Sexual repression, rationalizations, emotional insulation, avoidance of cognitive dissonance, feelings of competitiveness towards the child on the part of fathers, and transference to the child of anxieties and fears over nonconformity have been commonly noted.
The psychological need to deny that the prepuce is part of the penis and the need to deny that its amputation has negative sexual consequences, or indeed the belief that amputation has positive sexual consequences is testimony to
the seriousness of this problem.
Clearly, the surgery is not performed on the child’s behalf but is paradoxically performed to alleviate the sexual and social anxieties of the parents or the attending physician.
Undoubtedly the person in need of medical attention is not the child, but the parents.
The reasonable prescription in this case is for a qualified psychiatrist for the parents, not a surgeon for the child.
To this aim, Woodmansey made the following sound recommendation in a letter to the British Medical Journal: “Something must be done to help the parents who show such an irrational need".
Consider asking a colleague whose job is to help people with their emotional problems to try to discover and alleviate the parents’ underlying difficulties, which not only impel them to demand this operation but which, if not adequately dealt with, may perpetuate difficulties in the parent-child relationship with the risk of later psychiatric illness in the child...
This important kind of work can and should be undertaken by the medical social workers in a general or children’s hospital, provided that they receive suitable psychiatric support.”
[Woodmansey, A. C. Circumcision. British Medical Journal, 1965; 2:419]
As for physicians, one must ask what sort of person would actually choose to make his living sticking knives into the sexual organs of babies.
One can hypothesize that a severe form of psychotic dementia can result
from circumcision which impels the victim in later life to repeatedly re-enact his own mutilation upon others.
He assumes the role of the perpetrator. This role reversal can be a type of psychological defense mechanism whereby the victim identifies with the perpetrator and his cause in order to rationalize the crime.
He moves from a position of powerless victimization to an illusion of empowerment. It can also be a type of revenge by proxy.
It can also be another form of defense mechanism whereby the victim diminishes the pain and personal identity of his victimhood by ensuring that as many others as possible suffer the same mutilation.
Victims of severe childhood physical abuse grow up to be child beaters themselves as adults.
Are we not seeing the same psychological patterning in circumcisers?
Is it not conceivable that some psychotic circumcision victims have deliberately maneuvered themselves into positions and careers where they can have access to children’s genitals so that they feed their psychotic compulsions?
In the case of this particular psychotic compulsion, there is a socially acceptable arena for this compulsion to be acted out.
There is no socially acceptable arena for the beating of children and those who do so are liable to punishment if caught.
Circumcisers have no fear of being caught. They get paid to harm children!
Some of the more demented circumcisers present themselves as 'medical experts' and claim to be acting in the best interest of their victims.
Many charge that they are being persecuted when sane individuals question circumcision. Thus, they insure that the enacting of their psychotic compulsion remains socially acceptable.
Most psychotic circumcision victims, however, are content simply to circumcise, to play out their compulsion.
They stay quiet just so long as they have access to a fresh supply of babies to mutilate.
To paraphase John A. Erickson:
"It is not circumcision, but circumcisers that need studying."
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
.
