I’ve watched (again) an old podcast with the leading actors of the intactivism cause and you know who they are. The topic is the future of intactivism and by the end there was a consensus on our need for the influential people to be more vocal about that. Intactivism is a beautiful cause that brings literally every participant together: liberals, republicans, Jews, Muslims, atheists etc.. So as someone who cringes to their opinions and “jokes”, I love the fact that people like Joe Rogan and JP Sears are on “our side”. I’m wondering why, as one of the richest and most influential men alive, Joe Rogan wouldn’t invest a fraction of his wealth or time for intactivism. I wonder if he is already intact and thus doesn’t pay too much attention to the issue. That said, if he spent 1/1000 of his time bringing this topic up instead of stuff like trans people or aliens, he could’ve had a serious impact.

Although, this doesn’t fully absolve one of responsibility, I can understand how people, through certain religious and/or cultural lenses and biases, could be duped into generally going along with the practice of circumcision, even to the point of having their son circumcised. It’s human nature to be tribalistic and follow the pack. There are all sorts of defunct or rare traditional practices that everyone now properly sees as batshit. Furthermore, regarding parents that choose to circumcise: my understanding is that parents generally don’t actually witness the procedure. Even in the cases where dads are present, I doubt they’re truly watching that closely. So to a certain extent, there’s a detachment from the actual nature of the procedure. This detachment enables the belief that circumcision is “just a snip” and a very minor deal. And all of this is occurring in a hospital and being done by a doctor, which serves to shore up any doubts that do surface.

But what truly stumps me about how this practice has been so widespread for so long— particularly in the context of non-religious RIC as seen in the U.S.—is how generations of doctors have gone along with it. These doctors that perform the circumcisions have no such detachment from the procedure, obviously. I truly don’t understand how so many doctors, even doctors primed with propaganda on the “benefits” of the practice, even circumcised doctors with a personal interest in upholding the legitimacy of the practice, can start slicing into baby penis and not be struck with a sense of guilt, a sense that this isn’t right. At the very least, they should be struck with a sense that this isn’t the type of medicine they should be practicing. Why has there (to my knowledge) never been a shortage of doctors in the U.S. willing to perform the procedure? Why hasn’t enough outrage been ignited in medical circles to make more people doubt the validity of the practice? It wouldn’t take some overwhelming majority of doctors willing to speak up to potentially turn the tide on the practice. And yet American RIC continues, diminishing only slowly and quietly.

How can I not have a visceral aversion Islam when practically all Muslim and Muslim countries for boys to be circumcised, be they infants or children, and often without anaesthesia. I just can't wrap my head around how 1/3 of the worlds population has practically no concept of bodily autonomy for boys, and how entire generations of men in countries go through excruciating pain as children. I've seen videos, and read stories from diverse places ranging from Turkey to Bangladesh to Malaysia of boys being forcefully held down and mutilated without anaesthesia while their parents and circumcises laugh or celebrate. All because of one common thing:islam. Theres no way that this doesn't psychologically affect the entire cultures for the worse. I have a Turkish friend who said he traveled to Turkey for his mgm, his parents deceived him telling him they're going for a celebration, and without warning he was held down and mutilated fully conscious. When he screamed and cried, his family was oohing and aahing and giggling, telliyhim he's gonna be a "good Turkish man now". He says he still has nightmares every week if it after 16 years after it happened. How can I not hate this entire culture and it's religion?

In the US, the nature of MGM and the suffering it causes is less visible to the public due to it being confined mostly to surgical rooms and doctors who downplay the mutilation, this leaving most Americans ignorant. When Americans witness an mgm being done, a lot feel uncomfortable or get disgusted.

Meanwhile most Muslims not only know fully well the suffering of MGM due to having experienced it or fully witnessed it, but they revel in it and celebrate it. Also, the thing is, were it not for Islam, circumcision would be a rare insular practice around the vast majority of the world. Islam has historically done far more damage to male bodily integrity than either Victorian era American doctors or Jews have. At least Jews don't for e their practice on others, and I've met many Jews who question mgm, but never Muslims, no matter how liberal or secular they are. Personally, like at least 20-30% of Jews who I discussed mgm with were questioning the practice. Not a single Muslim I've talked to about this wasn't pro mgm, always touting muh hygienic bullshit "Bbbut it's not mandatory in Islam" Only like 0.000001% of Muslims think that, and even if it's technically not mandatory(debatable, a lot of Muslim scholars say mgm is wajib, not Sunnah, while fgm is Sunnah) Muslim families still force their sons to get mutilated.

Also, outside of the US it's mainly Muslims and Muslim doctors who try to advertise the hygienic or medical "benefits" of circumcision.

I've spent some fair amount of time browsing IntactiWiki's page on him and pages relating to him. Crazy to see all the people that are associated and share mutuals with him.
Only going a person or 2 deep you will find names like Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Clinton etc.

It's worrying how much influence and connections he has despite all his studies being discredited.
Very disturbing.

It's a rough draft as I'm changing the woman's side to be more accurate in anatomy before I add "facial" features.

Does anyone know of a Intactivism group in Toronto, Ontario? I tried the NORM site and emailed the contacts several months ago but hear the data is outdated and that those email address are no longer active.

I would like to bring my local restoration community together, so they have the benefit of local support from one another as they go through their restoration journey and so we can start increasing awareness about the harms of cutting and possibly become more politically active and attempt to ban childhood circumcision period.

Are they're any people in this subreddit from the Toronto area? If not any suggestions on how someone would go about starting a local group.

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

Normally i stick around the grief and restoration reddit, but given the triggering nature of this question I didnt want to ask there. Im frankly terrified of the results I might get if I pop this into google and I was hoping its alright I can ask here. Specifically Im looking in reference to when american hospitals started to harvest the prepuce for profit

INTACT AGAIN PODCAST

https://intactagainpodcast.alitu.com/

Our hope is that these men’s stories will help parents choose to leave their son’s intact...

Mr. T is a 26-year-old bi-racial man living in the Upper Midwest where most boys are cut at birth. He discusses with us how coming from both a cutting culture on his mom’s side (American) and a non-cutting culture on his father’s side (Vietnamese) has led to complex feelings about the cultural aspects of circumcision and consent.  He’s also diagnosed with autism, which means for him, circumcision and restoration also has complex physical and emotional repercussions. 

After watching a video on Vice six months ago that talked about foreskin restoration, he began restoring immediately.  Starting off using the Pecker Packer and then the CAR-1 direct air device, he began the journey at CI-2 and is now CI-3. He says his sex life has already improved significantly.

In this episode you’ll also learn whether he resents his parents for making the decision to cut him at birth and what he would do differently in his restoration journey if he could go back in time.

I wont link to the group directly, as I think that breaks the bridging rule. If you look at the sub reddit, it is clear that it fetishizes, and sexualizes the cutting of baby boys.

I am strongly against watering down, or over using the word paedophile as that is a troubling recent trend., but I think it is obvious that sexualizing violence against infants fits the definition of paedophilic.

Is there a way to raise awareness or convince reddit to ban this group, and groups like it?

It's my pleasure to invite you to attend GALDEF's November 9th global educational webinar featuring the screening of the 2007 film CUT: Slicing through the myths of circumcision. This is the latest in GALDEF's fundraising retrospective film series to be screened across multiple international time zones.

The Chicago Tribune called CUT "informative and thought-provoking", while the Jewish Week hailed the film as “..a deadly serious and admirably balanced look at the medical, sociological, ethical and religious aspects of male circumcision.”

The special post-screening panel discussion will feature filmmaker Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon and two of the film participants, intactivist pioneer Dan Strandjord and foreskin restoration advocate Ron Low. Webinar attendees will be able to submit questions to be answered by the panel.

To learn more, watch a film trailer, view screening times in your time zone, and to buy tickets for the webinar or donate, follow this link. [Clarification: When you arrive at the link, on the right side of the page, at the end of the first paragraph, in the sentence that reads "Watch the film trailer here", the word "here" is an active link to the trailer.]

Please share this invitation and ticket link on your social media accounts.

Regulations exist where any insurance or healthcare provider must respond to a written grivence or complaint, but what’s important is these submissions are also tracked in internal metrics which are used for improving policies and procedures.

For insurances that cover non-therapeutic circumcision, it’s easy argument to state that non-therapeutic procedures are contributing to increased healthcare costs and higher premiums. It also doesn’t follow utilization management standards.

For healthcare providers, it’s an easy argument to show that education is lacking in terms of when it is introduced to parents and the scope of the information, which usually never discusses alternative approaches to the proposed benefits of circumcision. This technically makes proxy informed consent to be invalid. This also risks patient satisfaction scores.

Taking the 5 min to submit complaints/ grievances focused on wasteful spending and poor medical policies/procedure, is a way to start getting the issue in front of internal decision makers.

Encouraging friends and family to do the same will 1. Make them aware of how to voice their dissatisfaction with healthcare, 2. Raise awareness of problems within our healthcare system with respect to wasteful and harmful medical practices.

Hello folks,

I’m a fellow intactivist who previously has been very active both in working to prevent harm to children and supporting men who were harmed as children.

I was working on a project which overwhelmed me and became more than I could deal with. I had to take a break from the work I was doing as mentally I was not coping well with the awfulness of it.

I thought after a break, I would be back refreshed and ready to kick some goals again. The truth is that I’m not, not at least in the capacity i was.

I feel now is the right time for a big push from the movement as public opinion is now more in our favour than it has ever been.

I thank all those who are working to prevent this abuse of children and support those who were harmed.

I won’t be completing the project I was working on that overwhelmed me but hope I can contribute to the cause in some way.

Tim.

One very common statement I hear from cutters and noncutters alike is that intact penises are a problem in the desert in dry environments due to constant infections due to lack of washing. It usually goes on with the mostly pro cutter claim that intact penises get easily infected from lack of washing in general. However a simple shower thought experiment completely destroys this claim. How is it then that the crusader armied who weren't mutilated and didn't wash much weren't constantly incapacitated from infections under their foreskins when they were fighting in the levantine deserts. Historically armies have been incapacitated by malaria, bubonic plague typhus dysentery, cholera, even trench foot and frostbite, which were caused in part due to lack of hygiene. Yet I haven't heard of an unwashed army being incapacitated by UTI or tight foreskin or whatever.

Anyone know why Momma Michelle removed her videos or if they got taken down by youtube? She had 89 uploaded. Some thumbnails and titles are archived here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20230519120738/https://www.youtube.com/@mommamichelle7084/videos

If you click on the first one you can see more titles in the playlist on the side. Accessing live youtube gives "This video isn't available anymore", so they aren't unlisted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEcK8yof3wQ

I can't find a facebook profile either. It's such a shame people put so much effort into making change, sharing their story, helping people etc. only to have most of it lost to time. She is a valuable voice and I hope she reconsiders republishing her stuff.

From what I heard, the rate is extremely high in both, still hovering around 80% right now and 95%+ 20 years ago. Anecdotally have you heard of a difference. When you look at RIC rate per state, states with a very high black population such as Georgia or Alabama do have moderately lower rate compared to majority white states like Indiana, Michigan or West Virginia(60-70% in the former compared to 80-90% in the latter). Are these stats corresponding to reality. It seems in the African American community, mutilatipn of boys seem to be affected by large interest in Islam and black Hebrew Israelism. Additionally, some of the most ignorant and disgusting comments I see from American women supporting mgm and justifying it for aesthetic reasons seems to be from African American women. The amount of black boys being born from single mothers also puts them under additional threat because doctors can more easily influence otherwise ignorant(regarding penile anatomy) women to circumcise their son. What do you think? Has any intactivist group tried to reach out to black communities in the US?

It's not an x or y thing. It's about advantages. If you can be cleaner with less water and time, why not?

Droughts are becoming more common due to climate change. Reduced chance at stds is beneficial because antibiotic resistant stds are on the rise. By getting stds and taking antibiotics you contribute to antibiotic resistance in stds.

Is this a common pro mutilation argument? It's just beyond ridiculous, there's a very long list of frivolous activities people habitually engage in which use way more water than washing under a foreskin.

Any brothers or allies in Berlin, Germany here? A fellow intactivist suggested to me to protest in front of the Reichstag on 12.12. the day §1631d was ratified 12 years ago. Someone interested to join? If we get more than the two of us together, we want to do it.