Circumcision, HIV and AIDS

Did you hear that circumcision reduces the risk of contracting HIV through heterosexual relations up to 60%?

Do you know what's the absolute risk of a male contracting HIV from a female partner?

10 reasons why circumcision is not a good strategy against HIV and AIDS, courtesy of Intact America:

1. More effective, non-surgical HIV prevention methods already exist. Condoms and other safe sex practices protect all sexual partners over the long term.

2. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are not applicable to the real world. The three African “trials” have not been replicated anywhere and, because members of the “control” groups were either circumcised or lost to follow-up, there is no way of tracking long-term results.

3. Mass circumcision campaigns squander limited resources by failing to identify those most at risk, and failing to offer unbiased information. Supporting circumcision of children and men who are not at risk and may never be at risk is unethical and wasteful.

4. Mass circumcision campaigns are unscientific.Men are being circumcised regardless of their HIV status, putting their partners at risk, and making accurate assessment of the campaigns’ efficacy impossible.

5. Mass circumcision campaigns are unethical. Patient protections such as informed consent and follow-up for long-term complications are cursory or absent. Evidence is emerging that boys and men who refuse circumcision are being stigmatized and excluded from participation in sports and other social activities.

6. Mass circumcision campaigns attempt to normalize and sell circumcision in cultures where the intact male body is traditionally valued. Boys –like girls– should be protected from genital cutting to which they cannot consent, and which has lifelong consequences.

7. Male circumcision puts women at GREATER risk for contracting HIV. Women whose circumcised male partners erroneously believe they cannot spread the disease will be unable to negotiate safe sex practices.

8. Circumcision results in burdensome complications in boys and men. The World Health Organization has noted that clinical circumcisions have an 18% complication rate. A neonatal circumcision complication rate of 20.2% was found in Nigeria.

9. General population data show circumcision to be associated with higher rates of HIV in many countries around the world. In Zimbabwe, where a mass circumcision campaign is in full swing, recent government statistics showed an HIV prevalence of 12% in intact men and 14% in circumcised men.

10. CIRCUMCISION DOES NOT PREVENT AIDS

Irrational tradition

"1:39 "I can't help feeling that if male circumcision didn't exist today, and someone tried to introduce it, they'd be arrested for child abuse.

But it's traditional role as a major rite of passage is too entrenched to bow to common sense or objective medical opinion."

Desmond Morris

Circumcision = Ritual Initiation = Hazing

From Wikipedia:

Hazing is the practice of rituals and other activities involving harassment, abuse or humiliation used as a way of initiating a person into a group. [...] Hazing is often prohibited by law and may comprise either Physical abuse (possibly violent) or psychological abuse. It may also include nudity or sexually-oriented offenses. [...]

The armed forces have long had hazing rituals, which often involve violence and punishments. The United States military defines hazing as unnecessarily exposing a fellow soldier to an act which is cruel, abusive, oppressive, or harmful. [...]

It is a subjective matter where to draw to line between "normal" hazing (somewhat abusive) and a rite of passage (essentially bonding; proponents may argue they can coincide), and there is a gray area where it passes over into sheer degrading, even harmful abuse that should not be tolerated even if accepted voluntarily (serious but avoidable accidents do still happen; deliberate abuse with similar grave medical consequences occurs, in some traditions rather often).

"Hazing" refers to any activity expected of someone joining a group (or to maintain full status in a group) that humiliates, degrades or risks emotional and/or physical harm, regardless of the person's willingness to participate.[4] [...]

Hazing is a complex social problem that is shaped by power dynamics operating in a group and/or organization and within a particular cultural context.[4]

According to stophazing.org, hazing activities are generally considered to be physically abusive, hazardous, and/or sexually violating. The specific behaviors or activities within these categories vary widely among participants, groups and settings. While alcohol use is common in many types of hazing, other examples of typical hazing practices include personal servitude; sleep deprivation and restrictions on personal hygiene; yelling, swearing and insulting new members/rookies; being forced to wear embarrassing or humiliating attire in public; consumption of vile substances or smearing of such on one's skin; brandings; physical beatings; binge drinking and drinking games; sexual simulation and sexual assault. [...]

Dissonance can produce feelings of group attraction or social identity among initiates after the hazing experience because they want to justify the effort used. Rewards during initiations or hazing rituals matter in that initiates who feel more rewarded express stronger group identity.[34] As well as increasing group attraction, hazing can produce conformity among new members.[35] Hazing could also increase feelings of affiliation because of the stressful nature of the hazing experience .[36]



From the AAP Policy Statement on Circumcision:

Parents ultimately should decide whether circumcision is in the best interests of their male child. They will need to weigh medical information in the context of their own religious, ethical, and cultural beliefs and practices. The medical benefits alone may not outweigh these other considerations for individual families.


Which begs the question, what weight do religious, ethical and cultural beliefs hold when performing a surgery that knowingly excises normal healthy genital tissue?


One image is worth a thousand words:


African Hazing

 

http://mg.co.za/cartoon/2013-05-23-unregulated-initiation/

American Hazing

Islamic Hazing

Turkish Hazing

Jewish Hazing

Filipino Hazing

Welcome to the World boy, we own your penis. Now, move on.



15    Sec. 12-33. Ritualized abuse of a child.
16    (a) A person commits ritualized abuse of a child when he or
17 she knowingly commits any of the following acts with, upon, or
18 in the presence of a child as part of a ceremony, rite or any
19 similar observance:
20        (1) actually or in simulation, tortures, mutilates, or
21    sacrifices any warm-blooded animal or human being;
22        (2) forces ingestion, injection or other application
23    of any narcotic, drug, hallucinogen or anaesthetic for the
24    purpose of dulling sensitivity, cognition, recollection
25    of, or resistance to any criminal activity;

...

16    (b) The provisions of this Section shall not be construed
17 to apply to:
....




21        (2) the lawful medical practice of male circumcision or
22    any ceremony related to male circumcision;

(From a proposed draft for Illinois SB1858)

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.

Circumcision = Ritual Violence = Hazing

African Hazing

 

http://mg.co.za/cartoon/2013-05-23-unregulated-initiation/

American Hazing

Islamic Hazing

Turkish Hazing

Jewish Hazing

Filipino Hazing

Welcome to the World boy, we own your penis. Now, move on.

Genital Cutting, Forbidden Senses and Forbidden Colours

Imagine if you made your child color-blind on purpose, you'd be accused of child abuse, wouldn't you?

Why would you do that? Why would you do that?

Male Genital Mutilation in Africa

So female genital mutilation (FGM) is this thing that hurts women, makes them incapable of enjoying sex, makes birth almost impossible, causes infections and deaths, right?

So why is it that African teenage boys have to die every year in a traditional ceremony, and nobody thinks it is mutilation?

May 12, 2013:

WITH just a week spent at the bush, at least over 15 boys have died at this year’s winter school and various police departments have launched investigations following the death of young boys who wanted to be men.

KwaZulu-Natal police spokesperson, Colonel Jay Naicker said Marian hill police were investigating a case of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm after more than eight boys between underwent circumcision.

“We can confirm an incident that occurred where more than eight boys between the ages of 13 and 15 were allegedly circumcised without their parent’s consent in Milkyway Road, Dassenhoek,”

 Colonel Leonard Hlathi, Mpumalanga police spokesperson said they were also investigating cases of inquest following the death of eight boys aged between 15 and 21, who died at the initiation schools around KwaMhlanga and Verena areas respectively.

http://www.thenewage.co.za/95516-1010-53-More_than_15__die_at_initiation_school

The joy of uncircumcising - a person's testimony, 1994

"It is clear to me that it is time that medical students and doctors were taught that the foreskin has functions" (1994) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2541521/