Penis Mutilation Rituals
In my opinion, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s penis had already been mutilated years before. Religious Muslims, including many African tribes, practice circumcision on their young boys, as the Jewish religion and most American hospitals perform this procedure on male infants. Everyone in the West denounces female circumcision which is pretty abominable. But many support or just ignore the violence of the same act on males, even though it is only marginally less abusive. Female cliterectomy usually chops off the clitoris and sometimes the labia, leaving a woman essentially without outer genitalia. Male circumcision slices off 5-20% of the penis, specifically the foreskin, the vital part of the male genitalia that protects the glans when it is flaccid and retracts sensuously to reveal his erection when fully aroused.
There have been many excuses posited for circumcision, including the almighty virtue of “cleanliness,” but the main point is said to have been to keep men from masturbating. And yes, it does feel good to move that sensual foreskin back and forth, and circumcision does seem to deaden sensation, leaving the glans in a perpetual state of exposure, as well as creating all sorts of untold traumas for boys who are put through it. But I think it’s been proven a gazillion times that circumcision does NOT stop guys from masturbating, though it does help keep the lube industry going (uncut men don’t tend to require lube). So, maybe the *real* purpose of circumcision is just to cause pain, to toughen the boy for a life of violence, war and sacrifice.
As a good Muslim boy, Farouk was most certainly circumcised, so his penis had already known considerable pain and trauma. Perhaps he even fetishized the penile pain, thinking something along the lines of, “Since Allah won’t allow my penis to have pleasure, then let it have pain, let it explode with pain and take some heathens down with it!” It doesn’t take much imagination to see how thoughts like that might lead to tighty-whities packed with explosives.
via www.counterpunch.org or view on Dr. Block's own blog.
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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.
Read a transcription of this interview here.
