Circumcision bonus links
If my story this week, “Circumspection: The foreskin is only the tip of the controversy,” wasn’t enough…
On KPBS (89.5 FM) this morning, “These Days” covered the circumcision controversy. I joined Maureen Cavanaugh in studio and Dr. Mo Bidair and Matt Hess commented over the phone.
Cavanaugh asked me how I became interested in the issue and I mentioned a 2006 conference on circumcision I covered in 2006. Here’s the story I produced for The Stranger. It’s pretty, errm, colorful. An excerpt:
“For all the stink and cheese, that smell is there for two reasons: to attract and to repel,” Blank says. “The genitals are the flowers of our body. When the petals are removed, the fragrance dissipates. That fragrance, our individual stamp, is what is ripped out of our sexual experience when you’re circumcised.”
A caller into the show suggested that all parents go onto YouTube and watch the procedure before making a decision. Here’s a video of the Mogen Clamp, mentioned in my story, in practice.
WARNING: YOU MAY FIND THAT GRAPHIC VIDEO VERY DISTURBING AND IT COULD RUIN YOUR LUNCH.
For more on the current research—and the conflicting interpretations of said research by the medical community—check out San Diego writer (and friend of CityBeat) Randy Dotinga’s recent story “To Circumcise or Not” in Health Day.
And, if you’d like to read the full extent of Peter Charles Remondino’s 1891 argument for circumcision, the whole text is online at Project Gutenberg.
