When I write about circumcision and HIV and intactivism, I link to a lot of material elsewhere on the web. I also frequently quote from other material. It's what bloggers do on their blogs. In fact, it's what defines blogging in an interconnected world.
The US Senate would like to empower unhappy big publishers and powerful corporate interests who don't like what blogs do to shut down websites like this one without notice, a hearing, an opportunity to confront accusers and rebut the accusations. The legislation is called the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), and would put every website that writes about or links to other material in legal jeopardy.
As the always entertaining blog, Boing Boing, says today on their site, "This would unmake the Web, just as proposed in the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). We don't want that world. If you don't want it either, visit AmericanCensorship.org for instructions on contacting your Senator. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has more information on this and other issues central to your freedom online."
Note: I would have done a fancy "offline" splash page in place of this post, but the platform and registrar I use require a lot of work to do it and then put it back. Sorry. :(
Most people I worked with this last year will tell you it was a tough year for intactivism. Not all of the setbacks were caused by our opponents, either. There were missteps and unexpected unintended consequences resulting from a few of the efforts intactivists engaged in. That's my take that more than a few disagree with.
I'm not going to rehash what the problems were. I'll only say that when we individually or in small groups seek to push this issue forward, a thoughtful period of reflection can't be all bad. As much as we want genital mutilation and the child abuse to stop, we have to work through all the possible outcomes as much as possible and prepare for the most obvious.
Beyond that, this movement is one of individual effort. I applaud every person who puts him or herself on the line, risking family and professional relationships, their livelihood and their future to make it just a little less likely some poor infant will have the flesh torn and sliced from his penis in the name of culture, junk medicine or religion.
New Direction, New Emphasis
For some time now, prevention efforts have been gaining a strong following across the country that, while still nascent, is very promising. The new faces and new voices that pop up everyday in comments to news articles and on facebook in reference to some new outrage to line the pockets of American circumcisers in Africa are helping to mainstream intactivism.
So, while we are far from victory, it is time for this blog (and for me personally) to begin asking what's next in building the current synergistic, multidisciplinary movement to end the suffering from forced and unwanted circumcision.
Traditionally, there have been two pillars to intactivism. The first is education and outreach to drive down the numbers of children subjected to this abuse. The second has always been restoration. Getting involved in the latter has often been a highly personal journey that requires a level of mental and emotional fortitude few can sustain over the period necessary to be successful. I believe there are developments afoot that could bring much needed changes, thereby making this second part of the movement available to many more men and their partners.
Foregen is an organization, founded in Italy, that has recently extended its efforts into the nonprofit sector of the United States. In short, restoration through regenerative medicine is its area of concern. While you can go to their website to learn more about their ideas and efforts to get the research done, I will say this: we need this research because we need real therapies that are realistically within the grasp of every man who has suffered with being circumcised, whether he was circumcised by force or submitted to circumcision as an adult.
Still one might ask why. If we have restoration through skin expansion technologies, why do we need a new medical approach to foreskin restoration? The short answer is because skin expansion does not work for everyone. It is not often spoken about perhaps because restoration failure is or feels like defeat for the movement. To admit that once circumcised, it is permanent and no amount of personal effort can overcome the damage, the violation, or the psychological fall out is to submit to those who do this to children and misguided adults.
Over the next year, I'm going to be touching on regenerative medicine and its promise for foreskin restoration here on the blog. I'm aware that this is getting a little far afield from circumcision and HIV. However, as the blog evolves towards intactivism, I believe regenerative medicine needs and deserves attention.
Meanwhile, Dr. Stephen Badylak, while perhaps not necessarily a friend (or foe) of intactivism, has done some killer research that could help regenerative restoration take a giant step forward. He spoke at the Singularity Summit in 2011. Below is his talk that explains what is possible.
Thanks for reading these last five years. I'm not as active as I was, but I'm still here. Here's looking forward to a productive new year as we work to protect children from genital mutilations in the name of religion, culture, and medical culture. - David
Penn Jillette, one of our allies and heros, gives us an atheist guide to the 2012 election. The relevant part for intactivism is right around the 10 minute mark.
Jillette talks about how a mass falling away from organized religious belief is amplified by the internet. He says it has become really hard for religious communities to shield their members from opposing and differing ideas. It isn't that religion is disappearing, but that people who find themselves believing something different have the space to come out of the closet and live radically different than they would have, unexposed to other views.
The lesson for intactivists is that we will never go back to a time of total isolation. When a teen or young adult upset at being circumcised or suffering from a poor circumcision outcome goes online, he will find a community of supporters and a wealth of information. Odds are he won't do it to his own son. In contrast, how many times have we heard from men who came of age pre-internet, upset at being circumcised but who circumcised their own sons anyway?
Partially NSFW due to language and Jillette never addresses circumcision specifically (although his views are well known on the topic).
Next month, this blog will celebrate five years of telling the world that circumcision does not prevent AIDS. The fifth year has been tough. How was your year of intactivism? Tell me in the comments.
The Cut Tour 2011 made a stop in San Francisco, Saturday night, October 29, 2011, to an almost full house. The 80 person auditorium at the Ninth Street Independent Film Center was filled to near capacity for Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon's film that explores infant circumcision from a Jewish perspective.
After the screening, Mark Reiss, MD, Lisa Braver Moss, Rebecca Wald and Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon took to the stage and hosted a question and answer session that stretched for almost as long as the film. Dr. Reiss has been affiliated with Doctors Opposing Circumcision for many years and is a member of a conservative synagogue in the Bay Area. Lisa Braver Moss recently wrote the book, The Measure of his Grief, which concerns the psychological fall-out of circumcision on a Jewish man and his family. Rebecca Wald is the mother of an intact boy and has created the website and online resource, Beyond the Bris, which explores the reality of raising a Jewish boy without circumcision and related issues. (Click on their names above for each of their websites.)
The Cut Tour 2011 is wrapping up soon on the West Coast with the final screening in Las Vegas on November 2, 2011. It was organized by The Whole Network and has been hosted by local intactivist groups and organizations, such as the Bay Area Intactivists.
Cut: Slicing Through the Myths of Circumcision is a powerful film. It takes a critical look at circumcision, and specifically at how it's viewed within the Jewish community. It explores the conflict between personal ethics and what some people have been told is a religious obligation.
The film maker Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon is going on this nation-wide tour and will have screenings and discussions in thirty cities and towns. His presence will help us draw large and diverse crowds, and enable many people to think about this issue in a whole new way for the first time ever. (Or maybe just really think about it at all for the first time.)
James Loewen interviewed the filmmaker Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon in Vancouver during the tour's stop there. The interview is well worth the time to listen to and process before seeing the film.
Ok, I've been battling a bad case of burnout in the last few months. Much of it has to do with the events of this past summer. From the San Francisco circumcision ballot initiative to facing the giddy Ugandans singing the praises of circumcision in Rome, it's been intense. This is in addition to the intactivism events beginning with Pride and culminating with Folsom Street.
Thanks for checking in from time to time. I'll get with the program again soon, but probably not until after the New Year.
It's been a lean couple months of posts at a time of almost weekly breaking news on circumcision. Please bear with me. Meanwhile, enjoy this video evidence of changing attitudes in North America.
Subscribe and receive a numbered copy of The Intactivists: San Francisco Pride 2009-2010 as our thank you! Or buy the book online to support us! Here's why.
Male Circumcision and HIV provides a place for a public health policy debate on the linking of male circumcision and HIV/AIDS. It seeks to address questions of cost versus benefit, the effectiveness of circumcision in the fight against HIV/AIDS in real world settings, and the differing points of view of researchers, the media, and all contributors to the policy discussion.
David Wilton is a lawyer by training. He has a long-standing interest in issues of body integrity and HIV/AIDS. He maintains this site and blogs from San Francisco, California. His primary interests outside of nurturing a debate on the controversial measure of removing sexual tissue to reduce the spread of HIV are in the areas of international relations, languages, and journalism.
CUT, The PODCAST: In this episode, Eli Ungar-Sargon sits down with David Wilton of Male Circumcision and HIV to discuss the issue of circumcision and HIV-AIDS.
Below, San Francisco attorney David Wilton discusses male circumcision, HIV, and human rights.
Circumcision and AIDS at MGMbill.org A decidedly anti-circumcision site with a calm approach to addressing the human rights issues likely to become problematic in the rush to roll out circumcision as an HIV prophylactic.
Circumcision and HIV at circumstitions.com One of the most thorough reviews anywhere of circumcision and the history behind the HIV prevention community's study of it. The science behind this prophylactic tool is much more equivocal than the most recent researchers would have you believe. New Zealand based.
Circumcision and HIV: Harm Outweighs Benefits from circumcision.org From the Circumcision Resource Center, Boston, Massachusetts. This human rights organization has published such books as Questioning Circumcision: A Jewish Perspective and Circumcision: The Hidden Trauma. Sitting on its board are a number of individuals affiliated with Harvard and other Ivy League institutions.
Doctors Opposing Circumcision statement on HIV Doctor's Opposing Circumcision is a Seattle based physicians group that provides education, information and advice on medical circumcision and its effects.
Statement on AIDS and Circumcision from the International Coalition for Genital Integrity Another thorough treatment of male circumcision's likely impact on the spread of HIV from an "alliance of organizations dedicated to protecting the normal anatomy of males, females and the intersexed ... [that] was formed to coalesce the many activist organizations, each with a specific focus, into one, common voice."
Does circumcision prevent HIV infection? - NORM-UK John Dalton puts together a critique of the African studies and their weaknesses. He examines the evidence, appropriateness, and possible outcomes from promoting circumcision and calling it a "prevention."
