More penis talk.

I recently read an essay by Patrick Hooper that you can read HERE regarding a young man's opinion about his own circumcision, which, like most babies who are circumcised, happened when he was an infant.

Now, it's no secret that I am not supportive of routine infant circumcision.  But there was a time, not long ago, when I assumed it was what you were supposed to do and if I ever had a son, he would be circumcised, as if it wouldn't even be a decision that I was being asked to make, that it would just happen.  My mind changed when my sister in law, and co-writer of this blog, Kiki, had her son, three years before I had mine, and she and her husband decided not to have him circumcised.  That was the first time I ever wondered about why you wouldn't want to circumcise your son.  I mean, prior to this, I knew a few people who weren't, not that I'd ever SEEN them, or anything.  These men were all normal.  They had friends.  Girlfriends.  Wives.  None of them had been ridiculed as a teenager, girls hadn't run shrieking from them once said appendage was revealed to be au natural... But, as I said, it was still something that wasn't "normal".  And usually, upon finding out someone was intact, there would be a murmur of, "Oh? Oh, well, um, cool, didn't know that...".  Right?  Not a huge deal, but something to tuck away in your mental catalog of that person.  "Bob Smith - Plumber.  Likes red cars.  Freaky penis".

And so it was with me.

But back to my mind shift.  Upon learning that my nephew's genitals retained their birth integrity, I did a little research.  As any good Anthropologist knows, we don't do anything without there being layers upon layers of reasons.  But what I basically discovered (which, I suppose, deep down I had always known), circumcision was an archaic practice drummed up in pre-biblical times.  The exact reasons get fishy.  Submission?  A sacrifice of the flesh?  Keep men from masturbating? (haha!!!) But, what it came down to is simply, we don't really know why, but we do it, it had some ritual reason and eventually, over time, we started tacking on "medical reasons" like hygiene, std prevention, penile cancer prevention, etc. Well, because it's SO easy to find a TON of information on why routine circumcision is unnecessary, I'll let you look for yourselves if you are interested.  So why do we still do it?  Well, the reason I can see, looking at it anthropologically, is that it is now ingrained in our cultural psyche.  It doesn't take a long time for things to come into and leave, for that matter, our zeitgeist.  Really, just one generation.  I mean, look at smoking.  Pretty much everyone these days KNOWS it's not good for you.  Sure, some people still do it, but really, it's not like Mad Men anymore.  I'm in my thirties, I can remember my mom and her friends smoking every time they got together.  None of them smoke anymore.  So.  Um, how did that happen?  Well, we learned that it was bad, so people stopped doing it.  Well, same goes for circumcision.  100 years ago, it really was not that popular of a practice in the US.  Nary a Brit or a German was cut, so really, it was primarily something done by various religious groups.  Why did it become a popular thing for Americans to pick up?  (Talkin' bout the Gentiles here).  Well, basically, an asshole named Dr. Kellogg thought masturbation was evil and thought that circumcision was a way to curb it's appeal to lusty youngsters.  That, and cages and cuffing their hands at night.  Funny how the genital cutting really caught on, though.  So, that's kind of the origins of how it exploded in popularity and became "the thing to do to your kids wang" at the turn of the century.

So what's the point of my inane ramblings today?  Surely I'm not making any friends here.  But I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad, either.  Really, I'm not.  I just think it's something that should be brought back OUT into the cultural discussion.  Perhaps over a fine Pinot Grigio at your next garden party you casually ask your new acquaintance, "So, what do you think about foreskins?  Canape?"  You may be surprised at their answer.  Maybe they, too, have been wondering about this as well.  Or not.  Maybe they'll throw their carefully mixed Tom Collins in your face, saturating your SJP for Halston bubble dress and stalk off haughtily saying, "I can cut whatever I want off my child, thankyouverymuch".  But, likely, the response is that everyone will be a bit squirmy and awkward.  But here's something funny, never once have I looked upon a friend or relative's circumcised baby boy and made any sort of comment about it, like, "whoa, you circumcised your son, huh?".  Nor have I ever even had any thoughts other than like, "whoops, that kid's naked", or if it's an infant and I'm changing him, I might be thinking, "Please don't pee on me, babe".  Yet, I have had people, upon seeing my naked cherub as an infant, be like, "What?  What?  What's going on there?!  Isn't your husband circumcised?!"  So now we're talking about HIM are we?  Well, I'll just share, as I'm sure my husband won't mind (who by the way, has actually performed MANY (I have recently learned) circumcisions on infants AND adults while in Med School.   Until recently, I thought he'd only watched or whatever, but hooo, no.  So keep that in mind, you might be getting a med student circing your kid) me telling you that he is in fact circumcised.  Is he wigged out by what might be a future "why's my doober different than your's, Daddy?" question from our boy?  No.  Really, how hard does anyone think that conversation has to be? "Well son, it's something that people used to do, but we know we don't need to do it anymore, so lots of little boys are being left intact, just the way they were born".  I don't know, that doesn't seem too emotional, gutting, confusing, or traumatic to me.  *shrug*  Now, I do understand that some dad's get really really really passionate about this.  Luckily, my husband was not.  Probably because, as I mentioned, he's actually done it to other people's little babies, and he just didn't see the need to do it to his own child.  If he HAD been all "dealbreaker!!" about it, well, I suppose I would have deferred to him eventually.  Not without a fight, but if it was crucially important to him, because, well, the penis IS pretty darn important to a man, so I can see where some men are coming from on this issue, I would have probably gone along with it.  I'm not going to destroy my marriage over it, and I have heard of some women making this claim.  Surely those women are now calling me a horrible, mutilating cow.  That's okay, it's the internet, there are a lot of opinions on here.

As for the other reasons I have heard supporting circumcision that aren't the dodgy "medical" ones, such as, "It's ugly", "girls will make fun of him", "ewww, it looks funny", and "he'll get made fun of in the locker room".  All I can say is this.  "Um, really?"

So I guess I've covered it.  I think it's good to discuss what is really important to you.  Lots of things are important to me.  NO beach driving, breast feeding, sustainability, gentle discipline, Attachment Parenting, cookies, AIDS research, the environment, fighting offshore drilling and on and on.  Circumcision is just one of them.  I'm not one to have lame-o conversations with people about stupid things like the weather and the number of calories in a Frappuccino.  Life's too short to only talk about the inane.  And sometimes it's good to talk about the inane, but lots of times, it's good to keep it real and be yourself, even if other's disagree with you.  Isn't that the way we learn from one another?

So, there's my very professional take on this hot topic that I wish wasn't so emotional and simply more, "Hey, maybe we should just stop doing this".  Let's not make a big deal out of it if we have, and let's move on from there.