I apologize for there not being a POTD yesterday (Friday), I’ve been busting my ass on the schedule and planning for Dark Odyssey WinterFire and then yesterday evening Fire and I spent 5hrs trying to install a new muffler on my little bug before determining that there was just something wrong with it. By the time I got home from that I didn’t have a POTD in me.

You also won’t be seeing an essay from me this evening. That’s because I am finally going to be announcing my exciting news, but this evening I’m putting the finishing touches on something related to it. We will return to our regularly scheduled blogging tomorrow.

The history of male circumcision is a story of a cure in search of a disease. Whatever the bogyman of the era is, amputating a child or man’s foreskin will supposedly cure it. From masturbation to cancer, epilepsy to lead poisoning, it is a procedure of desperation that inevitably proves radically or totally ineffective too long after it has been embraced by a flummoxed and biased medical community It should be noted that circumcision is a significant source of revenue, not only from the operation, but the sales of neonatal foreskins for use in the research and cosmetic industries. Not to mention the psychological bias that circumcised men and the parents of circumcised children have towards the idea that their penises are the ideal and circumcision is a beneficial rather than harmful practice.

Anti-infant/child circumcision activists predicted that the operation would be declaired an HIV/AIDS preventative and as in fact it came to pass, with the major news outlets calling it a “surgical AIDS vaccine” and mass circumcision initiatives launched around the world. Even as this was happening, medical researchers and social behaviorists were both questioning the validity of the studies and the social impact of treating it as a preventative measure.

Now, predictably several new reports are out that are showing just how ineffective a preventative measure for HIV male circumcision is:

The illusive promise of circumcision to prevent female-to-male HIV infection – not the way to go for South Africa – South Africa Medical Journal Vol 101, NO 11

US Navy Finds That Circumcision Doesn’t Prevent HIV

Zimbabwe Circumcision Drive “A Waste Of Money”

And over on PozBlog Simon Collery has a damning report (with very good references) on the push for circumcision in Africa, even if the face of rapidly mounting evidence that it serves no function at all except to line the pockets of providers of disposable circumcision clamps.

Ok, it isn’t technically the 11th anymore where I am, but I spent the whole day sequestered working on the Dark Odyssey WinterFire 2012 scheduling grid.

Dave Johns has written a compelling and somewhat distressing article for Slate.com about American prisons attempting to restrict or prevent prisoners from masturbating, noting that:

In fact, a number of state prisons regard jerking off as a rule infraction. American University law professor Brenda Smith, who conducted a 50-state survey of prison masturbation policies in 2006, says restrictions are “well-entrenched” in the correctional environment.

It isn’t a straightforward (so to speak) issue, and it is hard to deny that the need of female guards to a workplace free from harassment (or as free as I imagine female prison guards ever get) should be taken into consideration, among other salient issues.  However Johns points out that there are factors that favor permitting self-gratification, as long as it done in a discrete way:

…some experts on prison sex contend that anti-masturbation and anti-porn policies in prisons are counterproductive because they effectively drive inmates to engage in risky sexual behavior

The prison culture in America has a long and established anti-masturbation viewpoint, even resorting to forced infibulation of male prisoners through via the insertion of a ring the the foreskin to prevent them from masturbating.

He also notes that the sex-negativity of some guards and prison officials can put prisoners in the position of being punished for masturbation even when clearly not attempting to engage in “exhibitionist” behavior:

…inmate Terry Lee Alexander was sitting alone on his bunk masturbating when a female deputy who was monitoring him from a central control room more than 100 feet away took exception to Alexander’s “blatant” exertions and wrote him up. Alexander was charged and convicted of exposure, with the jury determining that a cell is “a limited access public place.” The same deputy had also filed reports on seven other locked-up masturbators. When Alexander’s attorney asked the deputy in court if she had considered calling a SWAT team to halt his client’s activity, she replied, “I wish I had.”

Discussions about the multifaceted issues and injustices surrounding the prison system in the U.S. rarely touch on this delicate subject, but maybe they should. I can think of fewer victimless activities than discrete masturbation, and no reasons beyond institutional puritanism or cruelty to deprive people of its simple and harmless pleasure.

Over at Gods’ Mouths, Del has written a fabulous essay about community, spirit work, and how Superman is kind of dick. Worth a read even for anyone who has worked in small communities or with big egos.

This Lesson About Community, brought to you by the Super Friends!

Also, Fire and I are a few weeks away from moving Gods’ Mouths over to WordPress, where it and Blood For The Divine will be combined into one blog and re-launched. We are actively looking for people interested in writing essays on spirit work, serving the gods, divination, and other polytheistic and neo-classical shamanic topics.