UNCIRCUMCISED FILIPINOS: Ritual and Medical Circumcision among Filipino boys

Friday, May 18, 2007

Ritual and Medical Circumcision among Filipino boys

TITLE:
Ritual and Medical Circumcision among Filipino boys: Evidence of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder

AUTHOR(S):
Samuel Ramos
Gregory J. Boyle, Bond University

DOCUMENT TYPE: Book Chapter

Pre-print version of a paper presented at the proceedings of the Sixth International Symposium on Genital Integrity: Safeguarding Fundamental Human Rights in the 21st Century, 7-9 December, Sydney, Australia and published in; Understanding Circumcision: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to a Mult-Dimensional Problem; edited by George C. Denniston, Frederick Mansfield Hodges and Marilyn Fayre Milos; ©2001 Kluwer Academic/Plenium Publishers, New York.
The original publication is available at SpringerLink

Download the Document (PDF format - 290 K) - December 2000
Tell a colleague about it.

ABSTRACT:
A total of 3,253 boys aged 11 to 16 years took part in this study of the psychological effects associated with circumcision procedures (medical vs. ritual circumcision) in the Philippines. Participants were recruited from five different schools in the Batangas province upon securing permission from appropriate authorities (human rights chair, school principals, class advisers and the children's parents or guardians). The boys completed a two-part questionnaire. The preliminary part requested biographical information including any history of other traumatic events, and their perception of the circumcision experience. The second part assessed the presence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Some 1,577 boys satisfied the prescribed criteria (1,072 boys were circumcised under medical procedures; 505 boys were subjected to ritual circumcision) and were followed-up to ascertain whether the perceived trauma from genital cutting developed into symptoms of PTSD. Almost 70% of boys subjected to ritual circumcision and 51% of those subjected to medical circumcision fulfilled the DSM-IV criteria for a diagnosis of PTSD.

more at: http://epublications.bond.edu.au/cgi/query.cgi

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LETTERS FROM THE EMAIL

Genital cutting practices vary widely in The Philippines.

Many guys are cut in hospitals by Western-trained doctors, but there is only one doctor per 10,000 Filipinos (vs about 1 doctor per 500 Americans). Most traditionally "circumcised" Filipinos are actually supercised, which is to say the skin tube is drawn forward and a longitidinal slit is made in the top at the rollover point. The skin can then flop free of the glans but nothing has been amputated. Such a cut person will self-report that he has been circumcised.

Most genital cutting in The Philippines is in defiance of the Catholic church's official policy against it.

-Ron (dome68iou1@juno.com)

DR.'S ADVICE ON MONGOLIAN VD

While in China , a man is very sexually promiscuous and does not use a condom all the time.

A week after arriving back ìŸ¦ome in the States, he wakes one morning to find his penis covered with bright green and purple spots. Horrified, he immediately goes to see a doctor.

The doctor, never having seen anything like this before, orders some tests and tells the man to return in two days for the results.

The man returns a couple of days later and the doctor says: "I've got bad news for you --- you've contracted Mongolian VD.

It's very rare and almost unheard of here. We know very little about it."

The man looks a little perplexed and says: "Well, give me a shot or something and fix me up, Doc."

The doctor answers: "I'm sorry, there's no known cure. We're going to have to amputate your penis."

The man screams in horror, "Absolutely not ! I want a second opinion."

The doctor replies: "Well, it's your choice. Go ahead if you want but surgery is your only choice."

The next day, the man seeks out a Chinese doctor, figuring that he'll know >more about the disease.

The Chinese doctor examines his penis and proclaims: "Ah, yes, Mongolian VD. Vely rare disease.

The guy says to the doctor: "Yeah, yeah, I already know that, but what can we do?
My American doctor wants to operate and amputate my penis!"

The Chinese doctor shakes his head and laughs: "Stupid Amelican docta, always want to opelate. Make more money that way. No need to opelate!"

"Oh, Thank God!" the man replies.

"Yes," says the Chinese doctor, "You no worry!Wait two weeks. Faw off by itself!

(THIS IS JUST A JOKE)

Shorter thrusts

Marilyn Milos cites a 1999 study published in the British Journal of Urology which documented that women were more likely to have an orgasm (and less likely to experience vaginal discomfort) with an uncircumcised partner. The study concluded that the uncircumcised penis glides within its sheath of moveable skin with minimal friction. Because of this, uncut men use shorter thrusts than cut partners, who drive more deeply to launch an orgasm. The shorter thrusts of uncircumcised men, according to 71 percent of the respondents, allowed more contact with the mons pubis and clitoris, creating more orgasms for the women.

The First Cut

Restore Yourself

Now, I dont believe a mistake was made when man was created, do you? Even if one doesn't believe in creation, nature just doesn't repeatedly make what doctors are considering to be faults in baby boys that must be fixed. I understand that those of the Jewish faith regularly circumcise the male child but according to what I have learned, they only remove a very small portion of the foreskin at the tip of the glans. Doctors in the U.S. remove the whole thing which is a lot of skin and amounts to approximately the size of a 3 x 5 inch index card in an adult male! Many times they accidentally remove even more skin than this and boys grow up with either painful erections or their erections are bent because the skin is stretched too tight. Both men and women usually believe that's just the way some penises look and never question it. There can be other complications also. Circumcised males grow up never knowing that they lost a natural function of the penis and lost a great amount of sexual pleasure.

http://www.restoreyourself.com

LET'S GET CIVILISED

Male or female circumcision is the practice of surgically modifying the private part of the human being. This practice, in one form or the other, exists in many parts of the world, not least of all in Africa, and in particular, Nigeria. Female circumcision is negatively referred to as female genital mutilation. It is difficult to understand why male circumcision is not referred to in the same way. Some insight into this is necessary.

Most of us may not realise that male circumcision is NOT common in many parts of the world, particularly in the Western world. It may come as a shock to many to find that the average European man is uncircumcised. In fact, the hospitals in the UK, US and most other Western countries do not perform circumcision. It is considered an outdated religious practice. Should you require it for, say, a baby boy, you would have to seek out a Jewish rabbi or some other practitioners to have it done. The Jews are the only white group with a history of circumcision.

It must, therefore, be understood that the issue of circumcision, whether for male or for female, is completely outside the cultural practices (or understanding) of the Western world. They neither understand nor accept the practice. They are, therefore, not qualified to determine the expediency of the practice. Male circumcision is simply tolerated because the Bible speaks about it. Otherwise, we would have been faced with Western media onslaughts accompanied by local "let's get civilised" civil rights, NGO and other groups, trying to convince us that male circumcision is primitive, barbaric, reduces male sexuality, scars the organ and causes untold pain and suffering to the baby. That it risks permanent deformation and disability to the baby, or death through fatal infection. It is, therefore, totally unjustified and unjustifiable.

Our ancestors could even have been accused of circumcising to prevent male promiscuity! Statistics would be provided to show that uncircumcised men are more virile, and more fertile than the circumcised ones. Parents would be accused of violating the rights of their baby boys. Imagine then, the difficulty of trying to convince our "been-to" and Western-oriented elites that male circumcision representing hundreds of years of ancestral practice should only be changed with caution if at all, and then only when it is OBVIOUS to the people that the practice is dangerous, and has become unnecessary, having been overtaken by practices generally considered more advantageous to the people as a whole. Imagine a situation where there was a British or American law against male circumcision. Thank God for the Bible.

Some would say that female circumcision is not in the Bible but neither is wine-carrying, or church weddings - that does not make it wrong. Female circumcision is not synonymous with VVF as many groups have fraudulently implied. And the general conception that it is performed to reduce female sexual pleasure has been manipulated to inflame gender rights emotions. This was effectively shown a few years back in Lagos when, on an Igbo phone-in program, the presenter asked people to call in and air their views on the issue of female circumcision. The responses were enlightening. Not only were all the callers female and circumcised, each and every one of them insisted that she has or will circumcise any daughter of hers. None believed that her circumcision had affected her negatively, and all considered it a practice worth retaining.

The impression I got was that it was mainly the uncircumcised (and many opportunistic NGOs) that had a grouse with the practice. My reflection on the issue led me to wonder -- what would the Western advocates of human rights abuse think of this? Whether right or wrong, the facts remain. Like the response of the nurse shows, many girls have a clitoris which extends outside the vagina. Discussions with these girls will tell you that for such people, even the simple act of walking can be a serious turn-on. In this situation, how can anyone say that a well-performed circumcision will not be morally beneficial to the girl?

A critic may insist that this is the same as trying to stop promiscuity. If a mother helping her girl to manage sexual excesses as stated above is wrong, then taking her to a doctor to correct a malformed leg could also be wrong. Depending on your viewpoint (Western or Traditional) female circumcision may or may not be expedient at this point in our national development, but for God's sake, let us stop the foolishness of presuming that our ancestors were idiots who did things without reason, and who enjoyed the pain of the screaming baby. Mean old men who approved a practice fraught with risks for the baby and its parents (to whom the baby was considered precious). Thinking so would be the height of colonialism.

Relevant Links

West Africa
Human Rights
Nigeria
Women and Gender

As the practice carries a risk of infection, deformation, bad scarring and other problems due to the way it is presently being handled, we can have qualified medical practitioners perform it as is done for males. We are then left with the matter of its social expediency.

At this point, I would advice that the choice remains with the parents until such a time when the practice is well researched and understood without Western bias by our own people, and in our own environment. I say this because I find that most NGO discussions refer to the worst forms of the practice, usually based on information from other parts of the world. Many parts of the world definitely perform circumcision very differently, both in content and in context. For some, it is just token, while for others, it is major surgery. Using inapplicable or exaggerated examples give rise to serious misinformation, with its attendant error of judgment. Is it right to throw away everything? The baby with the bath water? There are as many arguments for male circumcision as against it (Europeans and Moslems will tell you), and so it is for female circumcision.

As detailed earlier, all the arguments against female circumcision also apply to their male counterpart. The main difference is that well-trained doctors or birth attendants handle the boys. The common question is -Why female circumcision? My answer would be - Why male circumcision? We cannot even say we practice male circumcision because it is in the Bible since the practice predates the coming of Christianity, and the missionaries were probably NOT circumcised.

http://allafrica.com

SMEGMA

A natural secretion of skin cells and oils that collects under the foreskin in both males and females. If allowed to grow stale, it may have a pungent aroma (commonly compared to cheese [males] or fish [females]), and has lubricant, pheromonal (sexual attractant) and perhaps bacteriostatic (bacteria-killing) functions. The quantity varies, but it is comparable to earwax. (In one survey, three out of 18 self-selected intact men never saw smegma; one saw it after a week unwashed; six after two days; eight after one day; and one after less than a day. Three out of seven circumcised men reported seeing smegma.) (Gk. = soap)

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UNCIRCUMCISED FILIPINOS

Friday, May 18, 2007

Ritual and Medical Circumcision among Filipino boys

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