The End of Circumcision with Eric Clopper

Episode Transcript
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Eric Clopper (00:00):
While I was an employee at Harvard, I had
developed a lecture for Cornellstudents.
With support of senior facultyat Harvard and my boss, I
produced this play called Sexand Circumcision an American
Love Story Back in 2018, I waslike the initial stories of the
big cancel culture in academia.
That's kind of how I got hereinto the legal field.

(00:22):
Harvard promised look, we'reHarvard, we're all for freedom
of speech and expression and youcan say what you want and do
what you want in your play andwe're going to respect that and
not retaliate against you.
But after Harvard terminated me, they moved to terminate my
boss as well, because hesupported the cause of
protecting children from genitalmutilation.
He supported me.
He refused to make up any liesthat I had violated any policies

(00:46):
as an employee.
We'd worked there for 14 years.
Instead, they moved toterminate him and then he
committed suicide right beforeHarvard was able to terminate
him and evict him from Harvardhousing and you know he was my
best friend at the time, so itwas very traumatic.
I performed CPR on his corpse.
I found his corpse.
I was lucky enough to getaccepted and attend Georgetown

(01:09):
Law School.
I learned the law.
I sued Harvard, the firstdistrict court judge, who was
not just a Harvard Law alumnusbut golfing buddies with
Harvard's counsel.
I appealed it.
The appellate court essentiallysucked their head in the sand
for two years, didn't addressthe issue.
On appeal, I filed a petitionto the Supreme Court of the
United States and when theSupreme Court justices, their

(01:30):
clerks and their analysts youknow, full-time attorneys on
staff read my petition, theysaid wow, this is a very obvious
case of the judiciary toadyingto power and not actually
applying the rules consistentlyto everybody.
They assigned my case thenumber one case of the 2023 term
.
The thousands of petitions theyreceived.

(01:50):
They're like this is the mostimportant, the easiest to rule
on, something that would givethe justices an opportunity to
show that they actuallyadminister justice and are not
administering favors for theirbillionaire friends or whatever
it is they do.
And when the justices saw mypetition, they promptly denied
it and said we're not going totouch this.

Jen Mayo (02:12):
Eric, thank you so much for joining us on the
podcast today.
I'm so excited to get startedwith this conversation.
It's kind of controversial andit makes people uncomfortable,
but I think that's the wholepoint of having it.

Oh, definitely, I'm very excited to be here.
So thank you for the invitation, jen.

Jen Mayo (02:27):
Fantastic, fantastic.
So I'm just going to start outhere.
I'm kind of coming to thisconversation as a mother, as a
lover and as somebody who'sexperienced a fair share of my
own sexual medical violence.
So this topic is very near anddear to my heart and I don't
think there's anyone at leastnot in North America who the

(02:48):
topic of circumcision has notimpacted them in some capacity
or another.
And I first came acrosschildhood medical procedures as
being a significant source oftrauma that might cause health
problems later in life in a bookcalled Eastern Body, western
Mind.
And that was the first time Ihad kind of gotten validation

(03:13):
for this notion that the medicalestablishment, while maybe
well-intentioned, at least bythe people on the ground doing
the work, doesn't always have abigger picture view of what it

(03:35):
is they're actually doing totheir patients.
And we know when we start tolook at Eastern philosophy,
which is gradually starting toget more integrated into Western
medical science and people arestarting to understand the
mind-body connection much better, that there is a bigger picture

(03:56):
to understand, especially onthis topic.
You have a really interestingbackstory on how you got
involved in creating awarenessaround infant genital mutilation
.
I think that's probably a moreaccurate way to term it,
circumcision, which we'll getinto sort of the particulars of

(04:19):
how language is used, especiallyin medical culture, later.
But can you kind of give us abackground?
You gave a one-man show atHarvard that captured a lot of
attention and I don't think theadministration there understood
that their reaction was actuallygoing to bring a lot more

(04:40):
awareness to your cause than hadthey not had a reaction at all.
So for anybody who's justjoining this conversation and is
not seeing your one man show,which I believe is called Sex
and Circumcision, an AmericanLove Story, can you give us kind
of a brief rundown of what thatwas and where it's taken you?

Yeah, I'm happy to .
So I worked at Harvard on andoff for about eight years when I
was an undergrad and then afterI I graduated and I had a
full-time.
You know, I was a full-timeemployee there, nothing to do
with, you know, protectingchildren from genital mutilation
right, that was justindependent activism.
But while I was an employee atHarvard, I had developed a

(05:21):
lecture for Cornell students.
It was called Sex andCircumcision Identifying Truths
and Trends in Genital CuttingCultures.
Right, and anyone who has seenmy play or performance at
Harvard knows it's largely in alecture-based format with some
theatrical elements and what I.
So after I gave this talk atCornell, I thought you know what

(05:44):
this talk is important enoughin terms of explaining the
history and why we continue tomutilate our children's genitals
that it really needs to be doneat an appropriate venue for
people to understand themagnitude of this harm that
continues to happen.
So, with support of seniorfaculty at Harvard and my boss,
I produced this play called Sexand Circumcision, an American

(06:05):
love story, and kind of like youalluded to earlier, harvard's
incredibly, let's say, knee jerkand ignorant reaction put a lot
more attention on it, kind oflike the Streisand effect, when
Barbara Streisand got upset thatsomebody published her home in
a magazine and sued about it.
Everyone in the nation mournedabout it because she was

(06:26):
fighting for his attention,right, and so now it's not, as
it's well known that Harvard isquick to, let's say, censor
views or anything controversialor anything that might upset
their donors.
Back in 2018, I was like one ofthe initial stories of the big
cancel culture in academia,right, it's like, oh, you said

(06:50):
something that either upsets ourdonors or upsets our
sensibilities, such as, oh,we're a culture that mutilates
our genitals and instead ofactually earnestly engaging with
that topic, that conversation,we need to straw man and cancel
him, which, you know, harvarddid effectively for a year until
I went to Georgetown Law School.
So it it actually pointed me inthe right direction and I'm

(07:12):
grateful in a way, and I wasable to separate from Harvard,
which is more of a political,financial instead of an
educational institution.
But, um, so that's kind of howI got here into the legal field,
because Harvard promised look,we're Harvard, we're all for
freedom of speech and expressionand you can say what you want
and do what you want in yourplay, and we're going to respect

(07:34):
that and not retaliate againstyou.
Now, I was skeptical always,but I was like, ok, we'll give
Harvard the opportunity to honorits word and if they don't,
it's going to bring a lot ofattention on this important
problem where we continue tomutilate our children's
genitalia.
So it was a double-edged sword.
It was helpful and hurtful inways, but after Harvard

(07:56):
terminated me, they moved toterminate my boss as well,
because he supported the causeof protecting children from
genital mutilation.
He supported me.
He refused to make up any liesthat I had violated any policies
, and so instead of keeping myboss, my old boss, tom Hammond,

(08:17):
as an employee who had workedthere for 14 years, instead they
moved to terminate him and thenhe committed suicide right
before Harvard was able toterminate him and evict him from
Harvard housing and he was mybest friend at the time.
So it was very traumatic.
I performed CPR on his corpse.
I found his corpse.
It was very hard on me in manyways and so after Harvard

(08:38):
essentially broke its war,destroyed my career, destroyed
my graduate school aspirationsand then killed my best friend,
I was like you know what?
I'm going to sue Harvardbecause I spoke with a bunch of
attorneys.
They said Harvard said theyweren't going to do this thing,
retaliate for expressing youropinion.
And they did that as extreme asthey could, and even win or

(08:58):
lose.
It's going to be a learningexperience, and so I was lucky
enough to get accepted andattend Georgetown Law School.
I learned the law.
I sued Harvard, and the firstdistrict court judge who was not
just a Harvard Law alumnus butgolfing buddies with Harvard's
counsel threw the lawsuit out in15 days, which violates what's

(09:21):
called the Federal Rules ofCivil Procedure.
I appealed it.
The appellate court essentiallystuck their head in the sand
for two years, didn't addressthe issue.
On appeal, I filed a petitionto the Supreme Court of the
United States, and when theSupreme Court justices, their
clerks and their analystsfull-time attorneys on staff
read my petition, they said wow,this is a very obvious case of

(09:46):
the judiciary toadying to powerand not actually applying the
rules consistently to everybody.
And so they assigned my casethe number one case of the 2023
term of the thousands ofpetitions they received.
They're like this is the mostimportant, the easiest to rule
on, something that would givethe justices an opportunity to
show that they actuallyadminister justice and are not

(10:08):
administering favors for theirbillionaire friends or whatever
it is they do.
And when the justices saw mypetition, they promptly denied
it and said we're not going totouch this.
And so it's like okay, I'm notdealing.
Well, at least with this causeof protecting children from
genital mutilation.
I'm not going to be interfacingwith the federal courts anytime

(10:31):
soon.
If you look at a lot of otherprogressive causes like marriage
equality, the decriminalizationand legalization of cannabis,
legalization of end of lifemedication and things like that,
often they're done on a stateby state level civil rights,
women's rights, you name it andthen, once there's enough
support on the state level, thenthe federal government has the

(10:54):
chutzpah, the courage, to dealwith this, because the federal
government is rarely leading inrights, they're typically
trailing.
And so the game plan nowbecause you know, because I'm
not fighting Harvard, thefederal courts are not going to
be involved, at least in theseearly stages is now I'm just
focusing on a state by statebasis, raising this issue.

(11:15):
This problem is why do we onlyprotect one class of children
and not protect all childrenfrom genital mutilation.
And to kind of give you somecontext, when I say one class, I
just mean females, and it'sgreat that we protect females
from genital mutilation at birth.
But most states have guaranteesin their state constitution

(11:38):
that the laws will equallyprotect all of its citizens
right?
And if you have a law that onlyprotects one gender of child
from genital mutilation, thenthat would violate the state's
constitution.
Very simple, very easy argument, and it's an argument that my
law firm is going to multiplyacross as many states as

(12:00):
feasible and responsible to doso.
And so the first state we'regoing to be suing is Oregon, and
that's going to be in the nearfuture after Intact Global, the
nonprofit that's funding.
This raises probably about$30,000 is the estimate right.
And then, once we have thatlittle runway, I in my law firm
will file that lawsuit in Oregonand then see how that develops.

(12:24):
And as that's developing, we'llstart suing other states,
because we need the judiciary ofvarious states to recognize the
inequality here and say look,legislature, it's great that you
protect girls from femalegenital mutilation and you
should, at the same time, if wehave a constitution that says we

(12:44):
protect our citizens equallyfrom the same harms or similar
harms, then we need to protectall children from genital
mutilation, and a big problemwith that is just ignorance.
Right, for the first almost 20years of my life had no idea
that the foreskin of the peniswas about 15 square inches,

(13:05):
about the size of my palm.
Most of the erogenous tissue,all of the mobility, keeps the
head of the penis protectedthrough life.
It facilitates intercourse, andcutting it off is an act of
extreme pain and torture whereinfants literally will scream so
loud that their lungs, theirstomachs have exploded.
They've died by bleeding outand infections.

(13:26):
Some have lost their penises.
I mean, there's are incrediblydamaging effects from mutilating
an infant and the only reasonit's been able to last so long
is we use this Latin euphemism,circumcision right.
If we called it what it wasinfant genital mutilation Right.
If we called it what it wasinfant genital mutilation, then
parents wouldn't consent to it,right?

(13:47):
But because doctors and you'revery familiar with this because
doctors say, oh, you shouldcircumcise, or they ask for it,
then parents not notunreasonably, but mistakenly
believe that there's somemedical benefit to cutting off
40 to 50 percent of the skin onan infant's penis for no medical
reason, but doctors get tocharge money for it.

(14:11):
And because we have afor-profit health system,
there's incentives to performmedically unnecessary surgeries.
And if there was a poster boyfor medically unnecessary
surgeries, it would be infantcircumcision.
So that's my beginning spiel.
I don't know if I answered yourquestion, but yeah, no, no, no.

Jen Mayo (14:24):
That was great.
We definitely covered a lot ofarea there and I don't think
most people realize.
You know, a hospital is abusiness and they have a sales
funnel.
So if you think about, like,when you go on Instagram or
something and you see an ad forsomething and you click on it
and it's free or whatever, andyou go and you get the free
thing and then they funnel youinto something else and when you
buy that there's something elseyou know there is a sales

(14:45):
process here.
It is a for-profit businesssystem and I think, especially
in the context of understandinginformed consent, we have to
understand that A there are somany weak links in that system
even if there is a consent forminvolved links in that system,

(15:08):
even if there is a consent forminvolved, we're still dealing
with a bias system that is goingto make money off of you
consenting to a procedure,whether that procedure is
necessary, moral or anythingelse.
So there's a myriad of problemsand I talk a lot too.
We've had other podcasts andI'll just mention briefly here
for anybody who's enjoying thisconversation and wants to get

(15:30):
some other angles of it as well.
We've had Brendan Murata on inthe past to talk about American
Circumcision, his film and hislatest book, children's Justice.
We've had Dr ChristianeNorthrup on to also talk in part
about circumcision and herconversation on sexuality and

(15:53):
spirituality in medicine.
Tony Nagy was on.
We talked about sexual medicalviolence and an experience she
had in the medical system, aswell as Dr Darsha Narvaez, who's
a psychologist at theUniversity of Notre Dame, and
she was the first person I hadon to talk about this.
Her focus is mostly onattachment, parenting and

(16:16):
understanding the earlychildhood experiences and how
they impact us later in life.
And I'll share one thing thatshe had shared with me, maybe
not specifically in thatinterview, but I went to the
University of Notre Dame and hada conversation with her when
this particular issue came tothe forefront for myself, and

(16:37):
she had written a myriad ofarticles for psychology today
opposing circumcision and therewas one of her colleagues on
there as well that I believe waswriting at the time and there
were a lot of articles opposingcircumcision at the time.
But I believe at this point intime, the American Academy of

(16:59):
Pediatrics was stillrecommending routine
circumcision, kind of as astandard of care and because of
that, psychology today, at leastfor a period of time, put a ban
on being able to say anythingnegative about circumcision.

(17:21):
I think that eventually gotlifted.
I went to their website theother day just to see if there
was anything more recent andthere have been a few things,
but not not like that timeperiod prior to like 2015, ish,
um.
So I there's there's so manythings to unpack here and um, I

(17:41):
you know, especially from atrauma perspective, and you
mentioned, you know, theagonizing pain that infants are
put through in this procedureand the outward appearance of
the screaming and clear signs ofpain that they're in like.
That's almost even moreconcerning is if you have an

(18:02):
infant that's not having areaction, because we know that
in these extreme traumaticstates that people and
especially babies in thisinstance, will go into a freeze
state or a state of shock wherethey're not even able.
They're so withdrawn intothemselves in a protective mode
that they're not expressingthose signs mode that they're

(18:28):
not expressing those signs.
So I wouldn't say that theexpression of pain is even
what's necessarily the mostconcerning part of this.
Even outside of that lens, we'retalking about personal autonomy
and the sovereignty of eachperson's individual body, and
we're talking about a personthat's completely defenseless
and can't speak for themselves.

(18:48):
And there are so manyimplications of this is just a
routine thing we do to theweakest of our population, and
as a human rights issue, as asocial rights issue, and as a

(19:13):
human rights issue, as a socialrights issue, it's almost
unbathable to me that we evenhave to have this conversation
at this point in time.
But just even in the lastdecade, or even five years, I've
seen such a shift.
Do you know what the statisticsare now?
I know it used to be, 85% ofthe population was circumcised
in North America.
Has that changed in recentyears?

Yes, so it used to be.
You know, between 85, 90% somereligious circumcision sometimes
aren't counted in thestatistics and we're talking 60s
, 70s.
Now it's probably.
It's much closer to 50% in theUS.
So we're talking about 30,.
It's much closer to 50% in theUS.
So we're talking about 30, 40%drop and, like a lot of other
progressive causes, they don't.

(19:50):
They're not linear, they'reexponential, right, and so
that's the goal here.
Right, and that's why I'mgrateful to be on your podcast
as many podcasts as we can geton is because you know it's time
to end this.
Right, this is absolutelyabsurd.
We're mutilating infants for nomedical purpose, causing
incredible immediate pain andlifelong loss of sexual function

(20:11):
, of autonomy, as you mentioned,because, like you said well,
especially in America and ourlegal theory, each of us is a
sovereign.
We get to decide the importantdecisions about our own bodies.
Right, and if you look atcountries that do not mutilate
their infants, which is thegreat majority of them, over 99%
of men who are not genitallymutilated or circumcised at

(20:33):
birth decide to keep theirentire penis because it is an
exceptionally important part ofyour penis.
It is like the eyelids To sayyour eyelids are not important
is absurd.
It just makes no sense, and thepediatric body that used to
recommend it retracted theirrecommendation.
They said we no longerrecommend this, like they no

(20:54):
longer recommend lobotomies orfemale circumcision right.
I mean, that is the categorythat this child abuse
masquerading as a medicalprocedure fits in.
So there is no actual medical,scientific, ethical authority
that's promoting this and, tothe contrary, secular medical
bodies all across the worldAustralia, new Zealand, the

(21:16):
Netherlands, germany, most ofEurope, it's.
They're like you need torespect the child's right to
bodily integrity, not performmedically unnecessary surgeries,
and you know, because this isimportant parts of your body.
Now, a lot of them want to beculturally, religiously
sensitive, and I I sympathizewith that viewpoint and we

(21:36):
should be.
We also need to do what is bestfor the child, and what's best
for children and what's best forthem is to not violently
mutilate their genitals at birth.
So it's like you know, come on,we need to be adults and do the
right thing.

Jen Mayo (21:52):
Right, Can you give us a little bit of a history on
the religious origins of thepractice of circumcising?
I know, especially in theJewish culture it's very much a
rite of passage and I know I'vetalked to Dr Christiane Northrup
about this too, about we don'tneed to get rid of the rite of

(22:14):
passage or there being aceremony involved.
You can still have a version ofthat that doesn't involve
blatantly abusing a child oramputating part of their body.

Well, definitely and most so.
I don't know if we mentionedthis, but I'm Jewish right.
I grew up in a Jewish household.
I am Jewish.
I've got the DNA test to proveit.
So, you know, I and I have a lotof close Jewish friends and
family who I love and appreciate, and the majority of them are
100 percent on board.
It's time that we protect ourchildren and stop mutilating.

(22:50):
But if you grow up in thisculture, that only tells you
that you know you're the chosenone and we need to mutilate our
infants to prove it.
It's really hard to break freeof that, even if you're an adult
and well educated, because it'snot something that people
discuss, right.
Yeah, but the reason that myJewish people adopted
circumcision or genitalmutilation is at the time, you

(23:12):
know, they were one tribe ofmany tribes in Africa and Middle
East and there were tribesaround them that were literally
sacrificing their children,killing them for the gods to
make sure the droughts didn'tcome or whatever causal theory
they had.
That was not accurate, but theydidn't know any better.
And so the Jewish people, mypeople, were like, okay, we're
not going to kill our children,we're just going to mutilate

(23:33):
their genitals.
We're going to do a great stepdown, which was progressive for
the time, the way you look at it.
But everyone knew at the time,as they did when we adopted, uh,
circumcision in a big way inthe American medical system that
the foreskin was healthy inerogenous tissue, the.

(23:54):
The overt explanation for someJewish leaders, some rabbis, was
we're going to circumcise ourchildren to excise their sexual
pleasure and to check his pride.
It makes them easier to control.
That's why Genesis 17, it's notonly do we circumcise our
Jewish boys, but we circumciseour slaves, right, and you know,
I'm quoting Philo Judeus now,who is a rabbi at the turn of

(24:18):
the millennium, around 30 AD,right which you know, the time
of Jesus as well, which is kindof not super relevant but he was
circumcised, but he neverpreached circumcision, he
preached against it.
So if you're Christian andcircumcised, it's important to
know that that is actuallysomewhat violative of your
religion is Christianity doesnot promote circumcision, it

(24:38):
promotes circumcision of theheart, essentially meaning we're
no longer requiring orpromoting mutilating infants,
which is probably one of themajor reasons christianity
caught on, because you didn'thave to mutilate yourself or
your child to be part of itright right, it's a smart
recruitment mechanism.
But, um so, and what happened?

(25:00):
And I, I would definitely countmyself as one of these
individuals, but a lot of jewswho were circumcised did not
want to be circumcised, right?
So what they would do,especially the Hellenistic Jews,
the Jews who fit in with Greekculture around the turn of the
millennium first, couple hundredyears after the birth of Jesus,
whatever they would take theirremnant foreskin, they would

(25:22):
stretch it over the head of thepenis and tie it with maybe a
knot or something, because whatthat would do would allow them
to fit in with Gentile culture,right, the culture that didn't
mutilate their infants at birthand that was seen as a
renunciation of Jewish identityfor the rabbis, the hardcore,
you know, orthodox Jewish elderswhose entire identity and sense

(25:43):
of value revolves around thisreligion.
And so, to combat this trend ofadult Jewish males saying you
know what I no longer identifywith, this genitally mutilating
aspect of my identity or mytribe, they radicalized the

(26:04):
circumcision.
So, from just cutting off thetip of the foreskin to removing
all of the inner mucosa, toabout 40, 50 percent of the, the
skin on the penis and thisextreme bird, this extreme
version of genital mutilationthat the rabbis instituted in
200 ad is the exact same versionthat america adopted in a
medical sense, right, it's not acoincidence.

(26:26):
But the point is these areextreme forms of genital
mutilation.
It's not just, it's not like,oh, you're just cutting off a
piece of the penis.
You're cutting off about 15square inches with, you know,
two dozen functions, right.
And so this extreme version ofgenital mutilation from 200 AD
all the way to pretty muchpresent day, and what my people,

(26:48):
the Jewish people, used to dois, after they would mutilate
the infant with theirfingernails, they would actually
suck on the baby's penisafterwards.
And they did this from like 200to 1850 AD, approximately Right
, so about 1650 years AD,approximately right, so about

(27:09):
1650 years.
And then, even in the 19thcentury, a lot of my fellow
Jewish people and Gentiles werelike, okay, you know, I think
you really should abandon thepenis, the infant penis sucking,
because infant bloody penissucking, excuse me, it gets
worse, and most of my Jewishpeople did.
At the same time, there's stilllike some hardcore Orthodox
sects in Brooklyn, new York, whocontinue to suck on the

(27:31):
bleeding infant penises andthat's a huge problem.
I mean, that's childmolestation by any sober
analysis.
Yeah.

Jen Mayo (27:41):
Where is child protective services in all this?

Well, the law is largely political, and by that I
mean judges, law enforcement,executive officers.
They will do what they believein, that they believe that they
can get away with, and I don'tnecessarily mean that in a bad
way.
But let's say, the mayor of NewYork's like you know what we're

(28:05):
going to cut down on, you knowbloody infant penis sucking.
There's going to be a hugeoutcry from the Orthodox
community and then theconservative Jewish religious
community They'll say, oh well,this is an attack on our
religion and we need to doeverything we can to politically
dethrone this individual, whichis kind of what happened to me
at Harvard.
If they're going to, you know,talk ill about our religious

(28:28):
blood sacrifices, right, and sosometimes it's just not worth
the battle for politicians to tocombat religious child abuse.
Now, obviously I would not fallin that category.
I am happy to go to bat forwhat I believe in, not fall in
that category.
I am happy to go to bat forwhat I believe in, which is
But there are some individualadults who have a lot of

(28:51):
resources and will spend that oncombating anything they
perceive to be a threat to theirreligion, which might also be a
threat to their physicalidentity, which can stem from
historical trauma.
You know, as you know, what Imean.
So there's a lot of trauma-basedthinking in the Jewish religion
and that leads to poor outcomes, because if you are acting from

(29:13):
a place of fear or insecurityor trauma, you're not going to
be doing things that are, let'ssay, logic and ethics but just
more knee jerk reaction, whichis why it's hard for a lot of
Jewish individuals and my Jewishpeople, to have an honest
conversation about this, becauseit's like, well, this is my

(29:33):
identity.
It's like, well, it's notidentity for female girls to
have their genitals mutilated,so, and they seem to be doing
just fine, and they're just asJewish as us Jewish boys.
So why don't we just cut apomegranate and have a naming
ceremony?

Jen Mayo (29:49):
Right, right right.

So, you know, which makes all the sense in the
world, and we will get there.
We will get there, but that'snot the immediate or even the
near future.
We are just trying to protect,you know, most boys whose
parents don't have somereligious, you know, affinity
for mutilating their children,right, yeah, that can be later,

(30:11):
but right now we're going withthe secular, what's best for
most of us, and that's obviouslyprotecting our autonomy, our
fundamental human and civilrights to make important
decisions about our own body andnot inflict extreme pain and
lifelong sexual loss on childrenand infants.
Right, I mean, it just makesall the sense in the world.

Jen Mayo (30:30):
Right, absolutely.
And do you think you know we'reat this kind of 50 50 tipping
point?
I mean, it was different when85% of the population was doing
it, but if we're at a pointwhere it's half and half
basically at this point, and themain argument that I think most
parents are making thisdecision on is, oh, we want him

(30:54):
to look the same as his father,think that kind of makes this
the most advantageous time tostart pursuing this from a legal
standpoint, because we do havehalf the population that is sort

(31:15):
of awakened to this as anatrocity.

Yeah, I think it is a perfect time to raise this
issue in as many courts aspossible.
The issue of equal protectionof children from genital
mutilation Like, as you said,50%, and each state is different
.
Like the Midwest is 80%, oregonis like 20 to 17% of kids, of
baby boys, are generallymutilated, which means less than

(31:41):
10%.
About eight and a half or onein 12 children are, or, let's
put it the affirmative way, 11out of 12 children in Oregon are
protected from genitalmutilation, and so my law firm
is going to come into that statePro Hoc, fiche the court
permitting and we're going toargue look, 12 out of 12
children should be protectedfrom genital mutilation and

(32:03):
we'll do that in as many statesas possible.
But this is the perfect time toraise as many legal challenges
as possible on the legality andthe constitutionality of only
protecting one class of childand not protecting all children
from genital mutilation.

Jen Mayo (32:22):
Yeah, yeah, Wow, that's, that's amazing.
Um yeah, Um, can.
Can we talk a little bit tooabout anatomy here, Because I
think some people hear this andthey're they don't understand
what the big deal is.
And there's, um, there's asaying that goes you don't know

(32:43):
what you don't know until you doknow.
And then I'll add you can'tunknow what you know now and
what that might mean from ananatomical or physical

(33:05):
standpoint, as well as a mentaland spiritual angle on that as
well.

Well, you know.
So you two separate things.
I mean they definitely overlap.
But if we talk about theanatomy of the tissue that is
being amputated from children,right, americans are largely
squeamish about the genitals andsex in general because we have
no sex education as children.
You know, in Europe, in manycountries they'll, they'll just

(33:33):
introduce the idea of love andfamilies at early age and then
talk about more specifics as youget older, which makes sense,
right, because these are, as youmentioned the email to me,
exceptionally important parts oflife and obviously the
continuation of our species.
I mean, you know, like theseare, as you mentioned in the
email to me, exceptionallyimportant parts of life and
obviously the continuation ofour species.
I mean, you know like these areimportant things right.
Yeah, and what you're doing toan infant is you're taking the

(33:55):
most erogenous part, sensitivepart of his body and you're
putting thousands of pounds offorce on it and cutting it off
right.
It's medieval torture by anysober analysis.
Yes, and what the foreskin isis the.
The non sexual analogy would bethe foreskin is the lips of the
penis, right, it is where these, these outer skin of the penis

(34:19):
goes to the inner mucosa.
And just for people to be kindof familiar with, this skin
would be like the skin on myface.
Here the inner mucosa would belike inside your lips, right,
and your lips are the transitionfrom the skin to the inner
mucosa, right.
And so if you're circumcised,you will literally see a scar on

(34:41):
your penis where you weresexually assaulted as an infant,
a scar on your penis where youwere sexually assaulted as an
infant, and that scar, below thescar, will be the skin of the
penis and on the other side ofthe scar will be where the inner
mucosa is, but it won't bemoist like the inside of your
mouth or my mouth, because thecovering was literally stolen

(35:01):
from you in a violent manner asan infant.
So the foreskin is that tissuethat goes.
It's a bilayer tissue, twolayers.
That goes essentially the skinof the penis to the tip, which
is called the ridge, to band,which is the male G spots, where
most of the nerve endings are.
It's where you kiss someonemost of the sensations in your

(35:21):
lips, right yeah yeah.
And, and then it folds intoitself and attaches where the
other part of the scar line is,in circumcision.
And so not only is most of theerogenous nerve endings, are
they concentrated in theforeskin, that tissue, that's
removed, but that tissue issupposed to move.

(35:42):
The penis is a moving tissue,organ structure, whatever you
want to call it, and it'ssupposed to slide in and out of
itself during intercourse and itreduces friction, if we talk
about heterosexual sex.
It reduces friction in thevaginal corpus, it keeps the
lubrication in and, just likethe inside of your mouth and

(36:03):
lips, it actually secretes itsown lubricants.
So it reduces the need for anytype of artificial lubricant you
buy at CVS or whatever, becausewe evolved in the wild and
we're not supposed to need anytype of external lubricant to
masturbate or have sex.
And when you see that in popculture in America that is a

(36:27):
trend in a genital cuttingculture, right, right, and
that's it's also hard to, it'shard to conceive because we look
at, let's say, not to throwChina under the bus, but you
know, hundreds or thousands ofyears ago they used to, you know
, bind their, their girls feet,right, right, and we can
immediately see, wow, what anobviously violent and wrong act

(36:47):
that reduces function and hasweird kind of sexual
connotations, and immediately wesee that.
Well, the genital mutilation ofmale infants or circumcision is
exactly the same.
It removes a incredible amountof function to create this
artificial and cultural delusionthat the circumcised penis is
anything but a man-made creationdesigned to dull the sexual

(37:13):
pleasures, which is what rabbishave been saying since its
inception, and that is whyAmerican doctors adopted it as
well.
Only in the last 50 years didthey change their tune, because
70s, 80s, it's like oh, sexualpleasure may not be bad, so we
need to change the justificationbecause otherwise people aren't
going to do it.
But the reality is you'reremoving the same tissue and

(37:35):
you're having the same negativeoutcomes, which is far less
sexual pleasure, far lessorgasms, less control over
orgasms, more friction, morepounding, much more violent sex.
It has a litany of terribleoutcomes, and that's because
this is important tissue, justlike if you were to literally

(37:55):
amputate the lips of children.
You're going to have not justdisfigurement but dysfunction,
and that's what you have bothwith neonatal circumcision.

Jen Mayo (38:03):
Right, but if everybody was walking around
without lips on their face, wewould tend to think that was
normal.

Well, yeah, I mean , it shows how powerful culture
is.
And also, we don't typicallyexpose our genitals in this
culture.
Right, we're not a naturist ornudist culture, but if we had
more, let's say, non-sexualnudity, then people would see
the different penises type youknow, the intact and the

(38:30):
circumcised and this and theywould start asking the right
questions why do we do this?
Is this harmful?
Yes, it is harmful.
Should we stop doing it?
Yes, right, but it's somethingpeople don't see and then they
don't discuss, and that's whyit's so important.
You know that you're raisingawareness about this.
So thank you for having me on,and we're just going to keep

(38:50):
doing, we're going to keeppushing until all children are
protected.
That's, that's the mission, andthere's going to be no let's
say there will be no lighteningof that mission or no relenting
or however you want to say it,because this doesn't have to be
aggressive, but it is going tobe a final decision where we're
going to stop mutilating ourchildren.

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You know, in the historicalcontext I think we have to
understand that back when thesepractices were maybe incepted,
there were more socialcircumstances and athletic
competitions where men werecompeting in the nude or in

(41:17):
social situations where peoplewere naked together and might
see each other more.
It's always kind of likedifficult to wrap your head
around because most of us wearclothes most of the time, at
least if we're in public.
So it's kind of like well,what's the big deal?
Nobody's seeing it anyway.
But if it's just somethingthat's been passed on from
generation to generation becausemy dad did it and his dad did

(41:38):
it to him, and that's beenpassed on from generation to
generation because my dad daddid it and his dad did it to him
, and so forth and so on, butwe're at a level of awareness
now, I think, and I think thereare consciousness is is such a
popular thing coming into theculture now where I think we

(41:59):
realize in a variety of wayswe've been living very
unconsciously and not askingquestions and not being curious
about why it is we do, thethings we do think are pivotal

(42:23):
to creating a vastly differentlooking future in so many ways,
but especially in the medicalculture, that I think this issue
in particular is like, at theground level of that, like if
we're treating the weakest andmost defenseless members of our
population in such an abusivemanner, that says something
about the culture and society asa whole and where we're headed.

(42:46):
So the fact that we're even at,you know, maybe a collective
50% versus 85 or 90%, I think,is, you know, indicative of
where we're heading, and I thinkyou're right that this likely
will be an issue that turnsfairly quickly, much like gay
marriage and some other socialissues did, both through

(43:10):
litigation and social pressures.
Back to the anatomy for a second, though I don't think most
people understand.
I've had conversations withgirlfriends in both sides of
this, both friends who haveexperience with men who have
both versions, as well as womenwho have no experience with

(43:33):
anything other than acircumcised penis.
I don't think people understandthe sexual act is intended to
be a mucus membrane to mucusmembrane contact, where the
foreskin is almost like a gasket, if you will, and, I think, on
the like, the sexual shame partof things.

(43:54):
We think about this more interms of men, you know, and
being ashamed in the locker roomif they don't look like you
know the guy next to them orwhatever.
But I think there's a lot ofshame absorbed by women on this
subject too, because there's alot of quote unquote sexual
dysfunction that gets applied towomen because their anatomy is
not working with anatomy that'sbeen altered.

(44:16):
So when you have women who areexperiencing quote unquote,
unquote vaginal dryness, it maynot actually be that her vagina
is dry, that the equipment she'sworking with isn't working in
the way it was intended to workwith her own body.
So I think there's a lot ofnuances for both men and women

(44:37):
in the sexual realm.
Definitely in terms of theexperience of sexual pleasure as
well.
There's a distinct difference.
You know, and I've I've nevermet a penis.
I didn't like, not that I'veseen that many, but they're,
they're all beautiful, they'reall wonderful in their own way,
but there definitely is adifference in how they function

(45:03):
their own way.
But there definitely is adifference in how they function.
And I'll say like, from like anEastern philosophy perspective,
we understand that sexual energyis life force, energy and the
flow of energy through the bodyand our understanding of the
meridians in the body is verymuch connected to you know the
genitals and the heart beingconnected and I think this is
one of the bigger areas that'svery difficult to quantify like

(45:26):
we can look at the anatomy andunderstand the mechanics of
things and why that might beproblematic, but when we look at
it more on an energetic andspiritual level it's very
difficult to quantify.
You know, this experience thatyou had before you even have
memory of life, impacting yourability to connect with other

(45:51):
human beings, your ability toexperience pleasure with other,
with women or whoever you'repartnered with.
With women or whoever you'repartnered with, there is a much
bigger conversation to be hadthat extends beyond what I think
the Western medical model iscapable of even participating in
, because they have been sosegmented out of the mind-body

(46:16):
conversation and they're kind oflike trying to catch up now.
But they're having a lot oftrouble because they come from
such a different.
They come from a triage systemof medical care which is so much
different than what actualhealthcare is and, I think,
understanding the importance ofthose bodily experiences in

(46:43):
cultivating spiritual growth andexpansion and our ability to
collaborate and co-create withother human beings in asexual
and non-sexual capacity is verymuch linked to those traumas in
early childhood, especially whenit involves the genitals, and

(47:06):
that's largely been ignored, Ithink.
And we know the brain isactually the largest sex organ
for both sexes.
So can you elaborate any moreon just like?
Um, so can you elaborateanymore on just like?
How is the brain also impactedbeyond just the physical
mechanics of of the body?

Uh, absolutely so.
One of the kind of morepernicious aspects of genital
cutting cultures in the UnitedStates of America is definitely
one of them is, uh, men orwomen's sexuality.
It is tied to their self-imageof themselves, and, and to
understand that, oh, I had animportant part of my sex organ

(47:52):
removed as an infant is notsomething that would enhance
one's sexual image, usuallyright.
And so to maintain thatdelusion, they need to convince
themselves and it's easy whenthe mainstream media would often
recite this, thismisinformation that circumcision

(48:12):
is healthier, improve sexualpleasure, which is obviously
nonsense.
But when, when you know, let'ssay, the New York York Times or
you know, the Boston Globe,which have published stories
like this in the past they havein recent years, which is good,
but in the past when they say,oh, it's healthy to have a big
part of your penis cut off, it'seasy to believe that because it

(48:32):
reinforces your sense of sexualself right, sexual self right,
and so, like you said, the brainis the biggest sex organ that
you have and self confidence andyour own self image and sexual
self image it.
It is easier to maintain thatwhen you believe the lie that
your culture gave you, thathaving parts of your genitals

(48:55):
mutilated is good for you, Right?
So that's one of the moredifficult and unfortunate
aspects as we go on this healingjourney together is we're going
to have to acknowledge, asadult males or young males or
whoever you are, that, oh, whathappened to me wasn't great or

(49:18):
it was harmful.
And even if it was harmful tome, I'm a big enough man to say
look, I don't want otherchildren to be harmed from this.
And even if you don't reachthat level of maturity, if you
were cut as an infant, you justdon't fight it, right, Just let
it happen, Let the movementcomplete and protect children.
So those are the two options.
But there's a lot of psychologygoing on there, and so I don't

(49:43):
know if that answers yourquestion, but that is certainly
part of of the problem, right?
That's more psychological thanactual anatomical.

Jen Mayo (49:52):
Right, right.
And I read one statistic thatsaid circumcised men were four
and a half times more likely tohave to use erectile dysfunction
drugs later in life.
And I think there's a massivedisconnect between understanding
that these early childhoodexperiences, especially
something as brutal ascircumcision, might impact a

(50:16):
man's sexuality to that extentin a physical sense later in
life that most people aren'tlooking at the long-term
ramifications.
And we know that through theACEs study.
So that's the Adverse ChildhoodEvents study, that the more

(50:37):
adverse events that areexperienced during childhood,
that I don't think that studyeven took into account infancy,
it was older children, but westart to see a much bigger
picture.
The more insults a child has,the more likely they are to have
mental and physical diseaseslater in life that maybe don't

(51:01):
show up right away but again onthe energetic level are priming
the body for a variety of issueslater in life.

Oh yeah, I mean because when you're removing the
sensory tissue, the foreskin,which is what it is extremely
sensitive erogenous tissueyou're desensitizing and
dehumanizing the individual andit is much harder to connect
with others.
If you've undergone theseextreme trauma pre-verbal,
pre-memory, right and then well,not only is it harder to

(51:37):
connect with other individuals,right, but then it's.
I can talk about my ownexperience.
But then to come to terms withthe fact that you know your
parents not just your culture,but your parents, your body
amputated and mutilated and then, and at least in my experience,

(52:01):
having my Jewish father throwit in my face and say you should
be grateful for it, I mean hewas totally off the rails and
ignorant moron and he's come along way in, you know, 10 years,
and now my family doesn'tcircumcise anymore.
But you know, this is, that canbe.
It can really estrange you fromyour family, it can really

(52:22):
damage your sense of self,create a sense of and this is
just coming to terms and thosewho live, let's say, with this
unconscious trauma.
It's hard to quantify andeveryone deals with it
differently.
I mean, I've heard doulas sayafter the circumcision of an
infant, I could see the sparkand the eyes of the child leave

(52:42):
and he no longer wants to bepart of the society.
And I totally get it If yourfirst major experience is having
the most rarious part of yourpenis violently torn apart.
It's like dude, I don't want tobe here.
Let's end this experiment oflife now.
Now, I'm not suggesting anyoneshould do that, but that is the
curse that we are giving ourchildren.
And it's so easy to stopbecause it requires nothing.

(53:03):
Just don't do anything.

Jen Mayo (53:06):
Well and I don't think people have the context to
really like understand,especially if they've never
witnessed this procedure, whichI definitely recommend.
American Circumcision the filmis a great place to start if
you're wanting more informationon the subject.
But I mean, this is in fact,the first sexual experience a

(53:28):
boy has in his life, and it'sfrequently with a man, and I
don't think people understandthat the child's penis is
actually stimulated to erectionto be able to perform the
procedure.

So we have these medical professionals molesting
children and then mutilatingtheir genitals with no medical
need and by any sober analysisit would constitute fraud
because they are performingmedically unnecessary surgeries
and then usually billingMedicaid for it.
So the public treasury and Imean it's outrageous.
In many ways it's a batterybecause there is no medical need

(54:06):
and you're literally sawing thegenitals off of a child and
it's a breach of fiduciary duty.
And what that means is ifyou're, let's say, a lawyer or a
doctor, you're a fiduciary toyour client or patient, meaning
you have to put your patient'sinterest above your own, your
client's interest above your own.
It's the client's or thepatient's interest that matters.
But if you are harming anewborn infant, who is perfectly

(54:28):
healthy, to enrich yourself soyou can bill Medicaid or
Medicare for this it's Medicaidthen you are putting your
interest above the patient's andthat's also a breach of
fiduciary duty.
So there's a bunch of legaltheories that circumcision or
male genital mutilationobviously violates.
Now is it something that theclopper law firm is going to be

(54:51):
litigating?
Probably not just because it'seasier to litigate
constitutional issues, becauseyou don't have to say to a
doctor or medical associationyou lose and you pay this much
money right, which should happen, and it's something that we my
law firm may entertain if itgets there.
But the purpose of this movementto protect children is not to

(55:14):
punish anybody.
It's not to get money orimprison anybody.
It's just to protect childrenright.
And if we all consent to dothat, nobody else needs to get
hurt.
And I mean that in a veryliteral way, because right now,
thousands of kids in the US arebeing mutilated because accurate
information about it issuppressed.
People who talk about it in aprofessional sense sometimes get

(55:36):
retaliated against by peoplewho feel strongly about
mutilating children.
You know, my Harvard career wasterminated because of my
advocacy to protect childrenfrom genital mutilation, which
was difficult at the time.
It eventually led me toGeorgetown Law and to starting
my own law firm.
So it was ultimately a goodthing.
But you know there aresignificant risks of were were

(55:59):
about discussing and trying toaddress this problem.
So you know, but we're we'removing in the right direction.
Like you said, we're about a50% circumcision rate and I
think that we can get that veryclose to zero if people support
the movement.
And I'm just gonna throw alittle plug in there If you
support intact global and tapglobalorg become a monthly donor

(56:22):
that's going to fund impactlitigation on this right.
That's an easy way to getinvolved, and I'll probably say
that a bunch of times, andthat's why I'm eager to go in as
many podcasts, not just toraise awareness, but to actually
get people who feel passionateabout this.
Okay, let's get involved.
This is an easy way to getinvolved.
Another way to get involved isput me on a podcast, but other
people who do the work on apodcast share this podcast.

(56:45):
You know whatever you can do,but it's about raising the
collective consciousness.

Jen Mayo (56:56):
Absolutely.
I love that, and I will makesure to include intact globalorg
in the show notes so people canreference that directly.
Did you end up going to lawschool because of this situation
, or was that something you hadalready planned on?

I had no intention to go to law school ever.
It sounded really boring andterrible.
I was a physics major.
That's where I was going to goto graduate school at Harvard in
data science.
That was the plan.
And when I spoke with one ofthe faculty on the admissions
board, he said well, this Jewishfaculty member blackballed you,
but just apply next year andI'll vouch for you.

(57:28):
So that was kind of the plan,right.
And then when Harvard terminatedme, I knew I needed to sue
Harvard because I told Harvardfor months because they
investigated me, investigated mefor months, right.
And then they stole some nakedimages of me when they were
investigating.
They tried to blackmail my boss, to lie about my work

(57:53):
performance, to terminate me.
They did a lot of illegal,shady stuff and it was obviously
illegal.
And so I was like, okay, well,now I got to sue you.
You right, I know that you're,you know, more powerful than the
state and, as they've shown,the federal judiciary.
But I'm going to do it anywaysand we'll see what happens.
And my mentor at the time andone of my lawyers, who's giving

(58:13):
me counsel, you know hesuggested law school because I
was looking at different PhDprograms and I was like.
You know what this makes sense.
This puts me in a position toeffectively advocate for this
cause, because there are somecareer activists let's call them
and you know I appreciate theirwork and they do good work and
we want to give gratitude forthe work they've done in this

(58:36):
field and other fields.
But I'm not a career intactivist, right and
anti-circumcision activists.
I want to get this done in liketwo years, right?
If we're well-funded, we can.
We can solve this problem inshort order, because the other
side is so obviously heinous.
They are mutilating infants forprofit, right?
So we just need, um, we justneed to have our day in court

(59:00):
and have the legislaturesaddress this issue with sober
glasses on and say, look, we'renot going to do this anymore.
But I had no intention to go tolaw school, but I'm very
grateful I did, and getting intoGeorgetown Law and an academic
scholarship was a great outcometo the play.
I was like, oh, okay, you knowit is what it is, Um, that it

(59:22):
was meant to be, and I was ableto separate myself from Harvard
before.
Uh, any further affiliationwould do damage to my reputation
because at this point you'rekind of like you know they're
the black sheep in academiabecause they're not an academic
institution for the most part.
Yeah, yeah, Um, so you know itwas all good.

Jen Mayo (59:46):
Yeah, um, you know it was all good.
Yeah, I think it's interestingthat I, you know, I've seen
numerous accounts at this pointof people either in the medical
field or involved with a medicalissue like this going on to get
their going on to law school.
Dr Thomas Levy is actually oneof the early doctors who I
really came to appreciate hisbody of work.

(01:00:07):
He's a cardiologist but thengot involved with the politics
of holistic dentistry andwitnessed how state licensing
boards and medical associationswould destroy somebody's career

(01:00:27):
for not towing the line ofwhatever is being promoted in
the politics of medicine.
And I think it's unfortunatethat people can't just dedicate
their lives to helping peoplethrough the health sciences and
arts that it has become such alegally charged.

(01:00:49):
We've developed so many legallycharged issues within the
medical system, especially with,you know, big pharma, basically
owning agencies, federalagencies and so forth.
So I applaud, you know, yourpassion in pursuing this and

(01:01:10):
getting involved from the legalaspect.
Do you think we've usedacademia and I'm going to put in
your quotes medical sciencehere to discredit common sense
because I hear so many arguments?
Well, there's not a doubleblind, placebo, controlled study
that shows that they'reexperiencing X amount of pain

(01:01:30):
and it's just from this, it'snot from these other factors.
Like at some point we have tosay like this is just common
sense, like you, don't abusechildren.

Eric Clopper (01:01:41):
Oh yeah, it's obviously common sense.
And there is an incredible bodyof literature specifically on
male genital mutilation calledinfant neonatal circumcision.
See, if I were a medicalprofessional and I were to
propose a study that, um, let'ssay, measures the pitch on how
loud a baby girl screams whenyou're cutting off her labia as

(01:02:04):
an infant, you know it would noteven, you'd probably maybe not
get lose your medical licensethat's probably a high bar, but
you would, your reputation wouldtank and they would say, no, of
course you can't do that.
But if you look at malecircumcision, there are studies
that literally will measure thepitch of a male infant screaming
as he's having his genitalstorn off and amputated.

(01:02:26):
And what the study found whichis not at all surprising, is
when the foreskin is beingcrushed with thousands of pounds
of force and you're taking ascalpel to this penis, that's
when the infant scream was theloudest and the shrillest.
And it's like, obviously right,like, we have an incredible
amount of data that shows thatbabies are going through

(01:02:49):
incredible, practicallyinconceivable amount of pain
when they are undergoing acircumcision because you are
mutilating the most sensitivepart of their penis.
Right, you don't need a medicalstudy, like you said, to show
this.
It's just, it's ridiculous.
And even if there were medicalbenefits to circumcision and if
you were to look at the sexualhealth outcomes of Europe,

(01:03:11):
country that does not mutilateits infants, in America, country
that mutilates its male infants, europe has way lower rates of
sexually transmitted diseasesthan HIV, which suggests that
the foreskin actually protectsyou from some level of STD
transmission, which makes sense,because the foreskin
facilitates intercourse andreduces friction dramatically,

(01:03:34):
which means there's lessbleeding, there's less, let's
say, coarse skin that couldeasily break, and that blood to
blood contact is where at leastHIV can be transmitted, but
other STDs and STIs as well.
So it doesn't matter what thestudies say, but they're
overwhelming in their conclusionthat boys go through unbearable

(01:03:59):
pain when they are circumcised.
Some dissociate from realityand go into shock, and the long
term health outcomes and sexualoutcomes are way worse.
There was, there was anotherstudy I think it was let me take
a look 1999, where they foundthat women who had intact
partners of men who were notcircumcised had came to orgasm

(01:04:22):
from vaginal intercourse twiceas often as men who were
circumcised, which makes all thesense in the world, considering
that is how the generalsevolved to stimulate each other.

Jen Mayo (01:04:32):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And kind of back to my point onyou know the shame aspect of
women absorbing somethingbecause the act is not as it's
designed, and I think there's somuch around.
You know there used to be theterm frigidity.
I think we've excluded thatfrom the culture at, in fact,

(01:05:07):
it's that the act itself hasbeen altered in a way that
limits their ability to accessthat.

Oh yeah, well, protecting male infants from
genital mutilation is also awoman's health issue as you
touched on multiple times,because a lot of sexual problems
women experience and thenthey're blamed for is actually
because their partner has a bigpart of his penis missing.
That is important in sexualfunction, right.
So, and also, as we mentionedearlier, it's also important for

(01:05:38):
women's safety, emotional andsexual relationships to stop
mutilating male infants, becauseit makes the man more
empathetic, more emotionallyavailable, more present If he
wasn't violently and sexuallyabused as an infant.
It's, like you know, a good wayto.
There's a couple of ways.
Because we love our dogs, right, and we can make many analogies

(01:06:00):
to our dogs, like you wouldn'tcircumcise your dog just right
off the bat.
But also, if you have twopuppies from the same litter and
you love one of them and theother you abuse chronically,
like in his early days, and thentreat them the same as adults,
those puppies are not going toact the same.
One is going to be veryreactive and violent and kind of
feel unsafe and manifest thosebehaviors of feeling unsafe.

(01:06:23):
And the other is going to be anormal loving dog, right, and
when humans are mammals, justlike dogs are, and if you're
going to violently abuse infants, it's going to have an effect
on him for the rest of his lifeand it's going to be
subconscious, but it is going tobe there.
It's hard to quantify, but ifyou just look at, if you just

(01:06:44):
look at the warring nations,they're typically the generally
mutilating ones America, theMiddle East, that's where most
of the conflicts are and that'swhere most of the men have had
their genitals mutilated.
I read a study once where, ofthe last 24 genocides, 23 of
them had genitally mutilatingcultures on one or both sides.
Right, which you know it is.

(01:07:06):
Genital mutilation is a form ofmainstream violence, right, or
mass violence is the word I'mlooking for.
And so you know, does it?
Does it lead to, you know,horrific outcomes?
I think absolutely it could,and that's why we need to stop
mutilating our children'sgenitals ASAP, because there's

(01:07:29):
only negatives and it's just soeasy to do.
It really is.
It requires nothing, it's anaffirmative act to mutilate an
infant right.
It's difficult to repair thedamage we've done to the Earth's
ecosystem.
For example, it's very easy tonot take a scalpel to your
child's genitals and severalimportant parts of it.

(01:07:50):
So that's why I think this islike the lowest hanging fruit to
improve society.

Jen Mayo (01:07:55):
Exactly.
I could not agree more and Ithink we also know.
You know, historically and evenin modern times, rape is used
as a tool of war.
And can you expand a little biton the coupling of sex and
violence and how that may playout in that landscape as well?

Well, I can expound upon it, but it would be
pure conjecture.
Or you know, there's a greatpsychologist, ronald.
Kind of casts a shadow over aman's entire life and, although
he may not be able to articulatethis and it may be subconscious
his first sexual act becausemedical professionals have to
sexually stimulate infantsbefore they cut off part of the
foreskin it's the first sexualact is coupled with the greatest
pain that most men will everfeel in their lives, right, and
I mean talk about an act ofsadism to the highest degree,

(01:09:08):
now, how that affectsindividuals and how that
promotes rape culture.
You know, I don't have the datato say.
Well, causally, you know, youcircumcise this many men, you
have this many more rapes, right, but it is an act of extreme
sexual violence to circumcise aninfant, to mutilate his sex

(01:09:30):
organs.
Right, and it's contributing tothis, this belief, whether it's
spoken or or acted out, thatyou know to baby boys you do not
have control over your own body.
I am bigger and stronger thanyou, so I can do what I want to
you.
That is what we arecommunicating to our men when we
circumcise them as infants, anda lot of, or some of those men

(01:09:53):
will act out a similar ethoswhen they sexually assault women
or other men.
Right it is.
You know, I can't say well, thisis the coefficient of how much
circumcision increases rape, butI would bet my life on it that

(01:10:13):
if you could mutilate most ofthe men in your culture, their
sex organs, then you're going tohave more sexually violent men
who are not good atcommunicating their feelings,
who are not as effective atcommunicating their feelings.
They're not as effective loversbecause they literally do not
have the anatomy to make love asthey are supposed to.

(01:10:35):
And I'm sure and I know becauseI've experienced a lot of rage
around this and that was part ofmy play, which made people
uncomfortable but it is atotally valid and legitimate
feeling to to, to acknowledgethis extreme violation of your
body and be upset about it.
I mean, of all the things to beupset about, this is, you know,

(01:10:57):
the top of the list, right,this is your body, this is the
inviolate thing that you own andthat you alone and it was.
It was horribly attacked as aninfant.
Right, and you can't, you know,reverse that.
So, and you certainly can'treverse the trauma, even if you
can, you know, undergo therapiesthat would minimize it.

(01:11:18):
Right, but so the reality is.

Jen Mayo (01:11:24):
I don't have like the exact coefficient and nobody
does of how much circumcisionincreases sexual violence in the
culture, but it is far morelikely than not that the more
you generally mutilate yourinfants, the more sexual
dysfunction and sexualmaladaptive behavior you're
going to have in a society in asociety, right right, and you

(01:11:51):
did mention the Middle East andNorth America are still kind of
the main purveyors of thispractice and if we look at the
way women are treated,especially in the Middle East, I
think we can draw someparallels there, at least as to
contributing factors of theman-woman relating in that neck
of the woods, which isunfortunate, and I don't know

(01:12:15):
that we're going to make anyprogress there.
We've got better hope in NorthAmerica, obviously, but there's
a definite connection there, Ithink for sure.

Oh, definitely, I mean.
what at least my law firm isgoing to focus on is secular
genital mutilation right, andyou know what the religions you
know, command you to do and whatthe religions command you to
mutilate, like that's not anargument that I'm interested in
having or my law firm'sinterested in having or pursuing

(01:12:48):
right, and that religiousgenital mutilation is really
kind of the forte of the MiddleEast.
That's what they do.
They religiously mutilate alltheir children and they're very
proud of it.
And you know that's just nutsand I don't really want to
engage with it.
It's like dude, you know youmutilate your babies babies.
I'm strongly opposed to it, butI don't have the influence in

(01:13:11):
the Middle East like I can havehere in the United States of
America.
So that's what I'm going to do,and the United States is a big
exporter of culture as well.
And so once we stop mutilatingour children and we will, and if
you donate to Intact Global,you can help then the rest of
the world is going to take notethat, oh, we are no longer

(01:13:32):
mutilating our children, and wewill.
And if you donate to IntactGlobal, you can help then the
rest of the world is going totake note that, oh, we are no
longer mutilating our kids.
I think it was like Denmark orIceland.
They actually moved to outlawit and America came down with
the influence of Israel to say,look, if you put any
restrictions on generallymutilating boys, we're going to
economically sanction you andbrand you as Nazis, effectively,
right.
And I think it was like the ADLsent a letter to that effect

(01:13:56):
with like a bunch of congressmensigning on.
It's like we are going topunish you if you protect your
baby boys.
And that was America right.
I mean obviously Israel, butalso America, and so we as
Americans need to stop this.
This is absolutely absurd.
We're not going to beinfluenced by these generally
mutilating nations and we'regoing to do what is best for our
children and we're not going tokowtow to these religious

(01:14:19):
individuals who say, well, myGod requires me to mutilate my
babies and I will do anything Ican to crush you if you say
otherwise.
It's like we're not going to beintimidated by that anymore and
we're going to stand up andwe're going to do what's best
for our kids.
And you know, if that requiressome type of escalation, then we
will do whatever is necessary.
But this is no longer a debate.

(01:14:39):
This is a final decision andwe're going to get it done.
So, and I'm excited to do it.
As you could tell, like this ismy life's mission, which I hope
takes two years, and then wecan do other stuff.

Jen Mayo (01:14:51):
Yeah, move on, yeah.

Yeah, it's like I'd like to move on.
This is not something I'd liketo do as a career.
I want to get it done and befinished.
Like you know, that's enough.
That's how I feel, and I thinkmost people feel that way, and
that's why we're at 50%.
Because you know one otherthing, because you say, oh,
we're at 50% and that's thetipping point, and I agree with
you, because a lot of socialcauses are exponential.

(01:15:14):
But if you look at, you knowwhat is the main indicator of
whether someone or not recycles?
Do you know what that?
Do you know what it is?

Jen Mayo (01:15:25):
No.

It is whether or not their neighbors recycle.

Jen Mayo (01:15:28):
Oh yeah.

They look at their neighbors recycling, they're
like oh, I got to recycle, right.

Jen Mayo (01:15:31):
I think I read a book called Influence.
That makes sense.

But you know, oh well, most people aren't
circumcising their kids, I'm notgoing to do it either.
Or most people aren'tmutilating their kids I'm not
going to do it either.
And so that's.
That's where we're rapidlyheading, and that's why we're
going to start in states thatalready protect most of their
children from genital mutilation.
So it's a very small step tosay, look, we're just going to
protect all our kids, that'swhat our constitution requires,

(01:15:58):
and so that's that's my spiel.
All right, all right.

Jen Mayo (01:16:03):
I don't think a lot of people know um.
You know this is a practicedone on infants in our country,
but there are other cultureswhere they specifically wait
until a boy is old enough toremember it and I think that's
intentional and I remember, youknow, when images are so much

(01:16:24):
and we can sit here and talk allday long, but if you're forced
to actually look at an image ofwhat we're actually describing
here, that's that's a much morepowerful way to move people.
But it's been so censored.
On social media especially.
And there was one gentlemanthat I followed for a while who
had a, you know, a completelyintactivist account and he had

(01:16:47):
posted a photo at one point intime of a group circumcision of
roughly seven eight-year-oldboys being circumcised by.
I don't know if they werenurses or less skilled, I don't
know what they were, but theywere posting on social media
with scalpels in hand and nakedboys behind them, with towels

(01:17:12):
over their faces to help withthe pain.
And I don't know privacy too,but laughing.
Here we are publicly havingthis mass circumcision of boys
and these women are posting onsocial media that they're
performing it.
And brendan and I had had aconversation about um patriarchy

(01:17:35):
because he had a chapter in hisbook.
You know that when I first readit I was a little bit triggered
and by the end of the chapter Iwas like, oh my god, he's
completely right.
Um, that women, you know andI'll even include people of
color and other oppressed groupsor non-white men, are largely

(01:18:00):
purveyors of that which we're.
You know, we've blamed thepatriarchy for so long, but yet
women especially, you know, werethe primary caregivers of
children, for the most partthrough the age of 18.
And so these experiences thatboys are having with the women
who are taking care of them thisis an extreme example of that,

(01:18:24):
you know really influences theirrelationship with women and
even with themselves later inlife.
But on the Filipino example, sowhen I was researching some of
this a few months ago and I wentand I found it was like on the
Filipino, like tourism website.
That's bizarre.
They actually had a page onlike how they circumcise boys

(01:18:47):
and what the rite of passage isand so forth and so on.
But as I was preparing for thisinterview, I went back to try
to find that because I hadbookmarked it and it's gone.
So their PR department musthave gotten wind of, like you
know, maybe on our touristwebsite we shouldn't be like.

This is how we mutilate our boys here.
This is how we mutilate them.

Jen Mayo (01:19:06):
We want to make sure that they remember and you know,
forget doing it as infants,like I mean, it's just like the
different customs surroundingthis.
You know, regardless whichculture it is and how it's being
done.
I mean, it's almost likescience fiction, like I can't
even like fathom, like I saidbefore, that we even have to

(01:19:28):
have a conversation like this atthis point, like I wish that
human beings had evolved to, youknow, a level of collective
consciousness where we justthere's just an unspoken
understanding that you love yourbabies and you nurture them
when they come out of the womb.
And you know, I will say, froma mothering standpoint and a

(01:19:48):
psychology standpoint, babies donot understand that they are
even separate from their mothersat birth.
So when you inflict this kindof harm on them at such a young,
tender age, the level of damageI don't think is something that
we're even capable of studyingand quantifying.

(01:20:09):
But this is, I mean, this isall common sense.
It should be at this point.

Well, so, speaking of, you know, a lot of boys are
circumcised, you know, six to16 years old, right?
Yeah, so you know I, you knowmy firm, will be doing a lot of
equal protection litigation, butI either have or do represent.
You know various actors andmodels.
One model, slash influencer, isFilipino guy, about 28 years old

(01:20:37):
, and when he was telling me inLos Angeles, when he was telling
me, when he was 14, he gotcircumcised.
It wasn't in a public ritual,it was in a medical setting.
He got anesthetized, but evenwhen they saw him remove his
foreskin, he felt the sense ofbeing violated and raped.
Right, yeah, it was not some.
He didn't have the autonomy at14 years old to stand up to his

(01:20:59):
parents.
He didn't have the accurateinformation at 14 years old to
say I don't want this, don't dothis to me.
Yeah, at eight years old it'seven more, and at at one day old
it's even extreme, right, butthe point is, whether you're one
day old or 16 years old, mostindividuals in that range don't
have the autonomy or the abilityto make this important decision

(01:21:21):
or avoid this wound until it'stoo late.
Right, and most circumcisions inthe world, male genital
mutilation is done, uh, bymuslim parents right, they are
the largest circumcisioncircumcising group by an
incredible margin, just becausethere's way more muslims than

(01:21:42):
there are jews and there are waymore muslims than there are
americans, right, so that's in alot of Muslims and it ranges,
because Islam has many differentways to practice it and some of
the more enlightened ways don'tmutilate their kids, right, but
most do.
And a lot of Islamiccircumcision is done by barbers,

(01:22:05):
right, they cut your hair andthey mutilate your penis, and
you know it can be done from 6to 16.
And it's seen as a rite ofpassage like, okay, you're a boy
, you're a man, you're a boy,now you're.
We cut off your penis, a bigpart of it.
Now you're a man.
Why?
Because it happened to theadult males and instead of

(01:22:26):
confronting that and saying, oh,maybe it shouldn't have been
done to me, they do it to theirchild because then they don't
have to confront the realitythat maybe their religion led
them astray or their culture ortheir parents.
But at least from the few menI've spoken to who have been

(01:22:48):
circumcised as young adults,they say they remember it, they
feel a sense of extremeviolation and they wish it never
happened.
I mean, after this podcast Ihave a lunch with someone in the
hills who's like really wantsto meet me because he was
circumcised at 16.
And it's his life's mission nowto stop it, because it's the
worst thing that ever happenedto him.
Yeah, so just because ithappened to you as an adult

(01:23:09):
doesn't make it, or as a youngadult or a boy, doesn't mean
that it still wasn't terrible.
And oftentimes I hear you know,I remember the violation, right,
but it's not something that myclient would have told me unless
he knew that I was likehardcore activist and advocate

(01:23:29):
in the space.
It's not like he tells hiscircumcision story to many
people and you know I didn't askabout it, but he's like well,
this is why I feel passionate asto why we need to end male
genital mutilation, and heshared with me his story.
So, um and like I said, americais and as we know, america is a
big exporter of culture.

(01:23:50):
So once we stop mutilating ourbaby boys, that's going to be
very influential on the rest ofthe world, whether they
circumcise at birth or as ayoung adult.

Jen Mayo (01:23:57):
Right, and I think that would be a much better
thing to export than McDonald's.
So yeah, exactly.

But if I had to, I would take my foreskin and eat
McDonald's, Right, but there wasa choice and I used to love
that, but it's just so unhealthyfor you.
It's like you know it's crazy.

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(01:24:36):
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(01:25:18):
save even more on auto ship.
So on the legal note, so what?
What legal recourse?
And have there been anyprecedent set so far in terms of
legal cases that have beenbrought to states?

So there have been other cases in Europe, like a
German court in Cologne saidlook, it's child abuse and it
violates human rights of thechild Right.
And then politicians spent underpolitical pressure from Israel,
et which you know is what it isLike.
Maybe over 30 years ago therewas individuals who tried to
litigate this equal protectionissue, but this was, I think,

(01:25:58):
before we even had anti-femalegenital mutilation statutes.
So the reality is the culturewasn't ready, and I only know of
one case.
I don't think that it went well, but this was like in the 90s,
I believe.
So there's not really goodprecedent, there's not timely
precedent, and I think it's timeto just go full bore.

(01:26:20):
This is what we're doing equalprotection of children from
genital mutilation on aconstitutional basis in as many
states as we responsibly can doso.
And the reality is we don'tneed to win every lawsuit.
All you need to do as anattorney is you need to have a
good faith legal basis to bringthe lawsuit.
And let me tell you, I am veryearnest in my belief that all

(01:26:41):
children should be equallyprotected, right, no question.
And it has compellinganatomical, ethical, biological
background that you know.
These homologous structuresshould be protected in both boys
and girls, and also the civiland human rights that are
analogous to keeping thoseimportant parts of your body.

(01:27:01):
So, but what's likely to happenis what might win some?
We might lose someno-transcript appellate court

(01:27:35):
who rules against that and thatopinion is going to it's not
going to age.
Well, put it that way, you'regoing to look extremely ignorant
if you are sitting on a benchand saying you know what?
I think that we should protectbaby girls, but we should allow
the continued mutilation of babyboys.
And there's a whole bunch ofjurisprudence around what's a

(01:27:58):
religious right versus?
You know what is not protectedunder.
You know the religiousamendments of the federal or
state constitutions.
And I'm not talking aboutreligious circumcisions here.
We're talking aboutnon-religious male genital
mutilation.
That's the focus of theselawsuits, and if someone else
wants to litigate that areligious circumcision is

(01:28:20):
protected, well, that's not whatwe are going to be arguing.
But to answer your question, isthere a good precedent of
similar challenges?
Not that I'm aware of, but I'mvery optimistic that there will
be in the near future.

(01:28:41):
We just need, essentially, theresources.
So if you donate toIntactGlobalorg, that will help
move the mission along, and themore money we raise, the more
attorneys I can hire to eitherimprove my work or to do the
litigation on their own.
But right now my law firm isgoing to be focused on primarily
this and representing somemodels and some actors and

(01:29:02):
actresses in LA, but mostlyprotecting children from genital
mutilation.
Depending on how much we raise,because it is kind of expensive
to do high quality litigation Ican do it at cost because I've
been litigating for almost fouryears very intensely now.
But the more we raise, thequicker we can go and the more
states we can raise this issuein it, yeah.

Jen Mayo (01:29:37):
So if you were a man who is compelled to pursue this
in a legal sense because youfeel like you've been violated
and your personal autonomy hasbeen compromised, what are the
steps that somebody would needto go through to say, hey, I
would really like to bring thisto the courts so the clients
that I'm looking to represent,and I have a great client, mason
, in Oregon, young man, kind,intelligent.

He watched my play at Harvard, I think earlier in
2024 this year, and he said, ohwow, I didn't know that the
foreskin was so important thatthis, this important part of my
body, was stolen from me and myhuman rights were violated here.
And he said, oh wow, I didn'tknow that the foreskin was so
important that this, thisimportant part of my body, was
stolen from me and my humanrights were violated.
Right, and the reason why he'sa good client is not only is he
a good person and just wants tosee the other children in Oregon
be afforded the sameprotections as baby girls in

(01:30:22):
Oregon, and that he was notafforded, but I'm looking for
plaintiffs who were circumcisedin their home state after that
state passed its anti-femalegenital mutilation law.
Because a big part of filing alawsuit, especially a
constitutional challenge, is theplaintiff needs to have what is
called standing, is you need tohave suffered a harm to bring a

(01:30:47):
legal challenge?
And if you were circumcisedbefore your state passed the
anti-female general mutilationstatute, well, the state could
easily argue look, whatever themerits of protecting children
from general mutilation is thisanti-female general mutilation
law didn't harm the plaintiffbecause it didn't exist until

(01:31:07):
after the plaintiff was born.
So, even so, the plaintiffdidn't suffer harm from the
statute, because no statutepassed at the time that the
anti-FGM statute was passedcould have protected the man who
was circumcised, if he wascircumcised before the anti-FGM
statute.
So I'm essentially looking formen who have an anti-FGM statute

(01:31:28):
in their state and who werecircumcised after it, and intact
globalorg will have a, willessentially have essentially
what's called a spreadsheet orsome visual that will tell you
what type of plaintiffs I'mlooking for, in which states.
And I'm looking in like 20 or30 states, right?
This is not like a smalloperation.
I'm looking in like 20 or 30states, right?

(01:31:49):
This?

Jen Mayo (01:31:49):
is not like a small operation, right?
Do all states have anti-femalecircumcision laws or statutes?

I actually have a spreadsheet made by GALDEF, who
is a collaborator of mine, theGeneral Autonomy Legal Defense
and Education Fund, and I'm justpulling up the spreadsheet
right now and it looks like.
It looks like 41 states, Wow,41.
Wow, 41 states according totheir data.

(01:32:23):
So you know, plus or minus two,but just because there may be a
mistake, I don't know, butabout 40 states have anti-FGM
laws and they range from passingin 1995, like in Minnesota,
Delaware or Minnesota, to 2023,which is Washington States.

Jen Mayo (01:32:40):
Now I'd have to double check this, yeah.

Well, according to GALDEF research, there is nine
states Alabama, alaska,connecticut, hawaii, maine,
mississippi, montana, nebraska,new Mexico.
I am not looking for clients inthose nine states because
apparently they do not have ananti-FGM law.
Now, I didn't go through everysingle law from the 50 states to

(01:33:05):
check.
I was able to outsource that toGALDEF and they're a great
partner and I'm very gratefulfor them but almost 40 states
approximately 40 is.
I'm looking for plaintiffs.
Now, let's say, the anti-FGMlaw was passed in 2020, right,
the plaintiff has to be fouryears old or younger, and so

(01:33:28):
what I would do is, let's say,you circumcise your child and
then you later found out oh wow,this was a great harm and I
wish I hadn't, but the doctortold me to do so and I I trusted
the doctor, who, you know,enriched himself off of my
ignorance.
And now I'm upset and I wishthat all children were protected
.
Let's say you're a parent whofits that category called a
regret.

(01:33:48):
Parent, you could contact me ifyour child was born and
circumcised after you know 2020,let's say, if you were in the
state of um, kentucky orMassachusetts, um, which is
where I'm from right.
I'd love to see the state ofMassachusetts, um, but so those
are the type of well you know tohelp them improve their laws,

(01:34:09):
not yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, I get it because I wouldlike all boys in Massachusetts
to be protected, where I wasborn, um, so those are the type
of clients I'm looking for.
So it's very broad, like youknow, it encompasses tens of
millions of potential clients,probably, um, and the other
requirement is the state needs.
So I didn't know very muchabout the law until I went to

(01:34:29):
law school, beyond the basics,right, and so everyone's aware
of the federal constitution.
So you have the first amendment, freedom of speech and religion
, the second amendment, guns,and so on and so forth, right?
Well, each state has their ownconstitution as well, and each
state's law needs to abide bythat state's constitution.

(01:34:51):
So what I'm looking for in myclients and Oregon's a good
example, because that's wherethe Klopper Law Firm will be
suing first is the state'sconstitution needs to have some
guarantee of equal protection ofthe laws for all its citizens.
And if it has an amendment thatsays explicitly we do not
discriminate on the basis ofgender, that's even better.

(01:35:12):
Because an anti-female genitalmutilation statute, as noble and
as important as it is on itsface, discriminates on the basis
of gender because it onlyprotects one class of children,
and we want to protect all classof children and for that law to
abide by that state'sconstitution, which it must.
It cannot discriminate on whichchildren it protects from

(01:35:33):
genital mutilation.

Jen Mayo (01:35:34):
Yeah.

So that I mean those are the two requirements.
Intactglobalorg is going to layit out in a visual and in text.
So if you want to be aplaintiff and say, look, I want
to bring equal protection of thelaws to my state, then you can
get in touch with me aterickloppercom or put in your
info at intactglobal or my lawfirm website, very easy to reach

(01:35:55):
.
I get a lot of correspondenceso you have to be patient.
But if you're like a potentialplaintiff, then I'm very
interested in talking.
And also, if you want to help,I need local counsel in each
state right to file a lawsuit,because I'm licensed in
California right now only fornow, and so since I'm suing the
state of Oregon on behalf ofMason, I have local counsel.

(01:36:18):
His name is Brad Bradley and healready has experience in
He was one of the attorneys whoactually brought a circumcision
case up to the Oregon SupremeCourt A bolt v bolt.
It was a custody case wherethere was a teenage boy and two
parents who were separating.

(01:36:39):
The father converted toOrthodox Judaism and wanted to
circumcise his young man.
Right, his is, you know,probably young teens or maybe
even like 12 tween, whatever,and the young boy was like you
know, I don't want to have partof my penis cut off.
And so it became a big courtbattle went up to the supreme
court and at some point in theproceedings the young man

(01:37:01):
actually testified on the standand said look, you know, right
in front of his dad, I don'twant to be circumcised because
you know I want my entire penis.
I know it's painful and youknow, right in front of his dad,
I don't want to be circumcisedbecause you know I want my
entire penis.
I know it's painful and youknow I don't know his exact
wording, but that was just rightyeah can you imagine being a
young boy?

Jen Mayo (01:37:15):
you have to go to court and say yeah I can't even
imagine the level of braverythat that took for him it's.

It's just a kangaroo ridiculousness that
that he had to go to thatlengths and I'm glad that he did
, because the father was justoff the rails unhinged.
But anyways, brad, my localco-counsel, leckman Sue, he
represented the boy after he wonin the Supreme Court and
ensured that he was protected toadulthood.

(01:37:41):
So he, bradley, leckman Sue,great co-counsel, local counsel
in the Oregon case.
But I need local counsel ineach state that I'm going to sue
to essentially file the lawsuitand do some of the civil
procedure stuff.
And I'm happy to pay localcounsel if we raise the money to

(01:38:01):
do so.
Right, and if you want to seethis happen, donate to
intaclobalorg.
But that's the strategy.
And if I could do this all in ayear I mean I went through 20
states in a year I could do thatif I had appropriate funding,
because I've been a professionallitigator, like hardcore, for
almost two years and I'velitigated very intensely for

(01:38:22):
almost four.
Right, no-transcript, I'll workwith whatever resources are

(01:39:00):
raised.

Jen Mayo (01:39:01):
Okay, all right.
Were there cases of FGM in someof these states that
necessitated the statute be putin place?
Because I have to imagine youknow most of these states.
You know to some extent, justdidn't know.
There was even a need toprotect girls from having their
genitals mutilated.

Well, what happened is in the 1990s, like
95, 96, it was very braveactivists from Africa was
claiming asylum in America.
Say, look, if you send me back,I'm going to have my genitals
mutilated.
And America didn't recognizethat as a real harm.
In the 90s, right Like after Iwas born, and there was great

(01:39:43):
legal advocacy.
Who got?
You know?
Cnn got involved, I believe, or60 Minutes, like some major
mainstream who who aired thisactivist story.
And because they use the termmutilation, because that's what
it is female genital mutilationpeople like, oh, we're against
mutilation, as they should be.
And so public opinion turn.
That's why I always use malegenital mutilation, because

(01:40:05):
that's what it is Right.
And so there was great advocacyin like 95, 96, 97, 98, where
there's awareness was risingthat, oh, women's genitals are
being mutilated, of baby girls,and we need to stop that because
that's an obvious violation ofhuman rights.

(01:40:26):
Extreme pain, lifelong sexualdysfunction, all the things with
male genital mutilation Right,yeah, and so and so that's why
these laws banning femalegenital mutilation, according to
Galdef research, started in 95.
And there was like a wholestring of them from 1995 to 1999
.
There was approximately 13states who banned it right away,

(01:40:51):
right.
And then there was an anti-FGMlaw federal anti-FGM law in 1996
.
So I don't believe there was alot of state lawsuits or stories
.
It was this brave activist fromAfrica who really raised
awareness in the mainstreammedia because it didn't have any
allegiance to female gendermutilation, religious or

(01:41:12):
cultural or otherwise, was quickto denounce this practice that
they don't engage in.
Right.
But there was a recent case inMichigan where this Islamic
doctor was practicing femalegender mutilation in Michigan
where this Islamic doctor waspracticing female genital
mutilation, right.

Jen Mayo (01:41:29):
Yeah.

And the defense counsel challenged it, saying
look, the federal governmentdoesn't have the power to outlaw
female genital mutilation underthe Congress clause.
A very like legal, autisticargument.
Right and so, and it prevailed.
The federal judge, just as amatter of federalism, meaning

(01:41:51):
you know how the state andfederal governments share and
delegate certain types ofauthority that just it wasn't in
the federal government's powerto ban this type of child abuse
against women.
So the female Islamic doctor shewas no longer prosecuted.
It was dropped because of purefederalist issues.

(01:42:14):
But the federal governmentamended the female gender
mutilation statute and, for allintents and purposes, right now
it still exists, which is alsogreat because it means all of my
law firm's legal challengesagainst the constitutionality of
anti-female genital mutilationstatutes will not endanger the
welfare of those girls in thosestates because they're still

(01:42:35):
protected from genitalmutilation from the federal
statute.
So there's really no badoutcome except raising awareness
and providing legislatures theopportunity to pass laws that
pass constitutional muster andprotect all children equally
from gender mutilation.
So that's a very long way toanswer your question is there
was one case about female gendermutilation I know of, like in

(01:42:56):
2018, approximately, and thenbefore that I think I don't.
I'm not aware of any like highprofile cases, but there was
that activist who really raisedawareness of the issue in
America in like 96 or so.

Jen Mayo (01:43:10):
Okay, Okay, Um yeah, I mean, that's mind boggling that
we even need these laws, but um, is there any?
Is there any potential recourseor legal action, say in the
case of um two parents where onesigns a consent form against

(01:43:35):
the other one's wishes?

um, that may vary by state.
I believe informed consentbecame a thing in the 70s
because there were certainsurgeries that were done without
the consent of either thepatient or the parents,
depending on the age of thepatient, and I would wager that
most of that is a state-by-statelaw, as in what constitutes

(01:44:03):
informed consent, although thestate laws often overlap right,
but they're not the same, whichis one of the reasons you need
to get licensed in each state topractice law.
But I do not know in terms ofhow many parents need to consent

(01:44:24):
to a circumcision.
It would vary by state right.
There was a law in NewHampshire that lost by a narrow
margin.
That required both parents tosign the consent form and it put
in 12 point, which is not thatbig, but 12 point bold font at
the front saying this is amedically unnecessary surgery.
And then it listed all thecomplications, from bleeding,
infection, loss of penis, death.

(01:44:44):
I mean incredibly serious things.
I mean babies die from this,like dozens at least every year
in America alone, because peopledon't realize this is a major
surgery.
Slash amputation, yeah, but itwould.
It would vary by state andmaybe even by hospital how many
parents need to sign the consentform, but it's.

(01:45:07):
It's usually at least one,because they used to just
circumcise infants withoutasking the parents.
It used to just be part of,like, the birth.
You know the birth checklist.
How can the hospital maximizemoney for every baby born?

Jen Mayo (01:45:21):
Right the sales funnel .
Yeah, exactly circumcision as aroutine procedure in North
American culture and what we'reseeing play out in what I'll

(01:45:54):
call porn culture.

Hmm, well, they're definitely connected, right and
that, and you circumcise aninfant or a man or whoever.
When you steal that foreskin,you change the mechanics of
intercourse and because, like Imentioned earlier, the foreskin
is a bilayer or tissue, it foldsin on itself, kind of like the

(01:46:17):
lips.
It's extremely sensitive.
To get great sexual pleasure Ifyou have an intact penis, if
you're not circumcised, you onlyneed to move very little inside
the woman, right, it is muchmore of like a dance where your
hips are essentially aligned andthe clitoris gets more
stimulated because you're not,you're not going, you're not

(01:46:38):
moving away from the body, thefemales or your partner's body,
whereas if you're circumcised,you have, you know, small
percentage, probably 10, maybe30% of the sensory tissue that
you would otherwise have, and toget some comparable level of
sexual sensation you need to dohuge strokes, which, which moves

(01:46:59):
you away from the female's body, away from the clitoris,
reduces the amount of femaleorgasms, like I mentioned
earlier, the 50% less femaleorgasms if you're circumcised,
if your partner circumcised.
And so what happens is weexaggerate this behavior in
pornography and you have thisjackhammering effect.

(01:47:21):
We have these large circumcisedpenises that are not
representative of actual size.
And they are just pounding thesewomen.
And it's not how you'resupposed to make love, it's not
how women experience sexualpleasure and orgasms.
And because pornography is soaccessible, you know, to anyone
with an internet connection,especially at a young age, you

(01:47:44):
have a lot of men's sexualitybeing formed by these gross
characterizations ofdysfunctional sex, because the
man doesn't have all the partsof his penis he's supposed to.

Jen Mayo (01:47:57):
Yeah.

So you know, and if you look at who's running the
porn industry in California,most of them are circumcised and
it just perpetuates theirdelusions of normality.

Jen Mayo (01:48:10):
I would say yeah, yeah , I do think there's an element
too of if you can control thesexuality of a culture.
They become more submissive andeasier to control as a populace
.
You know, either from areligious or, you know, a

(01:48:32):
governmental standpoint.
I don't necessarily know thatthat's done on a conscious level
in most cases, although I mean,maybe we can look to some like
dystopian literature and youknow, communist regimes where
maybe that's more obvious thanwhat we're seeing it play out,
you know, in the United Statesor similar type countries.

(01:48:56):
But sexual energy is the bridgebetween the natural and the
supernatural or between thematerial and the ethereal, and I
think these practices,including circumcision,
including the perpetuation ofporn culture, in some ways is

(01:49:20):
intentional to degrade thecapacity for what the sexual
experience is supposed to be andits ability to bring people
closer to God and bring peoplecloser to each other by reducing
it to this more mechanical act.
You know, and that's probablyone of the bigger travesties,
because you know back to youdon't know what you don't know

(01:49:41):
until you do know, I think welargely live in this culture
that just doesn't know, largelylive in this culture that just
doesn't know.
We we've not had access to whatour energetic and spiritual
potentials are, and I don't meanreligious, but I mean um the
ability to move energy in ourbodies and to interconnect and

(01:50:02):
co-create with somebody else'sum in a way that's being
destroyed, and if we can getpast these handful of years in
front of us, where I do see goodthings happening um in this
respect, I think the potentialon a more broader cultural and
even global scale um are arefascinating.

(01:50:26):
I am interested to see wherewhere things go, if we can keep
things moving in a greatdirection, and I think you're
doing beautiful work to that,and I think you know, like you
said, hopefully this is the nextcouple of years of your life,
not not your lifelong career.

No, no, I.
I'd like to finish thisimmediately.
I'm, I'm, I'm not at allrunning out of steam, I'm like
just gearing up, but at the sametime, this is not like a
lifelong fight.
This is, if you, if you'repassionate about this and you
want to see the generalmutilation of children end and
you can support us at intactglobalorg and become a monthly
donor.
But not only that like this canbe done in a matter of years,

(01:51:09):
but we just need to have somesupport.
And this is an asymmetricbattle, like most are right,
because the sides are not ofequal moral value, equal
resources and because you know Iprobably need to raise $1 for
every $1,000 the oppositionspends.
Right, because the oppositionis so contemptible that they
mutilate infants for profit.

(01:51:29):
It is hard to conceive of amore wicked position to defend
and that's why they need anincredible infrastructure and
resources to defend it.
But I think this can be done ina matter of years like you know
, two-ish years if we are justorganized in.
Just a small percentage of thoseof us who feel strongly about

(01:51:50):
protecting children donate orget involved.
And you know you could justshare this podcast, right?
You could tell your friends whoare going to, you know, have a
baby, a male baby.
You know there are easy thingsyou can do Subscribe to your
channel, subscribe to mine,right?
So these are things that can bedone on a, you know, very easy

(01:52:10):
individual level.
If you're committed, donatemoney or if you're an attorney,
reach out to me.
Blah, blah, blah, but I'm goingback to what you had said just
recently and we had a littleconversation about this offline
but does circumcision, you know,mutilating a child's genitals
at birth, make them easier ormore docile, right, and what

(01:52:32):
evidence is for that?
Well, if we go back to thecircumcision that America
adopted, the Jewish circumcision, if you read Genesis 17, verse
13, you know, allegedly God sayswhich is just a rabbi rewriting
the Bible you know, whetherborn in your household or bought
with your money, they must becircumcised right.
And so the religious covenantis literally you need to

(01:52:54):
circumcise your infants and yourslaves right.
And you're not circumcisingyour slaves because you want to
empower them.
You're doing it because itmakes them easier to control.
It's like you know why othercultures would castrate their
slaves, because then theywouldn't be a sexual threat.

Jen Mayo (01:53:12):
Now.

Jewish culture couldn't castrate their Jewish
boys because then they wouldn'treproduce.
So this was a way, this was ahalf step towards castration
right, we're just going toremove most of the sexual
pleasure.
We're not actually going to makeyou sterile.
So if you look at you know whyAmerican doctors began to
promote circumcision in themedical sense it was to prevent

(01:53:35):
them from masturbating right andreducing sexual pleasure from
the app, which is a form ofsexual control.
So, and there's a lot ofjustified complaints about how
female sexuality is notrespected and honored in America
, and that definitely is thecase, and it's also the same for

(01:53:59):
men who have big parts of theirgenitals amputated at birth.
The argument that circumcisionis done to control you, to
reduce your sexual senses and tomake you, let's say, to
traumatize and make you easierto do what those in power would

(01:54:20):
like you to.
And you know, I think most adultmen and women who are
autonomous and proud to be whothey are and, let's say, are
just healthy, independent-mindedpeople, they're not down with
that and they don't want theirchildren to suffer from that.
So this is a freedom movementin a way.

Jen Mayo (01:54:38):
Yeah, oh, absolutely.
Can you briefly give us arundown, because I just want to
make sure this story is sharedin this podcast?
The history involving JohnHarvey Kellogg.

Yes.
So John Harvey Kellogg is theguy who you may recognize from,
you know, corn Flakes, right,kellogg?
Corn Flakes, yeah.
And he was also like afanatically religious doctor at
the turn of like the 20thcentury, like around 1900.
Yeah, of like the 20th century,like around 1900.
Right, and one of.
So he promoted cornflakes back,you know, in around 1900,

(01:55:13):
because they were so bland, theywere supposed to reduce your
desire for sexual intercourse.
That was like a selling point.
And he actually published a bookcalled treatment for self abuse
and its effects in 1888.
And self-abuse was a euphemismfor masturbation, right.
And so this guy who wasinfluential in getting America

(01:55:36):
to adopt circumcision, hepromoted it because he knew that
the foreskin was very erogenousand very important in
masturbation, and so if you wereto remove this tissue from baby
boys and young men, it's harderfor them to masturbate.
But the same guy also, johnHarvey Kellogg, advocated for

(01:56:00):
burning the clitorises of younggirls with carbolic acid.
And he also recommended usingchastity cages on children so
they couldn't touch theirgenitals.
He even advocated for tying upor restraining children so they
couldn't, you know, masturbate.
I mean, he was off the rails bymodern standards.

Jen Mayo (01:56:21):
God.
I wonder what happened to himas a child.

He had some adverse childhood events.
Apparently he had some adversechildhood events apparently.
Yeah so, um, yeah, so johnharvey kellogg he was like one
of the bigger secular promotersof circumcision.
I mean, it's just such aludicrous history and when you
and it's such a ludicrouspractice that's so overtly
violent and sadistic, right andso, and when you look into it,

(01:56:48):
it makes no sense at all.
And there's this saying in themovement to protect children
from genital mutilation that alot of people have this
obsessive epiphany where they.
They have this epiphany oh myGod, this circumcision was all a
lie.
It's male genital mutilation.
It's incredibly painful anddetrimental to your health for
the rest of your life andviolates your human rights.
They have this epiphany andthey obsess over it because once

(01:57:11):
they understand this, it's soobvious.
It is so obvious.
Right so yeah, and you know,John Harvey Kellogg is a good
example.
Like he said, oh, these are thepeople who are advocating for
the other side.
It's like, yeah, that's becauseit's totally twisted and worked
to mutilate an infant.

Jen Mayo (01:57:27):
Right, like, yeah, that's because it's totally
twisted and warped to mutilatean infant, right, right.
And just one more note on, youknow, our example of, you know,
creating a more docile populace.
I think your puppy analogy is areally good one that people can
maybe relate to better.
If you're relating, um, or ifyou have a puppy who's raised in

(01:57:52):
a very loving household and itdoesn't even know what trauma is
, versus one that's coming fromthe shelter, who's been beaten
and abused and neglected, andobserve how their behavior is
throughout life, you're probablygoing to either see aggression
and or a withdrawing and fear ofinteraction with people when

(01:58:13):
they've been abused as a puppyand they're going to be, you
know, from that respect, easierto control.
So I mean, this has been like afantastic conversation.
I'm so grateful that you wereable to share some time with us
today and bring some moreawareness to our listeners.

(01:58:34):
As I talk with more friends andmore mothers on the subject, I
will just say, like I've had alot of conversations with moms
in private on this subject andthose whose sons are circumcised
, the reaction is almost alwaysI regret his circumcision and it
was because his father said hewanted to look like him or we

(01:58:58):
had family pressures and thedoctor was pressuring us.
You know it wasn't.
It wasn't an emphatic like ohyeah, this is.
You know, I felt good aboutdoing this and it's what I've
always known I've wanted to dofor my son, um, so I think, just
the more you know, thisconversation also is not about
shaming parents who made thatdecision, um.
Like I said, you don't knowwhat you don't know until you do

(01:59:21):
know, um, and we do the bestwith the information we have at
the time, um, and I think thebiggest takeaway on that is to
have the awareness and forgiveyourself for what you didn't
know and encourage yourself tobecome the version of yourself
that you would like to be and bethat example for your children

(01:59:41):
and your grandchildren and soforth.
Is there anything else that wedidn't talk about that you think
would be important for ourlisteners to know about?

I think we covered a lot of ground.
I'm really grateful for theinvitation to be on your podcast
.
So thank you, jen, and you know, if anyone else wants to be on
the podcast, they can email meat eric at cloppercom, and if
they feel passionate aboutprotecting children from genital
mutilation and want to supportmy law firm's efforts to end

(02:00:11):
this type of child abuse, thenthey can become a donor monthly
donor at IntactGlobalorg.
Other than that, I'm reallygrateful that you're bringing
attention to this issue.
I'm very grateful you invitedme on your podcast and I'm
hoping that in a couple years wewill be in a much, much better
position.
And you know that 50%circumcision rate goes down to,

(02:00:33):
you know, 10 or 5%.
That would be a great outcome.
And you know I'm working on itas hard as I can and all the
support we can get is greatlyappreciated.
So you know, thank you Jen,thank you listeners, and you
know we'll be in touch hopefully.

Jen Mayo (02:00:46):
All right.
Is there any place people canfind you on social media?

Um, yes, there is.
Uh, I'm in the process ofrebranding and making all my
websites right now.
By the time this is out,they'll probably be out, but, um
, but my, my personal website iscloppercom and my handles will
probably be attorney clopper.
But we'll see.

Jen Mayo (02:01:09):
Okay, and if we have that at the time we publish I
will definitely include in theshow notes.

Thank you, I appreciate that.

Jen Mayo (02:01:15):
Yeah, no problem.
So thanks for coming on.
It's been a fantasticconversation.
This podcast is forinformational and entertainment
purposes only.
Any statements and viewsexpressed by myself or my guests
are not medical advice.
The opinions of guests aretheir own and the Body Literacy
Podcast does not endorse oraccept responsibility for

(02:01:38):
statements made by guests.
If you have a medical problem,please consult a qualified and
competent medical professional.
As always, I hope you enjoyedthis episode of the Body
Literacy Podcast.
Be sure to subscribe and signup for updates over at
genmayocom.

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