Male genital mutilation

Transcript of Interview by Maureen Primerano of Tim Hammond

MAUREEN PRIMERANO
NEW PARADIGMS
6-25-97

Music down
Maureen: Hello and welcome. I am Maureen Primerano, host of New Paradigms. My guest will be Tim Hammond who is the founder and director of the National Organization To Halt The Abuse And Routine Mutilation of Males. So first I want to commence the program by providing an historical context and also give you some information about Tim Hammond. The United States is the only country in the world that circumcises most of its male infants for non-religious reasons. In fact, male circumcision is the nations most common surgery, performed about three-thousand times a day on newborns with no anesthesia. Why is this the case? How did this happen? Non-religious circumcision was introduced into this country on a very small scale in the 1860's for a single purpose - to halt masturbation. Circumcision was used as a deliberate surgical intervention to debilitate and desensitize the penis. Masturbation phobia lasted until about the 1930's; fueled by male ideas that grew out of Victorian attitudes, pervasive puritan values, sexual guilt, self doubt and hostile public opinion. It was not long before circumcision was advocated for infants, to prevent, rather than cure masturbation. In fact, masturbation was named as the cause of diseases such as blindness, insanity, venereal disease and tuberculosis. By the turn of the century circumcision had become a panacea. Amputation of the foreskin was "scientifically proven" to cure and prevent a myriad of diseases ranging from epilepsy, polio, eczema, hip joint disease and alcoholism. The growth of advertising in the United States also had a strong impact on how people thought about themselves. In order to market a highly profitable class of products for personal hygiene people were first sold the idea that their bodies were dirty and required frequent cleaning. Thus, anything that could help keep one clean was valued and another argument for circumcision was adopted. During World War I and II many soldiers were circumcised by military doctors under threat of court martial. Returning WW II veterans were conditioned to believe that circumcision was the correct thing to do and that it prevented diseases. By the early 1970's over ninety percent of new born boys were automatically circumcised. In 1971 the American Academy of Pediatrics reviewed the medical literature on circumcision and determined that circumcision, after all, was not medically valid. The circumcision rate began to fall dramatically. New medical excuses continued to be invented. For instance, the prevention of urinary tract infections, a contemporary claim, involves flawed logic and an irrational fear and establishes no proven cause and effect relationship to justify this surgery, according to Ronald Goldman in his book - Circumcision, the Hidden Trauma. In fact, all medical claims supporting the surgery have all been disproved by European studies. For instance, Scandinavian physicians oppose circumcision because it is sexually harmful since the foreskin contains exquisite nerve endings which cannot be spared according to Dr. William Robertson. Today, American men, in increasing numbers are becoming aware that they had a right to all of their reproductive organs and that no one had a right to remove part of their body. In 1992 Tim Hammond founded the National Organization to Halt the Abuse and Routine Mutilation of Males or NOHARMM in San Francisco California and has awakened millions of people concerning this cruel legacy. And now, a little information about my guest Tim Hammond who is the founder and director of the National Organization to Halt the Abuse and Routine Mutilation of Males and also the executive producer of a video entitled, Whose Body? Whose Rights? For the past twenty-five years Tim Hammond has been working in many social justice movements including anti-war efforts, environmental causes, women's issues and for the rights of gays and lesbians and people with AIDS. His most recent involvement has been in children's rights advocacy. In 1990 Tim co-founded the National Organization of Restoring Men or NORM, an international network of groups offering moral and technical support to men seeking foreskin restoration. In 1992 he founded the National Organization to Halt the Abuse and Routine Mutilation of Males or NOHARMM, a non-violent direct action network of men working together to end routine infant circumcision through a model of education and empowerment of other men. In 1993 he was the survey coordinator of Awakenings a preliminary poll of circumcised men, an ongoing grass roots investigation of the long term adverse physical, sexual and psychological outcomes to men of infant circumcision. And I believe we have Tim waiting on the line. Hello Tim, welcome.
Tim Hammond: Hello Maureen it is a pleasure to be here.
Maureen: Well, I am delighted that you could join us this evening so we could explore this issue further. It certainly needs it.
Tim Hammond: Well, I appreciate your efforts to do this.
Maureen: Well, thank you. I am delighted to do it. Maybe we could start, Tim, by you telling the listeners a little bit about yourself. Maybe you could impart a bit about your own experience with male circumcision and also speak a little bit about the organization NOHARMM.
Tim Hammond: Sure, sure. Well, like most American males, this was a routine (capital R) part of the birthing process. And, when my mother gave birth in the mid-fifties in upstate New York there was no questioning the doctors. In fact, the doctors never even questioned her, never asked for her consent to do this. It was just part of the package. And so, this was done to me. I grew up like most males in this culture, not even knowing what circumcision was, not even knowing that my penis was not the way the majority of penises are in the world and pretty dumb about it. You know, pretty dumb about male genital anatomy. And it was not until the late 80's that I really began to question this because the issue was getting more media coverage - Phil Donahue, other programs were dealing with this. So, being the inquisitive type, I decided to check it out myself and went to medical libraries and read all I could find on it. And the evidence just did not add up. There was nothing to really support this. And it was at that point that I got in touch with an organization called NOCIRC which was the National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers, got even more about the history of how this started in this country and basically heard about something called foreskin restoration; and thought, 'Well Gee, I don't think my sex life is bad at this time. But if I can improve it by getting my genital integrity back to the way nature had intended it, maybe this is something beneficial. So I embarked on my own personal journey of restoration. And it was through that process that I not only got a better idea of what I was missing; but it also, by working with my body in that way (this is non-surgical restoration by-the-way which I can explain later if you are interested in going into that). It was that process of working with my body that got me in touch with some deep emotions that I did not realize were there. And from talking to other men since then have found out that many men carry these emotions but they have just not been given the outlet for exploring them. And at that point something snapped and I said, "Well, I can try to repair myself but this is ridiculous that we should continue to do this to over a million baby boys in this country every year. And that is when I really became more of an activist for others - going beyond myself and really becoming a children's rights advocate. Because, this is the fundamental right of every human individual to their physical integrity and eventual self-determination.
Maureen: Most definitely. In fact, it seems to me it is really an act of arrogance to take it upon ourselves to try to alter somebody's body when a child is born as though it is not perfect as it is. You know, what kind of a society are we that we know better than nature?
Tim Hammond: It is the exact type of society the, I believe, denigrates women, that has no respect for the more vulnerable people in the society and that essentially treats children as chattel. And I love to get on people's cases when we talk about the other issue of female circumcision because everybody says, Oh how bad that is! And yet, we are pointing fingers to primarily African cultures that are not respecting the bodies of little girls. Yet, we find all kinds of justifications to not respect our boys.
Maureen: Right. In fact, that is a good place to talk about the next thing I wanted to address, Tim. I am going to play the devil's advocate. For those who might say - Oh. Gee. Put this in perspective. After all, we are only talking about a little piece of flesh. It has no purpose. It is, you know, a mistake of nature; which actually is a quote in a urology textbook by Thomas Wiswell, that it was a mistake of nature. So what purpose does the foreskin have? You know, what is the function of the foreskin?
Tim Hammond: Right. That is a really good question and it is something that most people would ask. It is the kind of attitude that most people in our culture, at this point in time, would have. And, I would start off by saying (to put it in perspective) that this is exactly how many people in cultures with circumcised females treat the labia, or treat the clitoris. These are superfluous body parts. They don't understand the function and they are bad for you, they are pathological, they are ugly, they are dirty. they will give you diseases. Let's get rid of them. Well, that is the way we regard the male foreskin in this culture. But to set the record straight, the new evidence from research that was published in the British Journal of Urology last year by Dr. John Taylor says that the foreskin is more densely nerve-laden than any other part of the penis. Even more than the glans, which is the head of the penis. And that enervation of the foreskin makes it an important sensory component of the penis. The other thing that people need to understand about the foreskin is that it, of course, has a protective effect; not only in infancy and childhood but all throughout the male's life. It protects the sensitivity of the glans. And because it is a moveable part of the penis (It is the only moveable part of the penis) it has an effect of enhancing sexual response for both the male and his partner. So what you are doing, when you circumcise a male, is you are amputating the only moveable part of the penis and taking a very dynamic reproductive organ and creating a rather static one.
Maureen: Yes. I think it is also important, Tim, to point out that when unaroused the glans of the penis is meant to be an internal organ, just like the clitoris.
Tim Hammond: Yes, exactly. The female foreskin and the female labia protect the clitoris from the outer environment and that is what the male foreskin is to the male. It is sort of like the labia of the male. It protects the glans, which is an internal organ. And another thing that people don't realize is that we frequently call this a little snip. Well, of course in infancy anything you cut off from an infant is a little snip.
Maureen: Yes, what does it really measure, though, on a full grown man?
Tim Hammond: Well, exactly. You take an average male, five inch in length and around the outside of the penis and the foreskin of an adult man measures roughly about an inch and a half on the outer foreskin and then there is an inner mucosal lining that is another inch and a half. So you have got three inches by five inches of erogenous tissue. That is fifteen square inches.
Maureen: Also, it is not a one size fits all kind of thing.
Tim Hammond: No.
Maureen: Each man has a different size if they retain their foreskin, if it is not amputated.
Tim Hammond: Yes, exactly. Genitalia vary widely both among males and females. So there is no, really, categorizing it. We are very diverse as humans.
Maureen: Yes. What about the fluid, the smegma, which actually is eliminated if the foreskin is removed?
Tim Hammond: Yes. Smegma has gotten a very bad rap in this culture. Smegma is produced both by males and females. People have thought - Oh, well, it is carcinogenic and all of this. Well, that is really myth. There is no medical evidence to support that. What smegma is, is cast off skin cells and small amounts of urine and perspiration and seminal fluid in the male. And then in the female it is all of those things minus the seminal fluid but added small amounts of blood. And, the purpose of smegma (and this is documented in early 1970's sexuologic literature) is a lubricating thing. It is a lubricating substance both for the female and for the male. So smegma is a very important part of the genitals. And, of course, like any body secretion, small amounts are O.K. But you need to learn proper course, like any body secretion, small amounts are O.K. But you need to learn proper hygiene. Just like brushing you teeth and cleaning your ears and all of those wonderful things that we teach kids to do.
Maureen: Right.
Tim Hammond: And it becomes part of their regular health regimen.
Maureen: Right. But we don't have to get carried away with it, like advertising that we have to buy every single deodorant. Just like, for women, constantly all these vaginal things. You know, that your body is not supposed to have a natural odor.
Tim Hammond: Exactly
Maureen: We have just gotten so carried away with that, that people do not know how to appreciate another person's natural smell.
Tim Hammond: Exactly. Pheromones are carried in the perspiration and in small amounts of smegma and this is a sexual (if it is not, of course, let go for several days), it is a very arousing fragrance that helps to initiate sexual attraction. Unfortunately we have been rubbed squeaky clean in this culture. And I think women, certainly, have had plenty of experience with this hygiene craze of ruining their genital pH balance with douches and everything else. So we do not need to rob these important body secretions.
Maureen: No, definitely not. Tim, would it be fair to say that the brutal truth is that no man escapes damage from circumcision, you know, in varying degrees?
Tim Hammond: It depends on what your criteria are for damage. My personal opinion (based on everything I have studied) is that every man who is circumcised, particularly those done as children without their consent is damaged. Because they don't have their intact genital integrity. They don't have the important function of the foreskin. But beyond that there is even more damage that can be inflicted based on a very zealous circumciser who removes not only the foreskin but much of the shaft skin, too. The foreskin, itself, constitutes anywhere from thirty to fifty percent of the shaft skin of the penis; but some circumcisers are so zealous they basically deglove the entire penis of its shaft skin in their attempts to cut every little bit of skin off the penis that might move.
Maureen: Right.
Tim Hammond: Others have progressive sensitivity loss over time. Others have prominent scarring in which the scars are numb or hypersensitive or get irritated very easily. Others have hunks and gouges taken out of the glans because of improper circumcision. If there could ever be such a thing as a proper circumcision. Others have gone, unfortunately, all the way to the loss of the entire penis. There have been deaths attributed to this. And the terrible thing about this in our country is - for the last nation in the world that is doing this so routinely to the majority of our children...
Maureen: We avoid looking at it.
Tim Hammond: And we keep no records. There is no registry of circumcision complications or death attributable to this. And that is something that even the American Academy of Pediatrics admits. They don't know what the true complication and death rate of this is because we are not keeping records.
Maureen: Yes.
Tim Hammond: And when it does happen we tend to cover it up in the medical profession.
Maureen: Right. What has your research demonstrated?
Tim Hammond: In terms of..?
Maureen: The long term consequences of circumcision. The psychological effects. The inability to form lasting, meaningful relationships, fear of intimacy, or...
Tim Hammond: Yes this also has not been investigated by the medical community. What are the long term consequences? And I had heard from men who had contacted the NOCIRC organization, read some of the letters that are on file there and I decided to put it into a form that men could easily check off the boxes based on the types of harm I had read men reporting. And we have surveyed, now, over five-hundred and fifty men and they report: progressive sensitivity loss (especially as they get older), tight painful erections, abrasiveness during sex because there is no cushioning or lubricating effects of the foreskin. They, sexually, have become dysfunctional. Other men have psychological problems. When they do learn that the foreskin had functions and that this was done just for peer conformity (which is why most Americans choose this these days) they feel violated.
Maureen: Sure
Tim Hammond: They feel mutilated. They feel that their human rights to their bodies were violated.
Maureen: Robbed.
Tim Hammond : Exactly.
Maureen: How about alcoholism rates or drug abuse?
Tim Hammond: Well, there is no accurate measure but we did ask men about this and many men reported that the lowering of their self esteem and the sense of damaged body image lead them to depression and they resorted to ways of coping with that, like reliance on alcohol or drug abuse or just unworkable relationships; because they never felt that they could be loved properly because they are damaged goods. And this is something that the psychotherapeutic community is encountering more and more as men come out with these stories.
Maureen: Yes. One of the things that Ronald Goldman points out in his book, Tim, is randomized studies have demonstrated that circumcision is a possible unrecognized factor in the high rates of impotence.
Tim Hammond: That's certainly a possibility. And, you know, it is very interesting because I have tried contacting organizations that deal with impotence and they measure all kinds of things - physical trauma to the genitals and even psychological issues, such as it is all in your head.
Maureen: Yes.
Tim Hammond: I can't get any of those organizations to respond to letters of inquiry saying - did you control for the most obvious thing, the presence or absence of a foreskin? It seems that nobody is really looking at the obvious physiological difference in some men - that some men maybe sexually dysfunction because they don't have a complete penis.
Maureen: Why do you think this practice continues? Why would physicians continue to do this?
Tim Hammond: Well, each segment of this puzzle has a different reason. I mean, mothers seem to have their reasons, fathers seem to have theirs. Doctors, I have found, (through listening to them) most doctors do not support routine neonatal circumcision. They don't like doing them. They are made to do them in medical school. They don't learn anything about the function of the foreskin or the value of foreskin. That is not taught.
Maureen: No.
Tim Hammond: But still they don't like doing it. But they will do it.
Maureen: It's a financial incentive, too.
Tim Hammond: Yes. If parents insist on it. And it is not that they are doing it to make money. They are doing it because they don't want to loose money by refusing to do it and then loosing the parents to their competitors.
Maureen: Right. Since it is a case of take the path that is the one of least resistance.
Tim Hammond: Absolutely.
Maureen: You know, take a neutral stand. Don't be pro or against. Which is kind of a cowardly way to face the issue. Obviously it is not really being faced.
Tim Hammond: It is a cop out.
Maureen: Yes.
Tim Hammond: It is a cop out.
Maureen: Yes. And unfortunately parents, then, are left to decide for themselves and there is really not much literature out there giving the other sides' view.
Tim Hammond: Yes. You know what the most important thing that is lacking from parental information on this issue is? It is what are the functions of the foreskin.
Maureen: Yes.
Tim Hammond: How can you decide whether you are going to have this part of your son's body cut off if you are not being told by the American Academy of Pediatrics or the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (by-the-way the OB's are the ones doing most of the circumcisions in this country). If they are not telling you what the functions of the foreskin are how can you make a truly informed decision about whether this is right for your son or not.
Maureen: Right. The other thing is we really need to face the fact that this country, in particular, is a very sexually repressed one. Even though everywhere you look you see, on TV about sex and everything. But it is usually in a very derogatory way.
Tim Hammond: Right.
Maureen: So people are guilt ridden and any real sexual pleasure isn't encouraged.
Tim Hammond: No. And I think you may have covered this at the very beginning but this whole tradition started, both for boys and girls, in the United States, as a means of controlling their sexuality. It is a very anti-sexual thing to do.
Maureen: Right.
Tim Hammond: It should be obvious. You cut off somebody's genitals, part of their genitals, how much more anti-sexual could that be.
Maureen: Right. Masturbation would be a lot more fun if you had the foreskin.
Tim Hammond: Exactly. And they knew that back then. That is why they started circumcising a hundred years ago in this country.
Maureen: Right. Well, Tim, maybe we could touch a little bit on foreskin restoration in case there are people out there thinking - Gee. I have been mutilated and I want to just go hide away.
Tim Hammond: Sure.
Maureen: I mean, there is hope and could you talk a little bit about that. About what is foreskin restoration. What are the methods?
Tim Hammond: Right. The most common response I get, when I talk to men about the whole circumcision issue is, well, they sort of shrug their shoulders and say - well, it is too late for me. And I say, no it is not. This is the big thing that is changing this whole issue around is men discovering that foreskin restoration is an option. This is an ancient practice. It is nothing new. Jews actually invented it in the Hellenic era to hide the circumcision because their earlier circumcisions were not as drastic as what is being done today. It is documented in the literature. There are two types. There is a surgical restoration and a non-surgical. The surgery is not something that most doctors are familiar with doing in this country because, as I said, they don't learn about the foreskin, basically, in medical school. So they don't know what to try to replace.
Maureen: Right.
Tim Hammond: The methods I am familiar with are not that esthetically or functionally satisfying. There is a non-surgical method using a recognized medical method called tissue expansion. And what that basically involves is putting gentle tension of the shaft skin of the penis using, more than likely, a first aid tape method, pulling the skin forward over the glans. And, over time, the skin will actually grow. This is something that doctors use all the time to grow a patient's skin beyond what it would normally be in order to harvest that extra skin for placement someplace else on the body, as when correcting Siamese twins or burn victims.
Maureen: Is the increased skin surface actual new skin?
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Tim Hammond: It is actual new skin. It, of course, will never replace the original foreskin which was a highly specialized organ. That went in the trash, although nowadays they have a use for that.
Maureen: They are using that.
Tim Hammond: But, basically, what you are doing is you are approximating the look and the function and the feel of the foreskin. I have seen men who have done this. They look very, very natural. I am doing it myself. I have noticed many, many wonderful changes in my sexual functioning that I never knew before as a circumcised man. And it does work.
Maureen: And how long, usually, does it take?
Tim Hammond: It depends on the man. It depends on how severely he was circumcised, how persistent he is and what methods he uses, but it can take anywhere from (I'll be real honest) it can take anywhere from six months to six years.
Maureen: Could I ask a personal question? How long has it taken you to get where you are at this point?
Tim Hammond: Well, quite honestly, it took me many years to find a method that was right for me. Because, when I first got involved in this there was no kind of support out there. There were no books, no videos, no support groups. I started the National Organization of Restoring Men. Men came out of the woodwork, who heard about us, who had been doing this for years. I started that probably about eight years ago and was kind of searching for the right method. It was not until two years ago that I found a method called the restore skin system that works for me and the results have been very dramatic using that system.
Maureen: I see. So it is a procedure that would take a lot of time and investigation, because for each person it might be something different that would work.
Tim Hammond: Right. And I highly recommend to any man that is considering this to get in touch with the organization NORM. They offer moral and technical support, usually in a group atmosphere with other men who are doing this and can share their experiences.
Maureen: Are the results permanent Tim?
Tim Hammond: Yes they are. There is a certain amount of shrinkage with any skin expansion system. But you learn to accommodate for that and go beyond what your final goal is to accommodate that shrinkage. There has been no scientific research on this so we can't say for sure.
Maureen: Right.
Tim Hammond: But it is probably around, maybe a ten percent shrinkage in the skin so you go beyond where you really want to be.
Maureen: I just want to ask a couple of other questions. What can one expect from a restored foreskin? Will its sensual sensitivity return?
Tim Hammond: Right. What happens is, the glans, in an infant circumcision because the foreskin and glans are basically connected by a common tissue called synechia Those are forced apart in order to do the circumcision. That basically scars the glans and then over time the glans then keratinize it. Calluses. Builds extra layers to protect itself. When you restore and recover the glans it is like putting a Band-Aid on your skin and leaving it there for three days. Then you take it off and you notice how much moister...
Maureen: Pink...
Tim Hammond: And sensitive the skin is? That is what happens to the glans. It sloughs off the extra layers of skin that it has built up to protect itself. Then you have the rolling motion of the foreskin, or the facsimile which is highly stimulating. And then you also have the lubricating effect of the foreskin and probably some smegma production. So, it really does approximate the look, function and feel of a real foreskin.
Maureen: I see. And how about the gliding mechanism? Does that start to actually work?
Tim Hammond: It does, it does. Most men who are circumcised from birth have no idea that there is a moving part of the penis and that is the shaft skin and the foreskin as it glides over the head of the penis. And so what you have got is a massaging action that takes place, almost as if it were (to be quite frank) two lips rolling over the glans. And that stimulating mechanism enhances sexual response.
Maureen: And how about the tape method? Does that work for a lot of men?
Tim Hammond: It does. It is probably the only method of skin expansion system. Most methods are going to involve some kind of first aid tape on the shaft skin of the penis. And from there you either use elastic straps to pull the tension forward or some men have used weighted devices. It just depends on what the man is comfortable with and what works best for him. But, yes, there will be involvement of some kind of surgical first aide tape.
Maureen: The book, The Joy of Uncircumcising (which I would definitely recommend it is definitely a tremendous book and thoroughly researched), in this book, it was so disturbing to me (and also wonderful to read) but the fact that men have to do this, to go through all of this, is very unsettling. Because this is something that doesn't only hurt men. It hurts women because there is no way of knowing what a completely full range of sexual relationship would be like if the person were intact.
Tim Hammond: Exactly. And you raise a good point, that all of the research that has been done on female sexuality in this country has been done with women whose partners, the majority of whose partners, have not been coming to them with a full set of genitals of their own. So, women's sexual response is being colored, in this country, by partners who are circumcised. The circumcised penis does not function in the same way as an intact penis does during vaginal intercourse. So our view of women's sexuality is being distorted by this cultural practice.
Maureen: Basically, it stunts the ability to fully experience the full range of emotions and pleasure.
Tim Hammond: Exactly.
Maureen: Let me just reintroduce this show. You are listening to New Paradigms. I am Maureen Primerano and I am talking to Tim Hammond who is the founder and director of NOHARMM. Maybe we could go into a little more about the foreskin restoration because I think that that is really something that people need to hear about. Because there might be people who are too shy or inhibited to admit that they have some sexual difficulties and are suffering as a consequence and don't think that they have any alternative.
Tim Hammond: Well, this is something that men are basically acculturated, not only in this culture but around the world, to trivialize genital cutting. They tend to clam up about any particular harm they might be feeling. They also, as men, are told from the very beginning - Don't cry, be a big boy, hide your emotions..
Maureen: Take it like a man.
Tim Hammond: Don't open up, take it like a man. There are all kinds of cultural messages that we give to women that make them who they are and to men that make us who we are. And opening up and talking about our sexuality and our genitals, in particular, is a very difficult thing and particularly if we feel we have been damaged in that area, that is extremely difficult. Especially in opening up to other men, because homophobia enters into that. And let's face it. The majority of the medical profession is dominated by men, many of whom have had this done to them. They have not really spent much time thinking about it. They have not grieved their loss and they remain insensitive to men who do have a concern. But that is changing. More and more physicians and psychologists are beginning to look at this issue.
Maureen: What are the realistic expectation of reconstruction. I mean, you can never restore what was lost.
Tim Hammond: No.
Maureen: No amount of money can replace that. And you cannot redesign what you might have had. That is the other question I have. How do you know when to stop?
Tim Hammond: Well, when you begin tripping on it, I guess. (Laugh) Seriously, it depends on the individual man. I have gathered, in my own experience from listening to men's stories, that the more severely violated the man feels, the more restored he wants to be - meaning, the longer the foreskin he wants to have. And one of the other sad things about this issue is, from a personal perspective, I don't know what I am trying to restore here because I don't know what my body would have looked like. Would I have had a short foreskin, a long foreskin, loose, tight. I don't know because that part of my body was deprived from birth. So men have varying degrees of measuring their success. Some just want to have a little extra skin so that they can move during masturbation or during foreplay. Others just want the glans covered. And others want lots of foreskin. Each man is an individual.
Maureen: Sure. And I would hasten to add that it would seem to me that it would be very important that if you had a partner in your life that he or she would be very supportive while you were going through this process. Because it could be very alienating otherwise.
Tim Hammond: That is a very important part of the process. And I do have to say from the heterosexual men I have talked to and listened to their wives during the process - at first, of course, it sounded strange. But some of the women have had mastectomies and they expected support from their husbands, and got it, for renewing their body image by having some type of restorative surgery. And these women then, turn around and support their husbands, saying - If this is important to your sense of well-being and your body image I support you. And the women get an extra bonus out of this because they have reported better sexual functioning with their newly restored husbands. And part of that is because they loose some of the lubricating fluids that are essential for comfortable sexual intercourse and with a foreskin that helps retain those fluids and also buffers the clitoris. So, women have found that having a restored husband enhances their sexuality as well.
Maureen: O.K. Tim, we will give out the phone number. If you want to do that now and we will do it again at the end of the show.
Tim Hammond: Sure. Well, if people want to call me directly they can call at 415-8269351. But if people are on the Internet and they want to get some excellent information on all aspects of circumcision, not just restoration and circumcision but the legal, the ethical, the human rights questions?
Maureen: Yes.
Tim Hammond: They can visit www.cirp.org/CIRP. The CIRP stands for circumcision information resource pages.
Maureen: O.K. Tim, maybe we could talk, too, a little bit about the legislative efforts that have been made. For instance, in North Dakota. What was the effect of that?
Tim Hammond: Sure. Well, there were some people in North Dakota that wanted to get legislation passed to protect all children, to protect their genital integrity, boys and girls alike. Equal protection. They went to the legislature. The legislature would not sign on such a bill. So they separated the bills, one into male and one into female. Well the legislature would not address the male bill but they addressed the female bill. Of course, in North Dakota the evidence of female genital cutting is probably nil. But it was a nice symbolic gesture. They passed the state law, actually the first state law in the United States, to protect the genital integrity of girls. The people who got that legislation passed then challenged their own legislation based on lack of equal protection. They got an attorney and they challenged it. They had a plaintiff, a little boy who was circumcised against his mother's wishes because his father wanted it and the mother and son were the plaintiffs in the case. The judges rejected the case for lack of standing. That changing the law would not have done anything to help this child. Although, interestingly enough, many boys are recircumsised. So he would have been put at additional risk if the father said, Gee, you did not take enough skin off. Recircumsise him. That happens quite a bit. Plus the mother, the other plaintiff in the case, could have another son who could be at risk of this. So, it was just the judges way of saying they did not want to deal with the issue by saying that the plaintiffs did not have standing. It was then taken to the court of appeals, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. The judges heard the case and made the same decision - lack of standing. So now a case is being prepared for the Supreme Court to ask the question - Do boys have a basic constitutional right to their bodily integrity that girls seem to have gotten in this culture. And there is a federal statute as well, in addition to North Dakota, California and some other states that have these laws.
Maureen: Is there any hope that this can be outlawed?
Tim Hammond: Well, I am mixed on the outlawed bit. I mean, it is a symbolic gesture. But as we just recently heard from Egypt they had a law outlawing it and banning it from hospitals. But the Islamic fundamentalists had that overturned.
Maureen: Right.
Tim Hammond: But it does serve a purpose in raising the visibility of the issue by taking this case to court and asking the culture to ask itself - Do boys have a right to their genital integrity.
Maureen: And also to protect children because they do not have any say about it.
Tim Hammond: Oh, of course. None of us who are working on this issue would dream of denying an adult the right to do with their body what they want, for whatever reason. But we are talking about children here who cannot protect themselves from the whims of parents and from the assault of doctors and people who want to alter their bodies for their own fears.
Maureen: Right. It really is a form of child abuse.
Tim Hammond: It falls in that category because there is no medical reason for it and you are depriving someone of the full functioning of their reproductive organs. We have been doing this for thousands of years to little boys and girls and there has never been any research on the long term consequences. However, there is plenty of speculation based on preliminary research. As Maureen said, in Ron Goldman's book Circumcision the Hidden Trauma, what does inflicting a violent traumatic experience on a newborn do to their concept of safety in the world, their sense of betrayal and trust? There has been a lot of speculation about sexual violence against women and the incidence of genital cutting of males.
Maureen: The other thing that it can do is the opposite. You know, people become really withdrawn and live in a shell and are afraid to reach out to anybody.
Tim Hammond: I think that is also a valid point. But, as I said, there has not been any research. One of the things that NOHARMM is trying to do is ask these questions and say to the professional community - Don't you think it warrants some investigation before we continue to cut another boy in this culture.
Maureen: Tim, I wanted you to just briefly, because we are really getting up near the end of the show, briefly talk about the video that you produced.
Tim Hammond: Yes. The video was an outgrowth of the awakening survey of men and how this has effected them. But as I got into the production of it basically said to me, Gee, people need to know all these other basics first before they can understand how these men have been harmed. So, the video is called Whose Body? Whose Rights?
Maureen: Is it available?
Tim Hammond: It is available through video finders on an 800 line.
Maureen: Oh. What is the 800 number?
Tim Hammond: 800-343-4727.
Maureen: 1-800-343-4727
Tim Hammond: Right. And it deals with history, anatomy, function, consequences, legal, ethical, human rights, activism. The men's movement. It is a real good video primer on the subject. I highly recommend it.
Maureen: O.K. And you've mentioned to me that it actually got some really good reviews. It has actually been in several festivals. It won the creative excellence award last year at the U.S. international film and video festival and it will be screened this summer at the American Psychological Association annual convention in Chicago.
Maureen: Hallelujah.
Tim Hammond: So it is being recognized.
Maureen: Good. Good. OK Tim, in closing, what is the biggest lesson we can learn from this and how can people work towards stopping it. And if they want to get in touch with you for resources and information.
Tim Hammond: O.K. Well, I guess the biggest lesson that can be learned from this is children are people. Children are individuals. The minute they come into the world they are endowed with inherent human rights to physical integrity and eventual self determination. And we, as adults, need to speak for those children and protect them and protect their rights. And if people are interested in learning more about this they can contact me at NOHARMM at 415-826-9351.
Maureen: O.K. Do you want to say that phone number again, please?
Tim Hammond: Sure. 415-826-9351.
Maureen: O.K. And why not give your address, too.
Tim Hammond: Sure. If they want to write they can write to NOHARMMM P.O. Box 460795 in San Francisco - 94146.
Maureen: Well, thanks so much. I am really grateful that you could be on with me tonight Tim.
Tim Hammond: Well, it goes too quickly, doesn't it?
Maureen: It does. It is an issue that, you know, a lot of people say - What is there to talk about? But there is a lot to talk about.
Tim Hammond: We need to do five more shows on this topic.
Maureen: Yes. And I intend to do another one. But it will be a while because I have shows lined up.
Tim Hammond: All right.
Maureen: Stay in touch O.K?
Tim Hammond: Will do.
Maureen: Thanks a lot. Take Care.
Tim Hammond: Thank you. Goodnight.
Maureen: Bye Bye.
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Maureen Primerano is producer and host of New Paradigms, a talk show broadcast from KMUD in Northern California.