My First Rape

In 1967, when I was days old, I lost my virginity to a doctor who raped me with a knife. I never thought much about circumcision. For most of my life, I could not remember what happened to me. I wish I still did not remember. The doctor who presided over me culturally approved sexual torture and permanent mutilation took more skin than he should have. I thought this was normal. I was never told anything different had been done to me. My parents explained nothing. I grew up believing all men were born with penis that looked like mine.

Many years later, I came to realize the truth about how circumcision had physically harmed my penis. Today I have a penis that has lost most of its sensitivity. When I get an erection, my skin becomes painfully tight and feels as if it might tear at the base of my penis. It hurts to get a hard on. There is an ugly scar that causes pain when I try to wear a condom. There is abnormal curvature. There is hair growing halfway up the shaft that causes pain to my lovers. There is a patch of skin that is rough and abrasive, almost like sandpaper that causes pain to my lovers. The head of my penis is dry and scrapes inside the vagina of my lovers in an uncomfortable way. In order to achieve orgasm, I must thrust vigorously and pound extra hard to feel much vigorous friction to a small and particular sensitive area of my penis. This also causes pain for my lovers.

One of my lovers was particularly cruel when she left me for an intact man. She described in detail how much better their sex was and why. If not for this cruelty, I might have continued believing I had a normal penis. It is psychologically devastating to know that you cannot share intimate love with a woman without causing her great pain. The pain of my girlfriends is not only physical but emotional as well. They blame themselves as if they are somehow not sexy enough or less of a woman because it is so hard for me climax. My lovers always believe they are doing something wrong when the problem is with my penis. When I try to tell them "it's not you, it's me" they feel insulted as if I am patronizing them.

So I have been celibate for twenty three years now. It is not likely I will ever know another normal or healthy romantic relationship and nearly certain that I will never start a family. My parents will never have grandchildren now because a doctor took too much skin. This is not the worst of things however.

A few years ago, I recovered suppressed memories of traumatic abuse. I suddenly remembered my own childhood rape and other psychological traumas I had repressed. I went psychotic. I heard voices. I became obsessed with suicide. I believed God had told me to murder people. I saw hallucinations. I lost touch with reality. I lost my job. I lost most of my friends. I spent two weeks in a psychiatric hospital. As a result of having my mind flipped upside down and subconscious repressed and forgotten memories scrambled, I can vaguely remember my own circumcision and sometimes even have PTSD flashbacks to it. I know exactly what kind of psycho-emotional harm circumcision can do.

Sometimes I have nightmares about the cruel ex-girlfriend who humiliated me. Sometimes I have nightmares about being raped as a child. Sometimes I have nightmares about my own circumcision. Sometimes I have intrusive memories as if it is happening again. It is no fun to remember something against your will and feel like it is still happening or have memories as if it happened just a few weeks ago even if it was thirty or forty years in the past. 

It is no fun to remember being ripped from the only source of warmth and comfort I had ever known. I remember being helplessly restrained even though I struggled. I remember being comforted by a nurse. I remember the nurse telling me my penis was "tiny" and "cute" and I remember her laughing at my penis. In my flashbacks, the dismissive and joking attitude of the nurse and doctor are almost as difficult for me as the reliving the sensation of pain. I remember a tingling stimulation and my very first erection. I member unimaginable searing pain. I remember white hot light exploding in my vision. I remember every muscle clenching with adrenaline as I struggled to curl into a fetal ball to protect my most sensitive area, but I could not. I try to scream but there is no breath. Blood collects in my head as I try to scream but I cannot take a breath to scream with. By this point, every muscle is cramping to escape the restraint.

I remember an ice cold feeling of void-black emptiness spreading like a devouring shadow from the center of my pelvis until nothing below my chest seemed real. The pain becomes a distant thing, like a shadow in the fog. I remember the doctor grunting in frustration. I remember the doctor muttering something about "too small". (I was barely 3 lbs at birth). I remember entering a dissociative fugue state as I blocked more and more of what is happening as my consciousness detaches from the reality of my surroundings, yet I was still aware. It's like an out-of-body experience, my awareness gradually fades into emptiness. That's the end of the recurring nightmare. At this point in a flashback, I usually lay on the ground in a dissociative state with a blank stare as my entire body quivers as if responding to pain I cannot feel. There is no passage of time during this glazed-over seizure like experience but witnesses have told me it can last up to fifteen minutes.

I get to remember this "surgery" over and over. I have nightmares and PTSD flashbacks. Just like I have nightmares and flashbacks about being raped. Circumcision without anesthetic is worse than rape. Take it from somebody who knows.

Maybe not every boy who has been circumcised carries the poison of that torture in their subconscious, like a rape victim whose abuse was so traumatic their mind rejected reality and suppressed the incident behind a wall of dissociative amnesia. Some men deal better than others. In my case, that memory of trauma from my own circumcision played in a loop in the deepest parts of my subconscious where only loving trust of your mother should live and it disrupted my entire life. These psychological trauma issues interfered with my social and emotional development. I have struggled with undiagnosed major depression and social phobia forty years. I was singled out for sexual abuse and psychological torture more than once. I have been aware of my PTSD and seeking treatment for almost three years now.

Circumcision is not the sole cause of my emotional problems and mental illness but it is the first cause. The seed of my problems. The origin of Poison Karma. More about my circumcision trauma, various thought diseases, and more will have to wait. It's been hard going back there...