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I lived long enough at the time of the communist régime and know what the situation was. There were many restrictions and prohibitions which were not stated in any written law. If you went to a hospital and asked to be circumcised just for pleasure they would refuse, emphasizing a hundred medical reasons. But if you took the doctor aside and dropped some cash in his pocket, he would find another hundred medical reasons to do it. The main idea was to stop you from thinking of your own pleasure instead of the "bright communist future" (which of course never came, thank God).... The reason was that if such prohibitions were written into the laws, various international institutions would attack the authorities for breaking and restricting human rights etc, etc.
In that dark 45-year period the communists tried to totally control the private life and even the thoughts and dreams of people. They inculcated in our minds the idea that sex is something very bad, almost a crime, its only purpose being reproduction and definitely not pleasure. You could be in severe trouble if you just kissed your girl- or boyfriend or even your legal spouse in a public place; you could be fired from work, university etc. If you were discovered having sexual relations outside marriage, you could be confined to a remote place for several years. Children were taught that masturbation is great sin leading to psychiatric diseases. The aim was to make you to feel fear, guilt and shame and thus to restrain yourself from doing such things. Insofar as circumcision is in some aspects connected with sex, the majority of men were afraid to undertake it because they could be accused of thinking of sex or just of being different. At that time to be different was not welcomed at all. In the army, circumcised recruits were sent to the worst possible places. At work, if your job required undressing and taking a shower such that your body couldn’t be kept in privacy, the superiors discriminated against you. The same applied in schools.
I want to emphasize that circumcision was not legally forbidden but indirectly made unacceptable. In addition there was no such service available at hospitals. In Muslim community it was done in mosques by imams in quite inappropriate and unhygienic conditions, sometimes with dangerous outcomes. Such religious circumcisions took place in deep privacy because circumcisers would be prosecuted for practicing surgery without medical qualification. The same applied to Jewish people.
Nowadays the younger generation is not burdened with such nonsense and more men want to be circumcised. Some parents want it for their children, although there are many people still carrying in their mind prejudices from the past. But today there is an economic problem. Whilst there are hundreds of clinics offering circumcision services, relatively few people can afford it because the personal earnings are very small (the smallest in EU) and medical insurance doesn’t cover it.
In the cold January of 2008 I stepped into the clinic with mortal fear, as if going to the dentist. But surprisingly the only pain I felt was prick of the first injection in the base of the penis. They asked me how much skin to remove and I said "as much as possible and as far from the head as possible". A nurse gave me a glass of some bitter syrup and then I didn’t feel anything except touching and pulling the penis. I had no idea how long the procedure took; later I’ve been told about 20 minutes. When finished I looked down and was completely astonished. There was no blood, no strings, no knots; just a thin pink line about 3 cm behind the head! The skin was strained and smooth, no pleats, no wrinkles. I asked the doctor how he’s done this and he explained that he used laser cutter, special rings to hold the edges of skin together after cutting, and special glue to stick them together. |
 Photographed one year after surgery |
Also I was given an ointment to apply over the cut several times a day, pills to prevent erection for a week, other pills against eventual irritation and that was it. On the next day the penis swelled slightly in the middle, but by the end of the week that passed. In two weeks it healed completely without any pain, only slight itching at the end of the period. By means of the ointment (French made, also quite expensive), the scar was getting weaker and weaker. Now it’s almost completely invisible; see the picture. Michael Sofia, Bulgaria. |
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Personal testimony of members of the CIRCLIST discussion group.
Islamweb edition date 25 September 2006, article number 136011.
Maps courtesy of www.youreuropemap.com and the Government of Moldova.
