CIN (Circumcision Information Network) 2:16

Introduction
This weekly bulletin is a project of CIN, the Circumcision Information Network (formerly CIN CompuBulletin). The purpose of this weekly bulletin is to educate the public about and to protect children and other non-consenting persons from genital mutilation. Readers are encouraged to copy and redistribute it, and to contribute written material.
--Rich Angell, Editor.

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a great puzzle that something so outdated and clearly unnecessary in an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. 

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