Dude, That's Schmucked Up!
The legal merits of whacking off - and not the pleasant kind Marty Beckerman
Let’s cut to the chase; I’d hate to leave you hanging.
Next month the Oregon Supreme Court will decide on whether a Jewish convert can circumcise his child. Several Jewish organizations are hysterical—what else is new?—filing “friend of the court” amicus briefs on behalf of the slash-happy daddy.
“[A]ny decision to single out circumcision as a basis for questioning the fitness of the custodial parent would violate the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of religion,” claim the foreskin-shredding Israelites. A representative for the American Jewish Congress said, “We have to win this case, and win it big…”
On the other hand, the group Doctors Opposing Circumcision argues: “Parents are free to practice their religion and to have religious beliefs, but they are not free to change the physical body of their child at will,” and “cannot endanger the child in any way.”
The American people seem to increasingly favor the anti-circumcision camp in practice: between 1965 and 2004 circumcisions declined nearly 30 percent in the United States, although recent research suggests that circumcision significantly chops (ha!) the risk of HIV infection. In August 2007 many Australian hospitals—reviving the policy of Nazi Germany—forbade circumcision for non-medical reasons.
It’s a fascinating paradox for those concerned with personal liberties: should parents have the freedom to practice their religion, or should young people have the freedom to make their own choices about their anatomy (“junk”) when they become adults?
Author Andrew Sullivan, an eloquent writer who spends his days hoping that the Vatican will embrace his trademark brand of Catholic homosexuality, has campaigned against what he dubs “Male Genital Mutilation,” a form of “barbarism” because it “drastically decreases male sexual sensitivity.” Out of respect for Sullivan’s righteous GOP-bashing I’ll skip the obvious joke about his passion for male sexual sensitivity, but I’d appreciate it if he could explain why I jacked my “barbarized” pecker 27,000 times as a teenager and continue to strive for two daily jerks even with a steady girlfriend?
But don’t take my word for it. A 2005 British urological study examined men who were circumcised as adults. Three-quarters "had no change in their libido," while "[p]enile sensation improved after circumcision in 38% but got worse in 18%, with the remainder having no change." The majority felt "satisfaction" with the operation, and nearly half "thought the penis appearance improved after circumcision."
Liberal Jews such as authors Shalom Auslander and Neal Pollack are increasingly uncomfortable (so to speak) with circumcising their male offspring. They face a complicated moral dilemma. However, this Oregon Supreme Court case is more retarded than a Chernobyl incest baby—and I’m quite aware that Chernobyl Incest Baby would make an awesome band name—because the young lad in question isn’t a newborn; he’s twelve years old. His mother, who does not have custody over the boy, opposes the Semitic Snip, and media reports suggest that the father is ready to “force” his son to undergo the procedure.
So the question isn’t whether the Jewish ritual of circumcising one-week-olds is child abuse, as the Jewish and anti-circumcision organizations would have you believe; it’s whether a pubescent kid can legally oppose the annihilation—the “Holocaust,” if you will—of his Smegma-Supplying Skin Sheath.
Jewish law stipulates that at age thirteen—which is how old the kid will be (at the very least) by the time this ordeal is over—a boy becomes responsible for his own decisions instead of his parents. Even if Jewish law didn’t say this, a parent still wouldn’t have the right to mar a thinking, sentient human being against his will—causing him enormous pain and long-lasting trauma—for non-medical reasons. This is called child abuse, ya’ putz.
However, those who view circumcision as an “archaic blood ritual” stand on shaky ground by suggesting that the majority of Jews are child abusers—especially since our boys kick your goy slacker asses when it comes to the LSAT, MCAT, Nobel Prize, Control of All Mass Media, etc. And they’re wrong for two reasons: A) babies cannot remember this kind of pain, and B) chicks think that foreskins are disgusting, which is totally understandable. Dear Gentiles: your genital appendixes look like Saggy Flesh Aliens—something that would grow tentacles and perform unspeakable acts in a dirty anime movie—and I would rather lose a tiny bit of sensation than have my cock look like a Gnarly Mutant Corndog.
Of course, Female Genital Mutilation should remain illegal because it deprives women of any future sexual fulfillment—what a tragedy!—but this current anti-circumcision movement is a stupid moral panic over nothing. Millions of horny Jewish guys experience sexual pleasure; it's Jewish WOMEN who are impossible to please.
The above work is the opinion of the author, and not necessarily that of the Prometheus Institute.
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