This page is dedicated to people and children who have had to live their lives in shame and anger because of the ignorance and complacency of a world that can't face itself.

Purpose

The purpose of this page is not only inform the world of horrible atrocities of the practice itself, but to protest the practice and support of these practices by religions, governments, and common people.
This practice is genital mutilation of any kind, to any sex.
This includes, but is not limited to:

• Infant Male Circumcision
• Ritual Female Circumcision
• Any form of the afore mentioned practices

I hope to present a reasonable and fair case against any practice that involves any mutilation of a person's body without their consent.

Things I Would Like to Establish:
 

• I would like to establish that all people, regardless of age or sex, commonly share all rights, including the right not to be operated on or otherwise mutilated without their consent, even if a parent insists based on religion or other opinions.
• I would like to establish that a parent, doctor, or any other guardian does not have the right to mutilate or destroy any part of a child's body, regardless of the guardian's opinion of the necessity, value, or religious significance of such an action.

Reasons
 

    Genital mutilation is not a new concept. It is rooted in age old religious and social practices. Regular male circumcision began in early Egypt as a way of marking slaves. If you recall biblical history, the Jews were held in bondage in Egypt until Moses led them out. Being slaves, they were marked by circumcision. When they moved to new lands, they had to find a way to differentiate between themselves and the rest of the population. By then, the tradition of circumcision was deeply rooted in Jewish religion.

    Later Egyptian priests and other Mediterranean cultures adopted circumcision as a way of bestowing mythical powers on religious leaders. This practice spread throughout Africa, and the middle east, rooting itself in Muslim religion as well. The entire muslim population was circumcised, males and females, to ensure sexual self-control and spiritual cleanliness. As Islam spread across Africa, so did the practice of circumcision.

There are no references to entire civilizations or religions mandatorily circumcising their populations in the east or anywhere else in the world.

As Jews spread throughout Europe, their tradition came with them.

The practice was known, and adopted by other European religions, notably Catholicism,  as a means of controlling sexual desire in men. The practice became even more dominant as Victorian ideas about sexuality emerged, labeling masturbation the work of the devil.

These ideas found their way to America, where religious purists believed that circumcision was a healthy way to curb masturbation. In the late 19th century, as men moved west to establish homes in frontier towns before their families came, the use of brothels and whores increased, and masturbation also increased. At this time in America, industry was booming, an unknown thing before this time. These two things clashed heavily with Victorian values. On top of this, the recent boom in entrepreneurism created a climate for bogus claims to be accepted and bought up as truth by an uneducated and religiously trusting public.

Many people who felt threatened established colonies of followers who searched for ways to stay "clean". One of these colonies was founded by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg. A religious purist, he founded the colony to solve people's problems, which he would usually attribute to masturbation. In short, he founded the cereal industry and advocated infant male circumcision in America, a dark shame that his lived for over 100 years to today. He also died without any heirs, trying to prove the health benefits of not having sex. His brother, William K. Kellogg, bought up his resulting cereal company from other shareholders, and it is his signature that we see on the boxes of Kellogg's cereal today. Other cereal entrepreneurs, C.W. Post., founder of Post cereal, and Sylvester Graham, the creator of Graham crackers, shared similar ideals with Kellogg. So basically, the thriving cereal industry was founded on insane beliefs, and spawned the horrible practice of routine infant male circumcision in America and Canada that has affected millions of men up to this day.

Go here for a page with more information on cereal and it's connection to routine infant male circumcision in America and Canada.

There are several causes for a parent to want their child circumcised. One of which being that the parents are uneducated about the topic, and believed the surgery to be necessary, beneficial to the child's health, or even a legal requirement. Another reason is family pride, either the parents want to carry on a family tradition, or a parent, usually the father, feels ashamed at his own circumcision, and takes this anger out on his son by having him circumcised. However none of these reasons are acceptable excuses for circumcising a child, because even a parent or doctor does not have the right to make a decision which can change a child's body unless the child's mortal life is at stake (arguments that a child's eternal salvation are concerned are void because the child's right to have an intact body outweighs the parents' or doctors' responsibility to provide for the well-being of the child, except when the child's life is at stake. Arguments that a tight foreskin puts a male's life at risk are void, because our species got along just fine without circumcision for a long time. The only life threatening ailments that could qualify for a circumcision would be a tumor on the foreskin, an extremely severe urinary tract infection, or other extremely severe life threatening ailment).

Another prevalent reason is religion or cultural belief. This reason is especially prevalent in Jewish and Muslim religions, and cultures of Africa, and affects both sexes. For Muslim women, it supposedly keeps them sexually under control. A Muslim male must supposedly be circumcised before he is married, but this nor female circumcision is even mentioned in any mainstream Muslim scripture. It is supposedly within the Abrahmic covenant for Jewish males to be circumcised. However, neither of these religious excuses are acceptable, because they violate a person's inalienable right to an intact body to do with what they please.

Over time in America and abroad, doctors have made various changing excuses to continue the widespread accepted practice of circumcision. At first, in late 19th century, many people would accept the word of a doctor straight-out, either because of their foolishness, stupidity, or ignorance. This is also true for advertising. As time went on, people saw the blunders of medicine and business, became more educated, and trusted the establishment less. It then came time for a new set of answers other than the false premise that it curbs sexual desire. Doctors eventually compiled statistics that claimed that circumcised males of certain races encountered less penile cancer than the rest of the general male population. These studies were flawed however, because males of those populations, circumcised or not, had lower rates of penile cancer than the rest of the general male population. Other excuses, such as hygiene benefits and less urinary tract infections were also proven untrue. In fact, some scientists have even declared that mammals could not survive without smegma (a natural lubricant retained by the foreskin).

Lately, a lot of attention has been cast on female circumcision in Africa by the international community. In 1996, the U.S. passed a law making any form of youth female genital mutilation illegal, regardless of religious or cultural importance. What I don't understand is how a group of fairly intelligent people can find any difference between the importance of a female's dignity, pleasure, and foreskin importance and a male's. I think equal attention should be cast to the epidemic of infant male circumcision in America, and an equal law should be passed, prohibiting genital mutilation of a youth male regardless of religious or cultural significance.

Throughout this document, I have opted to leave out conditions for exceptions, except for the explanation for exception if the child's life is at stake. If a child is older than a certain age (undetermined, but somewhere near 10-15), then if they consent, a genital piercing, circumcision, or other surgery may take place. I do not, by any means, want to restrict anyone's rights to have a wanted piercing or other surgery, but children's right's to an intact body are at stake. The problem with this proposition is that a parent could threaten or carry out on a child, either beating or other physical punishment, mental anguish and punishment, or a withholding of materials that could be detrimental to the child if they will not tell the doctor that they consent and allow the operation to occur. These materials could be anything from food to college payment assistance. Because these situations could potentially occur, extra care must be taken to ensure that a child is really willing to have the surgery and that they understand the lifelong consequences of their.

Effects
 

Male Circumcision:

• Callousing of the glans (head) of the penis, causing much less sensitivity, yet since there is no protective barrier between the glans and underclothing, chafing is much more painful.
• Loss of thousands of nerves and nerve endings that were located on the foreskin.
• Loss of smooth gliding property during sex. Detrimental for both partners.
• Loss of ability to retain smegma, a natural lubricant produced by the prepuce (red ring at the bottom of the glans) and kept in place by the foreskin. Also disinfects and enhances sensitivity of the glans.
• Most circumcised men's shaft skin is more sensitive than their glans, but the exact opposite should be true, a result of constant chafing, drying, and callousing of the glans.

Female Circumcision:
 

• Loss of sensitivity to the clitoris and clitoral glans.
• Makes reaching orgasm impossible for most circumcised women.

Both:
 

• Loss of pride and the chance to live their life with an intact body and choose what they want to do with it.
• Reduction of sexual pleasure and genital comfort.

Solution
 

I think a general ban of infant, child, and youth male and female circumcision worldwide, but at least in the U.S., would be acceptable. This would spare thousands of innocent men and women the shame of knowing that they had altered genitals and didn't even know it. Many people circumcised at birth grow up accepting their penis as biologically correct, and are shocked and hurt when they find out their whole lives they have been believing a lie. But this is exactly what the establishment wants, a blind acceptance of it's foolish rules and arcane rituals. It will take a whole nation and a whole world to put child genital mutilation in the past, and many people will have to change their views on their religion or culture to do it. I think once we can analyze our traditions for their real effect, will can better understand the stupidity of some of the things we do in the name of religion, popular society, or for the sake of letting other people in other cultures, or our own, just "be", even while we know that innocent people are being hurt. Please support the effort to ban any form of infant, child, and youth genital circumcision worldwide for both sexes.
 

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