Male Initiation and the Phimosis Taboos
I started researching The Phimosis Taboos in 1996. The following is developed from a letter i wrote in Dec. 2020 after a long break from the subject. It makes a rather personal summary. But it's a good introduction to me and this subject.
I originally wanted all boys to be checked. In the 1900s this was customary medical procedure. These days internet videos would be more practical.
German statistics said 8.8% of boys have problems with phimosis – this was established in the flaccid state and didn't check my two conditions: relative phimosis and frenulum breve. There are about 20 different forms of phimosis, different combinations of different degrees of these two main conditions.
Statistics for frenulum breve are only measured in pigs and bulls at around 5% – farm animals are checked by the British breeding association because "Copulation failure in food animals can be economically devastating to producers." – The deeper we get into it the crazier it gets!
Let's explain it properly even if it takes a few paragraphs. It's been 12 years since i wrote anything about it and maybe now i can explain it without getting too worked up.
The English statistics are between 1% and 2% – the big study publicised in the English speaking world, was conducted over a 7 yr. period, where the boys were checked every year and educated about foreskins. The doctor writing the study tells us this, but never took into account that his checking and education raised awareness and that this encouraged boys to experiment with and stretch their foreskins.
His study is widely requoted, i collected 13 examples, all quote him differently because his maths was so confusing. And this all passed through the BMJ's vetting process, and other reputed medical journals. The German study was never quoted anywhere; however in Germany around 5 years after this study, they started monitoring school boys for phimosis.
There are so many crazy aspects to the story. I got lots of letters from Germans who had been forced into circumcision at 6 yrs. old, and very few knew why. And many needed an operation for the frenulum at 18, (the age you can go to a doctor yourself without parental consent).
Still that was better than the UK where many adults were like me, totally without information and then have year long waiting lists for an op.
Chapter Two: From Innocence to Ignorance
So i wrote letters to medical journals but no-one was interested. I was getting 2-3 letters a day from men with problems, with practically none of them willing to "stand with me", it was just too embarassing, with social bullying online and negative social stigma offline.
It was a massive taboo subject, and no-one could even think about it – i knew it was a horrible subject, in the first months it used to turn my stomach – but i felt it unavoidably deep in my conscience and i had to carry on.
There was an emotionally charged anti-circumcision group online (civil rights, USA circ'd at birth) and a contra pro-circ. group (rather cold and intellectual) and both groups existed in force long before internet started. Even doctors could only think in terms of should boys be cric'd or not.
There are lots of things i'm not saying .. but must mention the medical studies which say phimosis causes pain and difficulty at the beginning of puberty or by intercourse. And this is general medical knowledge.
However these difficulties are hardly ever mentioned, (except by the wonderful Grewel who talks of a taboo in the medical profession) and never fully researched and understood. And no-one (except Beauge) mentioned that healthy non-masochistic boys, obviously would avoid pain and difficulty and thus develop avoidance behaviours.
Beauge described the mechanics of masturbation with phimosis, but he never explored the sexual fantasy which went with such methods, or the resultant social attitudes and behaviour.
No-one seems to have looked into this area of the sexual fantasy, or the resultant social attitudes and behaviour. My Chapter Two contains personal letters on a variety of experiences, and discusses the obvious psycho-sexual attitudes, which develop with frustration and inhibition, from what the doctors know and define as painful and difficult foreskin, ... why has no-one done this before? how much longer will it remain a taboo?
And i must mention the psychologists at Hamburgs Institute of Sexual Research (i live in Germany). They told me "you wouldn't believe how many people we've seen who believe that foreskin problems are the cause of their sexual problems" and then tried to convince me that i too suffered from this delusion.
Chapter Three: Anthropology
Then comes the anthropology. I thought if i could show phimosis was the cause of the routine circumncision tradition, then surely everyone would wake up to the phenomenon.
I discovered that in 1876 Ploss, (an emminent much respected German anthropologist), wrote that phimosis was the origin of the circ traditions. In 1912 one of his students revised his book and refuted his idea. The original Ploss, is practically non-existant nowadays. All other anthropolgists consider phimosis so rare that it couldn't be the origin of the circ. tradition.
We're talking about 40,000 yrs. ago – way before Abraham – tribal groups with extended families of about 30 with 15 males. When measuring statistics they are only valid when you have a sample group of e.g. 3,000 as in the German study, giving 8.8%. Simply because small groups always show fluctuations.
So, my personal experience here was that after my op. i went back to Birmingham to talk with my Dad, and found that 2 months earlier he had been circ'd because of an old age phimosis (as the skin shrinks practically all males over 70 get this) AND my nephew had been rushed to hospital with a paraphimosis (foreskin traps behind the glans - glans swells up – happens in about 0.5% of boys).
So in our family group there was a 75% epidemic. It was a curious coincidence, and i realised that, but i also realised that such coincidences would have occurred among natural peoples. And that they would look for practical answers rather than analyse all the 20 conditions which can occur and then write www sites about them. So regardless any modern statistics, routine circumcision was introduced as a practical measure at a time of coincidental high incidence.
For me though, the importance of my subject, is the modern day repercussions. Since the Greeks and Roman proud foreskinned statues till the late 1800s, there was no awareness or easily available treatment for 'phimosis' – the entire western civilisation has suffered and been literally 'conditioned' by this taboo.
In animal herds, phimosis is probably an advantage because it means some Alpha animals dont compete in the mating rituals, and they are free to care for the group.
But in a monogomous society, it means both the women and the men were frustrated, maybe one in eight relationships in chaos, either your brother sister father son daughter etc. was influenced by it. – over generations, insinuating its way through the whole culture into the cultures habits - reinforcing inhibitions and tendancies to lonliness, confusion, lack of love.
This means numerous spoiled and painful first love/sex experiences. Reinforcing all non-penetrative sex from dominas' slaves to pedophiles, and the male violence which is so frequent among sexually frustrated. Especially indicated are cases of rape without penetration, but the list of substitute activities for frustrated sexuality is endless.
The entire situation is ridiculous. The blindness of Medical professionals and Journals, WHO and government dept. of Health. I know i have no university degree, but there has to be a place for truth and simple talking and open minded intelligence.
This is a basic chaos factor in our culture. And it's all so very stupid. The modern solution to these problems could be incredibly simple, with a few drops of enzyme solution to release any stubborn painful epithelial adhesions between glans and foreskin, at an early age. This would enable boys to play with and stretch any phimosis out of their own foreskin.
The earlier a boy can develop a pain-free, comfortable relationship with his essential physical and anatomical maleness; the more chance he will develop a healthy sexual relationship with himself and others.
NEW PAGES
NEW INDEX PAGE – Male Initiation and the Phimosis Taboos2020 SUMMARY – The Four Chapters
2021 UNDERSTANDING PHIMOSIS – Its Consequences and Early Prevention
2021 PHIMOSE VERSTEHEN – Ihre Folgen und Frühzeitige Prevention
OLD INDEX PAGE – Male Initiation and the Phimosis Taboos
You will need an old fashioned desktop screen to read all the other pages.
Welcome
Chapter One:
The Conditions
Chapter Two: From Innocence to Ignorance
Library of Letters and Case Histories
Chapter Three: Anthropology
Chapter Four: Solutions
If this subject interests or concerns you – please Contact Me