/r/CircumcisionGrief
A place to discuss the negative emotions that may come along with being circumcised without your consent as an infant or regretting getting circumcised as an adult.
A place to discuss the negative emotions that may come along with being circumcised without your consent as an infant or regretting getting circumcised as an adult.
/r/CircumcisionGrief
Pretty much the title...
My partner's sister is expecting. They will 100% cut him (very conservative Pakistani Muslims). Normally I'd try all my intactivist moves, but I have already been working on my partner for a year now and although he is not against the practice, he is open to not doing it for his own son if we were to have children. However, his sister...there is no chance. Even if SHE doesn't want to, the whole family and village will disown them if they don't. This child is doomed.
I am spiraling as a result. It's triggered both my own trauma and unfortunately I have OCD related to this issue so now I have intrusive thoughts about it 24/07 talking to me about how the child will be tortured, maimed and mutilated.
How do you guys cope with this? I cannot save this child and it's breaking me.
I'm not from a country where circumcisions are made, so I just wanna hear your pov as someone who might do it further in the future
I'm currently moving again. About a year ago I needed a baby pic for some "cute activity" at work where we all tried to guess what baby pic was who. So I pick up the binder of old baby pics and go through it again. Not sure why, I hated my younger self (as if I don't hate myself now) and I hate kids now. I stumbled upon a pic I forgot about. A pic dated my birthday. A pic of newborn me being handed over to my parents seconds from birth. Nurses hands holding me over to my mother. A pic of me where although I cannot see it, I am normal. Born the way human males are supposed to be. I immediately start having a panic attack. Knowing that this may be the only pic where I know I'm normal. Feeling anger as literal minutes after that I may have been getting even away to those same hands to be disfigured cause of some bullshit cultural brainwashing. Now I'm just typing this up and sitting in a mostly abandoned room not wanting to do anything.
My wife's cousin just announced her first pregnancy. I (circumcised male) said after everyone was talking about birth and whatnot "there is one other conversation to have about this, but only after we find out the gender."
She said "are you talking about circumcision???"
I said "Yeah. Don't do it!"
Pandemonium ensued. Her mother was like "No, you HAVE TO." I stood firm and said "No. You're wrong. And it is wrong to cut off the most sensitive parts of the penis." I made all the points that were to be made. Refuting all the arguments by asking my own, uncircumcised sons "do you have those problems?"
My wife, who agrees with me, but is also one for keeping the peace and of course was embarrassed that I even brought it up, was like "let them make their own decision". I said "Or they could let their child make his own decision when he's an adult." "Let them do their research and make their own decision." I said "ok, I'll send you a link."
Maybe it's beacuse of all the weight I lost, but my di*ks been chafting like crazy recently. It was an occasional annoyance and reminder of what I see as my mutilation, but god. It's mostly at work, walking back and forth in the gas station. For almost my entire shift, which are only usually 4-7 hours, i have a constant half chub the whole time. It constantly rubs against my boxers, usually switching between a pleasant throb which gets more blood flowing, to just irritating. Not to mention im already self conscious enough as it is, and it just makes it worse. My tempers been on the fritzs, too, and being agitated the entire time certainly doesn't help.
Ps. Anyone know any good lotions for said chafting? My tip and glans have always been dry. Hell, a few years ago in high school, it PEELED! The whole tip, glans, everything man. It itched like crazy, and scared the hell outta me. Thought it was gonna fall off or something lol
I’ve been reflecting on how unique and personal sexual experiences are, especially when it comes to masturbation and people who were circumcised. I’m curious—what does masturbation feel like for you, from start to finish? If you're comfortable sharing, I’d love to hear about the sensations, emotional states, or even any techniques that stand out to you.
For those who were once intact, or are far along in their restoration journey, how would you describe the differences in sensation or experience before and after? Did anything specific change about the buildup, the climax, or even your emotional connection to the act?
In what way does it make sense to demand those who have been harmed by this mutilation to contribute and work for a society that actively harms them at every opportunity.
Imagine you are a plumber. You arrive to the job site with a van full of tools for the job. All of a sudden a police officer steals your van and now your expected to replumb an entire building/house.
They want you do your job without any of the tools you were supposed to have. What seemed like a hard task has now become almost impossible. The client sees that you are not equipped for the workload and you are then fired. You are sent on your way with no tools, money or support. Now it's all on you to figure out how to get your equipment back so you can get back to doing what you should have been doing. All you wanted to do was live and make some money, but someone else decided that you should suffer for even trying.
Just like many others if I didn't need to eat I would not be working. It can seem like it's just a strategy to cause trauma and ruins lives so those in position of power/status/money never have to go against fully equipped competition.
I don’t really know what to say I kind of just want to share my story I guess.. I’ll start by saying something which I guess is kind of obvious since I’m posting here but I hate the fact that I was circumcised. Even as a young child I remember when I was looking at my penis and I was wondering why there was something that looked like a scar on it.. and being my little self I came to my own conclusion that this strange appendage must have been attached to me after I was born.. later of course I learned what a penis was in school and kind of forgot all about it until about halfway through high school when I learned what circumcision was.. when I learned about it I researched it a decent bit and I was angry that I had been a victim of this but I came to accept it.. however more recently as I have started to become more sexually active (I’m gay) and the guys I have been with are all uncircumcised I’ve become more and more angry with what was done to me.. I genuinely hate myself because of it.. nobody has commented on it I just feel like I definitely have to worse option.. it looks worse it feels worse.. just everything about it is awful.. and I can’t get over this and I don’t know what to do.. I’ve looked into restoration but I’m not sure I’d be able to do that.. years of work to get something that will never be able to compare to what I should’ve had.. I know there is foregen but I know it’s going to look different than a normal penis no matter what.. I wish I could just accept this and move on but I can’t.. and then I just become overwhelmed if I think about it (which happens any time I have a horny thought, have to pee, shower, it touches my leg, or whatever else) and sometimes I start to shut down.. this makes it especially hard to enjoy myself with other guys.. 😑 if anyone is reading this and thinking of circumcising their children please do not since it will effect them in more ways than you could probably imagine
Will such a doctor be fired from the health care system?
I wish you guys a Happy Thanksgiving, but if you can't bring yourself to be happy today, that's O.K too. It's also understandable to feel a mixture of emotions around the holidays. I won't be thinking of circumcision during every single moment of today, but your guys' cries will be in my mind throughout many parts of the day, even more so than usual - holidays and visiting family brings those feelings out extra in me.
So, for what it's worth, Happy (or not) Thanksgiving!
People talk about losing sensitivity from circumcision, but will that be an issue if you were never able to touch the inside in the first place?
I will be holding a peer support meeting via Zoom for men harmed by circumcision at 4.00pm Australian western time on Sunday December 8.
For those interested, please message me for the Zoom link.
This meeting is open to all men who have been harmed by circumcision.
I completely understand that restoration will not regrow the nerves that were severed as an infant. But what I don't get is how does a restored foreskin function (stay in place, retract properly, etc.) without a frenulum?
Is that sex and masturbation done? In the last couple of weeks, I haven't been able to ejaculated at all. I can rub it against a pillow, or try and use my hand and lube, nothing will happen. I might get hard, but nothing else. I don't feel anything happening, just my brain thinking the thoughts that got me erect. I tried for 30 minutes last night, never got close to any kind of ejaculation. This has been repetitively happening for the last few months where I'm genuinely numb to anything. Like, not any feeling at all, like stroking the end of your elbow for a good comparison.
Is this normal for a mutilated man like myself? Am I just genuinely fucked?
And a massive fuck you to my dad, if he's reading my posts(which he has been doing in the past). You violated my consent and cut off most of my nerve endings and brutally took away a huge part of my life. You're a twat and a narcissist that mutilated me and claim it's for my own good.
My friend on X kept telling me to join this community but I have been very hesitant of doing so because I know that Reddit is a very triggering place for me in general so I don’t use it regularly and I feel nervous about joining and making this post. I already know that the posts here are going to be very triggering to read. I don’t like the word mutilation being used to describe me even tho I defined as such by most members here.
So needless to say I’m desperate for help.
Everyday is a huge struggle. It’s getting harder and harder. Now I can’t have sex without feeling so unlovable and jealously angry.
I text my mom everyday that I hate her etc
I don’t think there’s a solution but apparently coming here and posting about it is going to help.
I see this sentiment being posted a lot in this sub, using the argument that its too engrained in muslims for their to be any real result of intactivism in their countries. However, my observations lead me towards the question: have intactivists even tried? With circumcision discourse being almost exclusively focused on mutilation in america and judaism, intactivist organizations seem to not have done much organizing and educating in muslim countries, actually far less than even in israel.
I question the claim that convincing muslims to stop mutilating boys is impossible compared to convincing americans, especially flyover state americans. These are the reasons:
American support of MGM is based on pseudomedical justifications regarding medical benefit, and is thus based on some sort of logical reasoning, however flawed it may be as well as appealing to medical authorities(WHO, APA). Muslim circumcision is based on religion and blind cultural conformism, and is thus irrational and done without much thought, emotional attachment or justification.
In my experience, americans, european and in general secular people who support circumcision are much harder to convince, since they rationalize the procedure as medically beneficial, and tend to appeal to medical authority, and in my experience, people even in religious countries believe medical authority more blindly than religious or cultural norms. I noticed american and european procutters have rock solid belief in the AIDS, STD, UTI, phimosis prevention, etc justifications, and because these are promoted by authoritative(in their eyes) medical orgs, you have to have a similar level of medical authority, in order not to be viewed as a fringe quack(i.e. "I wont listen to you because the doctors in my midwestern hospital said its beneficial and you're not a doctor"). In their eyes, MGM is engrained in their perception of legitimate medicine.
Meanwhile, intactivism combatting religious justifications for MGM in islamic countries would be easier if done more because:
-In the vast majority of muslim countries, people are secularizing and not following islamic lifestyles, so intactivists can argue that since muslim women aren't wearing hijab, few muslims are praying 5 times a day, despite it being mandatory, circumcision which causes much more trauma and lifetime discomfort, shouldn't be viewed as fundamental to their islamic identity.
-emphasize the superiority of quranic verses over hadiths when they contradict each other(i.e. authentic hadiths say MGM is Wajib(mandatory), but the quran says man is perfectly formed)
-emphasize that an uncircumcised muslim with iman practicing piety is more muslim than a circumcised muslim drinking alcohol and not praying 5 times a day.
-make analogies that just because hadiths making MGM Wajib are considered Sahih, doesn't mean they couldn'tve been fabricated, since a lot of Sahih hadiths have outrageous content(such as the prophet being breastfed, or the prophet learning stoning for adultery from watching monkeys stone monkey adulterers)
-emphasize the hypocrisy that children are protected from getting tattoos or peircings without their consent in islam(due to them being haram), but circumcision which is far more serious and damaging bodily modification is enforced.
-emphasize that if islam respects womens' rights not get FGM(in the vast majority of islamic countries), boys should be protected too.
-lean on to the widespread antisemitism in muslim countries, and portray MGM as an evil brought by jews, and that muslims should be better than jews by abandoning the practice
-in countries like turkey and Iran, lean towards common anti-arab sentiment among secular nationalistic people there and educate circumcision as something forced upon them by arabs, and that circumcision dilutes turkishness or persianness.
-Since anti-americanism and distrust towards american international institutions is widespread among muslim countries, exploit that sentiment whenever a muslim cites the APA(i.e. "would you really trust the islamophobic kuffar doctors who denied radiation poisoning in iraqi children and gave vaccines with mercury to the african ummah?")
All of these arguments are more efficient than futilely trying to convince a secular cutter on the street that the HIV studies in africa are flawed.
TLDR Muslims in islamic countries in general will give more low hanging fruit arguments for male circumcision which will be easier to debunk and counter using emotional appeal, thus leading to more success.
Hey,
I hope it's ok for me to vent in here. If not, I apologize ahead of time.
I have known for awhile that I had an issue, my foreskin couldn't retract properly when aroused and I discovered this was due to the skin being attached to the glans on the underside. I thought this was a case of frenulum breve, so I went to a urologist to get checked out.
I explained my issue and showed him, pulling the foreskin back almost entirely when flaccid, to which he claimed I shouldn't need any treatment. He said that after looking for 10 seconds, not up close, no actual examination. He didn't ask if I had any problems with function, so I had to volunteer that the foreskin couldn't be retracted when aroused. That suddenly changed his tune and he suggested I could go for some elective 10 minute surgery. He never mentioned circumcision, just told me I'd need general anesthesia, would have recovery for a few weeks and couldn't have sex for a month.
I guess he just assumed I knew what he was talking about because he didn't give any details what the surgery would entail, didn't offer any alternative problem solvers like steroid cream or stretching, and he never told me any negative side effects of circumcising. If you want to call me stupid, that's ok, maybe I am. I've been replaying and replaying the meeting in my head and finally concluded when I mentioned the inability to retract foreskin that he wrote down phimosis as my problem and NOT the skin adhesion that was causing it, the phimosis being symptomatic, and thus I was scheduled to get cut.
I should mention that I knew perhaps I could need circumcision for my problem but I wanted it to be LAST resort. Again, maybe it's stupid ignorant me for not stating that upfront. I thought simplistically that he being the medical professional, had to explain to me what he planned to do to MY body.
Anyway, scheduling nurse called a couple days later and said I was signed up for circumcision. I corrected her and said I had only a skin adhesion and wasn't getting the whole job done. She said the term was used to broadly cover all penile related surgery, so I believed her and thought I was ok. I asked about steroid creams and she said if the doctor hadn't recommended them, it probably wasn't deemed helpful.
Waited two weeks for the surgery and day before was given a brief call telling me what I should do for prep, but no word on what was being done to me.
The day of the surgery I wasn't told by the anesthesia nurse or the IV assistant what was happening to me, and when the doctor came in he only asked where I wanted medication prescribed, and told me I was going to have a bandage on that would fall off in 24 hours. I was still lying there thinking these could be related to just a skin adhesion surgery because he had told me in the first meeting the surgery would take 10 mins. I found out later circumcision takes at least 30. I had no time to ask him a question before he left.
After that I got wheeled into the operating room and they told me to tell them what was happening to me. I said I was there for phimosis surgery which was what the one nurse told me I was there for. I guess that was consent enough because I was put under shortly after.
I wake up and discovered to my chagrin that they'd chopped my foreskin off.
That was 3 weeks ago and I have been struggling ever since. Between the pain, stitches, midnight painful swellings I have been getting little sleep. Today I'm pain free but I slept fitfully again last night. I feel violated in some ways. My penis has felt broken all month. I wrestle with grief, anger, and shock.
I didn't ask for this, I was never clearly told I was getting circumcision by the doctor. He just jumped to the most radical form of treatment without a second thought, never asking me what I wanted, never suggesting any other treatment to me. I feel like I was just a number to him, not a patient. He just went with what was easy for him and didn't give a **** about what worked for me.
I'm a grown adult who voluntarily went in for treatment. So, you can blame me if you want, I know this is the internet. I probably was very stupid and naively trusting the doctors. It's my fault.
I am sorry if this post isn't allowed, you can delete it if so. I have talked with my family a bit to vent about this because otherwise all these feelings well up inside. I have been stressed and struggling to sleep. I am hoping some of this will go away with time once my body heals but I feel used and disregarded.
fuck them all
why do deniers refuse to accept reality? i hate them, they're the real issue, being complacent with their situation. so fucking pathetic
Why did I write this... Once again I am convinced that the main reason for the existence of circumcision is the simple GREED AND FRAUD OF DOCTORS.
Gynecologists and surgeons also cold-bloodedly destroy women's sex lives, for "medical reasons" and imposed "aesthetic reasons" with manipulation of women's self-esteem. I had a lump in my throat when I read this phrase of a girl "my surgeon made me feel like I NEEDED it". Girls have complexes about enlarged labia. FUCK! I love to chew this miracle of nature with my lips, why cut it off.
I was shocked how similar this is to the problems with male circumcision: loss of sensitivity, anorgasmia, damage to the clitoral nerves, removal of the frenulum, reduction of the clitoral hood, swelling, painful scars. - does this remind you of anything? Absolutely identical.
The "doctor" will cut off any part of your body if it is profitable for him, the bastard will find a thousand "medical reasons" and "advantages", he does not care about your health, the Hippocratic oath has long been a shitty fiction.
Keep taking care of and loving yourself.
I was circumcised at birth and I have always struggled with depression and felt the need to have something since my teen years. Rather it be alcohol, smoking, drugs, whatever. I believe that circumcision (even in "good" outcomes) cuts us off from the natural pleasure centers of our body, which makes us exponentially more likely to experience depression and/or use substances on a regular basis to fill the pleasure gap. There were no external factors to my dark depression growing up.
Intact men can experience pleasure all the time (i.e. anejaculaory orgasms), sometimes even on accident like by grazing it the right way. It makes more and more sense the more you think about it.
Only since restoration have things really improved since I'm able to actually feel sexual pleasure now, and have begun to experience things that I thought I never would. Being able to feel that whenever you want is definitely life altering.
But there is no doubt in my mind that my pitch black depression and drug abuse was caused by my infant circumcision. It shaped me into who I am today, and restoration, as positive and life changing as it is, can never fully undo that.
Beneath the surface, the smile I put on for people, there is an empty void where a person should be. Hatred. Darkness. Despair.
There is a website and an address in Rome. Who says it is not just a marketing office that actually only collects donations?
I tore my new foreskin and I'm going to see urologist, chances are I'm getting circumcised again to prevent catastrophic infection, please , not again I can't start over restoring. I'm scared. I'll life but I'm so nervous...
wondering what everyone else feels, it's all for me personally