I was born in New York to Reform Jewish parents. I was circumcised at eight days in a traditional Jewish ritual circumcision. This means that my parent’s family and friends were all there to witness and celebrate the occasion of my public genital mutilation. I am told that a lovely brunch was prepared for everyone attending.

On the advice of her friends and family, my mother chose to leave the room where the ritual was taking place before the actual cutting of my genitals, and only returned after I was done screaming. Not one Jewish parent I have spoken to finds this remotely hypocritical, a fact that amazes me. The one time I asked my mother about it she said she just couldn’t stand to see me in that kind of pain. Couldn’t see it, but had no problems arranging for it and absolving herself of her clear guilt by simply not being present during it. I love my mother, and I understand that her person faith prevented her from even considered not having me cut, but the fact that she would not witness what she was cheerfully helping to prepare brunch for, makes me hate her just a little bit.

Because my genital cutting was a traditional Jewish ritual, it was done freehand with only a guide plate to prevent damage to the glans (well damage right then, circumcision could be said to “damage” the glans in the form of desensitization). It would be many years before I realized how dramatic the damage to my penis was.

Growing up Jewish, a religion I should disclose that I no longer belong to, I had no idea that circumcision was anything but the norm. I was a sexually interested child (and gay) from a young age and over the course of many sleepovers I saw many of my non-Jewish friends’ penises as well and, this being the early ‘80 they were all altered in the same way as mine.

I still remember the first time I ever saw an intact penis. I was eight years old and attending a Jewish sleep-away camp for the first time. The boys section of the camp had group showers for the different age groups, but the grounds keeping crew used the same shower rooms and they were mostly European college students who would come to America to work for two months and then spend another months touring the US before class resumed. Most of them were not Jewish, and being European, not circumcised. The first time I saw an intact penis I had no idea what I was looking at. The only conclusion I could come to was that the man’s penis was diseased or malformed in some way. It would be until I was a teenager, taking sex ed, and more importantly looking at gay porn that I would realize that his penis was the “normal” one.

Looking back now, I can clearly see that my adolescent sexual development was strongly shaped by the nature of my circumcision. Because so much skin had been removed, having an erection was often painful. As strange as it sounds to others, I had no idea that this was not normal. The only penis I had experience with from the inside was mine and this was how it worked. I also did not find the skin tearing or even bleeding a bit during erections or masturbation to be strange. Since I had always grown up with the idea of a circumcised penis as being the norm, surely I couldn’t be having problems connected to having been cut.

Right before I left for college, I learned about foreskin restoration on the internet. My interest at this time had nothing to do with being unsatisfied with the function of my penis. Rather as I became more and more involved in Neo-paganism and spirituality, I felt that something about my body was just wrong. Then, in several meditations I found that when I tried to visualize my body, I kept feeling that that something had to do with my genitals. Finally when I mediated with the intent of finding out the origin of this feeling I found my body being pictured as having a foreskin and the feeling of wrongness being gone. This was a strange idea for me, that having a foreskin could be more “normal” or “natural” than not.

After getting to college and becoming sexually active I would, of course discover that pain and bleeding are NOT normal parts of having an erection. This strengthened my interest in restoration. The first several months of trying restoration were discouraging to me as I did not seem to have any change in the tightness of my skin or the discomfort of erection. This was until my partner at the time noticed that I was gaining penile length. I would “gain” over and inch and a half of penile length, allowed for by the loosening skin freeing shaft tissue previously pushed back into the body, before any skin mobility would begin to show.

Years later, I am finally getting closer to being finished with restoration and some of the feelings of unhappiness with my genitals have eased. It has taken me years and years longer to restore than most people in part because I choose to go very carefully to minimize the impact of the radical and irregular nature of the mutilation itself. Also, I have at times given up for months at a time because of the knowledge that my restored foreskin will still not be the one that was taken from me (re-desensitization of the inner skin and glans always gets me going again). My partner of five years is intact from birth and the difference in our status caused issues early on in our relationship as I struggled with feelings of jealousy and inadequacy.

The question I find I ask myself regarding the circumstances of my own mutilation is this: how did my mother bath me and change my diaper for the seven days before the ritual and not find herself satisfied that I was perfect the way I was. How did she look at my body and think to herself “He’ll be even better after we cut some of him off.”

My mother considers my anti-circumcision activism to be a personal attack on her. This is fair, since I consider her endorsement and arranging for, my involuntary genital mutilation to have been a personal attack on me.

For about the past week or so I have been trying something new/old, I have been suppressing my tics as little as possible. At the same time I have not fallen into the trap of simply staying inside the house and moping about my tics coming back. Granted there are some things I simply can not do. For instance, I’d really like to see Casino Royal, the new James Bond film. This is just not practical. I am willing to accept the necessity of not suppressing my tics even in public settings, but I am not a completely selfish bastard. In most other venues though people’s reactions have been dramatically different then I expected. Primarily, none at all.

For the first several days I seriously psyched myself every morning up for dealing with all the negativity I expected to be coming my way. I have some pretty serious hang-ups about ticking in public and I apparently expected everyone else to have them also. It’s not like there haven’t been a few assholes, but I was not emotionally fucked up by them the way I expected I would be. The majority of people have ignored the tics and most of those who haven’t have approached me to ask questions not lob accusations. The more I was able to be out in public without problems, the less the occasional hostility bothered me. I knew that my tics were not intended to offend or annoy others, but seeing that most people understood that as well made it clear on an emotional (already there on the intellectual) level that people who react first and often entirely with hostility are the folks who have the issues, not me. Just reading that over it sounds like the kind of self-help feel-good crap that is often disregarded for its hokey-ness, but it is true none the less.

At the risk of sounding like a whiny little fuck; oh hell, I’m going to sound like a whiny little fuck for a few. I come by some of this emotional baggage legitimately. While most of my biological family has always been incredibly supportive when it comes to my Tourette, my biological father has made himself something of an exception. After my folks split up when I was very young, I only lived with my father for one year. I was thirteen and there were a lot of reasons I went to live with him for a year but they are not relevant here. What is relevant to this issue is that my father knew that folks with TS could suppress for periods of time and he felt that he needed to make me understand that it was my duty to do so in public at all times for the sake of others. I received a good number of lectures about “not imposing my condition on people I don’t even know.” He wanted me to promise not to tic in public which as my symptoms were very severe at the time, I couldn’t do. Since I couldn’t guarantee that I wouldn’t be ticking in public, my father wouldn’t take me out of the house when I wasn’t in school. At one point he even complained about me taking walks in the neighborhood and ticking because people in the condo development were starting to ask questions. Since I already had plenty of other issues around my father, this experience messed up my head but good.

Not that he didn’t have a point; he just took it way too far. I don’t think it is unreasonable for me to avoid movie theaters when my symptoms are too severe to safely suppress for several hours. I just don’t want to be a virtual prisoner in my house.

Whiny little retrospective over, sorry ‘bout that.

Interestingly, I am actually much more willing to go do errands and such now that I am not suppressing. Being out at the supermarket or other such banal happening is no longer the stressful exhausting experience it was. It is amazing what just removing the constant thought of “what if I tic” made things much more tolerable. Obviously, not having the strain of suppressing has also been a great help.

The Lady and Var have been amazingly generous in the last few weeks with regards to letting me focus on getting an emotional handle on this aspect of my life. Readers of this blog have probably noticed that the “shaman” in “barking shaman” has been absent for the past few weeks. There is some heavy shit coming down the pipe in the next few years and I guess that my Bosses were willing to grant me a few weeks to get my head in better order. I have it on good authority that I am going to be getting back to work quite soon and “work” is going to make my recent shamanic ordeal cycle look like the “employee orientation and break in period” that She claims it was.

“Notes from a Barking Shaman” was intended as an amusing and in the end, self deprecating and ironic title for a blog that She insists that I write. Over the past several months however, I have found myself seeing it more and more as simply a statement of fact. I have many different aspects to my personal identity, but I am realizing that the barking shaman is one of those. Not as someone with TS who happens to be a shaman. Nor as a shaman, spirit worker, and magician who just happens to have TS. Some part of my identity is to be the Barking Shaman, not just a shaman who also barks. Just as being queer has had an impact on all aspects of life, especially the sprit work and magic, so will the Tourette.

Sometimes I just fucking hate it when They turn out to be right about something they’ve been saying for a while after all.

For about the past week or so I have been trying something new/old, I have been suppressing my tics as little as possible. At the same time I have not fallen into the trap of simply staying inside the house and moping about my tics coming back. Granted there are some things I simply can not do. For instance, I’d really like to see Casino Royal, the new James Bond film. This is just not practical. I am willing to accept the necessity of not suppressing my tics even in public settings, but I am not a completely selfish bastard. In most other venues though people’s reactions have been dramatically different then I expected. Primarily, none at all.

For the first several days I seriously psyched myself every morning up for dealing with all the negativity I expected to be coming my way. I have some pretty serious hang-ups about ticking in public and I apparently expected everyone else to have them also. It’s not like there haven’t been a few assholes, but I was not emotionally fucked up by them the way I expected I would be. The majority of people have ignored the tics and most of those who haven’t have approached me to ask questions not lob accusations. The more I was able to be out in public without problems, the less the occasional hostility bothered me. I knew that my tics were not intended to offend or annoy others, but seeing that most people understood that as well made it clear on an emotional (already there on the intellectual) level that people who react first and often entirely with hostility are the folks who have the issues, not me. Just reading that over it sounds like the kind of self-help feel-good crap that is often disregarded for its hokey-ness, but it is true none the less.

At the risk of sounding like a whiny little fuck; oh hell, I’m going to sound like a whiny little fuck for a few. I come by some of this emotional baggage legitimately. While most of my biological family has always been incredibly supportive when it comes to my Tourette, my biological father has made himself something of an exception. After my folks split up when I was very young, I only lived with my father for one year. I was thirteen and there were a lot of reasons I went to live with him for a year but they are not relevant here. What is relevant to this issue is that my father knew that folks with TS could suppress for periods of time and he felt that he needed to make me understand that it was my duty to do so in public at all times for the sake of others. I received a good number of lectures about “not imposing my condition on people I don’t even know.” He wanted me to promise not to tic in public which as my symptoms were very severe at the time, I couldn’t do. Since I couldn’t guarantee that I wouldn’t be ticking in public, my father wouldn’t take me out of the house when I wasn’t in school. At one point he even complained about me taking walks in the neighborhood and ticking because people in the condo development were starting to ask questions. Since I already had plenty of other issues around my father, this experience messed up my head but good.

Not that he didn’t have a point; he just took it way too far. I don’t think it is unreasonable for me to avoid movie theaters when my symptoms are too severe to safely suppress for several hours. I just don’t want to be a virtual prisoner in my house.

Whiny little retrospective over, sorry ‘bout that.

Interestingly, I am actually much more willing to go do errands and such now that I am not suppressing. Being out at the supermarket or other such banal happening is no longer the stressful exhausting experience it was. It is amazing what just removing the constant thought of “what if I tic” made things much more tolerable. Obviously, not having the strain of suppressing has also been a great help.

The Lady and Var have been amazingly generous in the last few weeks with regards to letting me focus on getting an emotional handle on this aspect of my life. Readers of this blog have probably noticed that the “shaman” in “barking shaman” has been absent for the past few weeks. There is some heavy shit coming down the pipe in the next few years and I guess that my Bosses were willing to grant me a few weeks to get my head in better order. I have it on good authority that I am going to be getting back to work quite soon and “work” is going to make my recent shamanic ordeal cycle look like the “employee orientation and break in period” that She claims it was.

“Notes from a Barking Shaman” was intended as an amusing and in the end, self deprecating and ironic title for a blog that She insists that I write. Over the past several months however, I have found myself seeing it more and more as simply a statement of fact. I have many different aspects to my personal identity, but I am realizing that the barking shaman is one of those. Not as someone with TS who happens to be a shaman. Nor as a shaman, spirit worker, and magician who just happens to have TS. Some part of my identity is to be the Barking Shaman, not just a shaman who also barks. Just as being queer has had an impact on all aspects of life, especially the sprit work and magic, so will the Tourette.

Sometimes I just fucking hate it when They turn out to be right about something they’ve been saying for a while after all.

Saw this on CNN Online this morning:

Cheney daughter’s pregnancy dismays some

I have several serious posts I could be making this evening but I am unable to. The reason for my inability to think in any coherent way is that my beloved Fireheart posted this to her blog:

The last one on the bottom is my absolute favorite. I am sure that I should be writing some sort of biting social commentary here. After all, thoughtful and thought provoking posts were the reason I created Barking Shaman.

But a picture is worth a thousand words, and I fear I will never have the literary talent to capture the 3000 words entailed in those pictures.