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What Do The Eyelids, Lips, Fingertips & The Intact Penis Have in Common?

Take a moment to imagine the gentle flutter of eyelids in the soft, warm morning light as the sunlight filters through. Picture the tender press of soft lips in a loving kiss, a moment filled with warmth and affection.

Visualize the skillful dance of nimble fingertips on a keyboard, effortlessly gliding across the keys, creating a symphony of words and ideas.

Now, consider the natural function of the intact penis, a marvel of nature’s design, with its intricate network of blood vessels and sensitive nerve endings, providing pleasure and serving an essential role in reproduction. These body parts, seemingly distinct in purpose, are interconnected through fascinating physiological characteristics of sensitivity, protection, and intricate structural complexity.

In this article, you will discover:

  • The remarkable sensitivity shared by these body parts and their importance.
  • How they play a protective role in human physiology.
  • The unique structural adaptations that enhance their functions.

Let us explore the shared attributes of these body parts and uncover the significance behind their similarities.

1) Exquisite Sensitivity: A Symphony of Nerve Endings

One of the major similarities among these body parts is their concentration of nerve endings, giving them an extraordinary sensitivity to touch. This sensitivity is critically essential. For instance, the fingertips, with their abundance of nerve endings, enable us to manipulate objects and discern textures with finesse, facilitating skills ranging from typing to tactile recognition. 

Moreover, the lips and foreskin, exquisitely sensitive, contribute to an array of intimate sensations, heightening sexual pleasure and forging deeper emotional bonds. Meanwhile, the vigilant reflexes of the eyelids protect our eyes, reacting swiftly to the faintest hint of potential harm, ensuring their safety and well-being.

The eyelids, lips, fingertips, and intact penis are all covered in Meissner’s corpuscles, which are specialized nerve endings that serve as the gatekeepers of touch, allowing us to discern the gentlest caress or the slightest variation in texture. These microscopic sensors heighten the sensitivity of the fingertips, lips, and other touch-sensitive regions while enriching our tactile interaction with the world.

“The ridged band on the male foreskin (removed during circumcision) contains thousands of Meissner’s corpuscules, special light-touch nerve endings, located in glabrous (hairless) skin in other areas of the body, including the eyelids, lips, fingertips, and palm of the hand. During sex or masturbation, these nerve endings give a man feedback about where he is in the ejaculatory process. The frenulum (“little bridle”), the structure on the underside of the penis that keeps the foreskin in place (much as the frenulum under your tongue keeps it from flopping around inside your mouth) also contains Meissner’s corpuscules.” 

— Georganne Chapin, Founding Executive Director of Intact America and author of “This Penis Business

2) Guardians of the Body: A Protective Role

Beyond their sensitivity, each delicate area fulfills a vital protective function. The eyelids function as stalwart shields for our precious eyes, shielding them from harmful debris and excessive light that could cause damage. As guardians of the gateway to our digestive system, the lips possess temperature and texture sensitivity, preventing harm before it can breach our bodies. 

Fingertips, despite their sensitivity, possess a resilient layer of skin that shields us from physical injury, allowing us to explore and interact with the world fearlessly. Likewise, the foreskin assumes a pivotal role in safeguarding the glans penis, preserving its sensitivity, cleanliness, and overall integrity, and ensuring optimal sexual function and well-being.

3) Unparalleled Structure: Adaptations for Excellence

In addition to their sensitivity and protective functions, these body parts showcase unique structural adaptations that enhance their capabilities. The eyelids can blink reflexively, an indispensable response to potential eye damage, ensuring our delicate ocular organs’ continuous and uninterrupted protection. The lips exhibit astonishing flexibility, essential for speech and nourishment consumption; their movements can express many emotions, fostering effective communication and connection with others. Fingertips, distinguished by their distinctive fingerprints, enhance our grip and tactile interaction with the world, allowing us to navigate objects and surfaces with precision and skill. As for the foreskin, its retractability supports optimal hygiene and sexual function.

4) Abundant in Blood Vessels: The Essence of Life

These regions, whether the fingertips tingling with sensation or the lips feeling the warmth of a smile, share a trait of being abundantly supplied with intricate networks of blood vessels. This rich vascular bed enhances its sensitivity to the world around us. It plays a pivotal role in maintaining our body’s equilibrium by regulating temperature and aiding in healing. These vessels also allow for swift adaptation to the changing environment, unveiling the body’s awe-inspiring capacity for defense and rejuvenation.

5) Mucous Membranes: The Barrier Against Pathogens

Except for the fingertips, these body parts are distinguished by mucous membranes, delicate linings that stand as the body’s first line of defense against invading pathogens. These moisture-rich barriers, distinct from the protective outer skin layer, act as vigilant shields, fortifying the body’s immune system against external threats. From the tender inner surfaces of the eyelids to the supple texture of the lips and the protective folds of the inner foreskin, mucous membranes envelop these regions, underscoring their indispensable role in shielding the body from harm.

Exploring the connections between the eyelids, lips, fingertips, and intact penis reveals their shared attributes of sensitivity, protective functions, unique structures, rich vascularization, and the presence of mucous membranes. Our bodies showcase marvels of natural design, with each part playing a critical role in our interactions and connections with the world.

Recognizing these similarities deepens our admiration for the human body’s complexity and emphasizes the importance of preserving its natural state and functions. The foreskin, akin to the eyelids, lips, and fingertips, is a vital component of this beautifully complex system, serving to protect, sense, and engage with the environment uniquely.

Why Intactivism Matters

As a pioneer in advocating for all individuals’ bodily autonomy and integrity, Intact America urges you to support our mission to protect and honor the natural human form. Understanding the significance of each body part in our health, sensation, and well-being empowers us to make informed choices that uphold our body’s natural design.

Join forces with Intact America

Embrace the body’s natural design and champion efforts to preserve bodily integrity. Whether you seek information, wish to contribute, or aim to participate, explore Intact America’s website today. Let’s unite to raise awareness and champion a world where every individual’s bodily autonomy and human rights are respected and fiercely defended.

Join Intact America in our mission.

 

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Marilyn

Marilyn Fayre Milos, multiple award winner for her humanitarian work to end routine infant circumcision in the United States and advocating for the rights of infants and children to genital autonomy, has written a warm and compelling memoir of her path to becoming “the founding mother of the intactivist movement.” Needing to support her family as a single mother in the early sixties, Milos taught banjo—having learned to play from Jerry Garcia (later of The Grateful Dead)—and worked as an assistant to comedian and social critic Lenny Bruce, typing out the content of his shows and transcribing court proceedings of his trials for obscenity. After Lenny’s death, she found her voice as an activist as part of the counterculture revolution, living in Haight Ashbury in San Francisco during the 1967 Summer of Love, and honed her organizational skills by creating an alternative education open classroom (still operating) in Marin County. 

After witnessing the pain and trauma of the circumcision of a newborn baby boy when she was a nursing student at Marin College, Milos learned everything she could about why infants were subjected to such brutal surgery. The more she read and discovered, the more convinced she became that circumcision had no medical benefits. As a nurse on the obstetrical unit at Marin General Hospital, she committed to making sure parents understood what circumcision entailed before signing a consent form. Considered an agitator and forced to resign in 1985, she co-founded NOCIRC (National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers) and began organizing international symposia on circumcision, genital autonomy, and human rights. Milos edited and published the proceedings from the above-mentioned symposia and has written numerous articles in her quest to end circumcision and protect children’s bodily integrity. She currently serves on the board of directors of Intact America.

Georganne

Georganne Chapin is a healthcare expert, attorney, social justice advocate, and founding executive director of Intact America, the nation’s most influential organization opposing the U.S. medical industry’s penchant for surgically altering the genitals of male children (“circumcision”). Under her leadership, Intact America has definitively documented tactics used by U.S. doctors and healthcare facilities to pathologize the male foreskin, pressure parents into circumcising their sons, and forcibly retract the foreskins of intact boys, creating potentially lifelong, iatrogenic harm. 

Chapin holds a BA in Anthropology from Barnard College, and a Master’s degree in Sociomedical Sciences from Columbia University. For 25 years, she served as president and chief executive officer of Hudson Health Plan, a nonprofit Medicaid insurer in New York’s Hudson Valley. Mid-career, she enrolled in an evening law program, where she explored the legal and ethical issues underlying routine male circumcision, a subject that had interested her since witnessing the aftermath of the surgery conducted on her younger brother. She received her Juris Doctor degree from Pace University School of Law in 2003, and was subsequently admitted to the New York Bar. As an adjunct professor, she taught Bioethics and Medicaid and Disability Law at Pace, and Bioethics in Dominican College’s doctoral program for advanced practice nurses.

In 2004, Chapin founded the nonprofit Hudson Center for Health Equity and Quality, a company that designs software and provides consulting services designed to reduce administrative complexities, streamline and integrate data collection and reporting, and enhance access to care for those in need. In 2008, she co-founded Intact America.

Chapin has published many articles and op-ed essays, and has been interviewed on local, national and international television, radio and podcasts about ways the U.S. healthcare system prioritizes profits over people’s basic needs. She cites routine (nontherapeutic) infant circumcision as a prime example of a practice that wastes money and harms boys and the men they will become. This Penis Business: A Memoir is her first book.