just saw an extremely upsetting film on american circumcision, and realized this is at the root of so much of my pain, that initial violent sexual mutilation. oh well, it happens to practically every boy. some lucky ones escape it, and some unlucky ones are really butchered. i'm relatively lucky in that i still have a penis. it's just normal business. i wonder how much of the violence of this culture comes from that most normal first cut, the first link of sexuality and violence suffered by millions on millions of baby boys. it made me feel so helpless and hopeless, the normality of it. i've often said i'm damaged and then turned on myself and castigated myself for being a wimp, like nothing really bad happened to me. well it did. i was damaged. i was sexually mutilated as a baby. i've known this for a long time, but i once thought of it mainly as an unfortunate thing i had no control over, but not felt the violence of it, that came back like a shot in the heart hearing a baby's screams in the film. the violent control that lies behind it, so casual and heartless, that explains the rage i feel over all of the subsequent, ubiquitous, capricious controls that are a sick society's ritual norms. it falls like so many evils under the veil of normalcy by education and propaganda. i can easily imagine  circumcision fueling rage against the machine. or making monsters who go into politics or corporate power to manipulate and control and abuse others.  what would account for the sexual mutilation of boys in america? of course, it's money, but i have to think it's more than that. it's about control by domination, by claiming the right to alter powerless bodies, to disempower people before they can even speak, and set the course of their lives under the state control.