Column by Kevin M. Patten.
Exclusive to STR
“There’s no reason it should not go through,” Mr. Jeffrey Gillen had said [4]. Gillen is a judge in the 15th Division of the state of Florida. That man-in-a-magic-robe was about to swing down his papier-mâché gavel and devastate some important considerations for both autonomy and human rights. In May, he ruled in favor of a “contract” that would amputate the foreskin of young Chase Ryan Nebus-Hironimus. The child, born on Halloween 2010, is the result of a seven month long relationship between Heather Hironimus and Dennis Nebus; the former bravely fighting against a mutual, court-approved decision made with the insistent “father,” who said he would personally handle getting it done. That notion was forgotten for more than two years, until one day when Nebus noticed Chase urinating on his leg, soon leading to a doctor (no doubt mistakenly again) diagnosing phimosis, and thus giving a “need” to be cut. As a sympathetic note: I can almost relate.
Hironimus, by then completely regretful of her initial agreement, protested. Nebus went to the courts. Gillen sanctioned the barbarism. A higher West Palm Beach court granted an emergency halt to the motion. This was so she could gain support that was at once financial and emotional, hopefully in an effort to spare her son’s anatomy. She raised $5,000 on GoFundMe and made plenty of friends from the Intactivist movement. Tragically, six months later, all final appeals have been denied, and the State, represented by Mr. Gillen, has put the final foot down: the four year old, eventual-man, is to undergo compulsory mutilation, for absolutely no reason at all. Hence, the judge’s appropriate prefix, “Mister” – not any authority whose legitimacy should be recognized.
Walter Block [5], an anti-cutter, is always reminding us libertarians that there’s a lot of gray whenever we talk about the age of consent. The question of maturity and the ability to decide for oneself is contained within a foggy continuum. We’re never quite sure when an individual can give approval for what. Notice though that sex is usually the example discussed. Nobody argues that an 18 year old isn’t allowed to resist sexual pressure. And except for the most perverse, nobody says that children shouldn’t resist when a predator is about to molest them. Chase Hironimus – and let us give him the proper last name – tragically provides an impeccable illustration of how young one can be and still make simple decisions for themselves, which was the reason stated by his mother. “Putting aside what they agreed to, if you’re going to enforce this contract, you have to look in what is the best interest of the child,” Hironimus’ attorney, Taryn Sinatra, had told the Broward Palm Beach New Times. “The best interest of the child should always trump” – any farcical agreement. At age four, there’s no doubt young Chase is unhappy about the impending assault on his person. This has been confirmed to me by activists involved with the case, demonstrating how the contract has been made void due to his developed capacity to verbally render it so. It is not possible in any libertarian order to make a lawful negotiation negating someone else’s anatomical rights; not without their unthreatened, explicit, and informed consent.
Informed? Indeed. Adding insult to injury, the man-in-the-magic-robe also stipulated that Hironimus “shall not in any way lead [Chase] to believe that she is or was opposed to his being circumcised, whether or not she accompanies [him] to the procedure” – making free speech also experience a flush down Mr. Gillen’s toilet. But therein lies a brilliant depiction of the absurdity of the State: How, in God’s name, does that guy think he’ll prevent such a conversation from ever taking place between a boy and his mother? Maybe a round-the-clock monitoring by a member of CPS? As would be concluded, it can’t be done.
Alas, the horror of the foreskin and the “need” for infantile circumcision became a template for the American medical establishment starting in 1870, when Lewis Sayre [6], “America’s leading orthopedic surgeon,” began treating paraplegic children with a permanent, ancient excision. True story. Medical journals at the time repeated the claim that “diseases” – such as “nervousness” and “restless sleep” and “bad digestion” – could be cured with a “minor” operation that involved cutting off a part of the penis, that overwhelmingly sensitive bit that created within the lad so much internal hostility. The man famous for his many contraptions was not treated as a quack: when the Civil War broke out, the mayor of New York City named him as resident physician, all of this concisely documented in David Gollaher’s history of the world’s most controversial surgery. [7]
In 1949, soon after World War Two, when circumcision had become fully ensconced within the land of Jefferson, but was being debated on as an insurable item in Britain’s new healthcare program, Douglas Gairdner, a respected English pediatrician, offered criticism in the [8]British Medical Journal [8]. Conducting research that was based on actual, randomized samplings of children (because, after all, we’re not talking about quantum physics), Gairdner reported that the retraction of the foreskin had wildly differed based on the variability (race even played a factor), and that it simply depended on the young man in question. Britain’s government decided not to insure, allowing private payment instead. This data contradicted American medical literature, which insisted that any degree of non-retractable foreskin automatically meant phimosis, or the tightening of the foreskin around the glans. Normal, if it hadn’t been made clear. “If it can pee, let it be,” as it goes in the circles.
But my own situation is not the same as Ms. Hironimus and her poor son’s. I make no comparison to the details, and only then to the question of how we got here as an “enlightened” society. Chase is four years of age. My son is now five months. I’ve previously designated circumcision in America as the “Cutlery Culture,” [9] admonishing everyone within the vicinity about this barbaric practice. About the history. The misandristic bigotry that keeps it going. How the rest of the civilized world refrains from cutting their infants. And that companies use amputated foreskins in commercial products [10]. About the risks of psychological trauma and sexual dysfunction. How nearly every single medical institution in the world condemns it [11]as it is [11]: genital mutilation [11]. I was certain I was on the same page with my son’s mother.
I was wrong. I admit in one embarrassing sentence: I never changed his diaper in the half dozen times they together had visited my mother’s house. I had never seen his genitals. Until one day when I did. “Did you circumcise him?” I asked plainly in a Facebook message. She admitted that she had, and this, as she said, to “keep the peace” between her and her Catholic mother. It was the first lie of many more to discover. For, in that time, she had been letting her ex-boyfriend believe that he was the true father. Of Jewish descent, he had admitted to me some weeks back, during an unexpected phone call, and in an unexpected location, that he wanted “his” son to be cut, but not my own. As an unconfirmed note, it has been said that the Golden State is the only state in which only one parent is needed for consent. Actually, she had two, now with a name change in process.
No other interpretation of these actions should be given other than as an indirect attack against me, seeing as the “mother” knew how utterly and absolutely opposed to this I was, and how much I wanted to give him that choice that I was not given. I wasn’t there for her pregnancy, or his birth. I didn’t much get along with her. At all. It was only afterwards that we started becoming cordial. I had thought we would finally be able to take our son out together, and become a fragmented family unit that could at least shop for clothes and go out to dinner as one; all of it now seen as the prolonged lie that it was. Everything has been thrown under the proverbial bus. Maybe other actions in the country could be witnessed as such. After all, who would cut the genitals of their protesting four-year-old son based on the grounds of “it’s just normal,” as the scumbag father is quoted as saying? Is this the Middle East? Are Mr. Gillen and Mr. Nebus genuine, sociopathic sadists? Or pathetically and unhappily cut men who must carry on a culture of non-consent, just so as to keep things “normal”?
Optimistically though, at least I do have a family court judge who respects fatherhood. And I can have that longed-for relationship with my boy, albeit alone and separately away from my ex. Such people should be enemies for life. Not always should hate be summoned and appropriated. However, betrayal to this degree should disallow the idea of trust until such time when the parties can no longer communicate. It’s going to be a long while. For now, one should only act civilly only as to forego the jeopardizing of their relationships with their children. As Heather Hironimus will no doubt tell her son, as if he doesn’t already know, the day will come when I will tell Porter everything about the disgusting, barbaric rape culture that is genital mutilation in America.
DEATH TO THE BUTCHERY CULTURE!
[12]
