The Truth Seeker

Jul/Aug 1989 issue of The Truth Seeker

The Truth Seeker is an American periodical published beginning in 1873. It was considered the most influential Freethought publication during the period following the American Civil War into the first decades of the 20th Century, known as the Golden Age of Freethought. Though there were other influential Freethought periodicals, Truth Seeker was the only one with a national circulation. The headquarters is in San Diego, California. The Truth Seeker is the world’s oldest freethought publication, and one of the oldest periodicals in America. Among general-readership titles, only Harper’s Magazine, The Atlantic, Scientific American, and The Nation are older.

The July/August 1989 issue of The Truth Seeker was dedicated to articles about circumcision and genital mutilation. It contains the core proceedings of the First International Symposium on Circumcision. It is an early example of intactivist literature.

James W. Prescott, Ph.D., was the editor of The Truth Seeker. He and Marilyn Fayre Milos, R. N., Executive Director of the National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers (NOCIRC), jointly edited the circumcision issue.

Many articles from The Truth Seeker have been transcribed elsewhere.

The Truth Seeker edition, vol 1, no. 3, July/August 1989 and its various articles became the progenitor of future intactivist literature.

Contents

Feature articles

Religious-Psychological Perspectives

• Milos, Marilyn Fayre. Infant circumcision: What I wish I had known.
• Larue, Gerald A. Religious traditions and circumcision.
• DeMeo, James. The geography of genital mutilations.
• Prescott, James W. Genital pain vs. genital pleasure: Why the one and not the other?.

Social-Cultural Perspectives

• Hosken, Fran P. Female genital mutilation: strategies for eradication.
• Badawi, Mohamed. Epidemiology of female sexual castration in Cairo, Egypt.

Medical Perspectives

• George C. Denniston. First do no harm.
• Snyder, James L.. The Problem of Circumcision in America.
• Altshul, Martin. Cultural Bias and the Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) Circumcision Controversy.
• Paul M. Fleiss, David S. Bate & John A. Erickson. Letters.

Legal Perspectives

• Morris, Richard W. The first circumcision case.

• Hardebeck, John W. "Newborn circumcision resolution".

Philosophical/Social Transformations

• Snyder, James L.. Testimony against circumcision.
• Declaration of the First International Symposium on Circumcision

Departments

• James Harvey Johnson. Superior Men, Chapter IV.
• Acknowledgements and Resources

Center insert

• Bonner, Charles A. / Michael Kinane: Circumcision: the legal and Constitutional issues, The Truth Seeker. (1989).
• Duffy, John. Clitoridectomy: A Nineteenth Century Answer to Masturbation.
• Prescott, James W.. Social-Behavioral Characteristics Of Affectionate/Nurturant And Non-Affectionate/Non-Nurturant Primitive Cultures.

External links

The Truth Seeker is available on the Internet in two versions, a digital book edition and a PDF file;

• (25 May 2009). The Truth Seeker: Crimes of Genital Mutilation (Digital Publication), issuu.com. Retrieved 10 January 2021.
• The Truth Seeker.
• Official website. Retrieved 8 January 2021