Recently,
pictures from the Hitan series were posted to the CIRCLIST website. These
depict a 12 year old Turkish boy being circumcised in the presence of his male
relatives. The following posting was in response to several CIRCLIST
members who wondered if it was embarrassing for a boy of that age to be
circumcised, especially in front of relatives.
Paulcirc writes, with reference to the Hitan picture series, that for the boy "it must have been embarrassing - actually, embarrassing would have been
a mild emotional reaction - how about shamed?"
Shame is a highly socially conditioned emotion. A well-brought-up and socially aware Victorian hostess would have been mortified if the legs of her piano were not decently covered. In English it is still acceptable to refer to a male barnyard fowl or the tap on a pipe as a cock, but in American this is far too shameful a word to use, and the circumlocution 'rooster' or the otherwise obsolete 'faucet' are required usage instead. I have heard that in some US states there are even criminal penalties for the 'shameful' act of hanging male and female underwear side by side on the washing line.
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From the Hitan Video. The documentary is still available, now on DVD as well as VHS, at http://www.jugend-freizeit.de/borderline/v_39.php
There
is also an important difference between nudity and nakedness. The former is sanctioned by specific social norms, for example justifying
artistic portrayal of the unclothed body, or unclothed activities in a nudist colony. The latter implies an improper lack of clothing and
probably also vulnerability. The obvious examples are Adam and Eve, acceptably
nude until Eve ate the apple of knowledge of good and evil, when they became unacceptably naked and took up wearing fig-leaves.
In
English schools nudity in communal showers was quite acceptable, and provided
many of us with our first sights of both the circumcised and uncircumcised varieties of penis, but we now read that the Department for
Education has issued instructions that these are to be replaced by individual shower cubicles, as the shower facilities are upgraded in a
rolling programme. Some of the pressure for this change has come from Muslims, who generally enforce a prohibition on nudity and a requirement
for modesty.
Around
the Mediterranean, a girl who flirts too freely can bring such shame on her
family that it can (socially, if not legally) justify her brothers killing the lad who has besmirched their sister's virtue, while in Pakistan
the brothers' deadly wrath may be turned on the the girl herself. In Northern Europe such action would be condemned, regardless of the 'shame'
involved.
In
Turkey, the Philippines and Indonesia, as also in Arabia, Pakistan, parts of
Oceania and most of Africa, circumcision is integral to the local culture and very much part of 'becoming a man'. Initiation, in general, has three
stages:
separation, passage, and reintegration, and requires the presence of fully initiated participants to observe the ritual and ensure that the
initiate submits to it fully. These initiates have a strong interest in ensuring that the test which they completed satisfactorily is not
weakened for
later initiates. This explains the wish to make it painful, so that the initiate boy will be sure to remember it. It also justifies breaking
general prohibitions,
for example against exposing the genitals, at least among the group to be initiated and in the presence of the men doing the
initiating. In
the Hitan series, it seems clear that one of the adults present is the boy's father and another is the professional circumciser/medic. Both of
these roles would legitimate the nudity, and indeed near the start of the series we see the father helping the boy to remove his trousers.
In the 'Perfumed Nightmare' series (video clips shown below), there is clearly an acceptable display of nudity and comparison of genitals, to the amusement of the lads awaiting their turn to be cut, and close interest is shown by the adult onlookers. (Indeed, which of us would not take a keen interest if privileged to be present?) In the Hitan series, we see the separation stage as the boy's mother parts from him and presumably urges him to "be a big boy", and the reintegration stage as he puts on his party clothes and his special hat again and (presumably) joins the assembled relatives and friends to receive congratulations and presents.
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The message from PhilCirc describes the eagerness with which Philippine boys arrange to have the dorsal slit, which makes them 'circumcised'. Indeed I have heard, in support of this, that if a boy were to avoid it, he would
later be rejected by all possible girlfriends as soon as they discovered
the presence
of a foreskin. Discussion among Philippine teenagers confirms that circumcision
is the strongly held norm, justified by comments about circumcision being 'clean' and 'Christian' (in a mainly Roman Catholic
Christian
society). This is a perspective on Christianity which (so far as I know) the Pope has not confirmed (yet?) i.e. it is a strongly held local
custom with little or no religious content except what is ascribed by
local belief
and custom.
A regular CIRCLIST
member confirms that in Indonesia "the boys I encountered all looked
forward to being circumcised" and confirms that, in a country in which Muslim observance ranges from the keen to the merely formal, and in which
there are strong Hindu influences and a broad representation of other religions, circumcision has moved from being distinctively Moslem to a
widespread social custom. To leave it until the age of 15, when most boys have it done at 10 to 12, is to risk being thought or thinking oneself a
wimp.
Simon
<A Helk> tells us about a Philippine lad who ran away when his parents told him he was to be circumcised, and refused to come back until they
said they
wouldn't do it. His parents agreed and he never got it done. As Simon says, "So not all of them are keen on it!!" But his explanation follows: "I
guess
growing up in the UK is different from out there and he wanted to be the same as his friends here". This really proves the point that it all
depends on the custom of the society - which could be the wider society
in general,
or the particular religious or social sub-culture where the boy and his relations are located.
The conflict arises when the individual's wishes conflict with the
community's. In Britain a judge recently rejected the application by a Turkish man that his 2-year old son should be circumcised. The English
mother had met the father in Turkey, but the boy had been born in
England, where all three had moved. The man had parted from the boy's mother, with
whom the boy lived, but the judge also cited the fact that the father was not an active member of a Muslim congregation or of a Turkish community
in Britain.
The implication was that his case would have been much stronger if one or both these conditions had been met.
A (circumcised) Englishman married to an Indonesian faces the decision whether to have his sons circumcised, as his wife would consider 'normal', or to conform to the English 'norm', which currently treats foreskins as 'normal'. So far he has avoided a decision, but may have the boys circumcised if they are living in Indonesia when the boys reach the age of 12 or so. I guess his decision as a parent with current care of the children would be supported at law. But he will have to find some persuasive arguments to convince the boys.
So
we should be very wary of assuming that what is embarrassing or shameful in one
society is equally so in another. Even more so, we should beware of generalizing our own individual experience ("in that situation I would be
ashamed or embarrassed") into a universal conclusion ("therefore everyone
else in that situation would also be ashamed or embarrassed").
Tom (UK)
I think the situation in Indonesia (majority circumcised, i.e. the norm) is different to the situation in central Europe where non-medical circumcision is confined to ethnic minorities as in the Nasilsiniz case. The majority of boys, wherever they live, just want to be like their peers whether that means being cut or wearing Nike trainers. If you're not then you may become an outcast and that's difficult to cope with in your formative years.
Two Turkish brothers I know are both pleased and proud to be circumcised but have both grown up in N London - an area where circumcision rate is higher than normal due to the ethnic communities there. They were both done young and have no recollection of the event. I would imagine though that while many Turkish boys may wish to be circumcised to follow their culture that doesn't mean they want to endure the actual operation.
Peter (UK)
I was circumcised at the insistence of my uncles, when I was 10 years old. I was born in Paris in 1973, unlike most of my family that had been born in Chicago. My father had married my mother whom he had met in France, however after the death of my father we moved back to Chicago. I'll never forget the day my cousin walked into the bathroom when I was taking a bath, and saw that I still had a foreskin. When he'd mentioned my "weird looking dick" to his father, my uncle told my mother that I should have that taken care of as soon as possible so that I would be like my cousins. While my mother did try to explain that it wasn't common in France, my uncle insisted that all "red-blooded Americans" were circumcised, and I should be too. She eventually let them have their way.
Now it's not so much that I didn't want to be circumcised, as I had seen my cousins and the boys at the swimming pool and they were all circumcised and I thought it looked good, but I was way too embarrassed to have a number of people discuss this, and worse, see my little penis.
While some of the boys teased me about it, most didn't mention it. I'll never forget my Uncle saying "Boys from good families have that dirty skin removed, and you should too, so you can look like your cousins. Parents who can afford the best for their kids have it done, but parents who are too poor, or too ignorant, leave their kids' dinkies looking like doggie dicks." The worst part for me was the humiliation I suffered at 1) having my skin inspected by my uncles and 2) my mother and all the other women talking about it openly. By the time the actual circumcision was done, I was glad it was about to be over (although a bit scared.) None the less, I did find it very embarrassing and humiliating.
Peter (USA)
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