As I spread the file documents out and read with the intense love of a mom-to-be, my clinical brain analyzed every detail: Therein contained the overview of my soon-to-be adoptive son’s tragic history. In catching up on 11 years of abuse, neglect, loss, and foster placements, I discovered an additional trauma that I hadn’t been briefed about. On the medical record, it stood indifferently as the words, “Normal, circumcised”. My breath caught, my heart sank, and I sighed, “After all this child has been through, THAT was done to him, too?!”
When I first learned what “circumcision” entailed, a male friend and I were 15 and changing out of wet clothing in separate rooms at my grandmother’s house, and the topic came up. When my friend explained it to me, in the context of being unhappy that it had been done to him, I immediately roared, “That’s horrible! Why would anyone do that to a baby?”
My attitude about foreskin amputation from the start has been that it is Male Genital Mutilation. Once I became a mental health counselor specializing in childhood developmental trauma, I additionally viewed MGM as a form of rape and torture of the male child. MGM is, indeed, an ignored form of violence against males; it is the invisible elephant in the room when distressed, angry, acting-out males present to the offices of mental health professionals.
In my work with children, youths, and families, I began to ask about “circumcision” status as part of taking medical histories during psychological evaluations. I noted a correlation between a history of MGM and autism: Mothers reported that after MGM, their sons stopped breastfeeding, displayed disrupted attachment, and displayed autistic-like traits. I also noticed a pattern between MGM and sexualized acting out in boys. However, because sexual abuse victimization is nearly universal in boys who act out sexually, it wasn’t possible to conclude to what degree MGM contributed to the symptoms.
When my son, Brycen was 18 and learning about the functions of the foreskin, he expressed many emotions of grief in absorbing the reality that a healthy part of his body was amputated without his consent. He viewed MGM as yet another way that his body had been harmed, overpowered, and sexually violated. Brycen, on the autism spectrum with a prodigious memory, reported that he experienced somatic (bodily) memories of feeling restrained, his penis being in agony, and the sounds of screams when reading about or discussing the topic.
Over the next year, Brycen took multiple healing actions with my support: One of those actions included obtaining his birth medical records so he could learn the date, who wielded the scalpel, and if any anesthesia had been provided (from the records, it appears that none was provided). He also empowered himself by dedicating a session of EMDR therapy to processing his somatic MGM memories, reporting a remarkable reduction in those symptoms.
However, what invigorated Brycen was being a voice for other children by expressing himself musically. As part of his MGM mourning process, Brycen wrote and performed “The Skinless Man (MGM)”—a spine-chilling metal song in which he screams the lyrics, “I AM NOT WHOLE ANYMORE, YOU TOOK THAT FROM ME!”
Sexual traumas destroy children psychologically and can lead to future violent and suicidal behavior. It is impossible to know how much MGM factored into the PTSD and chronic suicidal ideation my son suffered, documented back to at least ages 4 and 5, as he suffered multiple traumas, including sexual assaults. However, I know from his own words that MGM was one of the many veins of violation, disempowerment, physical attack, and detached non-personing that my beautiful boy endured prior to joining my life through adoption…
In late 2017, as I was writing my second book, Nurturing and Empowering Our Sons (featuring a huge chapter on the history and holistic harms of MGM), my life was indelibly shattered: Brycen, only 23, committed suicide. Children are so vulnerable and come into this world only asking to be loved and for their needs to be met. It makes no rational sense why adults begin the lives of millions of boys by forcibly handling the most intimate organ of their bodies and slicing it up with a knife. Nearly 80% of suicide victims are male. There is no doubt in my mind that MGM is one of the many traumas that lead boys, young men, and men down a path to self-hatred, self-harm, and suicide.
By Laurie A. Couture, M.Ed., LMHC, LCMHC
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To learn more about Brycen’s story, including in his own words, and the history and psychological effects of MGM on a developing boy, please check out, Nurturing and Empowering Our Sons: https://laurieacouture.com/products/
To support one of Brycen’s music videos speaking out about child abuse, please visit this link and give his video a “Like”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Goqo-b3U6iQ
If you are interested in how you can purchase his song, “The Skinless Man”, please contact me here: https://laurieacouture.com/contact/
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