Mike Buchanan Debates MGM [Male Genital Mutilation] With Dr Simon Hochhauser, A Jewish Proponent, On BBC Radio

By Mike Buchanan [J4MB]: On Friday I debated MGM with Dr Simon Hochhauser, a Co-Chairman of Milah UK, on BBC 3 Counties Radio. The presenter was Jonathan Vernon-Smith, and the discussion lasted 20 minutes, followed by 20 minutes of mostly Jewish people calling into the show. I recommend you read the background under the file, before listening to the exchange.

Background: Jonathan Vernon-Smith is a highly-regarded presenter on my local BBC radio station, BBC 3 Counties Radio, based in Dunstable. His show presents a rare opportunity on BBC radio to talk about individual men’s issues at length. Milah UK milahuk.org/ is an organization set up to promote and protect the right of the Jewish community to mutilate the genitals of male babies, in accordance with religious beliefs.

In July 2015 I had an exchange of letters with the two Co-Chairmen of Milah UK, one of whom is Dr Simon Hochhauser. Details here j4mb.wordpress.com/2015/07/31/male-genital-mutilation-a-letter-from-milah-uk/.
Early in the audio clip, the station played some extracts from a video youtube.com/watch?v=nxR_uX6pYeE recorded during a protest in Parliament Square last International Men’s Day, when we supported Men Do Complain mendocomplain.com.
The remainder of the first 20 minutes of the audio clip consist of a discussion between Dr Simon Hochhauser, Jonathan Vernon-Smith, and myself. The rest of the clip consists of Jonathan engaging with callers, a suspiciously large proportion of whom were Jewish men and women.
Incredibly, Dr Hochhauser maintained that MGM is legal in the UK. The proof that it’s illegal is contained in a presentation given by James Chegwidden, a barrister, in 2013. Our notes of the presentation are here j4mb.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/150727-j4mb-notes-of-james-chegwiddens-2013-keele-uni-presentation.pdf. The first bullet point is, ‘The default position of the criminal law is that circumcision is a crime and it requires a parliamentary override to stop it being a crime’. No such parliamentary override exists.
Implausibly, Dr Hochhauser claimed to be unaware that the purpose of MGM is to reduce the sexual pleasure felt by adult males. We frequently recommend people read William Collins’s article on MGM mra-uk.co.uk/?p=519. He cites what Moses Maimonides, a leading Jewish intellectual and physician, wrote in 1135:
“With regard to circumcision, one of the reasons for it is, in my opinion, the wish to bring about a decrease in sexual intercourse and a weakening of the organ in question, so that this activity be diminished and the organ be in as quiet a state as possible. It has been thought that circumcision perfects what is defective congenitally…How can natural things be defective so that they need to be perfected from the outside, all the more because we know how useful the foreskin is to that member? In fact this commandment has not been prescribed with a view to perfecting what is defective congenitally, but to perfecting what is defective morally. The bodily pain caused to that member is the real purpose of circumcision. None of the activities necessary for the preservation of the individual is harmed thereby, nor is procreation rendered impossible, but violent concupiscence and lust that goes beyond what is needed are diminished. The fact that circumcision weakens the faculty of sexual excitement and sometimes perhaps diminishes the pleasure is indubitable. For if at birth this member has been made to bleed and has had its covering taken away from it, it must indubitably be weakened. In my opinion, this is the strongest of the reasons for circumcision. Jewish men, sexually subdued and readily controlled by their wives, don’t stray into mischief. The power of his member has been diminished so that he has no strength to lie with many lewd women.”
I made the point in the discussion that men who’d been circumcised as young as eight days old, in line with Jewish tradition, could not know what they’d lost in the area of sexual pleasure. To understand what men have lost, we need to turn to those who’ve been circumcised as adults. In our YouTube library we have a video interview of a man who was circumcised at 18 youtube.com/watch?v=Nj_nYcumC0c.
When people ask for materials outlining why MGM should be made specifically illegal, in line with FGM, we refer them in the first instance to two videos. The first is titled, ‘Child Circumcision: An Elephant in the Hospital’ youtube.com/watch?v=F2wjADZuoqE, the second is a presentation by Tim Hammond, an American researcher, ‘The Global Survey of Circumcision Harm’ youtube.com/watch?v=i39V2ZIONV8. Tim will be giving a presentation at the second International Conference on Men’s Issues, in London, July 8-10, 2016 icmi16.wordpress.com.
This wasn’t my first appearance on Jonathan Vernon-Smith’s show. My previous appearance was in June 2013, discussing the topic of women in the workplace. The audio file is here youtube.com/watch?v=GulYuojvoMw. Caroline Criado-Perez called into the show, claiming she knew of longitudinal studies showing a causal link between increasing female representation on corporate boards and enhanced financial performance, and duly won the first of her three Lying Feminist of the Month awards.