Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jennifer Kaufman on May 11, 2011 at 12:43pm

I appreciate your response, and understand the humor.  The thing is:  a few years ago, I would have probably been almost as strident as you.  (me being female probably matters, eh?)

 

The point is that sometimes things happen.  Life doesn't work the way we want it to. My grandfather starved in the depression until he finally relented and ate pork. 

 

Trust me, the docs and I explored the other options.  I did not rush to surgery.  It occurs to me that circum. probably started off innocently enough epochs ago when some poor kid actually needed it, or would have had gangrene.   

 

Feel welcome to reply. We are both (almost) agreeing.

Permalink Reply by Michael Pianko on May 11, 2011 at 5:25pm

FYI: circumcision started in order to prevent masturbation, and/or to sexually reduce males.  After all masturbation causes blindness, epilepsy, and any other illness people want it to cause.  Religion hates sexuality, circumcision is one of the symptoms of this meshugas.  Other symptoms are the family purity laws, shomer negia, single gender schools, inability of religious people to admit that sex exists, and so on.  I just can't believe someone could get gangreen just precicely so that it is only exactly on the tissue that gets cut off Jews and mutilated no-Jewish males and on not at all on the shaft or scrotum or any other body part.  I think its probably true that your son could have been spared, although I realize its massively impolite to actually point this out, you know, its like accusing you of being wrong for doing what you thought you had to do before I came along and gave better options.

 

I have no clue why I should think you being female matters.  Males and females are equally responsible for butchering me. 

Permalink Reply by Jennifer Kaufman on May 12, 2011 at 6:02am

Wow.   I am sorry for what happened to you, and how you were treated by the adults in your life who should have protected and honored the child in their care.  

 

I'd like to clarify a few things.  My use of the word gangrene was just a guess off the top of my head...like MAYBE somebody somewhere thousands of years ago had some horrible infection, got the barbaric surgery, and then the religious muckety-mucks observed that the poor kid spent less time in his hut spending quality time with himself.  Agreed, things like that somehow become a "revelation" from their god.

May I ask you to put yourself in my son's place, say 15 years from now; he could be writing in some futuristic forum about how he always had these peculiar infections. Mom was always buying a special cream that stings.  He went to more docs than his buddies, and he wasn't toilet trained until after kindergarten...   Imagine how this alternative reality kid who got a bad deal would see the world (and me) once he found out how differntly life could have gone.

 

Thank you for talking about this.   I've felt guilty about this over time, but I am able now to resolve this ongoing issue.  Sometimes it isn't only about me as a parent or a thinker in an abstract setting, but someone who saw the reality which made me realize how nothing is truly black or white.

Permalink Reply by Michael Pianko on May 12, 2011 at 7:59pm

Nothing personal, its not you personally I'm angry at, its my situation and maybe how people think the problem is imaginary, and how my family thinks there is something so special abou tbeing an unbroken link in a chain that has been going on for 1000's of years and in order to have this womderful feeling you have to pay hundreds of dollars so a moyl can hurt your son... anyway, sometimes I make the mistake of insisting that a person is wrong for thinking that sometimes, circumcision is necessary... of course, they are wrong, but actually pointing this out does no good and nobody likes to be made to have such guilt over what they did when there is nothing to do about it now...but I learned this all while telling my family and my moyl how violated and wronged I was... Anyway, I see circumcision in the field of purposful body marking or injury, like patterns of scars or slicing the foreskin or female mutilation or tattoos or piercings, and so on... and I think Judaism implicitly wants to sexually reduce males, and then we are supposed to take all this frustration and put it toward studying the Torah and the Talmud and Jewish holy texts... But I found evidence that some Jews don't get their son circumcised and they overcome their guilt and scrupulosity, they don't let people kvetch at them for not hurting their son, and there is no evidence there is a God who is punishing these parents. 

Permalink Reply by Jennifer Kaufman on May 12, 2011 at 9:08pm

When it comes right down to it, so many of the traditions are so peculiar. Decades ago my cousin got a tattoo, my aunt was so upset because then he would never be able to be buried in a Jewish cemetry as he had "marked" himself. But this (male) cousin who is reform pointed out that he was marked when he was 8 days old...this modification was something HE chose.

 

Recently this same aunt had her ears pierced, not just once but 3 times in each ear! And her sister (my mom---the same one who was threatening to sit shiva for me because of not doing the traditional bris) had her eyebrows tattooed on.   Both old ladies claim that they follow the important rules.  Huh?? A rule is a rule/tradition. Nope. 

 

I think everyone just does what makes him/her happy and if they can point to a god to back them they do; if they can't then they tell us that WE are too literal.  Messed up.

Permalink Reply by Michael Pianko on May 17, 2011 at 1:53pm

We were just beating around the bush before. Lets just get right to the point: Every incidence of male sex-organ mutilation that has ever been done and every instance of male sex-organ mutilation that ever will be done should not have been done and should not be done.  This mutilation is an abomination and is wrong from every single possible argument angle.  Your son is not an exception.  Adult circumcision is just as wrong.  It should not exist.  Nobody should be presented with the choice to mutilate or not mutilate; the decision should not exist. 

Permalink Reply by Jennifer Kaufman on May 17, 2011 at 3:34pm

Hi Michael.  I feel like you are throwing down a gauntlet and attempting to engage me in an argument.  But it would be a poor one because I am someone who agrees very much with you, albeit not as stridently and allows for exception and reasonings to be used for cause.  Plus, as you'll recall, my child was a toddler, the discussion we had earlier was not only about Adult circumcision.  

 

I don't see how people can take an 8 day infant and mutilate him for reasons best known to their primitive ideas and ignorant logic.  BUT for the same reason, just because thousands and thousands of people have non-thinkingly followed this bizarro logic doesn't mean I should steadfastly refuse to have my son medically circucised by a doctor with proper medical care for legit reasons. 

Permalink Reply by Michael Pianko on May 28, 2011 at 5:15pm

Technically, telling people sex-organ mutilation is wrong won't do me any good.  Talking to people about the problem won't give me back what I could have had, and technically, its safer and easier for me to just quit caring.  And technically, your son should not have been circumcised.  But there is nothing you can do about it.  There is no such thing as a legit reason.  Circumcision is a euphemism for sex-organ mutilation.  Do not say circumcision.  You must call it be an appropriate non-Euphemism, like male sex-organ mutilation, (often done for bogus medical reasons), or religiously sanctioned violence against males.  I can be objective because I do not have children and in case any son I do have has a foreskin "problem" there will be no sex-organ mutilation and I kind of would like to take anybody who tries to touch his organs and put their head through the wall.  Its less selfish and more moral for me to assume that lets not worry about what harm was already done; this should not happen to anybody else.  All foreskin problems are as imaginary as HaShem.  Its not your fault your son got harmed.  Its the governments fault for not making curcumcision illegal.  After all, female mutilation became illegal in 1996, and until the 1960's they sometimes did female mutilation on middle and upper class white girls right here in the USA, and at the University of Chicago Hospital.  Blue cross-Blue shields would pay for a female mutilation until 1977.  Don't be culturally biased.  Some cultures have to hurt their daughters for a similar reason my parents had to pay hundreds of $$ to get me nearly killed in their home while I screamed my heart out and my mother was in another room.  Blood loss causes brain damage, and infants only have 12 oz of blood.  Female children get vulva infections sometimes but they get treated better than males. 

Permalink Reply by Michael Pianko on May 28, 2011 at 5:36pm

In fact in case I have any children, they will not get shots or blood tests, and doctors cannot feel for their internal organs.  No water ear-irrigating machines will be used.  The proper thing to do for wax buildup is to go to a special doctor who uses a tool to scoop out the wax.  I was traumatized by doctor visits and I'm not such an unenlightened, insensitive shmuk that I would actually let my own children go through the same crap I went through. I think some people like to think that life has to be hard and if life isn't hard enough, lets invent bogus reasons to make us suffer more. 

Permalink Reply by Michael Pianko on June 3, 2011 at 10:52pm

From http://www.drmomma.org/2009/08/protect-your-uncircumcised-son-exper...

-Your son's foreskin is red, inflamed, itching, and uncomfortable. It has an infection and needs to be cut off:

Sometimes the tip of the foreskin does become reddened. During the diaper-wearing years, this is usually ammoniacal dermatitis, commonly known as diaper rash. When normal skin bacteria and feces react with urine, they produce ammonia, which burns the skin and causes inflammation and discomfort. If the foreskin were amputated, the inflammation would be on the glans itself and could enter the urethra. When the foreskin becomes reddened, it is doing its job of protecting the glans and urinary meatus.

Circumcision will have no effect on diaper rash. Change your baby's diapers more frequently and use a barrier cream until the rash clears. Harsh bath soaps can also cause inflammation of the foreskin. Use only the gentlest and purest of soap on your child's tender skin. Resist the temptation to give your child bubble baths, because these are harmful to the skin. Never use soap to wash the inner foreskin because it is mucous membrane, just like the inner lining of the eyelid.

Foreskin infections are extremely rare, but if they occur, one of the many simple treatment options is antibiotic ointment along with bacterial replacement therapy (Acidophilus culture). We don't amputate body parts because of an infection. Most infections of the foreskin are actually caused by washing the foreskin with soap. Leave the foreskin alone, remembering that it doesn't need any special washing, and infections will be unlikely to occur.

Permalink Reply by Will Faithless Sophia on June 13, 2011 at 2:13am

My parents are effectively messianic Jews, and I have to say that sadly I was circumcised (just for this I have a good reason to hate my parents and society) - I deal with the pain, inconvenience, and damaged sexuality every day. Circumcision is mutilation, the organized brutal rape of babies soon after they are born, done usually as a whim, or because 'God said to.' It's sickening, and I will never forgive those who did this to me, and continue to do this to others. Hell they still advertise it in flyers at the hospital I visit. Fracking sick, barbaric.

Permalink Reply by Michael Pianko on June 16, 2011 at 5:07pm

 

In my experience there is no way to have a rational, effective discussion about ritual male-infant sex-organ mutilation with someone who believes in it. It is part of their religion and my family and a lot of religious people get defensive and angry when you say any part of their religion is wrong. Anyone who has a son and believes in this mutilation, will make sure it is done no matter what we say. But usually, god viruses evolve to be compatible with the culture they live in – for example Christianity and Judaism supported slavery but not anymore in most countries – and I read somewhere that many Jewish boys born in Sweden are not circumcised. So, male sex-organ mutilation will continue in the U.S. until normative, generic non-Jewish American culture quits circumcising, or recognizes how traumatic this mutilation is or until the non-Jewish medical establishment refuses to do non-Jewish male mutilation and/or until this mutilation becomes illegal. Judaism is a sex-negative culture, and this mutilation is just a symptom of how much Judaism hates sex. America is also a sex-negative culture but (at least non-evangelical/ non-fundamentalist) Judaism evolves to be compatible with whatever culture it is surrounded by.

 

Stanley Milgroym did experiments in the 1960's, demonstrating how about 60% of otherwise decent people can be somewhat easily brainwashed into hurting other people even when the people being tormented are yelling their hearts out in protest. The first thing my mother and aunt did when they found out I was a boy was to find an ad for a moyl in the local Jewish news and call him. My parents paid several hundred dollars and my mother was in another room when I was crying my heart out and getting almost killed. 30 people came for the celebration, and there was a spread of food and alcohol. My aunt tried to tell me how gentle it was, when I asked her about it when I was 27. My brother and his wife might have a kid, and I will never go to any bris. I gave them a him a copy of “Questioning Circumcision, a Jewish Perspective”, by Ronald Goldman,. Weeks later when I asked, my brother said he didn't read it and told me if he they have a son they will have a bris.

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• Next ›
• Page