Boyhood and memories of circumcision

On Friday night, I chanced upon this video clip titled Circumcision at the GMA 7 news website and it made me recall the same operation I had to go through almost twenty years ago.  

My circumcision came after my grade school graduation. It was summer of 1990. I was twelve going on thirteen. For years before my operation, I had been made to think that going through circumcision was the necessary thing for boys to do. My father, uncles, and male cousins would tell me that little boys have to be circumcised in order to become “real men.” I was warned that uncircumcised boys grow up to be dirty and that flies would chase after them all the time. (The male foreskin which is cut during the surgery is believed to accumulate a lot of dirt since unwanted fluids pass through it.) Uncircumcised boys are also usually taunted in school and in the playground by those who have “successfully” endured the operation.  

To my young mind, circumcision was a horrible thing inflicted on young boys like me but was something I just had to bear. On the one hand, I thought it would save me from taunts and teasing in high school. Besides, the operation would probably resolve the "identity crisis" I had been going through since I was in kindergarten. It would transform me into “a real man.” On the other hand, the very thought of being operated on – that is, being wounded, being lacerated deliberately – scared me so much that I vowed that if something bad happened to me during the operation, I would be the last boy on earth to have gone through circumcision. I imagined myself as the sacrificial lamb that would liberate the boys of this earth from the horrible, horrible surgery.

I was reluctant to go through the procedure but given the circumstances, I had no choice.  

In the summer of 1990, the date was set. I was to be operated at the Santa Teresita Hospital in Legazpi. My doctor was no less than the owner of the hospital. He would later be elected as a city councilor of Legazpi.  

Just before the operation, I requested my father to stay by my side and asked for a face towel to cover my eyes while the doctor inflicted pain on my hapless body. I held my father's hand while I lay in the surgical bed. (Had I known about the life story of St. Therese – the hospital’s patron saint – before the surgery, I would have imagined a shower of rose petals falling on the surgical bed as I offered myself for the liberation of boys in this world!) When my short pants were removed (I didn’t know if it was the doctor or one of his two assistants), I began to feel and act tense. My muscles got tight and stiff so the doctor said, “Relax.” I remember saying softly the lines “Oh Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who are recourse to thee,” a prayer that my mother advised me to recite when I’m faced with trouble. I would repeat the lines throughout the operation. The most painful part of the entire experience happened when I felt the needle pierce my helpless birdie. I was given a shot of anesthesia so I would not feel the excruciating pain of an induced laceration.  

The anesthetic shot partly numbed my sense of touch down there. When the doctor was doing the stitches, I could feel the pricks and punctures that made me shed a tear. Soon it was over. And the doctor said, “OK na. Tapos na (It’s OK. It’s over).” When I got up to see what had just happened to me, I saw my wounded self but was immediately drawn into the blood stains on the immaculate bed sheet (“So this is how women who experience menstruation feel like when they see blood stains on their bed sheets” was the thought that, quite ironically, first came to mind!). I survived the operation. I was not meant to be a sacrificial lamb, after all. And because of that, the ritual of circumcision would live on.  

It took weeks for me to fully recover from the operation. I had to stay home several weeks, clean the wound with Agua Oxinada after my daily bath, and apply an ointment that was expected to hasten my healing process.  

While I lay in bed to heal and rest, I tried to practice my vocal cords (vocal folds) by singing songs that would make me "belt out." One Moment in Time popularized by Whitney Houston was my favorite. You see, I had this preposterous notion that I would lose what I perceived then as a pitch perfect singing voice (I was classified as Soprano One in our grade school choir) because of the operation. Truth be told, I adored my grade school voice.  Losing it because of circumcision was one of the reasons why I dreaded the surgery.  

It took, however, two years for my larynx to fully develop and for me to bid my Soprano One classification goodbye. In high school, my experience in the summer of 1990 was eclipsed by more interesting encounters – juvenile ones. 

At this point, I can only recall it with fondness and a little embarrassment. How strange of the thoughts that swirled through my 12-year old mind!