Letters to the Editor
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What you'd think IF you were a man . . .
I'm not a man, but if I were, and circumsized, I would be infuriated that I couldn't make the decision for myself.
What a load of crap. If you were a man, you'd just accept it as a fact of life, realize that your penis works just fine and move on.
No, actually, I'll bet that you wouldn't, which says more about you than it does about circumcision.
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Picture Accompanying the Unkindest Cut
If you read the actual description in the article of how a circumcision is done, or if you've ever seen one, you know that the picture that accompanies this article is extremely misleading.
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Well...
We knew from day one that we wanted our son circumcised and not for religious reasons (we're atheists), but for health reasons.
Yes they strapped him down, but I was there by his side the whole procedure which took all of 3 - 5 minutes. I rubbed his forhead and talked to him and though he cried after for the most part he was calm. If anything it was our first bonding moment (Mom couldn't stand to watch).
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Protection from HIV
In the past I thought it was barbaric and unnecessary, just some archaic religious practice. However, recent studies suggest that it protects against HIV and other STDs. African tribes that ritually circumcise their boys have far lower rates of hiv infection than those that do not. Men in Africa are lining up for the procedure.
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You screwed up big-time!
Not because your son was circumcised. But, because you let your parents dictate it. What are you, ten? You should have let them make their case, and tell them you and your wife would decide. Then, actually do that based on what you think is best for the child. As far as your wife not being Jewish, that's when I would have told my mother to bug off, or no one in my household was going to be Jewish.
Best of luck establishing boundaries in any our area of your lives.
Incidentally, my in-laws are Jewish and my family is Christian, and none of them injected themselves into our decision, which was to have our son circumcised.
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Hetero Angst
I gave up trying to count the crybabies in this drivel. Replete with shrill and hysterical wife and mother figures, it reads like a paraphrase of one of German Gay author/cartoonist Ralf König's parodies of heterosexual family life, only mawkish and humorless. Spare us, spare us, spare us!
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re--baby ouch
Most everyone I know circumcised their babies and not from any religious or cultural tradition but because some dr or nurse told them to.
I don't see why it needs to be done in this day and age, warnings about HIV to the contrary. My (all jewish) pediatricians in the 70's told me it was absolutely UNnecessary and they did not recommend it or discourage it -- it was up to us.
I certainly think to cave in and do such a thing because one's parents are in a snit is both cowardly and sets a horrible, simply horrible precedent with those parents. Now they know all they have to do is cry and carry on and the parents will do whatever they want with the child.
They might as well sign over custody.
As for the parents -- grow up. Things change -- traditions, families, children. Just because your grandparents did something is not a compelling enough reason for your children to do it.
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Shave your head - it's cleaner.
Every uncut man knows it takes an extra 5 seconds in the shower to clean under the foreskin. Performing a circumcision for health reasons is like shaving your head because it's easier than using shampoo.
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despair at the human condition
No article has ever laid bare the sheer monstrosity of circumcision quite like this one. I absolutely convulsed into tears when I read about their decision to go ahead a cut him. Nothing short of dire medical need would induce me to circumcise my son. I would weather any criticism, any ostracization to protect my child's basic right to self-determination.
Salon's starred letters show one again that multiculturalism rather than commitment to liberal value defines you. What sickens me that the author, his wife, many readers and the editors at Salon care more about some arbitrary cultural practice than the rights of an individual. It painfully shows the totalitarian streak which lies at the extreme left just as much as the extreme right. Many of you have become so infatuated with cultural and religious identity that you've utterly lost touch with compassion and reason.
What disturbs me about the author is that he seemingly knows what he did was wrong (look at the title!) and yet he did it anyway. Apparently 'alternative dad' means old-fashioned cowardice and capitulation to your elders. His parents behavior was so vile, self-righteous and manipulative that I would have considered his description hyperbole in any other context. Telling their son that wouldn't recognize their grandson. I mean that's crazy beyond anything I could make up. Why are Jews who barely practice the faith so obsessed with a permanent, irrevocable mark of tribal identity? The mother isn't even a Jew so according to your own religious law neither is the child. The hypocrisy is so naked. It's almost surreal.
To the author's wife: You had a chance to protect your child when it was most vulnerable and you failed. You knew what the right thing to do was and you let yourself be bullied by social convention into mutilating your child's body. In a free society you let barbaric superstition dictate the course of your child's life. You are humanity at its worst laid bare. I only hope your son will find it in his heart to forgive you.
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Neal Pollack is a Coward
This story made me want to vomit. Talk about cowardice; Pollack deserves a Pulitzer Prize for it. His wife should divorce him, pronto, and find a real man. And as for his parents, they should rot in hell for their obsessive religious stupidity. They would disown their grandhchild because he has a flap of skin covering the end of his penis? With idiots like them on either side of the equation, is it any wonder that the Middle East is a nightmare zone?