San Diego Unseen: An Urban Portrait
In early 2010, CityBeat profiled him for a cover story on the history of circumcision in San Diego. The Pacific Beach author of the MGM Bill, a proposal that would ban “male genital mutilation” (aka circumcision), was facing an uphill battle for credibility in a political system that didn’t seem particularly interested in making the penis prepuce a priority. As a courtesy, a lawmaker in Massachusetts sponsored his bill for a hearing, but it went nowhere.
This year, however, anti-circumcision activists in San Francisco forced the nation to pay attention when they successfully petitioned to get the MGM Bill on the local ballot. Regardless of whether it would pass, the foreskin had entered mainstream debate, which was as good as mission-accomplished. Hess believes that once people start talking about circumcision, they’ll see the inherent folly in it.
“This debate has been going on for years and just further down the media chain,” Hess tells CityBeat. “Now it’s pushed its way up. All these arguments I’m hearing I’ve heard before, and it’s just a matter of more people talking about them.”
Things were looking good for the “intactivist” (so called because he supports keeping the penis intact), but then opponents discovered the second issue of Hess’ propaganda comic-book series, Foreskin Man. Between the blond-haired, blue-eyed superhero protagonist and the evil Jewish mohel villain, Hess was branded an anti-Semite.
Circumcision supporters retaliated with their own comics, such as Smegma Man, and a special edition of Zionist superhero Captain Israel overpowering Foreskin Man. The images in the comic became a rallying cry of opponents of the measure, including San Francisco City attorney Dennis Herrera, who plastered the “Monster Mohel” on the front of his official website.
Asked whether he should’ve toned down the imagery, considering the flood of negativity it inspired, Hess says he wouldn’t change a thing.
“I think it’s doing exactly what it was designed to do, which is to stimulate debate and conversation and get people talking about circumcision,” he says. “It’s worked out far better than I ever expected it would.”
The MGM Bill, however, fell far short of expectations. At the end of July, a judge threw out the ballot initiative, ruling that it’s the state’s job to regulate healthcare and that the initiative violates freedom of religion by banning ritual circumcision.
Hess says the initiative’s supporters may appeal, but it’s not looking good, and it could get worse. In reaction, state Assemblymember Mike Gatto introduced a bill that would ban local municipalities from passing anti-circumcision bills, and U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman plans to introduce similar pro-circumcision legislation on the federal level.
“I would say that we are on the defensive, certainly when it comes to these two bills,” Hess says. “But if either of these bills passes, we’ll be on the offensive again because we’ll be able to challenge them in court.
We can take this all the way up to the Supreme Court if we need to.”
In the meantime, Hess plans to continue to churn out the comics. He recently published Foreskin Man No. 3, which introduced an African character, “Vulva Girl,” who teams up with Foreskin Man to save girls from ritual female genital mutilation. He also hopes that the recent attention will garner more interest from lawmakers when his organization begins its nationwide legislative drive in January.
“I’m going
to keep fighting for genital integrity for all boys,” he says. “I think
people are going to look into this issue and decide for themselves
whether this is anti- Semitic or whether it’s prohuman rights.”
Write to davem@sdcitybeat.com and editor@sdcitybeat.com.
