A CIRCUMCISION
by
He did not answer the "Why not?" but it was soon apparent to me. My newborn son was taken from his mother's warm, nourishing breast and placed naked on a cold, plastic board called a circumstraint. His little legs were spread-eagled and strapped down with Velcro bands and his arms were strapped to his sides. He immediately protested and began to cry. The doctor draped a thin cloth with a hole in the centre over his shivering body and drew his little penis through the hole.
The doctor washed my baby's penis with an antiseptic solution. He took a pair of steel haemostats and, holding the penis in one hand, inserted the tip of the haemostat into the opening of the foreskin and began pushing it between the foreskin and the glans, ripping the two structures apart. The foreskin and glans were tightly fused together by the normal balanopreputial membrane called the synechia, similar to the membrane that attaches the fingernail to the finger. It's the body's way, in part, of protecting against harmful bacteria.
My baby was shrieking now, his protest going from a simple cry to what sounded like screams of sheer terror. His body was rigid, contorted as he strained against the straps and the pain. If the circumstraint had not been bolted down, it and my child would have crashed to the floor. Every instinct I had told me this was not right, that I should be protecting my son instead of acquiescing to the barbaric spectacle before me. But I am a "civilized man". I have been socialized to accept what the doctor is doing. It's the right thing to do. Right?
The foreskin did not easily give up its hold on my son's glans. The doctor continued to rip the skin with the haemostat. My son was shaking, tossing his head from side to side, his fists and eyes were clenched, sweat beaded on his brow.
The doctor finally got the glans and foreskin separated, then clamped the foreskin tight with another haemostat and cut the skin vertically with scissors. The wound was bleeding profusely. He tried to insert a steel cone into the tissue but had to force it because the incision was too short. My son stopped screaming. His eyes were glazed and rolled back. He appeared to be sleeping, but was really in a state of complete shock.
[1] Genital mutilation American style. Fathering magazine 1998.
http://fathermag.com/health/circ/gmas
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