Feb 29, 2012
As you may know, Alan Cumming, star of stage and screen, is a vocal supporter of intactivism, and serves on Intact America’s Board of Advocates. Alan was recently asked by the Wall Street Journal to write about circumcision, but the paper’s editors ultimately felt his essay was “too raw” for their readers. We are delighted to print it here, with Alan’s permission, in its entirety.
“May the foreskin be with you,” by Alan Cumming
No man will deny that it feels pretty great to have someone gasp at your penis.
Well, that’s what happened to me when I first moved to America and started to show people the contents of my underpants. But their gasping was not due to my gargantuan girth (though no complaints so far, thank you very much!) but more to the fact that I, unlike the vast majority of American males, have not been genitally mutilated. I have a foreskin. I am intact.
The gasping was due to the fact that most people had never seen a real, unadulterated, uncircumcised penis before, and some of the people who were seeing mine had, to be frank, been round the block a few times so their reaction was all the more surprising and on reflection, upsetting.
For not only did they have no idea of what a foreskin looked like, they also had no idea how to deal with it when we got down to business. I had to give quite a few seminars on how it worked. Can you imagine being in your thirties and suddenly having to explain to lovers how your genitals functioned, or having them gush that they’d never seen one like yours before, or, worse, recoil in disdain and say ‘what do you even do with that?’
It made me feel that I was the weird one, I was deformed, I was not normal, when of course it was they who had had a piece of the most sensitive part of their bodies removed. I was the intact one. I was complete, I told myself. They were the ones who were lacking, literally, and who needed to be counseled and awakened to these facts.
We have a foreskin for a reason. Mine protects the most sensitive part of my body. Of course when I say this in the now many conversations I have had on this topic, there is always some guy who scoffs and says he couldn’t possibly be any more sensitive down there, if he were it might be some sort of problem. To him, and to you now, dear reader, I offer this little parable:
Say I am having a shower and as I am toweling myself off my foreskin gets pulled back, revealing the head of my penis. When I begin to dress, if the head is still out and it touches the fabric of my underwear, it is so uncomfortable and sensitive that I have to pull my foreskin back down immediately before I can finish dressing. That’s how sensitive it is. And that’s also how much sensitivity you lose when you are circumcised.
Of course no man wants to hear that he is missing out on sexual pleasure by something that happened when he was a few days old and is therefore irreversible as well as impossible for him to even conceive of the difference. That’s why I think a lot of men who are circumcised are initially defensive and protective of the procedure, and see any opposition to it by people like me as hysterical and cranky. I get it. Maybe I would be like that too if I wasn’t intact, and if I spent most of my life never encountering anyone who was.
But this defensiveness can turn rather aggressive when a discussion, um, extends into anything more than a passing comment and I am always amazed by people’s reasoning for why this really distressing thing was done to them and in turn why they intend to continue the tradition on their own male offspring. We are all so rightly horrified by the genital mutilation of girls in some parts of the world. I say, why don’t we have the same abhorrence about it happening to little boys here?
The phrase ‘Religious reasons’ will be quoted though most are vague on what these actually are when pressed. Occasionally the ‘covenant with God’ angle will rear its head, though when I say that we have stopped most of the other barbaric practices described in the Bible so why are we so keen to continue this one, nobody really wants to listen. Then, prospective fathers who are defending future circumcision on their boys will say things like ‘He’ll be teased in the locker rooms.’ Why? For having all his body parts intact? Or, my personal favorite: ‘I want him to look like me!’ Is this a part of American culture I have not been enlightened about yet? Do you all go home at Thanksgiving and get your wangs out in front of your fathers and compare notes? I mean, really.
So I have decided to get together a book, a sort of circumcision 101. In it you will find everything you ever wanted to know (and some stuff I daresay you didn’t) about circumcision. Why it’s done, how it’s done, the religious reasons, the social reasons, the myths, the facts, testimonials from those who’ve had it done, those who haven’t and also, how it can go wrong, horribly, horribly wrong. It’s the perfect read for anyone with a penis and those who love them, which covers the whole population of the planet so fingers crossed that this will be a cash cow for Intact America and Norm-UK, two organizations I am affiliated with and who are doing sterling work in educating and advising on this matter, and who, like me, really want above all to make parents question if they really want their infant son to be subjected to such a traumatic, irreversible and potentially dangerous medical procedure. Let’s get the conversation started, I say.
I have been trying to do that for years, ever since that first gasp as I dropped my drawers. Once, when I was working on Broadway in Cabaret” the girl who did my make-up confessed she had never seen an uncircumcised penis. I thought this was shocking and decided tonight was the night. She was understandably a little freaked out, but we had known each other for over a year and she painted a swastika on my right butt cheek nearly every night of that year so we were pretty close. And as I said, I was doing her a favour. Knowledge is power and all that.
She stepped out into the hall. I pulled down my dance belt and presented the Cumming manhood. We had agreed I would call her in, she would take a quick look then go back out of the room again so I could rearrange myself, then call her back in and she’d get back to work. I shouted I was ready and the door opened slowly and I saw her little face full of trepidation. But only for a second!
‘Oh, I see,’ she exclaimed, bounding towards me, all nerves gone, now caught up in a physiological field trip. ‘It’s not at all how I thought it would be!’
‘What did you think it would be like?’’ I asked, feeling slightly objectified but also in the same moment acknowledging I had totally invited it.
‘Well,’ she said, her eyes still fixed on my pudendum. ‘I thought it would be more like a flip-top bin!’
‘What, like you’d stand on my foot and my foreskin would pull back?’ I guffawed.
‘Something like that!’ she shrieked, and soon the two of us were bent double with the silliness of it all.
At that moment, a vision was hatched. I chose to accept a mission to lift the lid as it were, to educate and enlighten what a penis is supposed to look like, without having to actually get mine out every time to do so!
May The Foreskin Be With You will be published later this year by Magnus Books.
Intact America is proud to count Alan among our friends. We look forward to hearing your reactions to his story, and also your own foreskin-friendly or foreskin-hostile experiences!
—Georganne Chapin
Dec 29, 2011
Earlier this month, I received the following message from a reader of my first blog post, “Why I Got Into this Penis Business“:
Thank you for making me understand why I should leave my son intact. This is my first baby and I didn’t know which way to go, but after doing a lot of research and reading all of your comments, I have decided not circumcise my baby. Thank You!!!!
At this time of year, with all the emphasis on seeking happiness through material possessions, this message wafted across my face like a warm tropical breeze. For me, a dream gift — another intact baby, and a mom willing to take the time to share the news!
We know that, in the past couple of years alone, in the time since Intact America was founded, the intact rate among newborns in the United States has risen to well above 50 percent. (The exact rate is hard to determine; a Centers for Disease Control study last year said that only 33 percent of infant boys are circumcised before leaving the hospital, but that didn’t include circumcisions paid “out-of-pocket.”) This means that thousands upon thousands of helpless babies have been spared the trauma and betrayal of trust that circumcision entails.
A Jewish friend of mine recently said, “The greatest mitzvah (act of human kindness) you can bestow upon an infant boy is to leave him intact!”
My first blog post, the one referred to above by the mother who wrote to thank Intact America, said how fortunate I feel to have left my own son — now 31 years old — intact. Similar to my friend’s concept of mitzvah, I used the metaphor of “gift,” saying that my awareness at the time gave both my son and me “the gift of not having to say ‘I’m sorry’ to each other” about circumcision.
So as I spend time this season with my family, I find myself feeling gratified that the work of Intact America has inspired so many parents to give a gift, bestow a mitzvah — by protecting the rights of their infant sons to an intact body. Every person who has saved a baby by spreading the word, every parent who has considered circumcision and decided against it, can bask in the light of knowing he or she has contributed in this way to the peaceful beginning of a new life — and thus to Peace on Earth.
Thank you all for caring, and happy holidays to all!
— Georganne
P.S. If you’d like to help Intact America keep up the momentum we’ve gained over the last year, please consider making a donation. Future intact babies will thank you for it!
Nov 25, 2011
I am grateful to be part of a community of people who are working to end the most basic and malignant form of violence against children – forced genital cutting.
On the one hand, I find it incomprehensible that there are those – parents, doctors, religious practitioners – who decree it their right to inflict this barbarity on a child. On the other hand, I find it not only gratifying but inevitable that, as a society, we are moving toward a greater appreciation of what is right:
- Basic common sense (“you want to cut off what?!?)”
- Non-intervention when nothing is wrong in the first place (“Don’t just do something; stand there!”).
- Acknowledgment of and respect for the rights and wishes of children (“10 out of 10 babies say NO to circumcision.”)
I am grateful to know and work with some of the finest people in the world, in our efforts to end infant and childhood circumcision. The list is long (and growing), but I will mention just a few. First, Marilyn Milos, who is my daily inspiration as well as a fount of infinite knowledge, support, humor and kindness; and Dean Pisani, who believed in us and saw the potential for a new kind of organization – one in which the dissemination of ideas could occur at an unprecedented range and speed due to the exploding phenomenon of social networking. Second, the people I work with each day – Amy Callan, Jennifer Konig and Ted Herman – to craft the message behind Intact America’s work and keep things moving along. Third, to every single person who has taken action on an Intact America page, speaking out and donating to the cause. Finally, to all of my intactivist colleagues who offer their support (and criticism), who respond instantly when their help is needed, who write every day to keep each other posted, who volunteer, and who remain intensely interested and involved because of their confidence in our collective mission.
I am grateful that, together, we are making the world a better place.
Georganne Chapin
Nov 16, 2011
Yesterday, the American Medical Association, whose core values are leadership, excellence, integrity and ethical behavior, announced that its membership has voted to “oppose any attempt to legally prohibit infant circumcision.”
The AMA’s president, Peter W. Carmel, M.D., was quoted as saying, “There is strong evidence documenting the health benefits of male circumcision, and it is a low-risk procedure…. [T]he AMA … will oppose any attempts to intrude into legitimate medical practice and the informed choices of patients.”
Strong evidence? Presumably, he’s talking about evidence from flawed studies conducted among adults in parts of Africa with high HIV prevalence? Even these studies show that while female to male sexual transmission of HIV might be lessened when the male is circumcised, male to female transmission actually increases. And it’s not clear what any of this has to do with newborn babies, who don’t have unprotected sex.
Health benefits? Compared to what? The foreskin is there to protect the penis, keep the glans moist, and enhance sexual pleasure throughout a man’s lifetime. Do the AMA doctors know about recent studies showing higher rates of erectile dysfunction in circumcised men than in intact men? Do they know anything about the benefits of the foreskin?
Low risk? Do Dr. Carmel and the AMA know that more than 100 babies die each year in the United States from circumcision? Do they know about the $2.3 million award made earlier this year to the family of a Georgia baby whose penis was severed and thrown into the trash after a botched circumcision? Or about Jamaal Coleson, Jr., who died in New York City this spring, following a “routine circumcision?” Or about little Eric Keefe, who bled to death following his circumcision in a South Dakota Indian Health Service hospital in 2008? Certainly, they don’t know that just this week, the blogosphere was ringing with the discussion of another post-circumcision infant death, this one allegedly from a heart attack.
Legitimate medical practice? Do the AMA members who voted to keep the United States safe for circumcisers know that most of their European colleagues believe “routine” circumcision is not legitimate – but, instead, barbaric? Have they read the call by the Royal Dutch Medical Association for doctors to refuse to surgically remove part of the genitals of babies and children, on the grounds that there is no medical reason for it, and it violates children’s rights?
Informed choices of patients? Did the AMA stop to think about WHO IS THE PATIENT who supposedly is making an “informed choice?” Answer: the BABY is the patient – not the parents – and the baby cannot consent. On the contrary, only someone with a vested interest in denying the truth can assert that babies react with anything other than terrorized, panicked protest to the ripping, crushing and severing of their tender foreskins.
In the United States and most of the modern world, cutting a normal, healthy body part from the genitals of a girl is “genital mutilation” and it’s illegal. No ethical, moral or legal rationale distinguishes boys from girls in this regard.
Shame on you, Dr. Carmel. And shame on the AMA.
Georganne Chapin
Nov 10, 2011
In my last post, I told you about my conversation with a self-described “open-minded” pediatrician at the annual convention of the American Academy of Pediatrics. I was as distressed by his seeming ability to consider the circumcision question as a simple matter of “point of view,” as I was with the magnitude of pain and harm he had caused, and the fact that thousands of boys and men were living with the consequences. I did, however, know what he meant when he said that for him to stop performing circumcisions would be “complicated.”
If this doctor stops now, what will he tell the repeat “customers,” young parents asking him to circumcise their second or third son? What will he tell his colleagues?
If he stops, what will he tell the boys he cut who later learn that he – indeed – did put down the knife?
If he stops, and one day a young man in the small community where he practices sues him for injuries, or for lack of consent (the statute of limitations on a malpractice claim typically re-opens for a time when an individual turns 18), what defense will he offer?
On the other hand, if he doesn’t stop, how will this doctor live with his conscience – or with the consciousness that made him come to talk with us? What will he do if he botches terribly a surgery, and a baby loses half of his penis, or dies, after he knew he should stop circumcising, but didn’t?
Since the AAP conference, I’ve lost hours of sleep pondering this conversation, unable to imagine the magnitude of the suffering – one or two babies a day, week after week, month after month, year after year, strapped down and mutilated – caused by this man who took an oath to do no harm. I went online and learned that the small northeastern city where he practices has only 16,000 people. This means – again, if his numbers are correct – he has circumcised pretty much every male under the age of 25 in the community and the surrounding area.
Except his own son, that is. And by the way, what does he tell his intact son?
Let’s say your postman one day stopped by to tell you that he’d touched the genitals of all the neighborhood children, and all the children in his son’s school (though not his own child), as well as the children in the surrounding towns, over the past 25 years; and then he told you he wanted to know your point of view about that. You’d reach for the phone, and call the police.
Yet there I was, in this huge exhibit hall in Boston, standing under the bright lights of the infant formula, baby lotion, and drug companies, talking politely with a man who had cut the penises of 5000-6000 babies, but was “open-minded” and wanted to understand Intact America’s point of view.
by Georganne Chapin
Nov 7, 2011
Last month, I spent three days at the Intact America exhibit booth during the annual convention of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Together with my colleagues Marilyn Milos, Dan Bollinger and Amy Callan, we spoke to many, many doctors. By far, the greatest endorsement of our work came from foreign pediatricians who were nearly universally opposed to circumcising babies. I often tell doctors from the U.S. that their colleagues in Europe and Latin America do not cut babies, a fact too many find surprising.
Each year I attend, at least one conversation stands out as particularly rewarding or particularly upsetting. This year, on day two, a man who appeared to be in his early 50’s approached our booth, which was decorated with an 8 ft. banner listing “10 Reasons Why You Should Stop Circumcising Baby Boys.”
Georganne Chapin at the 2011 American Academy of Pediatrics conference in Boston
“Hi,” he said. “I came here because I’m open-minded and I want to learn.”
He went on to tell me that, in the course of his career, he’d circumcised somewhere between 5,000 and 6,000 babies, but that his own 24-year-old son wasn’t circumcised.
I was stunned. When I asked him how much money he’d thought he’d made from all those circumcisions, looking hurt he said, “I have to tell you, I’m feeling attacked.”
He tried to explain that he performs circumcisions because he’s developed a reputation for being efficient and good at it, and that all the other doctors send him their patients.
Recovering my poise somewhat, I asked the doctor why he’d left his own son intact. His reply was vague, something about the AAP’s position on circumcision at the time his son was born, the implication being that the AAP’s position had been sufficiently unsupportive of the procedure for him to decide not to circumcise his own son.
I asked him what he told the parents of the babies he circumcises. “I don’t need to tell them anything,” he said. “They come to me with their minds made up.” Did he tell them his own son is intact? No, that would violate his son’s privacy, he told me.
I finally said, “Your son is intact, and you were concerned enough to come to speak with us. The AAP still doesn’t recommend circumcision, so why don’t you stop? Our campaign this year is Put Down The Knife! You could simply stop.”
“It’s very complicated,” he answered. “I don’t think I could just stop.”
He’s right. In the absence of an external ban, or an unequivocal change in position by the feet-shuffling AAP, it is “complicated” and requires great bravery for a committed circumciser to stop.
In my next post on this topic I will explore the immense, but not insurmountable challenges the entire medical profession must face at the prospect of Putting Down The Knife! and ending the practice of circumcision.
by Georganne Chapin
