Foreskin Booth at Castro Street Fair: Glen Callender to Perform Penis Tricks

• I'm bet that if somebody tried to give Erin's genitals so much as a paper cut she would be jumping up and down screaming, "you can't do that I have rights!"  Isn't it so sick and disgusting that some people don't afford the same rights to others that they do to themselves?

• The word "circumcision" is nothing more than playing games with semantics to camaflauge it for what it really is, a bizare sexual mutilation torture ritual.  If a person circumcied a male cat or dog they would go to jail for animal abuse, yet a person can circumcise a male human without consent and that is somehow okay.  Boys not only don't have the samerights as girls, boys don't even have the same rights as animals!  What kind of sick and evil society would allow that to be the case? The religious freedom excuse is the worst excuse I have ever heard.  I hear it all the time, "Banning circumcision violates religious freedom so a ban would be illegal".  Let’s analyze this statement.  Isn't sexual abuse and rape illegal?  Isn’t child abuse illegal?  Isn’t torture illegal?  Isn’t discrimination based on gender illegal?  Isn’t theft illegal? (circumcision is theft, it is stealing a person’s normal body parts)  And yes, violating religious freedom is also illegal.  Banning circumcision does not violate religious freedom, it actually protects religious freedom.  What about the religious freedom of the person being circumcised?  Apparently the religious freedom of the person being circumcised does not mean anything to some people.  Religious freedom means that every person has a right to practice whatever religion they want.  People do not have to practice the same religion as their parents.  They have a right to choose a different religion, or to be an atheist and have no religion.  Circumcising a person against their will is permanently imposing a religion upon them.  Parents can raise their children to be a certain religion until the child turns 18 years old; but a parent does not have a right to permanently impose a religion upon their child for an entire lifetime.  Can a parent force a circumcision on a 30 year old son?  I don’t see how it is different from circumcising a baby.  By the time the person is 40 he is going to be circumcised whether it was done to him at age 30 or age 0, so whats the difference?  Religious freedom is not unlimited.  Religious freedom has boundaries.  A person’s right to religious freedom comes to an IMMEDIATE end the moment that another person's rights are infringed upon.  Religious freedom does not mean that people have a right to run around imposing their religion upon others just because it is their religion to do so.  A Mormon can’t marry a 13 year old girl just because it is their religion to do so.  But for some reason a person can literally pull down a boy’s pants, take a razor blade, and carve up his penis like a Thanksgiving turkey and mutilate it, maim it and disfigure it beyond all recognition.  How is that okay?  Since when is it okay to brutally and viciously attack children in the name of religion?  Also, it is illegal to circumcise females for religious reasons.  Why doesn’t the author come out in support of female circumcision in the name of “religious freedom”? 

• It's not "in public". It's inside a tent, to consenting adults who are fully warned what to expect (as circumcision should be). Ed Margolis is committing the fallacy of argument ad hominem - attacking the person, not what he says. The message stands by itself, regardless of what he may think of the messenger. (And how better to illustrate the actual size and unique rolling action of the adult foreskin - two topics most Americans are grossly ignorant of, when they so dismissively speak of "sniipping" a "flap of skin" - than with a real live one?)

• Adults who tamper with the genitals of little children are called pedophiles.  Men and women who educate about the basic human right of every person to the genitals they were born with are called intactivists. Adults who advocate for the forced genial cutting of children are severely lacking in basic understanding of normal, healthy sexual anatomy and development. Perhaps promoting the sexual wounding of children's genitals is the ultimate sexual perversion.

• Wow, very funny, Ed.  I just love your material, but not all comedic acts center around just comedy.  Today's comedians sometimes have a message to convey.  A message that perhaps you're just not that in tune with some of the atrocities committed in the world, and yes they need addressing. I think Glen is very funny and very brave to do what he's doing to raise awareness.  Glen I know personally (from online, but still) and if he believes in this, I believe in him. Besides, this wont be the first time someone's done this kinda thing in San Francisco and it likely wont be the last.  Probably the first time for a political reason, unless you count the animal rights people who strip down to protest fur.

• Used to be that a man who played with his penis in public was thought to be just a regular pervert. Apparently this behavior is quite well accepted on the streets of San Francisco and its practitioners are awarded the title of "comedian." This is absolutely the type of guy who I would want to consult on the ethical, legal, and and medical issues surrounding the practice of male infant circumcision. Ed Margolis

• "Believe it or not, plenty of men in San Francisco are mad at their parents for having snipped off their foreskin..." "Believe it or not"??? What sort of comment is that, Erin? If you replace the word 'foreskin' with the word 'earlobe', I think you'll get a clearer idea of why I find your "Believe it or not" comment so offensive. A person has a right to live life without ANY body parts being removed without that person's permission. It should never be surprising that men should want to keep their foreskins. The fact that Erin thinks it is, is appalling! It suggests that Erin has no idea that the foreskin is an essential, multi-functional structure that conveys protective, immunological and sexual benefits to a man and to his sexual partners.

• Why all the incredulity? The rest of the developed world is incredulous that 130 years after John Harvey Kellogg recommended circumcision to prevent "self abuse", the USA is still cutting (the best) part of the genitals off most of its newborn boys.

• I'm not sure that "Believe it or not" makes a lot of sense in this context.  Is it really so hard to believe that men are unhappy about being genitally altered?  If you look at how rapidly circumcision rates have declined in the English speaking world in the past 50 years, I think unhappiness with circumcision has become more the rule than the exception.

• The USA is coming out of the dark age of ignorance of not knowing much if anything about foreskin because ours, almost all, were taken, cut off without the our permission. Clearly there's need to see real intact men showing their foreskin, showing all it's capabilities. It's not "just skin" and with the learning curve of Callender's show, this plus more becomes apparent. The time is up to pull back the curtain and see the foreskin as it is, an integral part of the body and not the Devil's gift & forebear of disease that power hungry people keep drumming.

• Forced genital cutting of anyone is a sex crime, an aggravated sexual assault. Violating the virgin genitals of infants and children in this manner, is even worse. Glen Callender's foreskin awareness booth is both entertaining and consciousness raising. The message, to protect the rights of all children from any adult who would surgically tamper with and assault their genitals, is vitally important to sexual freedom of the individual and to a more peaceful and just society. Thanks to Glen and all who speak out on this important human rights issue.

• There's always more to it with foreskin!

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