Category Archives: Abuse

Danish newspaper article on circumcision

This is deeply personal and important to me, as I am myself a victim of this vile practice – due to my misfortune of being born in the United States.  Although my young mother was not keen on the idea, a doctor insisted on doing it, and she relented.

What were this man’s motivations?  Why was it so important to him what my penis looked like?  Why did he think that the most intimate part of my body, my ‘private parts’, my penis, was his prerogative?  I’ll never know what he wanted from me.  But what ever it was, he took it.  He had his way with me.  He carved his pay-check into my penis.  He carved his religion into my penis.  He carved his tribal marking into my penis.  He carved his custom into my penis.  He carved his grotesque aesthetic preferences into my penis.  He carved his obscene signature into my penis.

Read more at Why Denmark must carry the courage of its convictions on circumcision – News – The Copenhagen Post.

Genital cutting tied to later abuse risk

And remember, dear friends… anything that affects a female who has been cut surely will affect a cut male as well. Male circumcision is no less traumatic to the child than Female Genital Mutilation. Trauma is trauma. And the worst part of circumcision is not the physical cut, but the psychological repercussions. Spare the child and he or she will grow up to be far more peaceful, trusting, happy than someone who has been grievously injured unnecessarily due to fashion, superstition or any other adult fear.

By Amy Norton, Reuters
September 24, 2012

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Women who underwent genital cutting as young girls may be at increased risk of physical, sexual or emotional abuse from their husband, a study of women in Mali suggests.

The study, of nearly 7,900 women, found that 22 percent of those with genital mutilation said they’d been physically abused by a husband or male partner. That compared with 12 percent of women who’d never been subjected to the procedure.

It’s estimated that more than 130 million women worldwide have undergone genital mutilation, also known as female “circumcision.” The centuries-old practice, which involves removing part or all of a girl’s clitoris and labia, and sometimes narrowing the vaginal opening, remains a common practice in some countries, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa.

It’s well-known that genital cutting has long-term consequences for women – including sexual dysfunction, childbirth complications, incontinence and psychological disorders.

In the new study, researchers looked at whether there’s a link between genital mutilation and a woman’s odds of suffering abuse from her partner.

In Mali, where the vast majority of women have undergone genital mutilation, the government has taken steps to raise awareness of the consequences of the practice. But genital mutilation has not been outlawed.

The difficulty is that genital cutting is widely seen as an important cultural tradition, rather than a form of abuse.

“If something is entrenched in a culture, it is difficult to change,” said Dr. Hamisu Salihu of the University of South Florida in Tampa, the lead researcher on the new study.

On the other hand, physically abusing your wife – though common in Mali and other African countries – does not have that cultural acceptance, Salihu told Reuters Health…

READ MORE: YAHOO! Health

SOURCE: BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, online August 24, 2012

You are only as sick as your secrets

Sometimes secrets are intentionally kept. On birthdays we don’t want our friends to know what we are giving them because we want them to be happily surprised.

Sometimes wonderful, velvet memories are kept secret because they are intensely private and personal. We do not care to share what they are because they might be misunderstood and not cherished by others as we cherish them ourselves.

But then there are the prickly or even stabbing secrets that hurt us then and continue to hurt us now. Those secrets are best aired and released. We fear that to tell them would only burden others, so we keep them to ourselves.

Truman Capote, author of In Cold Blood said that he used to write and write to get all the horrible secrets from his childhood out of his memory and onto the paper. Many people write, sing, make videos, journal and blog to get their stories out of their minds.

Sometimes secrets are so secret that they are secret even from ourselves. We have buried them deep in our minds because we don’t want to ever think again of the terror, horror, grief, pain, shame, guilt, humiliation. Many of the deepest secrets we have kept hidden from ourselves originated long ago — in childhood and even before.

Unfortunately, secrets unavailable to the conscious mind do not just go away of their own accord. They are still securely stored in the human subconscious, the hard drive, better known as the body. Unreleased tension can be stored in every muscle and cell of our body.

For the sake of our health and happiness, we need to locate and release those tensions. It is not difficult to do and it need not be painful. In fact, releasing old traumatic memories it is usually experienced as pleasant, freeing and empowering.

Here, we focus on simple, safe ways to release forgotten trauma and unpleasant emotions. We are available to coach you to free yourself from the chains of the past. Once you know how, you can release fear as it arises. To gain that degree of control over fear is the most exciting adventure on planet earth.

Everyone is welcome!

Genital cutting tied to later abuse risk

And remember, dear friends… anything that affects a female who has been cut surely will affect a cut male as well. Trauma is trauma. And the worst part of circumcision is not the physical cut, but the psychological repercussions. Spare the child and he or she will grow up to be far more peaceful, trusting, happy than someone who has been grievously injured unnecessarily due to fashion, superstition or any other adult fear.

By Amy Norton, Reuters
September 24, 2012

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Women who underwent genital cutting as young girls may be at increased risk of physical, sexual or emotional abuse from their husband, a study of women in Mali suggests.

The study, of nearly 7,900 women, found that 22 percent of those with genital mutilation said they’d been physically abused by a husband or male partner. That compared with 12 percent of women who’d never been subjected to the procedure.

It’s estimated that more than 130 million women worldwide have undergone genital mutilation, also known as female “circumcision.” The centuries-old practice, which involves removing part or all of a girl’s clitoris and labia, and sometimes narrowing the vaginal opening, remains a common practice in some countries, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa.

It’s well-known that genital cutting has long-term consequences for women – including sexual dysfunction, childbirth complications, incontinence and psychological disorders.

In the new study, researchers looked at whether there’s a link between genital mutilation and a woman’s odds of suffering abuse from her partner.

In Mali, where the vast majority of women have undergone genital mutilation, the government has taken steps to raise awareness of the consequences of the practice. But genital mutilation has not been outlawed.

The difficulty is that genital cutting is widely seen as an important cultural tradition, rather than a form of abuse.

“If something is entrenched in a culture, it is difficult to change,” said Dr. Hamisu Salihu of the University of South Florida in Tampa, the lead researcher on the new study.

On the other hand, physically abusing your wife – though common in Mali and other African countries – does not have that cultural acceptance, Salihu told Reuters Health…

READ MORE: YAHOO! Health

SOURCE: BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, online August 24, 2012

Depression is not irrational – Suicide is not a solution

I was depressed from an early age. As a child, I always wanted to be dead. I know now that it was probably after my clitoridectomy. I was bereft. Life didn’t seem worth living. I went to the kitchen to get a knife to cut out my heart, but I was too small to reach the sharp knives – I didn’t even know where they were kept.

When I went back to my bed that night, I heard a voice say, “What makes you think it would be any different if you were to die?” I had to admit I had no guarantee. But I saw the implication was that I would have to live through those early childhood years again – no way! – and so I have stayed. My teen years and early twenties were no better. But after that, each year my heart has grown more full and rich and happy. I have no external possessions to brag about, but peace of mind and joy are my priceless treasures.

Depression is not irrational. It is a diagnosis that is like that drawer in the kitchen where you put everything you don’t know what to do with. Depression is an accumulation of legitimate, but unreleased fears, angers and sorrows. Our society does not allow grieving and does not offer anything much better than “you are born, life is for suffering, technology advances, and then you die.”. Religion often makes life on earth sound like a prison sentence, a valley of tears, after which – if you are perfect – you get to go to “heaven” and experience something that might or might not be all that much better than what you have known on earth… but there are no guarantees on any level.

lovely lady in flowersWhat finally brought me out of my depression was the discovery that when I was very very quiet, I could feel my heart.

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer… no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.” ― Albert Camus

Another way to say that is, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.” It is! And it can be known NOW. But only one thing can exist in one place at one time, so as long as we hold on to negative feelings from the past, we do not feel that beauty that already exists in our own hearts.

I came to understand that I had something important to do here on planet earth. Until I released all that old baggage, I might just come back over and over again – no way! And so I began to do my work and began to let go of all that old and ugly stuff.

We are fortunate in this age to have lots of help – from people and healing systems like Jed Diamond, Byron Katie’s “The Work”, Gary Craig’s “EFT – Emotional Freedom Technique”, Hale Dwoskin’s “The Sedona Method”, and many others. It’s all about healing – letting go of fear/anger/sorrow. It’s why we’re here and why “stuff happens” – so that we feel the old stuff and release the past – to “forgive”, which is “for giving ourselves peace of mind, joy and health.” Feelings got stuck when we held our breath in fear. So whatever feelings come up, breathe into them… that’s how we tell ourselves that we’re safe here and now.

See the “Tools” tab, above and release one little thing today, here and now. You will be so glad you did. Then move to another… and let it go…

Emergency measures for PTSD

Trauma happens. Daily. To many. Those of us who have been suddenly exposed to terror, horror and shock, those of us who have lived in it for extended periods of time, all of us suffer at least some degree of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Sufferers of PTSD — even veterans — are not always correctly diagnosed and are even more often not treated. However, those who do receive attention do not always reap sufficient benefit from conventional treatment.

Sometimes it takes a child to say what no adult will — the emperor has no clothes and the medical field has no cure for PTSD. The conventional mental health system offers diagnoses and medications, but the mere labeling and numbing of symptoms does not equate to genuine healing. Terror and horror persist in the hearts and minds of victims and witnesses, both. The good news is,

All healing is essentially the release from fear.
Healing is always certain.

We can do it ourselves. Fact is, we must. No one else can do it for us; they don’t know what we have been through. Here is where we start. Here is where we learn to release the fear that has tied our minds and bodies into knots. Here is where we learn how to let go of fear.

We learn the principles of self-healing. We practice with ourselves and one another. We address one memory, one pain, one tense muscle at a time. Soon we are free of the shudder, the revulsion, the horror, the past. We feel real peace again. We have taken back our lives.

Search on the Internet for videos on “Emotional Freedom Technique” (EFT) or “Tapping” (they’re the same thing, just different names. This simple yet profoundly effective method of releasing fear might come in handy as you are reading, learning, practicing, identifying issues, and releasing them. Get this helpful stress-release tool under your belt and then scour and devour the rest of the healing methods here on this site. Any one of them might be enough to heal all your wounds. But one might “speak to” you more than another. Try them all.

As we release fear, we feel safer; as we feel safer, others will feel safer around us.

Quotes on Circumcision by Atheists

What do atheists say about circumcision?

Ayaan Hirsi Ali…

“The foreskin is cut off the penis. That’s a form of mutilation. You should leave the child as he is, as he comes out of the womb. Hes finished, hes complete. You shouldn’t take things off, especially when there’s no medical reason. I think male circumcision is worse than an incision of a girl. With boys, a lot of skin is removed. The consequences can be worse for boys than for girls.”

George Carlin…

“I also survived circumcision, a barbaric practice designed to remind you as early as possible that your genitals are not your own.”

Richard Dawkins…

“Creator of the Universe went to great trouble to create the foreskin. Then insisted that you cut it off. Makes sense.”

“If circumcision has any justification AT ALL, it should be medical only. Parents’ religion is the worst of all reasons –– pure child abuse.”

Christopher Hitchens…

“Handed a small baby for the first time, is it your first reaction to think, beautiful, almost perfect, now please hand me the sharp stone for its genitalia.”

“I can’t find the compulsory mutilation of the genitals of children a subject for humor… It’s designed to repress sexual pleasure… The full excision, not just the snip but the full mandatory covenant is fantastically painful, leads to trauma, leads to the dulling of the sexual relationship. And can be, in itself life-threatening at that moment. We have records, I can show them to you, of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds in the United States of boy babies who died or had life-threatening infections as a result of this disgusting practice.”

“The vast majority of the world knows there’s no reason to circumcise. Someone should tell the doctors.”

Penn & Teller…

“Shouldn’t our son have the choice whether he wants to wear a condom or cut off part of his dick? Put down the knife. Step away from the baby.”

Joe Rogan…

“People mutilate their kids dicks because of visuals. That’s what circumcision is about. Look, Im circumcised, I didn’t ask to be. I’m sure a lot of you are circumcised. I’m sure a lot of you circumcised your kids. When you really stop and think about it, its kinda fuckin’ crazy… I would never circumcise my kid.”

“I think its stupid. If I had a boy I wouldn’t circumcise him… I got robbed. I got robbed. Sliced. I think its a fuckin’ gross tradition man… I just think its a weird fuckin’ tradition that we need to end. People get like, really bad infections. Its not completely innocuous – kids have lost their penises because of circumcision… It’s a dick it’s not a Jack-O-Lantern alright? You don’t have to chop parts off of it to make it look better.”

Howard Stern…

“I am circumcised, and I tell you something, I despise it. I despise it. I despise it… I am completely pissed off that I’m circumcised.”

via Famous Atheist Quotes on Circumcision – The WHOLE Network: Accurate Circumcision & Foreskin Information.

What do Winnie-the-Pooh, John the Baptist, tonsils, appendix & foreskin have in common?

What do Winnie the Pooh and John the Baptist have in common? (See Footnote 1, below.)

What do the tonsils, appendix and foreskin have in common?

Cutting the tonsils, appendix and foreskin from infants and children was high fashion in the 1950’s and 1960’s (as were hysterectomies for women). If a child had a history of too many sore throats, tonsils and adenoids were removed; if a child had a sore abdomen, the appendix was removed. If the child was born with male genitals, the foreskin was removed – and other parts were also cut from the genitalia of girls. “If in doubt, cut it out.”

Tonsils and appendixes usually were removed because they were considered to be diseased. Sometimes, however, they were removed to “prevent” them from becoming diseased. People figured nature had made careless errors when designing an otherwise amazingly brilliant machine.

One young boy I knew came home with an appendectomy. I asked why. He said his mom had taken him to the emergency room for a tummy ache. “What did you have for lunch?” I asked him. When he began to recount the food he had eaten before his surgery, it was obvious to me that he had suffered from severe gas in his intestines. His lunch with a friend had consisted of several bologna sandwiches, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches – all on white bread – that he had washed down with several glasses of lemonade. Jeez! I’d’ve had a tummy ache too – Wouldn’t you? But the doctor had neglected to ask. He just cut.

Then someone determined that the tonsils and appendix have important immune system functions. So a huge number of children who are now adults lost valuable parts of their bodies due to lack of that important understanding. Deficient in insight and wisdom, many members of the medical profession just cut and cut and cut. Tonsils and appendixes are now removed only in severe medical conditions.

Nature was vindicated. Fashion changed and American doctors no longer routinely performed tonsillectomies and appendectomies; they moved on to hysterectomies and gall bladders. Good riddance! Yet after all those other surgeries came and went, foreskins are still amputated because they are still considered to be nature’s secret little mistake – and are not to be spoken of above a whisper.

In the Victorian age, when puritanical values ruled, people thought it was risqué to show an ankle and pornography was hard to come by. No good American dared to speak of the penis or its foreskin except in hushed tones to a medical doctor. Doctors claimed they had found the solution to masturbation. They then declared that masturbation was the cause of a plethora of diseases. They began a war on male and female genitalia – healthy genitalia.

In 1888, John Harvey Kellogg, M.D., inventor of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, wrote in his Treatment for Self-Abuse and its Effects:

A remedy [for masturbation] which is almost always successful in small boys is circumcision… the operation should be performed by a surgeon without administering an anesthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind, especially if it be connected with the idea of punishment, as it may well be in some cases. The soreness which continues for several weeks interrupts the practice [masturbation], and if it had not previously become so firmly fixed, it may be forgotten and not resumed. If any attempt is made to watch the child, he should be so carefully surrounded by vigilance that he cannot possibly transgress without detection. If he is only partially watched, he soon learns to elude observation, and thus the effect is only to make him more cunning in his vice. (See footnote 2.)

In short, “Let’s discourage masturbation/pleasure with pain.” Circumcision has been a cruel and unsuccessful experiment. We now know full well that it didn’t work. One survey shows that men without foreskins masturbate more frequently and participate in more dangerous sexual activities (oral and anal) than those with foreskins. And yet both the good Doctor Kellogg’s cruel circumcision recommendation – and breakfast cereal (specifically designed to reduce libido) – “stuck” in the public’s mind and endure to this day.

After the fear of masturbation became a less compelling reason to cut children’s private parts, the medical industry would still not let go of the practice, as it was so profitable. Since Kellogg’s time, claim after claim, excuse after excuse has contributed to holding the circumcision door open, In the 1970’s nearly every boy in America lost his foreskin. Unfortunately, most trusting American parents are glued to the “circumcision is good for you” sales pitch. They think of circumcision as a surgical panacea for what ails you. In truth, each and every attempt to justify the routine circumcision of infants has been disproved and discarded. Still, they test the waters, blaming every possible physical, mental and emotional aberration on genitals as nature made them.

Doctors continue to circumcise little babies for a few main reasons:

  • They are business people who have bills to pay and circumcision is a quick snip, an easy buck – that unfortunately causes a lifetime of sexual dissatisfaction for the adult and his partner.
  • They have not yet been educated in the important functions of the foreskin.
  • They haven’t yet realized their legal liability. The American Medical Association (AMA) has warned its members to “take the high road of ethics,” but it has not yet warned them of the legal ticking time bomb inherent in this deceptively simple, profitable, profoundly abusive, non-medical procedure.
  • They have not listened to their patients (the babies) as they scream, “No!” at the top of their lungs.
  • They have not listened to their own hearts as their tiny patients scream, “No!”

Tonsils and appendices were finally determined to have important immune system functions, so they are now usually spared the knife. But foreskins are still routinely removed, even though they are healthy human tissue. Studies by Taylor and Cold reveal that the foreskin provides important immune system functions, as well as the tonsils and appendices. If you can teach an old doctor new tricks, perhaps there’s hope for the survival of future foreskins.

In the meanwhile, parents might want to practice saying, “Thank you, but no thank you,” to all their friends, family members and medical personnel who press for circumcision. And once the foreskin has been saved from the human tissue sales industry, you may also need to explain to doctors and nurses that it’s not ok to retract the foreskin – Let Junior do that for himself, in his own time. Foreskin retraction is dangerous, malpractice and should be pursued as such if the M.D. or nurse manages to do the deed. What is it about these people and babies’ genitals?

————

Footnotes:

1. What do Winnie the Pooh and John the Baptist have in common? They have the same middle name.

2. Kellogg, John Harvey. Plain Facts for old and young: Embracing the natural history and hygiene of organic life. I.F. Senger & Co., Burlington, Iowa, 1891, p.111.

You are only as sick as your secrets

Sometimes secrets are intentionally kept. On birthdays we don’t want our friends to know what we are giving them because we want them to be surprised.

Sometimes wonderful, velvet memories are kept secret because they are intensely private and personal. We do not care to share what they are because they might be misunderstood and not cherished by others as we cherish them ourselves.

But then there are the prickly or even stabbing secrets that hurt us then and continue to hurt us now. Those secrets are best aired and released. Continue reading You are only as sick as your secrets