Oh gosh ~
It is almost time for me to run off to work, but. . . absolutely, the whole circumcision vs. non-circumcision debate, is one which I have witnessed to cause MANY a civil board, to ERUPT into
civil war, over the years. (People get very passionate about this.)
I'll simply say that my sense is:
*In response to Joeychuck's question about an Orthodox
mohel's 'mouth-cleansing' of an infant's circumcision-wound: I've read some of the concerns that have been expressed about this practice, too. It seems to me unhygienic, and unnecessary either for religious (granted, I am no Mosaic scholar) or for medical reasons, and so I think it ought to be dispensed with. (I have a couple of friends who are both doctors, and devout Conservative Jews, and I am sure they would agree.)
*With respect to circumcision itself, I think it is neither as needful as it has sometimes been made out to be; nor as AWFUL, as some have suggested it to be. (My Father isn't circumcised - because he was born at home, not in a hospital, and it wasn't something - in the Depression, that his parents could afford: even though there was a sense, at the time, that it was the right thing to do. I WAS circumcised, because I was born in a hospital, and the practice in North America was universal, at that time.)
*My Dear Old Dad (who is 82, and thankfully does not suffer from Alzheimer's, or live in a nursing home, and is in very good health) has never, to my knowledge, suffered a single day's ill-health, because his foreskin is intact. (Of course, as Jon says, it is all a matter of "keeping one's willy clean" - a phrase I both love, because it's amusing: and also rather dislike, because I had a Scots Uncle Willy, and the term always seems vaguely disrespectful, to him ;-)
*On the other hand, while it is well-known that the foreskin is richly-endowed with nerve-endings, and reputed by all experts in sexology, to be a huge source of pleasure. . . I (being 49): have never gone a single day without being able to whack off three TIMES a day. . . and the whacking has been immensely wondrous and pleasurable to me. . . with no apparent loss of
JOY ;-) NOR (I must tell you) have I ever woken up at midnight, besieged by
nightmares about MY circumcision as an infant, as the virulent 'anti-circ' lobby tells me I
OUGHT to have done.
*When my sister asked me my opinion about whether to circumcise her lads or not, my suggestion was, "I don't think it will change their lives for good or ill CRUCIALLY, either way - but I'd suggest, as long as they are healthy, probably not." (She took my advice.) *I think the uncircumcised penis is a beautiful thing. . . but, on the other hand, I also think the CIRCUMCISED penis is a beautiful thing, as well!* (Mr. K., who is American, is circumcised, and I think HIS penis is beautiful - - - and he's never expressed any angst about this particular issue ;-)
*While I think that, for healthy males who have no religious obligation, non-circumcision is perfectly acceptable as the 'default' decision - I don't spend days and nights weeping and wailing about this either. As do the vast leagues of advocates (men and women) who cry to heaven. . . . "People who steal our foreskins, are MURDERERS and CHILD-MOLESTERS." (This is the sheerest hyperbole, I think.)
*While most men with a foreskin live perfectly HAPPY lives (from cradle to grave) just as long as - like Jon said - they "keep their willy clean" (just like my Dear Old Dad), and as long as, in the oldest of old age, they have proper care and support in nursing. . . the 'anti-circ' lobby has ALSO (I think) over-emphasized some of the sexual detriments, and minimized some of the health benefits, which circumcision can confer.
*As Bobbity has suggested, for those who are older or in ill-health AND lack all the personal supports they might need (which of course they should not): circumcision can, it seems, help prevent certain opportunistic infections, to which a person in those situations might fall prey. (Though, in fairness, this is less an argument for circumcision, than it is in favour of better health-care, for the ill and elderly!)
*However, one fact which the anti-circumcision lobby has been KEEN to DENY - but which has been shown to be true, in a variety of studies, is that: circumcision DOES reduce the rate of contraction of HIV amongst (predominantly heterosexual) men who have unprotected sex with HIV-positive women. I know, I know, that may not mean a lot to many of us HERE - because most of us are GAY, and presumably (and hopefully) we all do our best to engage in PROTECTED sex, but. . . on a world-scale, this is a very significant matter. (I don't say so - the World Health Organization, says so:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumcision_and_HIV) And this is not a negligible matter, I think, for the world at LARGE.
*Albeit that we, as gay men, must limit our risks in different ways. (Because oral sex is of lesser risk - and genital-anal sex is of very HIGH risk, and condom-use remains the best possible preventative measure, as far as the latter is concerned, for us. . . . ) The fact remains that, for great swathes of the world's heterosexual population, who cannot be convinced to use condoms on a regular basis, circumcision can help to mitigate the risk of HIV to some degree. . . not to any perfectly efficacious extent, but to an
important extent.
*And, even for us, there are potentially minor benefits that circumcision can confer - with respect to deterring the propagation of minor urological infections and illnesses. As Jon said, a good hygiene-regime should render most of these risks
negligible, but, the foreskin
is what it is - a lovely, aesthetically pleasing, and richly-endowed source of sexual pleasure: and ALSO a lovely, warm, and sheltered place for bacteria to nest, and grow, sometimes. (Even despite our best efforts.) *To put it in perspective - so is the human MOUTH - and we could hardly do without a MOUTH - at least - I couldn't! LOL! *
But: none of life's blessings, is an UNMIXED blessing ;-)
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So, guys, I dunno:
*I think the Orthodox (or ultra-Orthodox) practice of the
mohels that Joey described, is unhygienic and bad. I don't think most Jews in the present day think it is essential, or even important, to the
bris, or to Jewish life or identity. . . and I bet I could get you some quite traditional (Conservative) rabbis, who would attest to this, also.
*I think the practice of circumcision, generally, while people tend to go at the subject as if it were the "Wars of the Roses" - is a little more complex and nuanced than some people who take up cudgels on either side, usually imagine. There are pro's and con's, on either side.
*While I love Jon, generally, I disagree with his analogy between circumcision, and subscription in a Sunday-school, or catechetical studies of some kind, for young people whose parents are of the Christian faith (for example). *And I know this is a subject that has been much lectured-about by Richard Dawkins, amongst others.*
Dawkins,
et. al., will commonly contend that, one should ONLY be introduced to ANY religious or philosophical idea (or ideal) - apart from that of "pure science" (which is not so 'pure' as one might think - cf. Thomas Kuhn, and so on, but that's a subject for another day) - when one is 21 years old, and one's brain is fully matured.
That's a lovely, idealistic position, but. . . the fact is - the human mind learns most actively, and retentively, and makes most of its emotional associations, from birth, to about the age of 14 or 15. (Very few great pianists, for example, started to hear, love, and play the piano, after the age of 16.) Everything having to do with language, culture, and values, is (I think) very much the same.
While it is quite possible to REJECT a pattern of
mythos and culture, in one's 20's (and many people DO so); and while it is quite possible to adopt an
IDEOLOGY in one's 20's (which is a much thinner, and shallower, thing, than a "mythos", or a culture); it is very difficult to BEGIN TO LEARN, in one's 20's, one's CULTURAL IDENTITY - what it means to be Jewish, or Scottish, or English, or French, or Native American. Or some imponderable and unique combination of some of these (or the whole range of other human) identities (these were simply examples): admixed with subtle familial and/or religious, and/or ethical, values. (I think this is just as true for a Turkish boy who has rejected Islamism in favour of the secularism of Ataturk, as it is for me, a Scottish boy who rejected Calvinism in favour of a gentler, more Arminian eschatology.)
Parents necessarily teach their children their communal identities as a matter of course. And we, as children - necessarily first accept, and then react
against these teachings, in varying proportions. Which is altogether right, and in our gift. But, Jon - I should have thought your family MONSTERS if they HADN'T sent you to your Sunday-school, or catechism, so you could have something to
REACT AGAINST. Else, you would have wound up as some sort of boring robot - a Brussels civil-servant with no values, no ethics, nothing but a manifesto scrawled on a scrap of paper, presented to you, by bureaucrats. Karl Marx thought morality could be made this way. . . but the great sociologists, Max Weber, and Emile Durkheim,
didn't.
Jon, whether you are a Christian or not; an atheist or an agnostic - I am fine with your feelings, and your best intellectual conclusions. BUT - what you MUST realize is. . . . you would not even have the ground to stand upon, and MAKE YOUR CHOICE, unless your family had
TRIED SOMETHING. *And, as a philosophical conservative, this is a reflection I would (and do) urge upon EVERYONE with whom I write, and ever converse. Whether he is circumcised, or not ;-)*
That's it, that's all,
~ "A" XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
*Without family, without history, without our stories - we are lost not only to the world - but to love, and to ourselves.*
