I've been watching (and done some participation in) the Intactivist movement for the last 4 years, and although I love the people participating, I don't think they're effective. At best, they're barely moving the needle on this issue, and some, such as Brother K and Jonathan Friedman, have supposedly even chuckled at the idea of a mass movement on this issue, meaning that the Bloodstained Men organization is content to let this issue slowly peter out. This is a terrible plan for the millions of circumcised men. With a mass movement, we can get a ban and tissue regeneration via government funding of research into an effective procedure. Without a broad awakening on this topic, we will go to our graves never having felt true sexual pleasure. For evidence of this, look at Taylor's research and Sorrell's research into the anatomy of the penis. We need to be strategizing now, while there are still millions of men and boys coming up circumcised who can be mobilized to raise hell as they enter arms-bearing years (not that we need violence, but we need to create social chaos, and this is the demographic that typically accomplishes that).

The Intactivist movement has for years relied on 2 pillars of advocacy strategy: trying to get people to empathize with male victims, and arguing rationally with parents and doctors. Strategy 1 goes nowhere in the vast majority of cases, for reasons that I think we're all familiar with. Strategy 2 fails to move the needle because it relies on rationality to get people to change their behavior. People are perfectly rational only so long as they have no emotional investment in the topic. I'm not going to get into the female psychology of why women cut their boys, but men have an obvious emotional investment in cutting their boys, as it sublimates their grief at the thought that they have been harmed. When a father is offered a "medical" reason to circumcise his child, he takes that post-hoc rationalization for the decision he emotionally already wanted to make, and Intactivist facts hardly ever affect this process. That's why the circ rate appears to be, at best, steadily declining at ~0.8% per year in the US with no inflection point reached so far. And before you say that the 50% mark will be the inflection point, bear in mind that there are parts of Canada where the circ rate has remained steady at ~40% for decades now. There are arguments for the 50% inflection point, but no data backs it up.

So we need a new approach to the circumcision issue. I propose an idea that has been floated to Bloodstained Men, but that they have refused to implement: go to areas where there are parents and children, and protest there. Use child-level language (never use the word circumcision; "cutting parts off babies' penises" is more the direction you want) and horrify parents as you educate children on the crimes of their parents. If the parents outwardly react, this will only reinforce the importance of what you're telling them, so that the information sticks even more in the child's mind. Hit elementary and middle schools during drop-off and pick-up, family churches when mass lets out, and children's sports events in public parks. I particularly recommend Baseball and Little League, as there are long lulls in play for the outfield and the team at bat. This will deliver a gut-level emotional punch to parents, who up until now have got the impression that they can cut parts off of their babies' penises without ever being confronted about it. If kids start talking about this in schools, if the taboo is broken, if children confront their parents, we will finally get our chance in the public spotlight to make our case for a ban and tissue regeneration, and the circumcision rate will finally drop off the proverbial cliff.

The precedents regarding public speech have already been set for us by the Pro-Life movement and others. Reach out to your local chapter of the ACLU to find out what limitations exist in your local area, but the idea is to get in and get out within a 5 minute window, too fast for the police to come and harass you. Don't break any laws. If confronted by the police, obey all commands and try to get out without a citation. We should be planning our protest strategies and gathering materials ASAP, because the CDC is rolling out a pro-circ platform where they'll be lobbying parents of intact children and intact men to get circumcised, if they have not started doing this already. https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/programresources/planning.html#HISA

Supplies you'll need:

  • a megaphone, preferably with an aux cord so you can record you speech and play it from your phone

  • sign(s) (Bloodstained Men has an option to order vinyl signs from their printer; alternately, get a permanent black marker and white corrugated plastic from Home Depot. Remember, simple language that a child will understand!)

  • a bodycam (we need proof of concept, i.e. video of parents and children reacting to this strategy. ideally, we can use this to recruit angry men and many intactivists to adopt this strategy)

  • optional: a mask; check your local ordinances to determine legality

https://imgur.com/a/p2DrGOY

We are done arguing about this issue. It hasn't worked, isn't working, and won't work, for the reasons outlined above. We need an emotional gut-punch to shock risk-averse new parents out of cutting their children. Who's with me?

P.S. American Circumcision just came out. I highly recommend it to all. It is the best example of the above approaches described (empathy appeal and rational debate). I consider it a eulogy for Intactivism 1.0. Watch it and understand that American Circumcision won't move the needle at all either, as its popularity will be stifled and hidden by soft censorship, and because the group that will watch it is largely self-selected to already agree with the film. There are very few remaining untapped masses of empathy for men in our society, and we cannot rely on empathy to win this fight. Intactivism 1.0 is dead; they did great work, but it's not going anywhere. Let's get Intactivism 2.0 started!

For those who disagree with my strategy, please, make an argument below rather than just downvoting me.

Edit: I should have made this clear-- I view a decline in circumcision rates as inevitable. If it's brought down by current methods, we'll never see tissue regeneration. If it's brought about by political mobilization, that makes tissue regeneration much more likely. We should use tissue regeneration as a hook (to the extent that anyone else likes the sound of my strategy) to sell unhappily circumcised men on getting involved in protesting and political activism/organization. I suspect that millions of men have had anti-circ sentiments, but have drifted away from the topic without a place to put their political energy. The above strategy is an attempt to give the unhappily circumcised a way to get involved and move the needle much more rapidly on this issue.

Edit 2: the strategy, inadvertently applied: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idQn2JfEPvU . If 15% of children respond like this child did, that could be a massive swell in anti-circ sentiment, if we are aggressive about doing this across the country.