CIN CompuBulletin Circumcision Information Network Volume 2, Number 16, 6 May 1995 A BRITISH PERSPECTIVE (Contributed by a supporter who wishes to remain anonymous.) What rude correspondence your bulletins seem to attract! I still find it a great puzzle that something so outdated and clearly unnecessary in an age of "conservation" and general "greenness" should be seen in such illogical and heated terms by advocates of the business. As you know, here in the UK we are mercifully left well alone. I suspect at the heart of the argument for is something to do with specialness or a concept of superiority. Outside of any religious requirement, C is fast becoming an American phenomenon. Are there any other countries left who are such passionate advocates nowadays? I doubt it. My interest stems chiefly from the sociological point of view. Your bulletins and the reaction they attract become more and more interesting! It amuses me that there remains this argument about "something going wrong" if a person is left intact. Very few kids at school, as I recall, were C'd, and those who had been were considered a curiosity (this was in the 60's). No-one ever went sick or developed awful diseases because of their natural state. It's all rather laughable seen from here, but hugely interesting to see what silliness is trotted out in the US. But I do get the impression that you are making headway and people are listening or at least thinking. Wasn't it in Australia that they did a U-turn: once a common procedure, now very rare -- what is there to be learned from this, I wonder, for the campaign in the US? What happens in a country like Japan, heavily influenced by the US? Good luck and best wishes. JUST WHAT IS AMPUTATED, ANYWAY? Contributed by franc@gun.com (Franc Garcia) Part one of a two-part series. Getting terminology right is important. Much of what has enabled circumcision to continue in this country is a semantic trickery that has misrepresented the penis. Not only is circumcision a misnomer, but the word prepuce and foreskin are complete anatomical mistakes. There is really no such thing as "the foreskin" Instead there is one single continuous structure called the skin system of the penis. I think it's fine to use the word circumcision, but always define it as "a reduction or significant deletion of the skin system of the penis." When you tell a parent that you will be removing the foreskin, they can presume that that is a separate structure and its removal will not likely impact the rest of the penis. But if you say that you will be reducing the skin system of the child's penis, then that's a different story. Now the parent hears that you are affecting the entire organ - which, of course, you are. The following is a portion of text taken from a book I'm working on that will hopefully change these incorrect terms. THE FOLLOWING IS COPYRIGHTED TEXT FROM AN UPCOMING BOOK BY GARCIA COMMUNICATION. COPYRIGHT 1994 GARCIA COMMUNICATION ALL RIGHTS RESERVED THE SKIN SYSTEM OF THE PENIS The intact penis is covered by one single continues skin sheath or skin system. The skin sheath is partly folded at different times. This folded part of the skin system is called the foreskin or prepuce. The fold of skin is often mistaken as a single layer, or a flap of skin. This is wrong. Instead, it is a free, two-layer fold that forms when the skin coming down the penis from the shaft folds underneath itself somewhere near the tip of the penis then travels back to an attachment point behind the glans (see figures 6 and 4). The two sides of the fold do not adhere to each other even though they lie flat against each other appearing to form a single flap of skin. Also, in the adult the skin system does not adhere to the glans so it can unfold back off of the glans, leaving it fully exposed. When we speak of this skin sheath we are not talking about the surface of the glans itself in the same way that we talk about the surface of the shaft, because the glans has no real skin. When we talk about the skin covering of the glans, this can only mean the foreskin. The foreskin is its skin covering. THE FICTITIOUS FORESKIN A significant anatomical error has been made historically and continues today in describing the penis by delineating the "foreskin" as a separate anatomical structure from the shaft skin. People talk about the "foreskin" separately from the shaft skin. This is a mistake. It is not correct. The foreskin is not a separate anatomical structure from the rest of the skin of the penis. This is actually an artificial separation. When the word foreskin is used, rather than referring to a separate part of the penis, it means the part of the continuous skin system which happens to be folded over the glans at any given time. So there is no real anatomical border to the "foreskin." Since the proportion of the skin system that is folded over the glans increases and decreases by folding and unfolding to various degrees all the time, we realize that "foreskin" is a poor way of describing the anatomy of the penis. Instead, more accurate terminology might be to describe that part of the skin system which covers the glans as the "forefold of the skin system." Unlike the false border between "foreskin" and shaft skin, there is a real anatomical border which exists in the skin system. It is between the mucosal, or non-keratinized, part of the skin system (which consists of the inner lining of the foreskin along with the surface of the glans) and the keratinized part (which is the outer penile skin, including the outer foreskin). That border is at the most distal part, or tip, of the skin system - it is the tip of the forefold (see figures 6 and 7). I WELCOME ANY AND ALL COMMENTS ABOUT THIS TEXT. franc@gun.com A NEW "ORGAN"IZATION Intact Men Against Circumcision (IMAC) is an assemble of intact men networking to save infants and children from destructive genital surgery. We are joined together to help end the intense pain, trauma, terror and suffering which is a perversion called circumcision. As owners of this extraordinary structure, the prepuce (foreskin), we must speak out. As males who appreciate and understand the importance of wholeness, we must speak out. As males who are experiencing a phenomenon which guarantees a lifetime of complete, sensuous, fulfilling and normal sexuality, we must speak out. We have been mute too long, our voices must be heard, we must share the truth that ownership of a complete primary sex organ is healthy and the subtraction from that organ is destructive. For more information, write IMAC, PO Box 355, Green River, WY 82935.