Subject: How does male circumcision affect HIV transmission?

From: [email-masked] (Tom Stempler)
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 1995 16:51:10 GMT

The following article originally appeared in the 

September 1994 issue of The Backlash!, Rod Van Mechelen, Publisher,
P.O. Box 70525, Bellevue, WA 98007]

It raises questions about the transmission of the HIV virus in cases
of  uncircumcised vs. circumcised male having sexual intercourse.

___________________Begin Article__________________________

      The drawing on the cover of your May issue shows a woman
saying, "Yes, let's make love. But I'm concerned about AIDS. How
do you feel about safe sex?," and the man she's talking to
replying, "Hey, don't worry, I've been *circumcised*."

      It might make just slightly more sense for him to say,

"Hey, don't worry, my foreskin is intact."

      Of all the charges leveled against the human foreskin
throughout its long, tortured history, none is more
frightening -- and none warrants closer scrutiny -- than the
ongoing, well-publicized charge that it predisposes its
possessor and his sexual partners to an early, slow, agonizing
death -- to infection with the AIDS virus. 

      Why have researchers and the media ignored the opposite,
more obvious possibility? 

      Most sexual transmission of the AIDS virus is from the
thrusting partner to the receiving partner at ejaculation
during vaginal or anal intercourse. 

      A penis with its foreskin intact -- an uncircumcised
penis -- can slip in and out of a vagina or rectum
non-abrasively inside its own slick sheath of sensitive,
self-lubricating, *movable* foreskin. A penis with its
foreskin missing -- a dowel-like circumcised penis -- can only
scrape in and out. 

       A penis with its foreskin intact requires relatively
gentle thrusting -- and less time -- to ejaculate. A
circumcised penis -- its head keratinized, desensitized, and
dry -- requires rougher, more prolonged thrusting to
experience the sensations necessary to trigger ejaculation.

      (A prostitute who's had intercourse with literally
thousands of men told me that intercourse with a circumcised
man and intercourse with an uncircumcised man were two
entirely different experiences, that she could *always* tell
from the feeling alone whether a man was circumcised or
uncircumcised, that circumcised men took longer to ejaculate,
and that they "have to work at it.") 

      Which -- a penis with its foreskin intact or a penis
with its foreskin missing -- is more likely to cause the
breaks, tears, micro-fractures, fissures, abrasions, and
lacerations in a vagina or rectum through which the AIDS virus
in the thrusting partner's semen could enter the receiving
partner's bloodstream? 

      And which is more likely to break a condom? 

      The United States has one of the highest male
circumcision rates *and* one of the highest HIV infection
rates in the world.

      The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta (1-800-342-
AIDS) reports that as of June 1995, more than 476,000 cases of
AIDS and more than 295,000 AIDS-related deaths had been
reported in the U.S., and that more than a million 
Americans -- one in 200 -- were estimated to be infected with
the virus. [Date and figures adjusted for June 1995.]

      *Does* male circumcision contribute to the spread of
AIDS?

      Isn't it time to find out?

      One more question: If a positive correlation between
AIDS and circumcision were in fact established, would it be
fully and accurately reported by the media in this country,
or, like so many other facts about the foreskin and
circumcision, would it be distorted, censored, and suppressed?

__________________End of Article_________________________

For information about foreskin restoration (using skin expansion
techniques--similar to the idea of Africans who put plates in their
lips to grow new tissue), which circumcised men have used and are
using to uncircumcise, see:

http://www.tde.com/~derrickt/restore.html
 
and    http://www.eskimo.com/~gburlin/restore/

Tom Stempler