver nitrate, etc.) Never again will any of my sons be circumcised. Thank you for writing your book. Perhaps one day I’ll be able to continue reading it and finish it.
Cassie Haley
Rolla, MO.
Dear Ms. Romberg,
I do not usually write to the authors of books, but your book is exceptional because it has touched me in some very personal ways. I wish to thank you for writing the book because I have felt the need for such a book on circumcision for many years. Many times while I was reading it I had to set it down in order to clear my emotions before I could go on reading. I am 32 years old and the father of three happy healthy sons. We are all intact.
As I read your book, things from the past kept coming to mind, things not understood at the time which became clear and understandable after reading your book. This helped me to resolve some things, which without your book I probably could not have resolved. Some chapters were so unbelievably real to me that I just felt overwhelmed. The specific information provided reinforced my position concerning circumcision. I have always opposed it, even as a youth. I rarely oppose something without carefully considering it and evaluating it. By the time I was 21 I was convinced of the rightness of my feelings. I had to convince my wife as well. Your book gave the information which concretely set her mind like my own.
Your book is needed and accurate. I have read a great deal about the subject and cannot fault you at all. I am a senior at Youngstown State University. I only regret that I had not seen your request for personal stories in Mothering magazine when you first began your research. Thank you, indeed, for the finished product. My hope is that it will be used to turn things around in this country and provide more little boys the opportunity to be natural and whole.
Gregory N. Wilson
Struthers, OH.
Dear Rosemary,
I have now read most of your book Circumcision: The Painful Dilemma. Intelligent, thinking readers must rank it as the leading authority on circumcision. It is truly an encyclopedia on this subject, presenting every aspect from every viewpoint. One would have to be very dishonest and prejudiced to attempt to discredit it. I appreciate the research, study and wisdom that went into your book.
Milton Baker
San Jose, CA.
Dear Rosemary,
I have read your book Circumcision: The Painful Dilemma, and because of it have become a part time “non-circumcision” activist. (I am a secondary school teacher by profession.)
I personally believe that your book is the best work on the subject of circumcision available today. Your work is very humanistic and the photographs are enough to convince anyone not to allow their infant sons to be circumcised.
Hopefully I will do some talks in my area concerning the cause of “non-circumcision.” If we all work together, perhaps in the near future, routine circumcision will become a thing of the past.
Ed Carney
St. Petersburg, FL.
Dear Rosemary,
Your book is superb. It is so thoroughly documented and informative, and you somehow managed to present the data in a gentle, non‑threatening demeanor and still clearly convey that the practice of routine infant circumcision should be condemned.
Compared to the average American woman prior to her first childbirth experience, I was relatively well‑versed in the areas of pregnancy, labor, delivery, and breastfeeding I had done extensive reading on these subjects long before I had a baby, and I had been appalled by the American hospital‑oriented childbirth system and the warped American attitudes towards breastfeeding (especially prolonged nursing). Years before I became a mother, I knew that I wanted to give birth in my home and to breastfeed my child(ren) on the basis of child‑led weaning. However, when I became pregnant in 1985, I was totally ignorant and misinformed about circumcision. I had vague ideas about the purported benefits of circumcision which I had half‑consciously acquired throughout my life. If anyone had asked me, prior to my pregnancy, whether I would have a son circumcised, my response would have been, “I guess so ... that’s what you’re supposed to do, isn’t it?”
Luckily, early in my pregnancy, I had access to a childbirth educator’s lending library. Although I had already read numerous books about childbirth, home birth, and breastfeeding, none of them had ever mentioned circumcision. Linda’s library had a copy of Edward Wallerstein’s book Circumcision: An American Health Fallacy, and a folder of various articles on the subject which included various articles from Mothering magazine, and the article and full‑color pictures from The Saturday Evening Post (Dec. 1981). I was soon convinced that circumcision was a horribly cruel thing to put a baby through. If our baby was a boy, he would not be circumcised.
I then shared the material with my husband. His initial response was, “I guess I would want my son circumcised. I’m circumcised. Shouldn’t all males be circumcised? I would want my son to look like me.” Of course he had never considered the subject before. Fortunately, as soon as he read the material he changed his mind. Our baby was a girl.
A good friend of mine gave birth to her second baby when I was pregnant. Her first baby’s birth in 1981 was a typically unpleasant hospital delivery, with assorted interventions and drugs. She decided to have a home birth the next time. Before her second baby’s birth she learned a lot through self‑education. Her first son had been circumcised because she didn’t know any better. By the time her second son was born in 1985 she had become aware of the painful realities of circumcision and during her pregnancy she agonized over the decision. Despite her knowledge she decided to circumcise because she didn’t want him to look different from her husband and her first son.
Their decision to circumcise their new baby was especially upsetting to me because the father had suffered a tragic accident years before. He had been hit by a drunken driver and his leg had become crushed requiring amputation at the knee. I had listened to her explaining to their first son that his daddy was different from other people because he had only one leg. That made him ’special’ and it really wasn’t important that he was ’different.’ I felt that they handled this tragic situation so admirably. And yet they didn’t feel that they could cope with trying to explain to their second son why his penis looked different! If they truly wanted their son to match his daddy, then circumcision made as much sense as cutting one of the baby’s legs off at the knee! ... It’s such a paradoxical double standard. (Even if some father wanted to do such an inhumane mutilation to his son as cutting off his leg, our society wouldn’t allow it. Yet the mutilation of the penis/foreskin is condoned.)
The issue of circumcision is one of human rights. Parental rights should not be honored at the expense or sacrifice of a child’s rights.
Anita Kay Paul‑Oliver
Littleton, CO
Dear Ms. Romberg,
Thank you for writing Circumcision: The Painful Dilemma. It’s contents are of themselves a ’circumcision’ of misinformation from the mind of the reader, and its judgments should be noted by all those who would become good parents or health care providers.
I am unfortunate enough to be able to remember (at age 40!) just what that experience was like, and I would assure you that your fears about the matter are most certainly justified, and are expressed only too moderately.
I can only imply to you that feeling of alienation derived from an early life experience as one of subjection and helplessness against protracted mutilation of a major organ. One is, as a “whole entity” in fact “put to death” through a loss from which you never recover. It is psychic murder.
Those of us who do remember only differ in degree, but not in kind of experience. And the event is provident of every reason for never, ever remembering. It is the death of things you will never know and the birth of things you will always fear and struggle to overcome, producing social subjectivity at a price of personal identity.
With the help of your book I have gotten past the hard part, which was accepting that I have been, for a lifetime, subject to the artifact of another culture, a willful and uniform act perpetrated upon millions, one whose final authority could only be from ignorance, insecurity, misinformation, or greed.
Thank you again for your book. I hope your efforts will be rewarded by a bestseller. They deserve it.
So do the infants.
Dennis F. Lee Berkeley, CA.
September, 1985
Dear Ms. Romberg:
Having just read your new book on circumcision with its emphasis on personal testimony, I would like to share my experiences with you, if only so that you can add them to your files. Then I will present my comments on your book.
Having been born in a European hospital, I am that rarest of creatures, a white middle‑class American baby boomer who was left intact. While this has never caused any medical problems, it did result in a lot of embarrassment and anxiety. Both my father and younger brother were circumcised, as were all of my childhood playmates and classmates. My parents never raised the issue with me, and I was also too embarrassed to raise it, or any other sexual topic for that matter, with them. Hence I spent much of my childhood thinking that I was afflicted with a mild (otherwise the pediatrician would have showed more concern) congenital abnormality. Around 6 or 8 years of age my pediatrician first pulled back my foreskin (not a painful experience) and uncovered some smegma, whereupon he impressed on my mother the importance of good hygiene, a lesson which my mother took all too well to heart. Over the years he repeatedly showed interest and concern in my intact state (he must have had few intact patients), but never enlightened me as to its cause.
I did experience some ridicule early in elementary school. Hence throughout my childhood, any occasion that required me to reveal my penis made me extremely nervous. The prospect of having to take gym in high school nearly filled me with terror until I discovered that I could pass for circumcised if I pulled the foreskin back and that it would stay back for a few minutes of its own accord.
Years later I learned that my intact condition also caused my mother embarrassment of a more traumatic nature on at least one other occasions. When she arrived in this country with me in her arms as a 2 month old baby, she was met at the pier by her American (and not at all Jewish) mother‑in‑law who led us to a hotel. There my grandmother immediately undressed me, denounced my intact condition, and held my mother personally responsible for this outrage. Hence among my mother’s very first impressions of this country was that here it was customary for all males to undergo circumcision for medical reasons shortly after birth. This was especially difficult for her to handle because on the one hand she prided herself in remaining medically up‑to‑date and wanting to do the best by her children. She consequently has always admired the sophistication of American medicine. On the other hand, like so many continental Europeans, she finds circumcision personally distasteful. However had any physician pressed upon her the need for me to be circumcised, she would very likely have had me undergo the procedure. As for me, not only did my grandmother never embarrass me about it, but I remained her favorite among my siblings until her death.
Around 10 years of age I began to notice that my penis resembled those on male nudes in works of art. (Incidentally, I wonder why women don’t also note this discrepancy between the penises of the men in their lives and those depicted in art. I conjecture that the erotic feelings of many women, unlike men, are not projected on the genitals of the opposite sex.) I also began to notice that foreign born men and a very few Americans looked like me and seemed to show little embarrassment about it. At around 13 years of age, I finally discovered by accident in an encyclopaedia why my penis looked different ‑ it had not been surgically altered. Finally I understood that I was quite normal and that hence I was not unaesthetic, because I believe that that which is a normal part of nature cannot be unaesthetic. But I wasn’t out of the woods by any means. All of the information I came across stated that to be intact was unhealthy. I resolved to obtain a circumcision as soon as I was of age, - to order surgery on my own, especially to reduce the risk of cancer. Fortunately, around the time I started college, I read that there was no connection between circumcision and cancer, and that periodic washing was perfectly hygienic. Hence throughout my adult life I have known that there are no prophylactic grounds for circumcision, and I lost nearly all of my desire for it.
It took more to allay my embarrassment, however. While I stopped fearing ridicule from other men in the locker room or a doctor’s curiosity, I remained afraid to undertake sexual relations with a woman out of fear that she would find my penis abnormal or unsanitary. This must be evaluated along with my lifelong attraction to Jewish women, whom I thought would insist that their lovers be circumcised. Sure enough, the first Jewish woman to take an interest in me (but with whom I refused all intimacies because I could not conceive of marrying her) did tell me that my intact condition created a dilemma for her. Some years later, I finally raised this subject (in writing ‑ she thanked me for not having done so in person) to a Middle Eastern Jew, who replied that not only she found my anxiety downright amusing, but also that neither she nor any woman she had spoken frankly with had ever felt that a lover’s circumcision status made any difference. In this she spoke from experience, as she had had poor black and foreign lovers. But she also suggested that I check into a hospital and get it done. I haven’t raised the matter of my not being circumcised with any other women since then, - not that there has been any reason for it to come up.
Although the prospect of having to expose my intact penis to a willing woman’s eye no longer distresses me, I still suspect that the foreskin and its removal are aspects of male sexuality about which women are highly ignorant. I agree with you in further suspecting that that for many women, the only penises they ever see are those of their circumcised children and siblings, and the erect ones, with any foreskin pulled back, of a few lovers. Also, how often does Ruth Westheimer talk about circumcision? It is seldom mentioned even in the frankest novels. In spite of all the nude beaches in Europe, I have almost never heard someone express wonder (or disgust) at the fact that the penises of foreigners looked different. For that matter, circumcision is rarely mentioned in the usual run of men’s magazines and other pornography.
Furthermore, even in our relatively enlightened times, the topic seems to be highly embarrassing. A woman in college told me that she caused a major embarrassment when she sought to discuss it with her girl friends. Speaking from experience, only nurses and religious Jews mention or discuss it unselfconsciously. Incidentally, I have heard few off‑color jokes about circumcision, for which there must be a reason. The simplest one is that most men around my age are rather ignorant about it, as they were all circumcised and did not have this fact explained to them. However from a few casual remarks by other (highly educated) men, I can attest to a state of mind that I would hesitate to call “foreskin envy”, but instead would call “foreskin nostalgia”.
The moral I draw from the above is that it is high time that we shed our inhibitions and speak plainly to our children. Boys, especially intact ones, should have the subject explained to them as early in life as possible to minimize the extension and receipt of ridicule. Teen‑age girls should be taught to expect both kinds of lovers in later life, and as mothers not to have their future sons circumcised. Unless medical insurance ceases to reimburse the cost, it is likely that at least some circumcisions will be performed for years to come, if only for reasons of conformity, so that we shall be faced with a mixed population in need of mutual tolerance.
Because I have always pulled it back when urinating and masturbating, my foreskin is somewhat short and completely and easily retractable. In fact, I have spent so much time with the skin pulled back that I suspect that the glans is relatively insensitive. Since I always wash my penis with the foreskin retracted (which has always been a trivial task for me), it remains clean and relatively odor‑free. As a result of all this I suspect that I am not all that different physiologically from a circumcised man and if this is true, in no way do I regret it. While unnecessary, the circumcised state is probably completely innocuous; only the operation is clearly evil. Having never married and having had no sexual intimacies with anyone (yes, in this libertine age, although educated, in excellent health, and not particularly homely, I have yet to persuade any woman I like to grant me her favors), I cannot address the issue of the role (if any) of the foreskin in sexual activity. Contrary to some of the testimonial in Chapter 6 of your book, I doubt it has much of any except that the novelty may intrigue some unconventional women. But I do speak from experience when I argue that having a foreskin does play a role in intelligent masturbation.
Your book was not an eye‑opener for me, as I have already read Wallerstein’s book, which banished every vestige of shame and ambivalence from my mind. Your book shows that abandonment of circumcision is a natural part of the progression that includes birth without anesthesia and violence, a desire to minimize caesarians and episiotomies, breast feeding, and so forth. Hence it is most valuable from the point of view of a mother and wife. It is also clearer from your book that the foreskin should almost always be allowed to separate from the glans naturally over several years. You also do a remarkable job of reviewing the extensive medical literature on the adverse sequelliae of routine circumcision. But Wallerstein’s book does a better job of refuting the alleged scientific reasoning used to support it. He also drives home the point that neonatal circumcision is a major instance of the pernicious phenomenon of unnecessary surgery. The only issue neither you nor Wallerstein address to my satisfaction is how the near‑universal circumcision of neonates without anesthesia became an American cultural artifact, and an unspoken one at that.
Regarding your chapter on Jews and circumcision, I gather that the forefront of the anti‑circumcision movement includes a number of secularized Jews. Furthermore, a very sporadic reading of the Village Voice in recent years has also convinced me that, in addition to the medical and humanitarian arguments, some Jewish feminists are agitating for an end to bris on the grounds that it is a start‑of‑life ritual which a girl cannot undergo, and hence is inconsistent with an equal position for woman in Judaism. I was surprised to discover that you made no mention of this line of thought in this chapter.
There is no dilemma, painful or otherwise. Routine neonatal circumcision, especially without anesthesia, should not just be deemed as having no prophylactic value, but also as medically unethical. The firm presumption should be that the procedure is quite painful. These points must be driven home to the administrators of every maternity ward and teaching hospital in the country. Lay people need to be educated to respect and care for the intact penis. Only thus will this bizarre resurgence of the neo-lithic mind in our century be banished from the scene.
Sincerely,
(name withheld by request)
CIRCUMCISION: The Painful Dilemma. by Rosemary Romberg, (©) 1985, Bergin & Garvey, S. Hadley, MA.
I did not start my research being anti-circumcision. I was even undecided over whether or not I would choose circumcision again should I ever have another son. I fully intended to write a book that was NEUTRAL on the subject I had planned that this book would present the pros and cons of both choices, guiding parents to either direction as best suits their lifestyles. (Romberg)
All* discovered that the medical and other benefits touted for circumcision are nonexistent, that the foreskin of the penis may actually serve a purpose, and that the surgery is at best a needlessly painful experience for a newborn to undergo. Rosemary Romberg states her conclusion the most forcefully:
Three significant concerns surround the issue of infant circumcision:
First, the operation is painful to the newborn infant. Feelings of tenderness and protection surround most of our attitudes about babies. Why then have we considered it okay to strap the baby down and proceed to pinch and smash his foreskin, tear it away from his glans, and then clamp and cut it off? Usually this is done without anesthesia.... If an older child or adult is to undergo circumcision, anesthesia is used. Why do we believe that infants either feel no pain or that their feelings are unimportant?
Secondly, is the foreskin a useless piece of tissue — an anomaly in need of surgical correction? Is the human male body made wrong the way it normally comes into the world? Or does the foreskin serve a purpose? Can we improve on the body by cutting part of it off?
Thirdly, do we have the right, in the absence of medical, or perhaps devout religious consideration, to alter another person’s body without his permission? Does a person have the right to keep all parts of his body? Isn’t each person s foreskin rightfully his? If so, aren’t parents who consent to circumcision and doctors who perform the operation taking something away from that child? Rosemary Romberg’s Circumcision: The Painful Dilemma is the most impassioned of the three books, and the most all‑inclusive. Romberg apparently inserted everything she read or learned on the subject. Despite her statement that she did not begin her research with an anti‑circumcision bias, quoted above, Romberg clearly was deeply affected by the circumcision experiences of her three sons which open the book. The trauma of her third son, delivered by Leboyer home birth, especially caused her much anguish.
“Weeks later, Ryan was to start cooing and smiling like all normal, healthy babies,” she states. ”But I was never to see those beautiful, mystic, Leboyer newborn‑baby smiles again. Ryan was past his pain, but my own heart was to ache about this for a long time. Again and again I was to ask myself, ’Why?’ “
CIRCUMCISION: The Painful Dilemma is an exhaustive compendium of historical information, photographs, and personal accounts. Its 391 pages (in addition to two forewords and the author’s introduction at the beginning, and glossary, resource list and bibliography at the back of the book) cannot possibly be digested at one sitting. Romberg devotes chapters to the same subjects as Wallerstein and Briggs: history, female circumcision, religion and circumcision, routine infant circumcision, sexuality, complications, considerations of the relationship between circumcision and cancer and venereal disease prevention. In addition, Romberg includes such subjects as: an account by a man who underwent a number of operations to restore his foreskin; an interview with three directors of the Primal Institute in Los Angeles concerning the traumatic effect of circumcision pain on a newborn infant; and interviews with parents who chose not to circumcise. CIRCUMCISION: The Painful Dilemma is well organized, with short sections of her text interspersed with quotes from her resources, photos appearing every few pages, and significant quotes from the text frequently set off in larger type. It results in an attractive, easy-to‑delve‑into book. Another nice feature is t the notes to references in the text are at the end of the chapters, making them easy to look up as one is reading. The careful organization is especially welcome because of the almost overwhelming weight of the emotional responses of those whose experiences are reported in the book and the pictures of circumcisions gone wrong.
