{"id":4858,"date":"2012-11-14T08:30:57","date_gmt":"2012-11-14T16:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=4858"},"modified":"2012-11-14T09:47:06","modified_gmt":"2012-11-14T17:47:06","slug":"foreskin-activist-to-speak-at-camosun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2012\/11\/14\/foreskin-activist-to-speak-at-camosun\/","title":{"rendered":"Foreskin activist to speak at Camosun"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vancouver\u2019s Glen Callender loves his foreskin. Callender, founder of the Canadian Foreskin Awareness Project, just loves foreskin in general, actually, and he\u2019ll be on campus talking all about it on November 16 when he brings his What a Dick! A Men\u2019s Sexual Health Workshop <\/em>to Camosun. But there\u2019s a cause behind what he\u2019s doing: he\u2019s crusading for the end of circumcision, which he considers sexual violence.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
What\u2019s behind the pillow? Come to Glen Callender\u2019s talk to find out. (Photo by James Loewen.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cExpect an X-rated sex-ed class for the 21st century,\u201d says Callender about his upcoming talk (which, as a heads-up, will contain graphic nudity). \u201cIf you are interested in penises, sex, or human rights, you should come. If you are circumcised, or if you know someone who is circumcised, you should come. Yes, that means pretty much everyone should come. I guarantee it will be an hour of your life you will never forget. Don\u2019t forget to bring your rabbi.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking of which, one hot-button issue around the circumcision debate is religion. Callender, however, isn\u2019t buying it. He says one person\u2019s religious freedom ends where another person\u2019s body begins, and he feels that religion is not justification for sexual violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cCanada has, thankfully, criminalized all forms of forced female religious circumcision including varieties that are far less invasive and harmful than male circumcision on human-rights grounds, but the job isn\u2019t over yet,\u201d he says. \u201cIf a girl has a human right to keep all of her genitalia and decide for herself if anything gets cut off, then so does a boy, and so does an intersex child. Human rights are for everyone, not just one gender. That\u2019s why we call them human rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Event organizer Daphne Shaed says that one person should never be making decisions over someone else\u2019s body when it\u2019s not a medically necessary procedure.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we should be taking agency over an infant and altering their genitals or any parts of their bodies when it\u2019s not medically necessary for their survival,\u201d says Shaed. \u201cCircumcision is not necessary for the infant to survive. And if it is a religious procedure, then wait for the infant to come of age where they can make their own informed decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shaed feels that everyone should go to this event, so if the time comes when they need to make a decision to have a child circumcised they at least are prepared to choose one way or the other.<\/p>\n

\u201cMen who have been circumcised should go to the event,\u201d she says, \u201cso in the future when they have children they can understand what circumcision is and make an informed decision whether or not to have their child circumcised. And women or people that maybe down the road are going to have children should come too, so they can say, \u2018Don\u2019t circumcise my baby; I don\u2019t believe it, I don\u2019t want it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Callender who says the \u201cintactivist\u201d movement respects people\u2019s religious choices but doesn\u2019t feel those choices should be forced upon infants realizes that not everyone is going to be on his side in regards to this issue, as Shaed is.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose who are threatened by this movement will attempt to dismiss it any way they can,\u201d he says, \u201cbut the reality is that the institutionalized genital mutilation of children is one of the most barbaric and horrible abuses of human beings in the world today.\u201d<\/p>\n

What a Dick! A Men\u2019s Sexual Health Workshop<\/strong>
\n6 pm Friday, November 16<\/strong>
\nYoung 216, Lansdowne<\/strong>
\ncan-fap.net<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vancouver\u2019s Glen Callender loves his foreskin. Callender, founder of the Canadian Foreskin Awareness Project, just loves foreskin in general, actually, and he\u2019ll be on campus talking all about it on November 16 when he brings his What a Dick! A Men\u2019s Sexual Health Workshop to Camosun. But there\u2019s a cause behind what he\u2019s doing: he\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4859,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,15,85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-issue","category-campus","category-november-14-2012"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4858"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4964,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4858\/revisions\/4964"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}