Neonatal Experience

The day after I was born in a New Zealand St. Helen’s Maternity Hospital I was sexually assaulted, as was the custom in those days. A doctor cut off part of my penis. This was probably done without anaesthetic or pain suppressants. My first sexual experience was pain and humiliation. The doctor used forceps to rip the foreskin from the glans, leaving it red and raw. Next he used scissors to cut off both layers of the foreskin, trimming off as much of the moist internal mucosa as possible. This removed the ridged band and most of the frenulum – both major sources of male sexual pleasure. I know he put in a stitch to stop any bleeding from the frenular artery, because the stitch tunnel can be clearly seen even today.

This act of genital mutilation was probably carried out well away from my mother so she could not hear my screams. Perhaps I went into shock fairly quickly and stopped crying. This violent introduction of the world was soon lost to my conscious awareness, although the effect of this so-called harmless procedure was to have long lasting consequences that even now haunt me several times each day.

Forced non-therapeutic circumcision of male babies was nearly universal in New Zealand in the 1940s. Many doctors pushed it for the money; others just went along with the medical folklore of the period. In my case the doctor appears to have convinced my mother that the procedure was necessary in case her son was ever to fight in a desert war where the sand would be an irritant to intact genitals. She may have felt she was doing the best for her son and of course the doctor got his fee.