CIN (Circumcision Information Network) 2:35

CIRCUMCISION INFORMATION NETWORK
Formerly CIN CompuBulletin
Volume 2, Number 35, 2 November 1995
E-Mail:  CircInfoNe@aol.com

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.

RESPONDING TO ELLEN GOODMAN
Editor's note:  Feminist Columnist Ellen Goodman recently wrote another
article denouncing female genital mutilation.  One question we have to ask
ourselves is:  why do we call female genital mutilation 'female genital
mutilation'?  Could it be an unspoken or subconscious way of ignoring or
hiding the obvious fact that genital mutilation is genital mutilation,
whether the amputated tissue is a foreskin, a clitoris or a labia, whether it
is done for social, religious or so-called medical reasons, whether it is
done to male or female children?  Read on for one man's response to Ms.
Goodman's article:

Contributed by Barry Ellsworth, BarryBE@aol.com
In a recent Boston Globe article decrying female genital mutilation, you
mentioned "a bizarre analogy made between female circumcision and male."  It
was implied that this analogy is both false and an impediment to the
eradication of female genital mutilation.  You declined to identify those who
assert that there is a connection; those who assert the connection because
they see the removal of healthy genital tissue from any child as a violation
of human rights.

Circumcised men such as myself have lost fifteen square inches of genital
tissue.  That tissue would have contained over a two hundred and fifty feet
of nerves, and a thousand nerve endings.  It contained an anatomical
structure called the frenulum which is perhaps the most sensitive part of the
penis, analogous to the female clitoris.  We are left only with a scar, and a
vague assertion that we are cleaner and more desirable, much like the female
victims of genital mutilation.

The connection between male and female genital mutilation is readily
recognized by "circumcised" women, African and American, who are working to
stop FGM.  Maserka ["Mimi"] Ramsey, an Ethiopian woman active in the fight
against both male and female circumcision, has stated that "cut is cut,
mutilation is mutilation," regardless of gender.  When I met filmmaker Soraya
Mire, who made a movie about her own circumcision in Somalia, we were struck
by our feeling of sharing the experience of being genitally mutilated.
 Several North American women who have been genitally mutilated by US doctors
have stood with circumcised men to end all medically sanctioned mutilations.

Failing  to recognize the connection is an impediment to stopping all
mutilations.  The similarity has not been lost on the circumcisers.  The
government of Egypt, in its attempt to reconcile international opinion with
its own powerful pro-circumcision clerics, has decreed that all female
circumcisions will be performed in modern hospitals.  They noticed that
moving mutilation into the medical setting has legitimized genital mutilation
in the west.  If girls are circumcised in Egyptian hospitals with sterile
instruments and the benefits of anesthesia, how can we object?

THE DIARY OF AN AAP CONFERENCE ATTENDEE
Part 1 of a multi-part series
Editor's note:  The last issue of the CIN reported on activists who quietly
picketed outside of the American Academy of Pediatrics conference in San
Francisco.  Following is a report, contributed by W.H., of activist Richard
DeSeabra, Director NORM of NYC, who actually attended the conference:

Thursday, Oct. 12th 
Arrived in San Francisco and actually bumped into Ken Drabick, director of
NORM of New Zealand on the street 3 hours after my arrival!  He had just
flown in an hour earlier! We had met a few weeks earlier in New York City.
 The fact that intactivists are now bumping into each other around the world
must be a good sign.

Friday, Oct. 13th: 
Registration Day.  Felt nauseous approaching the Mascone Center.  The
hostility of the Pediatricians at the AAP Philly Conference came back to me
and I realized then and there "here we go again."  My goal was to contact
committee heads and discuss the importance of inviting doctors who share our
views to speak at future conferences.  I also  wanted to meet with the heads
of the three committees that are going to revisit the circ issue.  I always
introduced myself as the director of NORM of NYC, a support network for men
damaged by circumcision.  That word "damaged" stops them in their tracks.
 Then after talking about the deaths and the boy who lost the head of his
penis recently in Marin County just over the Golden Gate (I would point as if
I knew what direction Marin County was in) I would proceed to talk about what
men are doing to reverse this.  As soon as I started to get smirks I would
mention if it is OK for a woman to want a breast after mastectomy then it
should be acceptable for men to want a prepuce after a postectomy.  I felt
very empowered by the fact that so many restoring men had contributed to my
being out there.  I had a constituency I was representing.  I left messages
with a few heads of committee and got a call back from the head of COPAM,
Peter Rappo.  Spoke for 45 minutes.  Told him about the various movements and
mostly about NORM.  He told me they were literally "bombarded" with material.
 I told him you can't go around cutting off the best part of millions of
men's penises and expect every one to be happy about it. 

Saturday, Oct 14th: Day 1 of conference:
NOHARMM Demonstration at 11:00 AM.  I don't wear a NOHARMM button to keep
NORM and NOHARMM separate.  NOHARMM was very professional looking.  They got
a lot of frustrating snickers and laughs from doctors but every once in a
while there was a good response.  One nurse from San Antonio told me they
have to save the foreskins for the Hospital's Dept. of Oral surgery  which
uses them for reconstructive surgery of the inner lining of the mouth.  I
couldn't find her address afterwards because I forgot her last name.  I'm
still working on finding her though.  At 14:00 I go to COPAM meeting.  I
thought I was going to stand outside and lobby as they went in and came out
but the sign by the door said "Meet the Committee on Practice and Ambulatory
Medicine."  I didn't realize the meeting was open to all conference members.
 Sat there for an hour and a half and they talked about liability problems,
congress, Hillary Clinton, money, vaccines and I finally realized that circ
was not going to be brought up.  Finally I got up and said that for the past
three months I had heard that COPAM was going to address the issue on
circumcision...  And as soon as I said the "c"  word they all smirked and
there were some laughs.  I told them to shut up and stop laughing because 4.5
billion people agreed with the demonstrators outside and not with them.  "If
there is anyone who is lunatic fringe here it's not me and it's not NOHARMM.
 Let it be known that YOU are in the minority on this issue.  Not us."  They
clammed up and I spoke and told them about the deaths and botched cases (I
pointed to Marin County again).  I told them I was representing men of NORM.
 Rappo interrupted me and said "Well Richard, you know we spoke yesterday for
45 minutes."  My reply: "Yes, you and I spoke but had I not shown up here you
wouldn't have mentioned anything about our conversation to your colleagues
nor was circumcision going to be brought up."  I added that as they talked
for an hour and a half around 130 boys had been circumcised.  I asked them to
come up to me and take the report I had written up at the request of another
committee called Five Fields of Study on Circumcision for Future AAP
Conferences.  At the end, some of them asked me for the report and I handed
out the rest.  One doctor interjected, "What's the big deal.  The parents of
those 130 children all consented to having the circumcisions done."  Then, I
blurted out "No one has the right to amputate all or part of someone else's
healthy genitalia without their consent!  Why is this so difficult for
American doctors to get?  Why?  No one answered.  And I insisted, "Can you
tell me why?"  Silence.  Then after doing a brief one on one with them
afterwards, I was told that a new task force is going to be formed and that
they were going to discuss this issue later that night in a closed meeting.

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION call NOCIRC, the National Organization of
Circumcision Information Resource Centers at (415) 488-9883, fax (415)
488-9660.  Ask about the resource provider nearest you.  For written
information, write NOCIRC, PO Box 2512, San Anselmo, CA 94979,  with SASE
and/or donation if possible.
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