Thursday, March 8, 2018

Happy International Women’s Day Marilyn Milos

I’m going to be honest. This year is the first time I’d ever heard of International Women’s Day.

So when I started seeing posts about it on my Facebook news feed, I’ll admit I was one of those men wondering if men had an “International Men’s Day.”

It would only be fair, right?

So I look it up on Google, and the first thing I see are posts by, obviously angry feminists, bemoaning that every year, there is a spike in searches for the question “When is international men’s day?”

Apparently, I’m not the only one that asked.

But they seem to frame it in a way that somehow men all get together and collectively decide to antagonize women.

One blogger compared this phenomenon to a jerk friend attending s friend’s birthday party and asking “Dude, where’s my birthday?”

Apparently people like me are akin to birthday party crashers now.

We’re stealing women’s thunder. We’re raining on their parade.

Well boo-hoo!

I didn’t know there was an international woman’s day, let alone an international men’s day. (It’s November 19, apparently.) I seriously just wanted to know.

Reading through these posts out of curiosity, the common denominator is this idea that “men have had their own celebration all other 364 days a year, for centuries,” and I call BULLSHIT.

I work and maintain my household day in and day out with maybe only major holidays off. Some Christmas Eves I have to work up until Christmas dinner, and I never once asked for a “celebration.”

Fuck, I STILL don’t care that I don’t get a pat on the back. I’m a father. It’s my responsibility to work and raise the kids I begat. In Chris Rock’s words, “You’re *supposed* to take care of your kids! What do you want, a cookie?

I seriously only decided to ask Google cuz I genuinely wanted to know if there was an equivalent to International Women’s Day.

That’s really all there was to it.

Sorry I asked.

Well anyway, now I know there’s a women’s day, now I know there’s a men’s day, so I’ll know when to celebrate the men in my life. I promise not to ask, adding to the spike on google every March 8th, and to the chagrin of bitter feminists who believe every day is some sort of “celebration” for men.

That’s said, on this International Women’s Day, I’d like to take this opportunity to celebrate a special woman.

A woman without whom this intactivist movement would not be possible, Marilyn Milos.


It took a woman to finally look at the procedure of taking a healthy, helpless, non-consenting newborn, strapping him down and cutting off part of his most sensitive, most private, most intimate part of his body and question it’s medical necessity.

She could have decided to focus on the anti-FGM movement, but she didn’t; every other feminist woman is doing that.

She decided this issue needed attention, and she took it upon herself to dedicate herself to this issue, and to raise awareness about something that was happening every day, 1.3 million times a year, and nobody was noticing.

It took a woman to hear the screams American doctors cannot hear, and to question the validity of routine male infant circumcision as a medical procedure.

Sadly, American doctors continue to tune boys' screams as they cut into their genitals, strapped spread eagle style on a circumstraint, but we’ve come a long way.

The world is more aware of this atrocity, this violation of the most basic of human rights, this crime against humanity today, and it’s all because this woman decided to stand up, question and raise awareness.

Marilyn, thank you for what you have done.

Thank you for dedicating years of your life to this cause.

Thank you for fighting for the contention that boys have the same basic human right of genital autonomy as girls do, that boys should be afforded the same protection under the law as girls.

Wednesday, March 7, 2018

CIRCUMCISION LEGISLATION: An Alternative to a Ban?



A landmark achievement that intactivists grope for is legislation that would give male minors equal protection under the law. That is, that forced male genital mutilation, particularly the circumcision of healthy, non-consenting minors, be banned and made illegal. As of 1996, a federal ban on female genital mutilation prohibits any and every genital cut performed on girls for any reason, and there is no exempt for religions or cultures where female circumcision is considered an important tradition.

I've already mentioned it in a recent post, but the way things stand now, I think the world isn't ready for a ban on male infant circumcision. It was easy to enact legislation that bans female circumcision because it is not a custom in this country for girls to be circumcised. It's always easy to ban something that people already consider barbaric. Much groundwork has to be laid before this country is ready to ban the forced genital mutilation of male minors. It's not going to happen overnight. "Baby steps," as some put it.

Recently I was giving the issue of legality some thought, and I got to thinking about a hypothetical situation; what if, instead of a ban, circumcision were allowed to legally continue, but we enacted legislation that lowered the statutes of limitation, and gave men that grow up to resent the fact that they were circumcised the right take their circumcisers to court?

That's right, no ban. Instead, doctors could keep right on circumcising, and mohels and imams could go right on circumcising, with the acknowledgment that they could one day be legally taken to court by any of the boys they circumcise?

It is often said that most, if not all circumcised men, are happy and content with their lot, but I wonder, how much of this is true? How many would seek legal redress if they possibly could? How many circumcisers would stop if they knew they could face legal consequences one day?






There is a federal law against the forced genital cutting of females enacted in 1996, and the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution already guarantees equal protection for both girls AND boys under the law. Coupled with the fact that reaping profit from performing non-medical surgery on healthy, non-consenting individuals already constitutes medical fraud, the forced genital cutting of healthy, non-consenting boys should already be illegal and against the law.


A big part of the problem is that doctors and religious circumcisers don't have to face any consequences for their actions. If any of the boys they circumcised grow up to resent having been so, they could sleep at night knowing that short of huffing and puffing and gnashing their teeth, there is nothing they can do.

Well, what if instead of a direct ban, intactivists worked to make it legally possible for men of any age to take their circumisers to court? Legally lift statutes of limitation so that adult men can seek legal redress for the unnecessary mutilation inflicted on them? Make it legally required for each circumcision to be documented with the name of the circumciser and child, so that that person has legal access to this information as an adult, in case there is something he'd like to do about it?

The law could start requiring doctors to keep a record of an illness or medical condition that necessitates surgery, what methods of treatment were tried over time before circumcision was considered as a last resort, to ensure that only doctors who performed medically necessary procedures have a legit defense. (A legit medical reason is usually required for any other medical surgery performed on a non-consenting minor!!!) This would ensure that only medically necessary circumcisions were being performed.

The law would also required that this information be kept available to a child when he grows older, and keeping this information from a child would also mean legal repercussions for keeping information a grown person would be legally entitled to.

If current laws mean anything, the forced genital cutting of healthy, non-consenting males should already be illegal, but current laws are toothless and there is nothing a grown man can do to challenge his doctor or circumciser in court.

I think a law like this would give doctors and other would-be circumcisers something to think about, and we'd see a definite drop in the number of circumcisions being performed annually in this country.

While a ban is a long ways off, I don't think a legislative solution is completely out of the question. I think intactivists ought to start considering smaller victories that could achieve the end result they want, which is to stop the forced genital mutilation of healthy, non-consenting minors.

Related Posts:
CIRCUMCISION LEGISLATION: All Eyes on Iceland

San Francisco Circumcision Ban on November Ballot

San Francisco Circumcision Ban
SAN FRANCISCO: Democracy Hits A Brick Wall
One Intactivist's Opinion: The SF Circ Ban Ought Not to Pass

Circumcision is Child Abuse: A Picture Essay

Tuesday, March 6, 2018

TWITTER REPLY: "Female Circumcision Keeps Us Clean Down There"

Female genital cutting, known as "sunat," is common in South East Asia

I recently posted the following Tweet:


And, what seems to be a female Muslim woman's profile, replied with this:


I think this should serve to highlight the dangers of condemning the forced genital cutting of one sex, but condoning it in the other.

There is this firewall between female genital cutting and male genital cutting, where, at least until now, ne'er the twain shall meet, but this coming back to bite anti-FGM groups in the pussy. (Did I just say that?)

Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and as long as male infant circumcision can be defended "because it's cleaner," "because studies says it prevents disease," leaves the door open for female infant circumcision advocates to defend female genital cutting using the same pretexts.

Either religion, "parental choice," and/or "research" justifies the forced genital cutting of healthy, non-consenting minors, or it doesn't. You can't have it both ways.

As long as anti-FGM advocates want to have this firewall up between FGM and MGM, then they fight a losing battle.

THIS is the shit they're going to be up against; a mirror image of themselves.

Related Post:
Circumcision is Child Abuse: A Picture Essay

Saturday, March 3, 2018

Catching Up - Important News I've Missed


I'd like to apologize to my readers; I haven't been as active on this blog as I'd like to be. Believe it or not, your blogger has a life outside of intactivism, as intactivism isn't making me rich, and I need to maintain a family. I wish there was some sort of way to be active in this movement, AND make the money that I need for me and my family to survive while doing it.

In the mean time, while I don't have the time to dedicate to long, well-thought-out blog posts, I do post my thoughts often on Twitter. If you're interested, please follow me @Joseph4GI.

Recent News
There have been a lot of important things in the news regarding circumcision. Every time I see something I tell myself "I'll write a blog post about it today," but hardly ever have the time to actually do it.

Today, what I will do is, I'm just going to go down a list of recent pieces of noteworthy news and briefly comment on them.

Iceland Ban
I already posted my thoughts on this in my last blog post, but in short, I don't think it's realistic, and like the San Francisco attempt, it is going to fail. We just aren't ready for a ban yet. We were ready for a ban on FGM because the West already pretty much agreed that they hated it, unlike with MGM, where it's become pretty much ingrained in American culture. They say that in big movements like these, laws are the very last things to change. There will be a ban when we get most of the world on-board the idea that forcibly cutting the genitals of healthy, non-consenting individuals is a violation of basic human rights.

Recently Published Studies
A number of studies that throw a monkey wrench in the pro-circumcision narrative have been published.

A study that showed circumcised men are at a higher risk for cancer-causing HPV was published last year in May, but it didn't really make the news until the latter part of the year. The usual claim by male infant circumcision advocates is that HPV prevalence is higher in intact men, supposedly making them a risk-factor for cervical cancer in women. If this study is correct, then the exact opposite is true.

In another study that was published relatively recently, findings showed that male circumcision greatly increases the risk of urinary tract problems. Again, this goes contrary to the pro-circumcision slogan that male circumcision is supposed to reduce problems with UTIs and the like. This wouldn't be the first study to show this, however; other studies have showed an increase in UTIs post-circumcisions. Studies in Israel here, here and here suggest that circumcision may actually be causing UTIs in infants.

Finally, a new and recent study suggests that that circumcision complications are much higher than circumcision advocates would like parents to believe. Typically, circumcision advocates minimize the number of complications due to circumcision, citing numbers as low as 2% if not lower. The AAP itself in 2012 actually said in their policy statement on circumcision that ''the true incidence of complications after newborn circumcision is unknown." 

There are a few factors contributing to the lack of information on the true incidence of the adverse effects of circumcision. For one, there is a predisposition in American researchers in trying to find only "benefits" in circumcision, and aren't really interested in finding adverse effects; as circumcised males, fathers or mothers of circumcised children, and/or spouses of circumcised husbands, they're simply not interested in looking. Additionally, doctors who profit from the practice are probably not interested in publishing information that would likely lead to infant circumcision being banned, not to mention lawsuits. At least in the US, doctors and hospitals aren't required to publish information regarding adverse outcomes of male infant circumcision. Until the release of this information is made a requirement, we may never know the true incidence of complications of circumcision.


What this latest study goes on is a regional claims database. Because some adverse outcomes of circumcision go unreported, this can only be a conservative estimate.

"American Circumcision" Wins Yet ANOTHER Award
I did manage to post about the film "American Circumcision" winning the Best Documentary Film Award at the Lone Star Festival. Well sir, it looks like the film has managed to nab yet ANOTHER award, this time, the Silver Jury Prize at the Social Justice Film Festival.


Congratulations to the film maker Brendon Marotta for yet another award for his film.

Public Muslim Man Advocates for Choice
When I first saw this tweet, I just couldn't believe my eyes. I'm so glad that, Jews, as well as Muslims, are speaking out against forcibly cutting children, even under religious pretext.


I'm so glad to see people from circumcising faiths speaking out like this!

Well, that about wraps it up for this post.

Until the next time!