Marilyn Fayre Milos, RN, is the co-founder and Executive Director of the National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers (NOCIRC) and the coordinator of the International Symposia on Circumcision, Sexual Mutilations, and Genital Integrity. She is editor of the NOCIRC Annual Newsletter and the co-editor of five symposia books, including Sexual Mutilations: A Human Tragedy, Male and Female Circumcision: Medical Legal and Ethical Considerations in Pediatric Practice, and Understanding Circumcision: A Multidisciplinary Approach to a Multidimensional Problem. She is a Diplomate of the American Board of Sexology. Since 1979, Marilyn has spoken about circumcision, genital integrity, and human rights to radio, television, and conference audiences worldwide. She is the recipient of the California Nurses Association’s 1989 Maureen Ricke Award for having “raised public consciousness about America’s most unnecessary surgery” and her “dedicated and unwavering commitment to ‘righting a wrong.'” She also received NurseWeek magazine’s “Nursing Excellence 2001” Patient Advocacy Award “For outstanding advocacy for the past 22 years on behalf of those among us who are the most vulnerable and unable to protect themselves–infants and children.”
How Circumcision Affects Sexuality
Part of the Intact Boy Series
Circumcision is a primal wound that causes pain and trauma to an infant’s penis–his organ of pleasure and procreation. Initially, circumcision interferes with the maternal infant bond, disrupts breastfeeding and normal sleep patterns, and undermines the successful completion of the baby’s first developmental task of establishing trust. Even when analgesia is used, circumcision causes pain to the penis, and every experience of that organ, from then on, is overlaid on a neuronal background of pain.
Circumcision removes the foreskin, with its 20,000 – 70,000 specialized, erogenous nerve endings, replacing the penile accelerator that allows a man to ride the wave to orgasm with an on/off switch that offers sensitivity and immediate relief without the ride to orgasm and the full symphony of sensation. This is why the most common complaint of circumcised men in the USA is premature ejaculation. At the other end of life, circumcised males complain about sexual dysfunction, including loss of sensitivity and impotence. Many women wonder why sex with a circumcised man is not fulfilling for them. They do not understand the role the foreskin plays in female sexual pleasure, including the gliding mechanism and lubrication.
This workshop, led by Marilyn Milos, RN, Executive Director of NOCIRC, explores the effects of circumcision on an infant and on the man he becomes. The dynamics of circumcision, sex, and compensation for the trauma and loss are discussed.