Male Circumcision and HIV

Intactivism for 2012: Prevention and Restoration

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.

 

PENN JILLETTE: Atheist Guide to the 2012 Election with lessons for intactivism

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).

 

SAN FRANCISCO: The Cut Tour 2011

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.

OCTOBER 29: Cut, Slicing Through the Myths of Circumcision

NOTE: I got the date wrong in the initial post. This event takes places Saturday, October 29, 7pm to 10pm. Not Oct 28. Sorry about that.

San Francisco will host Cut: Slicing Through the Myths of Circumcision on October 28 29 from 7pm to 10pm at the Ninth Street Independent Film Center. The event is organized by the Bay Area Intactivists in association with The Whole Network.

From the facebook page, CUT Tour 2011 -

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.

BLOGGING: Sorry I've been away

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.

Mike Gatto, The Face of Genital Cutting in America

This has been a month of repose after a long summer of suffering. I am very sorry for the no-posts-at-all schedule of August. There was much to post about. I'll try to pull it together and do a digest this week. Until then, enjoy this little graphic. He's a Democrat, by the way. Word from Sacramento is that the Republicans are fully on board with this barbarism. Nothing unites the nation, the religions, and the politicians like a bloody baby penis. Just like the homophobia of not so long ago (and even now, of course).

Intactivist pioneer Van Lewis passed away today

UPDATE: Florida Today has published an obituary.

The last time I saw Van Lewis, I had driven him to the Caltrain depot in San Francisco from Marilyn Milos's place in the North Bay after she hosted a celebration following the Eleventh International Symposium on Circumcision and Human Rights. It was a warm September evening. I pulled up across the street from Caltrain. He got out. We shook hands. Then we bid farewell until the next symposium or protest or event we both assumed would bring us back together again eventually.

I felt a little bad leaving him there as it was getting dark, not knowing when the next train to San Carlos would pull out. I should have taken him to San Carlos, but I didn't. He didn't ask or assume. He just exhibited that same southern grace you can detect in the video below, thanking me for taking him that far in his soft spoken way. Regret.

Farewell, Van. Thank you for blazing a path for the rest of us who have followed you and taken up the cause to end the barbarism of circumcision.

VIDEO: Jewish American Scholar Leonard Glick on Circumcision

Here is another essential James Loewen film. This one is of Leonard Glick, an anthropology professor and scholar of Jewish history. I've had the privilege of meeting Professor Glick and even of receiving some very kind and encouraging words from him concerning this blog. He's a soft-spoken man who has given us a very important scholarly work on circumcision, Marked in Your Flesh: Circumcision from Ancient Judea to Modern America. For that, I wish to thank him.

Thank you, Dr. Glick!

SALON: Men on [being] cut

The actual title to this piece in Salon doesn't make any sense because the story is about men being circumcised as infants when they had neither the power to make the decision nor resist the assault. It's more of the View from Nowhere although to be fair the piece purports to give voice to men rather than to speak for them through a report. Still it could have been done better and more fairly.

Men on making the cut

The circumcision debate gets heated even without introducing the question of whether it should be legal -- but activists in San Francisco are doing just that. Earlier this week, Bay Area "intactivists" submitted a ballot proposal that would ban the practice on boys under 18 and slap violators with a fine or jail time. The man behind the measure argues that circumcision is an "excruciatingly painful and permanently damaging surgery that's forced on men when they're at their weakest and most vulnerable." Beyond that divisive rhetoric, there's an important question -- one that I decided to bring to men: How do you feel about the decision your parents' made for you at birth?

Open Thread Thursday

Comments have never been raging on this site, but why not give an open thread challenge a try on a slow news night.

Three topics. 1. San Francisco ban on male circumcision for children. 2. The Circumcision Lobby. 3. Media bias against genital integrity.

Discuss.