Sep 11, 2023
When I was born in the early 1990s, my mother chose not to have me circumcised. She did the same for my older brother. She’s a nurse, and she knew it wasn’t medically beneficial the way everyone makes it out to be. But we were unusual for American boys. And even though she had insisted on it at our births, we just didn’t talk about it. We weren’t super-open about discussing these things. (Our father, who had wanted us to be circumcised to “look like him,” was no longer around when we were growing up.)
By the time I got to middle school, an age when kids become more sexually aware, it dawned on me that having a foreskin was unusual. I overheard other kids talking about how gross they thought an uncircumcised penis was. It especially affected me when a girl said it.
When you’re a young boy coming of age, you’re trying to figure out a lot of things. In sex-ed, circumcision wasn’t talked about too much. Everyone assumed it was the norm, but the pictures didn’t look like my penis, and I wasn’t going to raise my hand as a 12-year-old.
It eventually got so I couldn’t change in the locker room because I didn’t want people to see. I was so insecure and shy about being different from everyone that when I was 17, I spoke to my doctor about being circumcised. She was a really down-to-earth doctor, and she told me it was unnecessary to do so. She said, “You’re very used to having a foreskin, and it could be something you’ll regret.” Still, she said if it was my wish, she would put me in touch with somebody. I got nervous and decided not to do it.
In truth, a part of me truly liked being uncircumcised, but I was embarrassed to admit it. It took me a long time to come to terms with it. The turning point came when I was 25 and living with a roommate, a woman from Canada who had been in the U.S. for a little while. She glimpsed my penis accidentally one day. We had a comfortable rapport, and some time later we were talking when the conversation turned to circumcision. She said the procedure is rarely performed in Canada and that she had never seen a circumcised penis. This opened my eyes. That’s when I put it all together. I felt validated, realizing this is not as uncommon or weird as I once thought it was. To hear a woman my age in my friend group say she thinks it’s wrong and can’t fathom why anyone would do that to a child set me on a more confident path. After our conversation, I went online to learn more about how it’s viewed around the world.
That’s where I started my journey to understand the issue from a global perspective, and today I’m 100 percent glad I’m intact. Over time, I realized that I honestly like the look of it. My penis is not mutilated or scarred. I think it’s aesthetically pleasing. I hope anyone who feels alone and weird like I did as a kid knows that they’re absolutely not alone. In fact, outside of the U.S. and a few other places, most of the men in the world are just like you—intact
— Luke Davis
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Jul 21, 2023
I am a circumcised gay male, and one of my earliest sexual relationships was with someone who was intact. That was when I found out what a foreskin was and first heard of circumcision.
This was all new to me. Growing up in the U.S., we never learned about the foreskin in school. I just thought a circumcised penis was what a natural penis looked like. I became really curious: Why was the foreskin cut off when I was a baby?
In my initial research about 15 years ago, everything about circumcision online was misinformation about how it’s good for you: It prevents STDs, it’s cleaner, and all the different reasons that Americans have to justify it. So in the beginning, the research made me feel better about it.
But as I got older, I encountered more men who were intact. They were clearly enjoying sex more; it was a more pleasurable sensation for them. So I did more research and came across Intact America and other organizations that try to educate the public on the harms of circumcision. I quickly realized all the things I had read to justify circumcision weren’t valid reasons to do that to someone at such a young age without his consent.
That’s when I started to feel really bad about it. I felt disabled in a way. By now I knew the foreskin has a valuable function; without it, I felt like I was missing a limb. So a little over six years ago, I decided to try foreskin restoration. It was a big decision, and it’s a lot of work. I have gained back some of the mobility a foreskin provides during sex, so the skin will glide up and down the shaft. I’m glad to say it’s increased sensation a lot. And having the skin over the head of the penis has made the glans more sensitive and moist.
Restoration is not easy though. It’s an emotional, never-ending process. So much skin is cut off during circumcision that it can take nearly a decade of consistent foreskin restoration to gain back the amount of skin amputated. It takes a lot of patience, time and perseverance, and at times I want to give up. But it makes me feel empowered in a way to get some of the function that was taken from me. I’m hoping one day in the future I’ll be happier with my body.
A couple of years ago, I talked to my mom about it. I just wanted to share my feelings with her and hear the reasons she gave for agreeing to it. Her reasons were common: It’s just what everyone did. My dad was circumcised. They didn’t think twice about it.
Nothing she said was surprising to me, but I felt like it was good for me to express how I felt about it.
Intact America has provided a supportive community as I continue to heal. I get the newsletters and donate on a monthly basis. Reading about the experiences of others in the Voices column has helped me a lot; it’s given me a sense that I’m not alone. Friends who share the same pain are also a source of comfort. I’ve tried to talk to colleagues and family members when they were pregnant, hoping they would avoid it if I present the facts and how it’s affected me. But people are set in their ways, and they continue to perpetuate it with the next generation.
I’ve been seeing a therapist for years, since I started restoration. One thing I’ve learned is I can’t save the world. But I can do my part, and that’s why I’m sharing my story here.
— Tom Kallas
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Jun 23, 2023
The 23rd of December 1947 is a day I’ll never forget. That is when I first learned, to my horror, what a circumcision was.
I was raised Roman Catholic and attended 12 years of parochial school. That day marked the last class before Christmas break, and the teacher (a nun) explained why January 1 was a holy day of obligation. (It’s the Feast of the Circumcision.)
In that moment, I understood immediately what had been done to my body. I understood why I was never comfortable there and why my clothes were always irritating me. I realized then that the head of my penis was meant to be covered. It was this unnatural exposure that was causing me to experience an almost constant state of semi-arousal. It’s not normal to be exposed that way. Being sexually aware and acting on that awareness are two, very different, things. I was an introvert, and thus a shy child, and there was no one with whom I could speak. I never broached the subject with my parents because I knew they would dismiss it, hoping I’d forget about it.
This is not considered a “normal” preoccupation, but then, having a scar encircling one’s penis isn’t “normal” either in most of the world, no matter how much our American culture insists that it is.
As a gay man who had wished since childhood for a foreskin to soothe the constant discomfort, I always found the circumcised penis ugly and to be a turn-off. It’s difficult to explain the trauma of being unable to discreetly identify intact gay men with whom to engage in sex, especially as an introvert.
This act that was done to me without my consent makes me very angry. I’ve channeled that anger into researching circumcision and the arguments for and against it for more than 75 years now. I still don’t understand why someone would amputate a normal body part simply because they have accepted without question the notion that it’s not clean.
For some reason in American culture, we don’t talk about the penis in a matter-of-fact way, and we definitely don’t talk about its foreskin—except to say that it’s dirty. What this is referring to is smegma, a word normally heard only in the context of jokes. Smegma is a natural lubricant the body produces to prevent the foreskin lining from adhering to the glans. It’s made of body oils, skin cells and moisture. Every body produces smegma—it’s between our toes and behind our ears, anywhere skin folds against itself. We just give it a quick wash and get on with our day.
The idea that a foreskin is dirty is a uniquely American notion. We’ve been cutting it off for six generations. We’re the only advanced nation where cutting off the foreskin of a male infant is routine practice, and we don’t even know why. The medical community makes all sorts of excuses that don’t hold up to science—while the rest of the advanced nations think we’re crazy. It’s sexual violence on an infant. It’s just insane.
But it’s so normalized. At a recent medical appointment, the doctor asked me to list every surgery I had ever had. I included circumcision on that list, but when I reviewed notes from the appointment, I realized she had left that one off. It has become so ubiquitous that she didn’t even mention it.
I’m 82 years old, and I’ve become more outspoken about this. I have repeatedly sent email letters to my congressmen and women and my senators, and their response is, “There, there. Don’t worry about it. We’re taking care of you.” They don’t see the harm that’s been done. I really feel that most American men have the attitude that it was done to them and there’s nothing they can do about it now. But it’s a human rights issue. And no one wants to listen.
— Wallace Muenzenberger
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Jan 31, 2023
I found out about circumcision quite by accident while watching a Turkish show with my mother. I heard a new word that I didn’t understand: “circumcision.” I asked my mother what that meant. She answered that it meant cutting off a piece of the penis.
I was shocked to hear that, so I just kept quiet. I thought that such things happened in the Middle Ages when people did not know enough about many topics. This thought began to haunt me. I wanted to know more. I started reading about it, and I learned that circumcision is still practiced, especially among Muslims and Jews, and in North America. It was another shock for me because I am aware of the important function of the foreskin. This is not something that can be just cut off like a nail that is too long.
I was born and live in Poland. In Europe, the scale of this problem is much smaller. I became an opponent of any interference in the human genitals, but it never concerned me personally, so my life just went on. Over time, I thought that I did not want to live in Poland all my life. I decided that when I finish my studies, I will move to the USA. I started getting to know more and more Americans. I became best friends with an American man who is Jewish. I asked him if he had been mutilated. I remember this moment as if it just happened, and it was almost a year ago. He said yes, he is circumcised. One time he mentioned that he didn’t believe in God, so I can safely say that he is a victim of his parents’ cultural preference.
When I found out about it, something changed in me. At first it was unbearable for me. I was crying and I couldn’t think normally, sleep or even eat. My thoughts became my worst enemy. One day I couldn’t even work anymore, so I left the house and went for a walk. I sat down on the grass, between trees, away from people—I was crying. And then I realized that the only thing that would bring me peace of mind is action.
I swore to myself that I would not stop until I changed something.
That day my mission began. I started looking for people who are against circumcision. I wanted to know what we can do to make this world a better place. This is how I found out about Intact America. But it took a while for me to gather the strength to contact them because this topic is very difficult for me even though I am a woman, and my body is intact.
I still wonder what the real reason was that male genital mutilation began to be practiced. Was it really about masturbation? If that is the reason, why—now that we know masturbation is normal—does the practice continue?
And if it is about culture or religion, why are doctors the ones who carry it out—as in the United States—among babies who have not yet determined their own beliefs?
Why do people always find a problem in human natural sexuality? When we are born, we have our own body. We have it all our lives and we die with it. A sexual surgery should not be forced on a baby. If an adult makes a conscious choice to undergo circumcision, okay. But cutting the foreskin of little boys is a clear violation of fundamental human rights. No one, even our parents, can take away our right to choose what our body should look like.
I think I was born to fight for men from their birth. I cannot give them back what has been taken from them. But I can try to make life better for future generations. And I will do whatever it takes to stop this madness.
— Wiktoria Szczepanik
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Nov 15, 2022
Intact America interviewed Dusty Drake (they/she) following her heartwarming and open TikTok account of their circumcision complications. A transcript of the interview and her video follows.
How did you discover Intact America and what does the intactivist movement mean to you?
I first discovered Intact America a few years ago on Instagram. Back in 2011 however was the first time that I heard the term intactivist. Without knowing the word though, it is something I advocated against within my social circle even before that because of my own experience. To me, the intactivist movement is about bodily autonomy more than anything else. It’s giving the right to make cosmetic decisions about one’s body to the individual themself. It seems to be a controversial opinion in North America, but I don’t think that parents should be allowed to alter their child’s body for cosmetic purposes just because it’s their child. That child is an autonomous human being and will grow into an adult who can consent to those procedures if they decide they want them.
What encouraged you to share your story, and why now?
I was encouraged to share my story when I saw a prompt posted on September 22nd to Instagram by Intact America. The prompt simply said “Robbed of your foreskin? Tell us your story.” Their email was written below and I thought to myself, “I should email them. I’m shut down so often when I bring up the problems with cosmetic infant circumcision so I’m terrified to share my story but at least they are willing to be a listening ear.” After composing the email though I had a spark of inspiration and decided that I wasn’t going to send it. I have a following on TikTok and though even though I’ve been harassed and shut down before while speaking against cosmetic infant circumcision, this is still something that people need to hear even if they aren’t ready. So I decided to record and post my story instead. I can’t begin to tell you how extremely nervous I was to talk about my own personal experience with having been circumcised as an infant and the issues I experienced during puberty because of it. While recording, it felt just as nerve wracking as if I was speaking to a room full of strangers who had no interest in what I had to say. But I continued, because if my voice can help one parent reconsider their entitlement over their child’s body and prevent them from taking away their child’s bodily autonomy then it was worth the temporary discomfort I felt while recording.
What are some of the reactions to your TikTok video and how do they make you feel?
A majority of the reactions from my TikTok on my own experience have been overwhelmingly positive which I was honestly surprised about. I have posted content against cosmetic infant circumcision in the past and have been met with a lot of hate, harassment, and even bullying. So I was understandably nervous to share my own story, but I am so glad I did. I think the biggest reward from posting about my own experience is the new and expecting parents posting that they are reconsidering doing this to their child, have now made the decision not to, or feel more reassured that they made the right decision by leaving the choice up to their child.
Would you consider sharing more about your experience, or discuss circumcision in future TikTok videos?
If the right inspiration strikes, I will continue to talk about my experience. I absolutely intend to continue making content against cosmetic infant circumcision because the right to bodily autonomy is a human rights issue.
Dusty’s TikTok Transcript:
When I was a baby, only a few days old, a doctor had convinced my parents that there was something wrong with my body and that immediate surgical intervention was needed. There was no infection, no birth defect, and there were no adverse effects that could come from leaving my body in its natural state. Yet despite this, my parents had been convinced that to be good parents and do what was best for their first born child, that immediate surgery was necessary. They hadn’t been properly educated on the surgery, and they had have been given information on the benefits of leaving my perfectly healthy body alone. So they followed through with the doctor’s recommendation.
When I began puberty at around 10 or 11-years-old, my body began to grow quickly, so quickly, in fact that the incision from the surgery that I was unnecessarily forced to undergo as an infant began to tear. The scar tissue began stretching beyond its limits. This increased tension led to years of bleeding and scabbing along the incision line from the scar, not to mention the pain that this caused me during this whole time. But I was scared and ashamed of what was happening to me. I had believed that I had done something wrong, or worse, that there was something intrinsically wrong with me and that this was a punishment for it, and this made sense to me. After all, I was a young closeted queer kid who was being bullied every single day by my peers. Heck, I didn’t even know what queer or gay or any of that was, but I knew that that was something I didn’t wanna be and that it was bad, because that’s what my peers and society had taught me.
So it made sense to me that on top of being bullied every day, that life would just punish me in this way, despite the fact that I hadn’t done anything except for show kindness to others. So I never told anybody what I was going through and I just suffered through it alone. But when I was an adult, I discovered that I wasn’t the only one who had gone through this. There were doctors all over convincing parents to perform these unnecessary surgeries on their children, their newborn children. After I realized that I wasn’t alone in this, I got the courage to speak to my parents about it. They didn’t know what to say at the time, and they were clearly processing the information I was giving them, but they did look really remorseful.
Just last month, I was hanging out with my mom and she came up to me on her own, she sat next to me on the couch and just gave me a big old hug. She looked me in the eyes and she said, “I am so sorry. I would never crop a dog’s ears or tail, but for some reason, I never gave a second thought to mutilating my own newborn baby. I wish I could go back and make an informed decision with the knowledge I have today. I’m so sorry that we circumcised you.”
Sep 26, 2022
During my Obstetrics and Gynecology Residency, I had the opportunity to learn newborn circumcision. Because of the frequency of the procedure, I agreed to the training. Yes, the Siren on the rocks of “cultural normalcy” called me.
Immediately prior to the training, I remember a blond-haired resident giddy with excitement at being able to learn the procedure, and vividly recall her saying: “Have the nursing staff line the boys up. Go Chop! Chop! Chop! Think of all the RVUs you can make??” RVU stands for Relative Value Unit, which is a figure used for compensation. Obviously, her main concern was the amount of money that could be generated by sexually maiming newborn boys in the name of profit.
The white Circumstraint board was on a procedure table. The baby was brought into the room. The mother’s written “consent” had been verified.
There were three of us. My assigned job was to put the safety pin through the foreskin.
The naked baby was then placed in four-point restraint and immediately began crying uncontrollably. Someone prepped the skin. Another Resident placed the local anesthetic which resulted in further crying. Those who have children or work with newborns know that babies do “talk” in their own ways. There are cries of hunger. Cries of frustration, and cries of absolute fear and pain. Perhaps I am blocking out the other parts of the procedure that the other two doctor trainees performed.
It came time for me to place the safety pin, so I was standing directly over the baby. The screaming was just awful. I can remember starting to place the safety pin in the foreskin and small dot of blood appeared where the pin would be placed. At this point, I almost walked out of the room. Seeing a naked restrained human screaming in pain, with his head rocking back, spittle flying from his little mouth was too much. I wondered, “Now why are we doing this? Why are we violating this human being? I finished my part and stepped aside. As the shrieks of the restrained baby intensified, the third resident severed the baby’s foreskin along the edge of the clamp and placed the circular bloody specimen on side of the Circumstraint.
I will never forget the shrieks of that baby.
The episode left me with the knowledge that I had violated my own morals as well as the code of medical ethics. Indisputably, we had done harm to the baby that day. The baby’s normal genital anatomy at birth had been forever changed, leaving him physically altered as well as neurologically ruined. Unquestionably, it is impossible for a newborn baby to give consent for such a procedure. I still hear the screams from time-to-time.
And we call ourselves healers?
I have never performed or taken part in another circumcision.
— James F. Verrees, M.D., FACOG
Las Vegas, Nevada
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