I Want My Foreskin for Giftmas [Hardcover]

Carl J. Schutt (Author), Carl Schutt (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 22, 2005

Skin is in: I Want My Foreskin For Giftmas is a hilarious, educational and eye-popping look at one man s revolution to end circumcision The first time I went searching I looked under a rock for that little ring of flesh belonging to my cock... So begins 26-year-old Carl Schutt s illustrated quest for the foreskin he unceremoniously lost at birth. After looking in all the unlikely places and told by his apologetic parents that they didn t know any better, Schutt s main character pleads to Santa for his foreskin back. It s his last desperate attempt at putting the skin considered sin back onto my rod. Clearly, this isn t your average fairy tale. But then, this isn t your average book, either. I Want My Foreskin For Giftmas is a colorful, innovative and laugh-out-loud look at one man s struggle to understand his own circumcision and to find a way to restore his mutilated member. Schutt spent seven months creating his work, a detailed, intricate graphic book made with thousands of sheets of colored paper by using the ancient Chinese technique of paper sculpture. But the creation of Giftmas was propelled not only by an imaginative mind, but also by a yearning to educate people about the harms of circumcision. Schutt, a New Jersey resident who had a monthly column about circumcision for menstuff.org, first discovered that not all penises were circumcised during a college semester spent in Italy (Michaelango's David sparked his initial interest) . It was this realization that plunged him into educational overload about the futility of genital mutilation and, eventually, led him to create I Want My Foreskin For Giftmas. While the book is funny and smart, it s also provocative, and the experts are cheering. Marilyn Milos, director of the anti-circumcision group NOCIRC.org, calls it brilliant and the perfect coffee table book for her house. Barbara Maurene White, director of the group FarReach, says Giftmas will become a strong symbolic landmark in the movement. Schutt even recorded a musical read-a-long that can be found on his web site, as well as YouTube.com (search Giftmas). Now available, first-run editions of I Want My Foreskin For Giftmas is perfect for the kid circumcised or not in all of us.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Brilliant, It's a PERFECT coffee table book -- at least in my house! --Marilyn Milos, 1/28/05

I believe it (Giftmas) also will become a strong symbolic landmark in the movement. --Maurene White 2/6/05

Thank you so much for your insight and skills. --Jody McLaughlin 3/4/05

About the Author

Schutt, a New Jersey resident who has a monthly column about circumcision for menstuff.org, first discovered that not all penises were circumcised during a college semester spent in Italy. It was this realization that plunged him into educational overload about the futility of genital mutilation and, eventually, led him to create I Want My Foreskin For Giftmas.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Inkus Imagination (April 22, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0975320262
• ISBN-13: 978-0975320266
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,568,075 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Grinch Who Stole My Foreskin!, July 11, 2005

By 

Buck (Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: I Want My Foreskin for Giftmas (Hardcover)

On a warm May morning in 1948 an unknown doctor assaulted my infant body and mutilated my penis. I have been angry about it every day since! Thanks to Carl Schutt my anger has found its voice. In "I Want My Foreskin For Giftmas," Schutt tackles a very adult topic from the perspective of a little boy who has been robbed of his birthright. That little boy was Schutt, but he also was me and millions of others like us. We were defenseless against doctors too eager to perform unnecessary surgery and parents too ignorant to stop them! This book is creative, funny, and irreverent. It is a great read for everyone and a primer for all parents thinking of taking from their sons what no boy should be forced to give away. Bravos for Schutt!

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Playfully challenges status quo, December 30, 2005

By 

Courtney C. Singrey (St Louis, MO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: I Want My Foreskin for Giftmas (Hardcover)

This offbeat book bursts with color, imagination, raw emotion, wit, and an idealism that challenges the reader to pause and ask, "What if we've been doing it wrong all along?"

The artist and author, Carl Schutt, combines art, craft, and folk art to create a book full of humor and social commentary about why we (Americans) insist on a surgical procedure that most pediatricians agree is painful and wholly unnecessary, i.e. circumcision.

The author creates a tone that is at one moment analytically irreverent about the outmoded Judeo-Christian holdover and in the next moment cloaks himself by assuming the voice of a forlorn, foreskinless child who wonders what it would be like to be whole again. The book's searching and fearless inspection brings into the fray parents, God, and yes...even Santa! No stone is unturned.

The author/artist is an iconoclast who finds a way to smartly broach a subject that could stand to be reexamined even though it remains, for the most part, unchallenged. Who can think of a topic so taboo that its first mention at a party full of urban hipsters would result in a choking halt in conversation?

Implicitly under attack is that uptight male machismo that says, "I'm cut and there's nothing wrong with me!" Well, what if instead of there being "nothing wrong" we could all strive for an ideal and, well, be intact and unmodified? Carl Schutt exclaims that circumcision is the male body image crisis equivalent to that of a middle-aged Orange County woman retooled by countless touches of the plastic surgeon's knife; and yet it's a body image crisis that our culture artificially creates, propagates, and hoists upon boys who are only days old. What if this should be changed? What if this could be changed? It's this sort of idealism and visionary spirit that makes this creation refreshing.

Visually the book appears to have been constructed from a million shavings of felt, paper, cardboard, and other banal materials; these common media are brought together by a hand fraught with an almost maniacal need for precision, energy, and speed.

"Foreskin for Giftmas" is the ultimate gift for enlightened parents-to-be, for people who are initiates in the "zine" culture, or anyone who appreciates a clever creation like this that pushes the edge of human understanding.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Love it, June 19, 2005

By 

Leigh Zaleta (Manahawkin, NJ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: I Want My Foreskin for Giftmas (Hardcover)

I Want My Foreskin For Giftmas is amazing. Nothing like I've ever seen or read before. Every inch of the book is paper art. It's genius! As entertaining and comical as it is, it also serves great purpose. Hats off to C. Schutt!!!