I've always thought circumcision was a blunt instrument. It's an act to be committed against someone, like taking a baseball bat to someone's head in order to get that person's attention. Nobody chooses circumcision for himself. It's chosen by someone, usually bigger and more powerful, to be applied to someone else, usually smaller and less powerful. Even those men who choose it don't really choose it. They usually do it to "fit in" or to appease a romantic partner or because, as they often say, to escape merciless teasing of one form or another. Or, just maybe because they have been terrified into submission.
So when circumcision became the new next big thing to spend HIV/AIDS funds on, it was obvious to me that it wouldn't be applied to only men who have sex with infected women, as the studies suggested it should be. Rather it would be a money magnet, a funds sponge, hoovering up any male with a foreskin in its path, whether heterosexual African or homosexual San Franciscan. And now we have evidence.
In a slick publication developed by Asian Health Services of the Men's Health Project and funded by The California AIDS Clearinghouse, a state office, and the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center, we have this: "Studies show that men with foreskins are more likely to contract HIV than men without."
Get that? If you're circumcised and fucking men, you can rest easy. You're at lower risk. Three studies say that this, as Penn & Teller would put it, is BULLSHIT.
Peruse these archived MC_HIV stories for all the many references that show a gay man who relies on circumcision for protection will DIE.
[Scroll down for more.]
We need help to counter this propaganda in the newest battlefield for Genital Integrity: Places where AIDS information is disseminated.
This September we are going to be manning a booth at the Folsom Street Fair* in San Francisco. We have the sponsorship, Attorneys for the Rights of the Child. We have the manpower, Will, Frank, and me. We have much of the materials, generously provided by intactivists of the Bay Area. What we need is money. Space, insurance, appropriate banners, and printing will run us about $750 total, by my estimate.
Help us if you can, damn it!
*Yes, it's gay. Yes, it's fetish. Yes, it's San Francisco. It's also where we are most likely to find a receptive audience to our message. These many open minds will take off their leather and put on their suits, work clothes, who knows, maybe even their Sunday school attire, and return to the real world with the seeds we plant. It's worthy. Trust me.
