Here is an interesting response to our post below on Male Circumcision Is No Silver Bullet in Combating HIV apparently we were unaware to us is an anti circumcision school of thought as well, very interesting debate to be a part of.a member of DOCTORS OPPOSING CIRCUMCISION (D.O.C.) - Physicians for Genital Integrity commented:
"The website you mention is only really interested in promoting male circumcision is only interested in promoting male circumcision for its own sake (or anything-but-condoms), rather than in fighting AIDS.You won't find any mention of it at the website, but there are seven African countries where men are more likely to be HIV+ if they've been circumcised: Rwanda, Cameroon, Ghana, Lesotho, Malawi, Swaziland, and Tanzania.
If circumcision really worked against AIDS, this just wouldn't happen. We now have people calling circumcision a "vaccine" or "invisible condom", and viewing circumcision as an alternative to condoms.ABC (Abstinence, Being faithful, Condoms) is the way forward. Promoting genital surgery will cost African lives, not save them.It's not like we've actually tried the things that do work. In Malawi for instance, only 57% know that condoms protect against HIV/AIDS, and only 68% know that limiting sexual partners protects against HIV/AIDS.
There are people who haven't even heard of condoms. It just seems really misguided to be hailing male circumcision as the way forward. It would help if some of the aid donors didn't refuse to fund condom education, or work that involves talking to prostitutes. There are African prostitutes that sleep with 20-50 men a day, and some of them say that hardly any of the men use a condom. If anyone really cares about men, women, and children dying in Africa, surely they'd be focusing on education about safe sex rather than surgery that offers limited protection at best, and runs a high risk of risk compensatory behaviour."
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There is indeed an anti-circumcision movement. We call ourselves "Intactivists", and the movement "Intactivism", or more formally, the Genital Integrity movement. There is an International Coalition for Genital Integrity that has held 10 symposia in different countries at two year intervals.
ReplyDeleteThe movement promotes the right of all people, male, female or intersexed, to choose for themselves which healthy parts of their own bodies to keep, remove or modify. This of course means leaving babies alone until they are old enough to choose for themselves. Such a right is already law for female babies in many countries. Policy on intersexed babies is moving - there is no longer such panicstricken urgency to "correct" them. Boys alone are still at the mercy of their parent's whims, though some Scandinavian countries have started to place some restrictions, and the Children's Commissioner in Tasmania has called for infant circumcision to be banned.
The medical claims for circumcision are exaggerated or bogus, and largely appeal to fear.
As far as circumcision to prevent HIV goes, babies are not sexually active. If a man chooses to be circumcised for that reason, he is free to do so, but there is great danger in imagining it would make safe sex any less necessary, even if the claims about circumcision and HIV are correct. There are some grievous flaws with the three African trials.
Circumcision does not take place in a social vacuum and strong feelings drive the advocates on both sides. Circumcised men, including scientists, are under strong internal pressure to justify their own condition, and this seems to bias both the science and the reporting of it.
See The Intactivism Pages for more.