14 December 2005

This Product Will NEVER Sell Here

A friend from the US sent me an email/link yesterday asking my opinion on the safety of this product called SenSlip, marketed as "the world’s first ever artificial retractable foreskin for circumcised men."
WARNING: That product website contains pictures of the male genitalia and should not be viewed by minors.

This product will NEVER sell here. Who wants an artificial foreskin when every Filipino male has it removed before they reach their 20s? Here, the current cultural mindset is that circumcision separates the men from the boys. It is a rite of passage to manhood. Many adolescent boys still troop to hospitals (those who can afford it) and to hilots or arbularyos (those who have less money) during the summer months of March-April to have their foreskins removed.

If you are a Filipino male in your late adolescent years or worse, in your 30s, and your male friends discovered that you are still uncircumcisized, you will be ostracized, and be the topic of never-ending jokes everytime they see you. You can ask my blogfriends BatJay and Tito Rolly about this. BatJay even made a podcast about the topic.

I wrote about this last year and the sisyphusian task of a group of doctors campaigning against the practice.

Is the product safe? Perhaps. I really wouldn't know. What I'm certain is that it wouldn't make a huge number of buyers here.

7 reactions:

batjay said...

it might sell doc - filipinos might buy it to try the novelty of the experience.

it's also a nice way to experience what it means to be supot again. ngyehehe.

beajerry said...

At first I thought this was a joke...

Toni said...

Ay! Wrong target market nga!

P.S. I got a postcard from you. THANK YOU!!!!!!!!! What a great surprise. Yes, let's get some Japanese food sometime. :)

rolly said...

kung may add-on like, say, bolitas, baka makabenta.

may said...

have nothing to say about the device in your post, but the humongous parol on the right just makes me more homesick. i went to an oriental store a few miles from our house, and they are selling them. a tiny, simple one, for $140.00! whoa!

Dr. Emer said...

Make one for yourself, May. I have a link how-to that goes along with the picture. I think you can find that useful.

BabyPink said...

tama. hindi bebnta 'yan sa pilipinas. may kaibigan akong laging butt of jokes dahil nga supot daw siya. big deal talaga for filipino men, 'no?:)