Sex & Circumcision:
An American Love Story

PREFACE

On May 1, 2018, I premiered my one-man play Sex & Circumcision: An American Love Story in Harvard’s crown jewel, Sanders Theatre in Memorial Hall.

I am a Jew against circumcision; there are more of us than speak publicly.

My play originated from a lecture I was invited to give during Cornell University’s Sexual Health Week in October of 2017 titled Circumcision in the US: Identifying Truths & Trends in Genital-Cutting Cultures. This lecture condensed five years of my research on circumcision into a 90-minute talk. The Cornell students were gripping their seats throughout, so I knew I was onto something.

At the time of my Cornell talk, I had recently been hired to be one of two managers at Harvard’s Language Center (formerly known as the Language Resource Center). I was rising in the Harvard bureaucracy. Leslie Kirwan, the Dean of Finance & Administration, the second in charge of the multi-billion-dollar entity that is Harvard’s Faculty of Arts & Sciences, declared to my manager upon my hiring that she, “sensed a wisdom in [Eric] beyond his years.” Dean Kirwan then ensured that I was invited to decision-making meetings with other senior Harvard faculty members for issues related to the construction of the university’s new language center, a center that I was hired to help oversee.

Shortly after my Cornell talk, I started conversations with a senior faculty member whom I supported via my center. He was an ally to my anti-circumcision activism. So, I showed him the recording of my Cornell lecture. He invited me to re-deliver this lecture on a grander scale at Harvard. With his permission, I transformed my lecture into my one-man show and academic thesis that you are about to see in book-form titled Sex & Circumcision: An American Love Story.

For six weeks leading up to the premiere, Harvard helped me advertise my show by putting pictures of my naked body (the same picture you see on the cover of this book) on their websites and in the venue itself; Harvard collected a fee for every ticket sold (I donated my portion of the ticket sales to The Jimmy Fund to help combat childhood cancer).

During the six-week lead-up, I also launched a campaign to spread awareness via posters and the occasional march around campus with a cohort of seven to eight inflatable penises.  I received exceedingly positive feedback from students and faculty alike, and in response to my promotional efforts, a large gathering of hundreds of Harvard and extended community members attended my show.

When I signed the contract to perform in Sanders Theatre, I did so expressly in no official capacity to ensure that there was no confusion that Harvard sponsored this event in any way. Because of Harvard’s adamant (but less honored in political practice) free speech policy, I was free to think and say whatever I pleased as long as I did not incite violence. I even thanked Harvard’s new president and my Jewish brother Lawrence Bacow for his integrity to protect my right to express potentially controversial opinions… boy, was I wrong!

Despite the exceedingly positive response my play received both in person and online, Harvard’s administration launched an “investigation” against me shortly following my show.

It must have upset one or more senior administrators. Harvard then assisted The Harvard Crimson, their student newspaper, in defaming me as they published a series of libelous articles (three to be exact) directed at me to grossly mischaracterize my show, attempting to label me, a Jewish man, as anti-Semitic, perhaps because they could not refute any of my claims on the basis of their merits or because Harvard bureaucracy is not about Veritas/Truth/Inquiry/Science but about politics and donors.

Immediately prior to my show, my dean Robert Doyle gave me a money bonus for exceptional work performance. Shortly after my show, my manager, the late director of Harvard’s Language Center called me “a leading performer in every respect” along with high praise from other senior faculty members in my annual performance review. Therefore, Harvard could not claim I was a poor employee; so they were seeking other pretexts to fire me on so they could pretend that my pre-determined termination had nothing to do with the content of my show. Harvard could not outright fire me on the basis of my show’s content because they cannot afford to appear as censors considering their consistent posturing is “Harvard does not censor.”   (Spoiler: BS.)

In their desperation to find a pretext to fire me, I believe Harvard’s administration under the leadership of the former dean of the college Mike Smith colluded with BayState Sound, the company I hired (on Harvard’s recommendation) to manage some production matters for my show, to steal intimate sexual embarrassing footage of me. Harvard then proceeded to distribute this illegally-obtained video of me amongst their upper administration. This came to my attention because Harvard then decided to compel one (if not more) of my colleagues to watch this illegally-obtained, sensitive footage of me under threat of termination.

Upon discovering Harvard’s highly unethical and objectively illegal behavior, I offered to release Harvard of all liability if they honored their free speech policy and allowed me to return to my promising career. They refused and proceeded to terminate me anyway.

I filed a complaint with Harvard’s Office of Labor and Employee Relations (OLER) to try to get “adults” in the room to introduce some adherence to policy and rational assessment of the facts.  They investigated, dragged their feet and after much delay exonerated their employer.  Surprise, surprise.  And OLER totally avoided answering several of my allegations backed up by evidence.  (Tone deaf.)  I guess some jobs require loyalty, not investigating Veritas/Truth. Even for OLER lawyers, who owe obligations as officers of courts. Stay tuned.  

Despite Harvard’s Goliath pose against me as David, I am committed to defending my rights against Harvard, and most importantly our children’s fundamental human right to retain their one and only true possession: their bodily integrity, all parts including sexually functioning and pleasurable/arousable parts.

Therefore, I am pursuing litigation v. The President and Fellows of Harvard College and other related parties for violating my right to freedom of speech and expression among other claims.

As you will see from my show, there are powerful forces in this world wanting to cut off healthy normal pleasurable parts of infant penises. They hide behind their degrees. They hide behind their symbols of authority. I could not have imagined that Harvard University, of all places, would hide behind their logo emblazoned with the now-Orwellian slogan “Veritas” to align themselves with the mutilators of the world. But I was wrong. And they have, at least up to now.  

It’s time for us activists, those who defend the defenseless, those who fight for real truth and justice in this world, to band together and expose these masters of deceptions for who they are, even if they have a 38 billion-dollar endowment on their side. Unlike our opponents, our integrity is not for sale.

This lawsuit is about holding those in power accountable for their actions. It is about tearing down the veneer of authority these baby tormenters hide behind, revealing the little man behind the curtain.

If you want to join me, please sign up for my email list at www.clopper.com, and if after seeing or reading my play, if your blood boils and you want to hold those in power accountable for their unprincipled and illegal actions, please join me in my legal fight at www.clopper.com/legal.

Thank you for your support, my friend, and without further ado, I present to you my play: Sex & Circumcision: An American Love Story.

—Clopper

‍

INTRODUCTION

Welcome! Welcome to my show, ladies and gentlemen:

That's a bizarre title, huh? I thought so.

My name is Eric Clopper. Most people call me “Clopper” because it's more original, but you can call me whatever you'd like.

Thank you for joining me here in Sanders Theatre in Memorial Hall at Harvard University, where the motto here is Veritas, which is all too appropriate, because you’re all about to get a heavy dose of it. *

I was invited to speak here today by a faculty member, probably 'cause I pitched him the PG version. I'll omit his name, because I'm not sure how my show will be received, but I wrote it because it needs to be given.

Now, I've given other presentations at other sexual health conferences, other World Stem Cell Summits, and even other Ivy League universities. So, this show is by no means out of my realm of expertise. But the difference with this show is… I am not speaking on behalf of any company, organization or university I'm affiliated with. This show is purely how Mr. Clopper sees the world, which is a very dangerous thing.

I designed this show specifically for you, for a college audience, for the next generation of adults, and even more specifically the next generation of leaders.

I warn you, we are going to go way, way down into the rabbit hole, unraveling everything you thought was true. There is no unhearing this…

[i pause to allow people to leave if they so wish. audience gasps]

And you're all still here.

[laughs]

SO LET'S BEGIN!

Throughout my show we're going to be talking a lot about culture and how it affects our worldview, both positively and negatively. Examples abound of this.

Take the U.S. for example. Just a hundred years ago, black people were still under Jim Crow, women didn't have suffrage, and gay people had no rights whatsoever. The U.S. has always been a very dark place for almost everyone, except for white men like me.

Forget a hundred years, though. We are going to go back thousands of years, where almost every culture was considered backwards when viewed through a 21st century lens.

Now I'd ask for you to remember this disclaimer, especially as we approach some loaded topics later about groups that like to conflate almost all criticism with discrimination.

But before we get into that, though, I'd like for you to understand my culture, my worldview. I'm sure at least some of you can relate to my upbringing.

I grew up...

[some childhood friends in the front cheer]

with [some of] these gentlemen in the front:

But, I'm sure at least some of you can relate to my upbringing. I grew up as a Jewish guy in a relatively affluent suburb of Boston.

I never faced any real adversity in my life, with the exception of one near-death experience: I was playing rugby at West Point Military Academy when I was in high school, when I blew up my kidney. I didn't know, so I kept playing, but my ruptured kidney was hemorrhaging blood into my body cavity, until I collapsed on the field. They called 911 and rushed me to the hospital. I was screaming, writhing in agony, and pissing blood everywhere.

I remember being a 16-year-old boy and looking into the nurse's eyes and seeing what sheer terror looked like for the first time. I could tell… this was going to be fatal.

So West Point scrambled a Blackhawk helicopter and rushed me to a major trauma center where I spent weeks in intensive care as they transfused 1.5 gallons of blood into my cardiovascular system to keep my heart beating… At least my high school was nice enough to give me straight A's for the year.

But other than that, I never suffered any harassment or discrimination. I always had food on the table. I was, still am, a cisgender white male from privilege.

I'm actually in a committed relationship with the love of my life, Britney, who, quite honestly, without her undying support, I probably wouldn't even have the courage to be up here… She means everything to me.

[i pulled on the audience’s heartstrings; they applaud for britney]

A little round of applause for Britney. Thank you.

But, I'm getting all cheesy.

So, I went to undergraduate at Colgate University, where I got my degree in physics and economics.

[my colgate friends in the audience give a little “woohoo!”]

And I was going to get my PhD in computational physics, but my conviction wavered, so I went into management consulting, because… that's what you do, right?

Now, after about a year of that, I quit, and helped get a regenerative medicine company off the ground. I helped them raise a few hundred thousand dollars. They're about to publish some original research now and crowdfund a much larger round in the near future.

I recently resigned from the regenerative medicine company, but I became a full-time administrator and officer here at Harvard University. And because I'd like to continue to be an administrator here…

I would like to underscore the point that the story you're all about to hear in no way, shape, or form reflects the views of Harvard.

[harvard audience laughs as they know the university is notorious for censorship of views they disapprove of]

Or any of its affiliates, except of course my own.

Thankfully, our new president [Lawrence Bacow] has underscored his commitment to challenging the status quo, when he says, and I quote,

“We need to be vigilant to ensure that our campuses are always open to new ideas; that they are places where our members feel free to express themselves.”
—Lawrence Bacow, President, Harvard University(1)

I'm thankful our new president has the integrity to protect my right to express potentially controversial views.

But anyways. But anyways… this talk isn't about me or my desire to keep my job after this – but, I think it's important for you to understand where I'm coming from as I approach these cultural issues, so you can understand my cultural frame and relate it to yours, as we're probably pretty similar.

I mean, most of us were raised in America, immersed in American culture, raised with American values.

[deafening silence]

Okay… Not a ringing endorsement, but that’s okay.

[audience erupts in laughter]

But anyways, back to the topic at hand: sex and circumcision.

So, I am a very weird guy in many ways, but the sheer depth of knowledge I have about this topic excludes me from ever being a normal person.

[laughs]

I don't even like teaching about it! But I do… But I do, because, ONE: it's very important for you to understand and be familiar with how your genitals work. And TWO: without exception, audience members minds are blown. And I usually only get five to ten minutes with them. I have an entire evening with you guys!

[laughs]

We can break everything!

Now, to kick off my show, I would like to start with a quote from one of the most influential intellectuals of our time, Noam Chomsky:

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum acceptable opinion, but allow lively debate within that spectrum."
— Noam Chomsky (2)

Thanks, Noam.

So, we can visualize this with a simple diagram. Here is the spectrum of acceptable opinion for our culture:

Inside the spectrum all of our culture's acceptable opinions live. Now, this spectrum obviously expands and, I think most of us would agree, evolves over time:

So,for example, in this spectrum we now find civil rights, women's suffrage, and gay marriage. And that's only a few years old. We've come a very long way. But I think we can all agree we have much further to go. That is why I wrote this show: to continue to expand the spectrum.

To facilitate the expansion, I have compiled a list of facts:

I have modestly named them “Clopper's Five Censored Facts.”

Now,these facts are demonstrably true. They are facts you're not supposed to know.I can't just reveal them to you. They fall well outside “the spectrum.” But, I can show you how they're true.

I will walk you through each of them, and then at the end, you get to hear what I really think, as we start drawing overarching conclusions about our culture and others. That is the point of my show.

Now,I'm always a little nervous before my shows, and this one was no exception, but I actually feared composing this one. I feared it! And the reason is, if I were to just remove these censor bars, most of you would be offended, many would leave in disgust, and I would likely be dismissed as an extremist because, “how possibly could these be true?” “How possibly could these be true!?”

Mind you, I remember questioning my own sanity when I started to understand that these were in fact true. I thought, “No, that's impossible!” But… But, after studying and excelling in all things math, science, logic, and reason for decades, I know how to identify truths when I see them, especially in regards to the topic of circumcision.

I didn't come hereto debate this issue; I came here to dominate it.

[applause]

Yeah!

Now,where to begin? So many options…

Let's just get on the same page with basic terms of anatomy. So, here we have a picture of a circumcised and uncircumcised… emoji:

I mean penis! sorry.

[laughs]

And so, what are the differences between these two types of penises?

Right,the foreskin… the part of the penis that extends over glans:

Some people call it an elephant trunk or an anteater nose [laughs]. And on the other side, we have a circumcised penis, the “German Army Helmet,” whatever you want to call it… We have many euphemisms.

So,I'd like to ask this question to get a sense of where the room's coming from,because we all want to do what's best for our children, right?

So, can I get a show of hands? Who here, if you were to have a son, would have him circumcised for health,hygiene, or cultural or religious reasons?

And do you mind if I ask you what the most compelling reason is?

[audience member] “because it's normal.”

Okay,great. Anyone else? Show of hands? Yes? You there.

[a different audience member] “the way it looks.”

Its aesthetics, okay. [Audience laughter] I assume there are other reasons, but those are good ones.

And similarly, show of hands,anyone here if they were to have a daughter would have her circumcised for health, hygiene, or cultural or religious reasons? Show of hands… Nobody?

Everyone's like glaring at me.

No need to get all shirty. [laughs] I'm not drawing a false equivalency here. I'm just getting a sense of where the room's coming from.

See,I'll tell you where I'm coming from, which led me to the realization of Censored Fact Number One, which opened the Pandora's Box to all five of these.

Now,my story begins where I imagine many interesting stories begin… with my first encounter with an uncircumcised penis.

Into the rabbit hole we go…

CENSORED FACT I

any rugby players in here?

[a few audience members raise their hands]

Oh,I even played rugby with some of you here. Yes!

Well,I was a rugby player in college. It was a big part of my undergraduate experience. And part of that experience was a legendary rugby tour to Scotland.A legendary tour! 50 college-age rugby players in Scotland. You could imagine we got into some trouble.

Now, I could tell you the whole story, but I think a quote from my first interview –mind you, my first professional interview on circumcision ever – sums it up nicely. To preface this, I'm a staunch feminist. I firmly believe women deserve equal pay, rights, and respect as their male counterparts. It's 2018. It's absurd not to take that position.

[raucous applauding in approval]

However…

[laughter]

However,I don't think my 22-year-old self had the awareness to relate to the “assertive feminism” of this HBO VICE reporter. I don't think she appreciated my bro mannerisms, and she wasn't looking to do me any favors.

After our two-hour conversation about all things circumcision that I thought was rather quite intellectual, she pulled this one quote from me about the Scotland trip:

"We'd get really drunk and naked and do really weird things. Not gay things, just weird things."

[hbo's vice interview quote (1); audience loves it]

I remember thinking to myself… "NAILED IT! Nailed it, Clopper!" First interview ever, and this is what they quoted me on.

Now,the lesson here is: be careful when you speak to reporters.

But seriously, I do not contest we did get really drunk and really naked and do really weird things. Excuse the hetero-normative lens.

And during those weird things, I remember seeing my first uncircumcised penis and thinking… "What is that thing? [laughter] Seriously, what's going on over there? I've never seen a penis in that model before.”

This [penis] piqued my curiosity and prompted, let's call it, an investigation on the interwebs on the topic.

Now, how do you do research on the internet? You google your opinion and reinforce it, right?

[laughter]

Now that's called an echo chamber. And as comforting as they may be, I do not do that. Now, despite your incredulity, I'm an actual physicist! Weird, right? I know how to do research.

And so when I first googled circumcision in 2012 – the conversation has changed in six years; I know, because I've been paying attention – but six years ago, the general consensus was between all news sources: ABC, NBC, TIME, New York Times,Washington Post, Scientific American, and so on, was that “circumcision was cleaner, healthier, prevented STDs and HIV, and was endorsed by the scientific academy, the American Academy of Pediatrics.” Now, this sounded great!

It created the coherent narrative in my mind, “If circumcision was good for you,then of course I and all my friends were circumcised, obviously.”

However,I stumbled across a website that aggregated quotes about circumcision throughout all time, and something struck me about the Jewish ones.

Let me show you. See if you can strike a pattern:

“Circumcision is a symbol of two things necessary to our well-being: the excision of sexual pleasure and to check a man's pride.” 30 AD. (2)

[audience laughs in disbelief of the true jewish intent behind circumcision]

“The bodily pain is the real purpose of circumcision. One of the reasons is to bring about a decrease in sexual intercourse and a weakening of the organ. The fact that circumcision reduces sexual pleasure is undeniable." 1180 AD. (3)

Okay, well, these are ancient history.

"The foreskin represents man's worst animal-like urges."

I like my animal-like urges!

[laughter]

"Impairment of sexual sensation is a special virtue of circumcision." 1985. (4)

Not too long before I was born.

Now,these quotes didn't quite sync with the mainstream narrative. I was now asking myself “Was circumcision good for me, or did it damage my sexuality?” * Remember,I was a 20-year-old male at the time. Not many things were more important to me than the health of my penis… And that still applies today!

[laughter]

I had to get to the bottom of this! I couldn't just let this incoherence rest. So,I did what anybody should do if they're trying to learn about a topic, or any topic. I logged off the internet, and I bought… books!

I bought books about the topic (5)(6)(7): "Circumcision: A History of the World's Most Controversial Surgery," "What your doctor may not tell you about circumcision," Marked in Your Flesh: Circumcision from Ancient Judea to Modern America."

And something crazy happened when I read books about the topic… I understood it! I understood it! Isn't it crazy how books work that way?

And what was even crazier that I understood was how insanely important and relevant the information contained inside these books was to everybody, how incredibly simple it was to understand, and how nobody knew it!

Nobody knew it!

So,I did something diabolical. I did something diabolical. I learnt everything about circumcision. I know everything about it! And I'm going to tell you…

[laughter]

Buckle up, because it's gonna be a bumpy fuckin’ ride.

[laughter]

So,the story begins 12,000 years ago...

Sigmund Freud surmised that circumcision started as a step down from child sacrifice.So instead of sacrificing the child, you would just sacrifice an essential part of him: his genitals. These genital blood sacrifices eventually lessened until just parts of his genitals were sacrificed: his foreskin.

Now,many people erroneously believe – if you can believe it, many people erroneously believe something – but many people erroneously believe that circumcision started in the Old Testament, the Jewish Holy Book. Actually, Judaism adopted circumcision from tribes circumcising in the area. But if we take a look at The Holy Covenant in Genesis 17, we can see what it has to say:

"Every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised… Whether born in your household or bought with your money, they must be circumcised… Any uncircumcised male will be cut off from his people."

Remember, this is the Jewish Holy Book,so what the Jewish Covenant literally translates to is “Every Jewish Man (born in your household) and every Jewish Slave(bought with your money[1]) must be circumcised.” *

Now,a couple other things to notice here. If you’re a Jew (as opposed to a Jewish Slave), you must be circumcised on the eighth day of life[2], and if you weren't circumcised, then you were cut off from your people, which was tantamount to a death sentence in ancient times. *

Leonard Glick, who is a Jewish man with a medical degree and a PhD in cultural anthropology with a specialty in genital cutting assures me that this is not even the original covenant. [3] The directive to circumcise your child was appended to the Bible in 500 BC for two reasons.

The first reason is the child is circumcised when he is a baby so he has absolutely no choice in the matter. This forever forces him to “look Jewish.” This [permanent tribal mark] promotes tribal cohesiveness, a primary objective of all tribal leaders, as they have a vested interest to maintain the social order of the tribe as they enjoy their status at the top of it.

The second reason is a little more interesting and plays to the underlying psychology behind genital-cutting cultures. But let's use a modern-day example:fraternity hazing. Now, when I was in college, I was in a fraternity… I know,shocker.

[laughter]

Now,of course my fraternity didn't haze. Don't tell Britney, because I didn't use a condom, but I would have had sex with that goat regardless:

I mean, come on guys,she is a beautiful specimen. Can you blame me?

Now,some people think that's a water bottle in my pocket:

They would be wrong…

[laughter]

But anyways… Another audience question: Who here thinks that hazing is just a malicious exercise of power? [Audience members raise their hands] A fair number.

See,that's not exactly correct. Hazing is an effective strategy if you want your fraternity to survive; hazing plays to an underlying psychological mechanism that enables group survival.See, what we do as humans is, we ascribe value to the pain or suffering we endure as the price we pay to join a group or tribe. If you were simply just let into the fraternity, you could easily think “nah”, and leave. However…However, after paying a great price in blood, sweat, tears, and body parts, you “know” it must be valuable.

Judaic circumcision operates under that same psychological principle. See, ancient Judea was – and still is to a certain extent – an intensely patriarchal society.[4] Male blood represented salvation, female blood represented filth; men ran everything. And nothing was more important to a man than his patriarchal lineage. And nothing represented his patriarchal lineage more than his son, or even more specifically, his son's penis. So, to be accepted into this fraternity, the Jewish brotherhood, fathers, likely younger than you, and far less educated since this was thousands of years ago, were literally hazed into cutting off parts of their sons' penises.

You think college hazing is a problem?

Circumcision is the most extreme form of hazing on the planet!

And if you didn't do it, you were cut off from your people, which was effectively a death sentence.

Leonard Glick does a great job of summarizing circumcision in ancient Judea in his book Marked in Your Flesh. He says:

In summary, the father offers his son's foreskin as a bloody sacrifice for what may have been a substitute for child sacrifice. He declares acknowledgement of paternity, readiness to submit the child to a perilous procedure, avowal of sexual restraint of his own and his son in the future, and intention to raise him as a conforming member of the male-centered collective, and in summary offers his submission to the elder's will.(7)

Do you understand what this means?

See, contrary to the popular narrative, circumcision was designed to mark us like cattle. Circumcision was designed to emasculate us like slaves. Circumcision was designed to damage us like we're not even human. That is what circumcision was designed to do.

And all this talk about circumcision is not even the circumcision you'd recognize today. See, Judaism underwent an overhaul around 200 AD during a diasporic period. It was called “The Rabbinic Period,” as rabbis redid everything to accommodate the needs of a more dispersed population.

Now,when rabbis were redoing everything, they redid – you guessed it – The Covenant of Circumcision as well. See, around 200 AD, Jews [I’m pointing to myself] didn't want to be circumcised back then either. So, what they would do is they would take their remnant foreskin and stretch it over the head of their penis, and over a period of time they would look uncircumcised like a Gentile. Now this allowed Jews of ancient Greece to better fit in with their Gentile peers, as many social events were done in the nude, whether they be public spas, or athletic events, or whatnot.

Undoing“The Holy Covenant” was anathema to rabbinic authority, so rabbis took revenge.

Rabbis took Revenge!

And to take their revenge, they radicalized the circumcision ritual, from just cutting off the overhanging tip of the foreskin to ablation of the entire tissue. So, the new circumcision ritual, the one that stands to this day, goes like this, and it's called the bris milah,which means “The Covenant of Cutting.” Sounds like a lovely thing to take your child to.

Now, the first stage, which used to be the only stage, is called the milah, which means “cutting”. And here the ritual circumciser, named the mohel, will amputate the part of the foreskin that extends over the glans.

If we take a look at this picture ... that first dotted line is the original milah cut.

And if we take a look at this picture, here is a mohel cutting into the flesh of a newborn’s genitals:  

Now, the second stage, which was enacted as an act of rabbinic revenge, is called peri’ah, which means “tearing”. And here the ritual circumciser will sharpen his fingernails and shred the infant's genital mucosa. If one shred of genital mucosa remained, it was deemed “religiously invalid.”

And if we take a look at this picture, here we can see the modern-day peri’ah cut, where the American medical circumcision is modeled after. As we can see,it's about an amputation of about a half to a third of the external genitalia.

And here we can see a mohel using his sharpened fingernails to shred this infant's genital mucosa:

Now,this baby doesn't look like he's having a very good time… but, I could be wrong.

Now,the third stage – and I'm not making this up, you can read it in the ancient rabbinic text the Mishnah, which is still followed to this day – is called metzitzah,which means “sucking”. And here the ritual circumciser, after he shreds the infant's genitals with his fingernails, will take the baby's red, raw, and bleeding penis and put it in his mouth and suck on it.

[i make my best mohel-sucking-baby-penis impression]

Now,this is a modern-day picture of a Mohel performing metzitzah on this baby ...

This mohel looks like he's having a great time sucking on this baby’s penis. I'm not so sure about the infant. But again,I could be wrong.

Now, if these seem like extreme acts of sexual violence to you, that is because they are, and they have real consequences. Here we have a baby who’s contracted herpes after a mohel has performed metzitzah on him ...

This baby is effectively brain-dead for the rest of his life because this mohel was satisfying an ancient act of rabbinic revenge. This article is from 2017, guys ...

This is not ancient history. It happens today.

Now,to be fair, metzitzah was largely abandoned in the 1840s because an influential German rabbi said, “You know what guys? After we shred out infants’ genitals with our fingernails, maybe we shouldn't suck on the bleeding penis afterwards.” (9) [laughter]

Good idea, Moses Sofer. Good idea.

Now,this objective brutality is widely understood within the Jewish community itself. But most tribal members lack the testicular fortitude to stand up to our tribe. I actually got a text from a good Jewish friend of mine not long ago. He was attending a bris milah in New York City. And this was our conversation:

"The whole thing is so so uncomfortable.”

"The noise is the worst part.”

"Lot of religious stuff, lot of weird talk.”

“Very cultish, very uncomfortable.”  

"I mean the father just looked at me and goes, ‘yea… it's barbaric.’"  

I mean, obviously guys…

Obviously, it's barbaric!

It's called “The Covenant of Cutting!” It was designed to be barbaric.

To wrap up this Judaic tangent – although it'll come back – it's important to understand that Jews were largely discriminated and ostracized against throughout all history, not exclusively, but largely because of our Covenant of Cutting, largely because everyone and their mother knew that these were radical acts of sexual violence. And the thinking went – although it's untrue, it's not completely unreasonable – that “if these people were doing this to their own children, could you imagine what they're doing to non-Jewish children?”

Now, there is no evidence that suggests that this largely minority group that was often persecuted throughout history was brazen enough to kidnap non-Jewish children, but that didn't stop Gentiles from believing that they did, and that inspired prevailing myths called the blood libel, which was a prevailing myth among Gentiles that Jews would kidnap Christian children and circumcise and murder them.

And here we have a picture of one of these derogatory images. It was called “The Murder of Trent”; it inspired many pogroms ...

[the murder of trent, 1475 picture]

Note the emphasis on the circumcision. That is because throughout almost all of Judeo-Christian history, Judaism was associated exclusively with circumcision.And that is because compared to all of the other religious rituals, that one is,by far, the most extreme by orders of magnitude.

Now, to wrap up Censored Fact Number One, although it’ll come back, it is irrefutably true that:

‍Rabbis designed and implemented circumcision to damage Jewish children's sexuality.

Now this is a fact. It is an irrefutable fact. There are tomes of evidence to support this.

Yes,it was done to mark us like cattle, and emasculate us like slaves, and as an act of submission from your father, but to damage our sexuality in the most fundamental of ways for life was also a primary objective.

This justification is defended to this day by Orthodox rabbis. And remember,throughout all history, all rabbis were what we would consider Orthodox today.

See what I mean about censored facts? I can't just come out and say them. I need to explain them. Britney reminds me all the time...

Watch the full presentation below ↓