„In the ages of Muslim, Christian and indigenous slavery, many African men were castrated to serve as eunuchs. In colonial racist regimes African men were forbidden to mate white women. Not few were abused for medical experiments in the twentieth century – even in the USA, the Tuskegee syphilis experiment denied treatment to 399 poor black men until 1972[1]. Racism has always paired with sexual aggression. Today, African men take part in a mass-experiment by the WHO and UNAIDS[2] and African doctors, who all promise to eradicate HIV through circumcision – the force is less brutal but far more effective than ever. Global health agencies and local authoritarian structures pressurize and bribe men into sacrificing a part of their genitals. […]“
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Foreskin 419 – The Heaviest Assault On African Men’s Sexual Life Since Colonial Times Remains Uncovered
In the ages of Muslim, Christian and indigenous slavery, many African men were castrated to serve as eunuchs. In colonial racist regimes African men were forbidden to mate white women. Not few were abused for medical experiments in the twentieth century – even in the USA, the Tuskegee syphilis experiment denied treatment to 399 poor black men until 1972[1]. Racism has always paired with sexual aggression. Today, African men take part in a mass-experiment by the WHO and UNAIDS[2] and African doctors, who all promise to eradicate HIV through circumcision – the force is less brutal but far more effective than ever. Global health agencies and local authoritarian structures pressurize and bribe men into sacrificing a part of their genitals.
Zimbabwe’s circumcision rates had been as low as 10 % until 2009, when a government campaign vowed for the circumcision of at least 1.2 million men.[3] From 1997 to 2007 the HIV-infection rates dropped from 29% to 16% of the population,[4] but the winning team of awareness campaigns was changed in favour of circumcision. This campaign no longer alters the minds of men and women but male genitals. Authoritarian systems don’t want their populace to think, but to obey with their bodies. Similar campaigns are running in Uganda and Swaziland. Discrimination of uncircumcised men has been reported in the course of those campaigns. Uncircumcised Ugandan men were threatened by mobs who blamed them for infecting women. At the same time circumcision rates dropped heavily in Western countries, where individuals have free access to information about circumcision.
The moderate sceptic might ask: To eradicate HIV, wouldn’t it be a small price to sacrifice a tiny part of male skin?
First of all, it is not a tiny part of skin. The external part of the foreskin protects the glans from sunburn and injuries while the interior mucosa keeps the glans moist and sensitive. Both parts together make up to 60 % of the penile skin including the most sensitive areas of the penis at the tip of the foreskin. You would not sacrifice a finger to prevent HIV, but the foreskin underwent decades of heavy discrimination as small, smelly, wizened, ugly and useless – a discrimination strategy well known from the discrimination of female genital organs.
But does circumcision indeed prevent HIV? First of all, circumcision inflicts a wound that needs at least 4 weeks to heal. In the meantime the entire penis remains swollen and is very open to infections of all kind. The scar is vulnerable to unsensitive techniques of masturbation and rough sexual intercourse – it can open up any time and especially in the first year which results in bleedings and itching. In the months after circumcision, the glans skin totally alters into a rather dry, hard skin with sharp transition areas around the external urethral orifice. The peeling of callused skin often creates micro-fissures on the glans. Any of these side-effects increases the risk of infection with HIV. Also consider the fact, that the foreskin provides moisture and enables the penis to perform elastic movements, and that the inflexible state of a circumcised penis creates more friction and fissures on all involved sexual organs.
Therefore, common sense dismisses the claim, that circumcision would decrease the risk of contracting sexual diseases. Anyone can easily compare infection rates in different countries and find not a single hint at any beneficial effect of circumcision. Just the opposite: the HIV-rates in the USA (0.6%) with a majority of circumcised men are six times higher than in Norway (0.1%) with only a small minority of circumcised men.[5] If other factors dominate the infection rates in such a massive way, it is irresponsible to promote the amputation of the foreskin as a cure for HIV.
The most optimistic studies boast 60% of prevention rates for circumcised men. Here we come to methods. Critical medical doctors are very wary against strategies used by pharmaceutical companies to produce bloated figures to sell their products. If you have two cohorts of 1000, then the difference between 4 infected persons in the first cohort and 6 infected persons in the other, the overall insignificant difference can be inflated easily through percentage calculation. Undisputedly, a condom offers up to 99% of protection – subject to the condition of proper use. In the aftermath of circumcision-campaigns, more men and women will pressurize and seduce their partners into unprotected intercourse.
Until more of the affected African men will have the means to question the onslaught carried out on their private sphere by campaigns masked as modern medicine, some will already have died from fatal complications, others will have suffered from severe complications like necrosis of the penis and all will have lost their foreskin. In a far future, cultural anthropology will produce nice volumes discussing the bygone bio-politics of African authoritarian systems. They should rather use their privileges now and today to advise African men against such campaigns and to speak out publicly against one of the most destructive features of Global Health policies in recent times.
[1] http://blackusa.com/tuskegee-syphilis-experiment/.
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumcision_and_HIV.
[3] See: National AIDS Council Zimbabwe. http://www.nac.org.zw/news/women-also-benefit-male-circumcision
[4] http://www.safaids.net/content/zimbabwe-circumcision-drive-targets-cabin….
[5] http://www.mapsofworld.com/thematic-maps/world-hiv-aids-adult-prevalence….
WHO IS THIS IDIOT TELLING ME WHAT TO DO WITH MY BODY?
Sahara reporters please stop insulting our intelligence by making us read this trash. We can think for ourselves, thank you. Let the idiot (Felix Riedel) go and enlighten his people in Euro-American inner cities. He does not even know Nigeria enough to know that Nigeria is not under dictatorship. These smart alecky white people disgust me no end.
Circumcision/HIV Claim Not Backed by Science or Real World Data
The two biggest flaws with the 60% claim are that:
1. There is actually no demonstrable causal link between circumcision and a reduced risk of HIV transmission.
2. Real world data fails to correlate with the „findings“ in Africa.
The best any circumcision „study“ can offer are weak statistics embellished by correlation hypothesis. Under a microscope, it cannot be demonstrated that the foreskin facilitates HIV transmission, and that circumcision reduces it. Theories abound, but they are all either unproven, or disproven.
If one compares HIV prevalence rates in different countries, the so-called „protective effect“ of circumcision simply fails to manifest itself. According to USAID, HIV was more prevalent among CIRCUMCISED MEN in 10 out of 18 African countries. 80% of the American male population is circumcised from birth. And yet, according to the CIA fact book, the United States has a higher HIV prevalence rate than 53 countries where circumcision is rare (e.g. under 20%).
You expert
The author is indicating, that there is no reason to believe that circumcision really reduces the infection rates. He says it’s 419 – scam! Instead all operational procedures and the logical competition with the condom lead to the conclusion, that circumcision campaigns might INCREASE the HIV-rates instead of reducing it.
Studies alone don’t make science. Thinking does.
How do you possibly read
How do you possibly read „Felix“ as a female name?
This man is not ignorant.He’s educating you.
Push for male circumcision in Nyanza fails to reduce infections
Updated Tuesday, September 10th 2013 at 22:25 GMT +3
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By George Orido
KENYA:The prevalence of HIV and Aids rose in Nyanza and Central provinces, according to the Kenya Aids Indicative Survey released by the Health Cabinet Secretary James Macharia on Tuesday.
But Central’s 3.8 per cent prevalence increase from the previous 3.6 per cent is a mere fraction of Nyanza’s 15.1 per cent up from 2007’s 14.9 per cent.
Nyanza’s prevalence is big enough to double the national average prevalence.
And it has happened in spite of an aggressive campaign to have male circumcision as a strategy to reduce new infections in the region.
According to the KAIS 2012 survey, male circumcision among men aged 15-64 years in Nyanza increased by 18 per cent.http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?articleID=2000093293&story_title=push-for-male-circumcision-in-nyanza-fails-to-reduce-infections
This man is utterly ignorant!
This man is utterly ignorant! Half education they say is very dangerous – I can see that right here. The truth is that circumcision reduces infections and other penile related diseases. This buffoon doesn’t know anything about balanitis, urethritis and UTI as a result of collection of debris and germs in the prepuce. Does he know anything about phimosis and paraphimosis? We are more educated than you think sir and you could, as someone said earlier, restrain your kids from circumcision. Best of luck!
Why Circumcision Doesn’t and Won’t Prevent HIV
“What does the frequently cited “60% relative reduction” in HIV infections actually mean? Across all three female-to-male trials, of the 5,411 men subjected to male circumcision, 64 (1.18%) became HIV-positive. Among the 5,497 controls, 137 (2.49%) became HIV-positive”, so the absolute decrease in HIV infection was only 1.31%, which is not
statistically significant.” (Boyle GJ, Hill G. Sub-Saharan African randomised clinical trials into male circumcision and HIV transmission: Methodological, ethical and legal concerns. J Law Med 2011; 19:316-34.)
„Jackson Dlamini, 25 …told IRIN he was considering circumcision as a way to protect himself from HIV/AIDS. When told that counsellors at Mbabane Government Hospital would advise him to carry on using condoms even after the operation, Dlamini said, „It is painful to get circumcised. If I have to wear a condom anyway, what is the point?““
You are absolutely correct.
You are absolutely correct. Who has sex with an unhealed foreskin? This person should talk to Ex governor Yerima of Zamfara state who married a 13 year old girl. Yerima
Please Circumcise me a second time!
This is utter garbage! You write about circumcision, why not just ask a few properly circumcised men? This piece was written by a woman! You failed to describe the aftermath of circumcision without passion to misinform. No one said Circumcision stops or prevents AIDS. It is in fact associated with reduced infection rates-Do not muddle up the facts! Ask the men who are circumcised. They would prefer to do it a second time, if they could! The West did not give Africans their culture, so, don’t blame the western world. Male circumcision is not to be confused with Female Genital mutilation, which is not circumcision. In this article, that was clearly an objective. There is also no country in the world that stopped treatment in place of circumcision. Please do not add ignorance to our problems in Africa
Waste of time
Yes I would sacrifice a finger to prevent HIV. And as for the penis being vulnerable to disease during the healing period: who has sex with an unhealed foreskin? A one week old baby?
And we are not practicing circumcision because of WHO. It is cultural, more than anything.
Please get lost and let us address our more pertinent issues. If you don’t want to circumcise your children, don’t. You are making a drama of something that is not.
Go and campaign against FGM and the Moslem guy who is married to a 13 year old girl.