'Circumcision season' under way after COVID-19 delays

[reader]

From AFP / Channel News Asia

Circumcision is rarely questioned in the Philippines and boys face tremendous pressure to undergo the procedure. (Photo: AFP)

SILANG: For more than a year, Caspien Gruta has been teased because his circumcision - a rite of passage for boys in the Philippines - was delayed, first by a volcanic eruption and then the coronavirus pandemic.

"I worry if I don't get circumcised now, I will be shamed," said Gruta, 12.

The Philippines has one of the highest rates of circumcision in the world, with many seeing the centuries-old practice as key for boys to enter manhood.

Even as circumcision comes under increasing scrutiny elsewhere, with some critics branding it "child abuse", it is rarely questioned in the Philippines and boys face tremendous pressure to undergo the procedure.

Every year, thousands of pre-teens have the operation for free at government or community-sponsored clinics.

But last year, the "circumcision season" was cancelled for the first time in living memory due to the virus outbreak, delaying the milestone for many boys like Gruta.

Left in limbo - and with their foreskin intact - the boys have been ridiculed by their male relatives and friends.

Gruta was one of the oldest boys to line up at a covered basketball court turned make-shift clinic in Silang, Cavite south of Manila, one of the few provinces that have slowly resumed the free service since May.

"I feel like I'm a genuine Filipino now because getting circumcised is part of being a Filipino," Gruta said after the 20-minute procedure.

Wearing masks and face shields, the boys sat on plastic chairs near a row of wooden tables surrounded by a red curtain.

Some looked excited or did their best to appear nonchalant. Others fidgeted as they waited.

After removing their shorts, the youngsters lay down on a table with their legs hanging over the edge and their groin covered by an operating sheet.

Some bit into a facecloth or covered their eyes as they were given a local anaesthetic. The surgeon then went to work.

"I got circumcised because they said I will grow taller and I will get better in sports," said 12-year-old Almer Alciro, who went to another outdoor clinic for his delayed procedure.

His family could not afford a private hospital where the operation costs as much as 12,000 pesos (US$240) - more than what many workers earn in a month.

While he waited for the free service to resume, Alciro's friends mocked him as "uncircumcised" - an insult similar to coward in a country where the procedure is a badge of masculinity.

"I'm happy that I'm finally circumcised," Alciro said.

Circumcision has been practised in the Philippines for centuries, enduring wars and colonisations by Spain and the United States.

Male circumcision tends to be more common in nations with significant Muslim or Jewish populations, and less so in Catholic-majority places.

Yet around 90 per cent of males are circumcised for non-religious reasons in the Philippines, according to World Health Organization data.

Boys as young as eight face social pressure to go under the knife. Even hospital advertisements urge boys to "Be Man Enough".

Mass circumcisions are common during the hottest months from April to June when school children are on a long break.

Normally hundreds of boys undergo outdoor surgery on a single day, but COVID-19 rules have drastically reduced group sizes.

Many areas have yet to restart the free service as they battle COVID-19.

The delays have knock-on effects.

Circumcision is an important "demarcating line" between boys and men, when the youngsters take on more responsibility in the family and learn about sex, said Nestor Castro, a professor of anthropology at the University of the Philippines.

"Once a boy gets circumcised, he already leaves the position of being a child and he is now considered ... as an adult," Castro said.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/philippines-circumcision-covid-19-delayed-boys-2144111

 

 

[Lonnie]

Thanks for the article reader...the magnificent Santiagodc had a discussion of this in his report on Manila which I will copy and paste here...I don't think he'll mind. 😄

Santiagodc

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Posted February 16 (edited)

On 2/14/2021 at 2:16 PM, floridarob said:

I'll add that you will see some very ugly circumcisions, as most are not done at birth, but between 8-12 yrs old.

Someone in Thailand once asked me when I asked him how Manila is....."why do gays keep searching for the pot of gold, when they already know where it is?" Thailand, Brasil, Bali and Mexico are my pots of gold, lol

Floridarob,

There is truth to what you say. I found my pots of gold as well. You raise an interesting note about the circumcisions. I should say something about them for those that might make a first visit to the Philippines.

There are a myriad of medical AND cultural techniques for how circumcisions are done today. The Philippines is an example of where the type of circumcision you have can tell you a great deal about where a person comes from and in what social class he comes from. It used to be the case that most circumcisions were done there when a boy was a bit older (8-14). You can read about it at this wiki article on that Pinoy tradition known as tuli.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuli_(rite)

When I did my first clinical rotation through pediatrics in Boston many moons ago, I remember seeing the after effects of a Pinoy circumcision for the first time. It looked as though that boy’s penis had been placed through a meat grinder and then surgically repaired. I was horrified, but my attending was Pinoy and enlightened me on this tradition for the first time… and, what I was seeing WAS a badly done “tuli”. This was a result of a inexperienced practitioner in some rural area that had cared little for a proper cut of the foreskin or the treatment of the wound afterwards. This young patient would have a badly scarred penis for the rest of his life. Fast forward to ten years ago when I was asked to assist at a Tuli in a rural region north of Cebu City. When I arrived, I noted that there were already 5 tuli practitioners there and none had any medical training. They generally practiced the Albularyo method and used a piece of sharpened wood (thankfully, government clinics now use sterilized equipment and now generally use medical practitioners). After getting over the horror of the event, I talked with one practitioner at the end of the day who lamented that twenty years prior he would have had over 100 tuli’s to perform just by himself in this day-long event. That day, however, he had only 6 boys present for the circumcisions.

It is the case that most urban or the middle/upper class pinoys now choose to have their son’s circumcision done by a medical doctor in hospital after birth. Some still arrange for the circumcision to be done later when a boy is older, but again by medical doctors. These circumcisions generally (although not always) remove the entire foreskin. What forms is what we in the West might call a normal circumcision scar. Thus, if you are with a Pinoy man for sex and his erect penis looks like a normal western scar, then that often tells you something about his family’s income level or the region he came from. For those in Pinoy rural (or “province”) areas and the lower class, they generally wait for the summer tuli events sponsored by the government where the dorsal slit is the normal method. This is where a single cut is made on the foreskin, but the foreskin is not actually removed. As a result, the skin sorta bunches together below the glans. Over the years, this skin can become slightly darker in color. As a result of all this, pinoys traditionally have a penis whose skin looks quite different from most other asians or most other western circumcisions… it is a mark of manhood. This is why pinoys often refer to this as a cultural circumcision rather than a medical circumcision. 

Aside from the ethical issues of circumcision, there is another aspect I had not encountered until a few years ago. I had met a young man via grindr at my hotel. We were kissing and his sucking was exemplary. I then started to pull down his underwear and he stopped me suddenly. He then said, incredibly apologetically, that he was uncut. I was like… OK, I like uncut dicks on sexy boys as well. After the sex, he then proceeds to apologize to me again for being uncut. The shame this boy was expressing was so sad… AND… part of the culture where boys that do NOT have their tuli, are often shammed in school and amongst friends. They are not true Phillipino men unless they have their tuli. In fact, there is a word in Tagalog... “supot” that means “an uncircumcised male and denotes weakness, inferiority and even lack of hygiene”. They will never even list on Grindr or Planetromeo that they are uncut lest it lessen their prospects. 

I participated at that one tuli and will never do so again. Ironically, the program was actually sponsored by a local Protestant Church during what pinoys know as the “Circumcision Season”. Just google “tuli” and look at the pain on those boys faces, but the smiles of their family, friends, and the practitioners. You can also look at pinoy men on Pornhub to see the varying types of pinoy circumcision results.

 

[PeterRS]

7 hours ago, Lonnie said:

When I did my first clinical rotation through pediatrics in Boston many moons ago, I remember seeing the after effects of a Pinoy circumcision for the first time. It looked as though that boy’s penis had been placed through a meat grinder and then surgically repaired. I was horrified

I have no idea how urban myths are spread. The circumcision ritual in The Philippines is one. That 90% plus of young boys have the procedure done and the stigma they bear if it is not done seems to me not merely ridiculous but almost unbelievable. When I first came to Asia and visited Manila, I was really shocked that all the boys were cut. I rather assumed it was a legacy of the American colonisation, similar to the almost universal circumcision done on baby boys in South Korea after the end of the Korean War. Thankfully - at least I consider it so - that practice in South Korea is now disappearing. In The Philippines, though, it goes much further back in time and remains as common as ever, even to there being a "circumcision season"! 

Decades ago, Manila was a really fun gay place to visit, provided you could avert your eyes from the fightful poverty resulting from the murdering Marcos kleptocracy. The first two guys I met had probably had the procedure done in hospital for I noticed little out of the ordinary apart from the absence of a foreskin. When the third guy I met undressed I was so shocked I just did not want the assignation to continue. The meat grinder analogy may have been slightly overdone, but not overly so. I later learned that an army of unlicensed doctors and witchdoctors around the country are largely responsible for botched and supremely ugly circumcisions. It is one reason why thereafter I have rarely visited The Philippines other than for a beach vacation with friends.

For the life of me I simply cannot understand why centuries (even millennia) ago tribes and certain religions felt it necessary to excise a small piece of skin from every young boy as a mark of belonging to that tribe. It seems especially stupid (with sincere apologies to those circumcised for religious reasons) because the wearing of clothing over the genitals makes it impossible for anyone else to know. Should synagogues and mosques not require men to lift up a flap to prove their adherence to the religion? Why not instead shave heads? Cut off part of the little finger like the yakuza in Japan? Or place a tattoo on the back of a hand?