Monday, May 16, 2011

Controversy! Whoa!

Before I get into today's topic, I just have to share: today after work I walked into my office's gym and my CEO was standing there shirtless. We then spent an incredibly awkward half-hour stair-stepping next to each other in almost complete silence (yes, he'd long since put his shirt on). I may never go to the gym again, which is really bad because I just ate 3 tacos and I LOVE baked goods.

Now to talk about penises (penii? penes? I know, it's penises, but go ahead and say "penes" out loud and then try to tell me that's not WAY more fun to say) - and please, let me stress with all my little being that this second bit of my post has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AT ALL to do with the first. Nothing. Please don't even think about that first paragraph in relation to the rest of this post, okay? Deal.

So... circumcision. Let's chat about it.

Not too long ago, this came up in conversation with one of my best girl friends, whom I will call Genie. We have some of the best and weirdest convos, and this one was no exception: to cut, or not to cut?

Today, Genie told me that she'd learned from a new mother friend of hers exactly what's involved in this. "They have to strap the baby down They stick a needle in his little peen, they cut the skin away from the peener, then they take the freshly cut (still attached) skin and grip it w 2 pincher things, THEN they leave the pinchers attached to the peener for 5 minutes. FIVE MINUTES. Then they cut the skin off and it's over."

So what part of that sounds like a perfectly normal thing that we should be doing?!?

My Australian friend is horrified by the whole thing. "When it comes down to it, you're cutting chunks off a baby. How is that not crazy? If I cut the finger off my child, I would probably go to jail."

It's true, I agreed. It's performing an unnecessary surgical procedure on a non-consenting child. When you put it like that, it sounds illegal.

Then I began to ask other guys. One friend of mine doesn't have children yet, so it was hypothetical. He said he probably would do the procedure - "because my parents thought it best for me." Another friend already has a toddler. I asked if he'd had it done to his son, and he said, "Yes, and it was terrifying."

Me: Why did you do it?
Him: Because I am and that's what I know.
Me: If you had another son, would you do it again?
Him: Probably... so when they fight it's one less thing to argue about.
Me: What do you mean?
Him: "haha, Dad likes me more because he didn't cut my penis off."

Some people argue an uncut penis is weird. Unusual. But here's what Genie and I have discovered: it's not that different. Once that fella is out to play, it's all pretty much the same. In fact, when we originally had this conversation, I was chatting about it with a guy I dated a few years ago.

Me: circumcision blah blah
Him: yeah I'm not cut blah blah
Me: blah blah... wait... what?

That's right - I'd slept with him, more than once, and had NO IDEA his little guy was wearing a hoodie in his off-hours. Makes me wonder if there have been others I don't know about! Made no difference to me, clearly. Just keep the peen clean, guys!

And now, the floor is open for discussion... ready... GO!

3 comments:

  1. Having only seen pictures of turtle necks they look weird to me.

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  2. It's outdated religious mutilation and should be banned. People who do it because their parents did it to them are idiots who apparently missed "critical thinking" class in school.

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  3. Most of my experiennce is with uncircumsized penii, and it throws me when I encounter one without its hoodie. They look... naked somehow. The only thing that really changes (from my experience, anyway) is that hand jobs are easier when they're uncut.

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