History has many cases where people gave their lives for human rights issues. In WWII, millions gave their lives fighting for religious freedom. In the USA civil war, over 600,000 died for a cause primarily related to slavery.
Intactivism is another war; hopefully, though, one that will not involve deaths on a similar scale. However, like any war, it's not pretty.
If you think you would have gladly fought for ending slavery or for religious freedom, giving up certain things to fight for the rights of the next generation should be easy.
Those things may include giving too much information about yourself, getting punched because you're protesting with a bloodstain on your crotch, losing relationships, losing your job, losing membership to your church or becoming a social outcast in other ways. I'm not saying this is easy. I admit, I have dragged my feet into intactivism myself due to the fears. But, I leaped into my future self and thought that I want to be proud of my life. I want to be able to tell the next generation that I fought for them to have intact genitals, because, by that time, it's going to be well known that genital mutilation was a bad thing in history. If I live that long, I want that generation to look at me as a hero like my generation has looked at many that survived WWII.
Discussing genitals and sexual activity are taboo topics. Getting into the nitty gritty details about how genitals work is not something many people want to discuss. But, we NEED to! We MUST be brave! Keep thinking about the next generation and all the children that are getting their genitals cut RIGHT NOW! Think about how urgent those that were fighting WWII felt about stopping needless deaths of innocent people.
What's ironic is that the people that were being fought for (the Jews in Europe) are some of the same people that are pushing back against our movement to protect one of their cultural practices. The Nazis may have oppressed religious freedom with the use of death and prison camps, and while that's absolutely horrible, taking away parts of people's bodies in the name of a religion is also absolutely horrible. Taking away parts of people's bodies for financial greed (relative to slavery) is also horrible. So, this is really a war about both religious freedom AND slavery.
Thus, to sum up, please be brave. Be willing to talk to everyone about it and give all the gory details. Take a bullet for the next generation. They are worth it!
Wednesday, January 16, 2019
Thursday, January 3, 2019
Understanding fellow intactivists
If you've been following my posts for at least a year now, or have read my older posts starting with January 2018, you know that I've become heavily involved with the intactivism movement. So much so that I became an admin of some intactivism groups on Facebook, became a supporting systems administrator of various intactivism websites, did some demonstrations with the Bloodstained Men as well as solo, been involved in the promotion of the documentary American Circumcision, started a petition for my own state which was copied for California and launched a new website: www.genitalautonomysociety.org
Wow! Now that I wrote that down, I realize how busy I've been! And, there's more I could add to the list.
I've been somewhat frustrated by the splintered set of intactivism groups. However, I have come to understand why it is the way it is.
There's the "gentle education" group (i.e. Your Whole Baby), the "gotta get in people's faces" intactivists, the angry victims of genital mutilation (i.e. Bloodstained Men) and then the hurting victims of genital mutilation.
Not all members of one of these groups are likely to understand the perspective of members of other groups. Most often, I've found that people that are in one group are rarely involved in the others. I've been lucky enough to continue involvement with all of them.
The "gentle education" group wants to avoid chasing people away. They want to keep people engaged in the discussion, even if they continue to promote genital mutilation (they'll call it things like "circumcision"). And, I understand this, as I will continue to hold onto hope that they will eventually get it.
I'm just going to explain the other end of the spectrum as everything in-between is explained by the two ends.
Most every victim of genital mutilation, that I have spoken with, had part of their natural genitalia cut away at infancy. Like me, they did not learn about what was taken away from them until adulthood when they could fully understand and grasp it. Once I started learning about the procedure that was performed on me, I immediately jumped into the first stage of grief (denial). Luckily, this stage wasn't so strong in me that I insisted that my son get the same procedure done to him. However, I still thought "there absolutely must be a good reason for it." It's the second stage, though, that I think puts many at the other end of the spectrum (anger).
I'm an introvert, thus, I process most of my feelings internally. Sometimes they show up in some of the things I say and do when interacting with others, and, that has gotten my wrist slapped a few times by the "gentle educators." However, I've met some that are clearly extroverted and give no apologies for their expressions of anger. While I believe that people need to see this anger to really get that there are people that are hurt by genital mutilations, I personally look for ways to express it without attacking people. However, there's an inherent challenge: when victims see people insisting that it's best for their child to have the procedure done, it's as if it was going to be done to them all over again. Imagine the worst injustice that has ever been done to you; now, imagine someone saying they're going to do that same thing to another person; ya, that's what it feels like.
What is difficult for the hurting victims to see is that these parents genuinely think they are doing what is best and they simply do not understand what intactivists understand. It makes me think of what Jesus said "...for they do not know what they are doing."
If you've taken care of children, and have had a case where you accidentally hurt them, broke their toy or something along those lines, you probably know that you can apologize to them but they will still try to lash out at you. I've seen this sort of behavior between regret parents and intactivists that are hurting victims. With children, you can often get them to move forward from anger to bargaining by offering to replace the toy or making them a cake. However, in the case of genital mutilation, there's not much you can do; it's not a toy that can be replaced.
What you may be able to do:
This can be done during intactivist activities as well. When you encounter a fellow intactivist bashing someone, leverage it rather than attempt to counter it. While addressing the person that is being attacked by the intactivist, empathize with the intactivist and the person being attacked at the same time. I compare this to the good-cop/bad-cop approach often seen in cop shows.
Sometimes, the hurting victims hit the depression stage and we end up losing them from the movement. Jonathon Conte is the most notable of intactivists lost to depression, as he committed suicide. I worry about my fellow intactivists, hoping that no more will go the same way.
This leads to a double-edged sword. The more I educate fellow victims of the harm that was done to them, the more individuals that will go through the same grief process. However, not educating leads to the continuation of a harmful practice.
Wow! Now that I wrote that down, I realize how busy I've been! And, there's more I could add to the list.
I've been somewhat frustrated by the splintered set of intactivism groups. However, I have come to understand why it is the way it is.
There's the "gentle education" group (i.e. Your Whole Baby), the "gotta get in people's faces" intactivists, the angry victims of genital mutilation (i.e. Bloodstained Men) and then the hurting victims of genital mutilation.
Not all members of one of these groups are likely to understand the perspective of members of other groups. Most often, I've found that people that are in one group are rarely involved in the others. I've been lucky enough to continue involvement with all of them.
The "gentle education" group wants to avoid chasing people away. They want to keep people engaged in the discussion, even if they continue to promote genital mutilation (they'll call it things like "circumcision"). And, I understand this, as I will continue to hold onto hope that they will eventually get it.
I'm just going to explain the other end of the spectrum as everything in-between is explained by the two ends.
Most every victim of genital mutilation, that I have spoken with, had part of their natural genitalia cut away at infancy. Like me, they did not learn about what was taken away from them until adulthood when they could fully understand and grasp it. Once I started learning about the procedure that was performed on me, I immediately jumped into the first stage of grief (denial). Luckily, this stage wasn't so strong in me that I insisted that my son get the same procedure done to him. However, I still thought "there absolutely must be a good reason for it." It's the second stage, though, that I think puts many at the other end of the spectrum (anger).
I'm an introvert, thus, I process most of my feelings internally. Sometimes they show up in some of the things I say and do when interacting with others, and, that has gotten my wrist slapped a few times by the "gentle educators." However, I've met some that are clearly extroverted and give no apologies for their expressions of anger. While I believe that people need to see this anger to really get that there are people that are hurt by genital mutilations, I personally look for ways to express it without attacking people. However, there's an inherent challenge: when victims see people insisting that it's best for their child to have the procedure done, it's as if it was going to be done to them all over again. Imagine the worst injustice that has ever been done to you; now, imagine someone saying they're going to do that same thing to another person; ya, that's what it feels like.
What is difficult for the hurting victims to see is that these parents genuinely think they are doing what is best and they simply do not understand what intactivists understand. It makes me think of what Jesus said "...for they do not know what they are doing."
If you've taken care of children, and have had a case where you accidentally hurt them, broke their toy or something along those lines, you probably know that you can apologize to them but they will still try to lash out at you. I've seen this sort of behavior between regret parents and intactivists that are hurting victims. With children, you can often get them to move forward from anger to bargaining by offering to replace the toy or making them a cake. However, in the case of genital mutilation, there's not much you can do; it's not a toy that can be replaced.
What you may be able to do:
- Start by not getting defensive.
- Empathize or sympathize with their feelings.
- Apologize (as if you were the one that made the decision their parents made).
- If you want to help them forward into the next step of grief, try bargaining with them by committing to speak out for the next generation.
This can be done during intactivist activities as well. When you encounter a fellow intactivist bashing someone, leverage it rather than attempt to counter it. While addressing the person that is being attacked by the intactivist, empathize with the intactivist and the person being attacked at the same time. I compare this to the good-cop/bad-cop approach often seen in cop shows.
Sometimes, the hurting victims hit the depression stage and we end up losing them from the movement. Jonathon Conte is the most notable of intactivists lost to depression, as he committed suicide. I worry about my fellow intactivists, hoping that no more will go the same way.
This leads to a double-edged sword. The more I educate fellow victims of the harm that was done to them, the more individuals that will go through the same grief process. However, not educating leads to the continuation of a harmful practice.
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