I, like many of my other mom friends, am horrified about the recent suicide death of a gay teen after internet bullying. Here is more about it if you don't know what I'm referencing.
I am not eloquent, nor do I often get my thoughts out the way I want them to be heard.
Granted, unnecessary circumcision has been on my mind a lot lately, but it has occurred to me in the last couple of days that several of my less-granola friends are preaching tolerance, yet they genitally mutilated their sons for the sake of looking like their father or not being teased in the locker room.
If you will go so far as to perform cosmetic surgery on your precious newborn to make them "look normal," what kind of message is that sending our sons? That ridiculing each other for the appearance of their genitals is okay? No? Hmmmm... but we should circumcise anyway because it will happen anyway? What are you telling your sons about the intact boys? We didn't want you to be teased so we cut you, but don't tease the guys that are intact... their mamas didn't know any better.... sigh.
It is NOT okay to bully, tease, torture each other about ANYTHING. Not about our sexuality, not about the way any part of our body looks.
It is my hope and dream that the unnecessary genital mutilation of our infants will end, that we can love and accept each other just the way we are. That tolerance will be the norm. That tolerance will begin with the lesson of an intact foreskin.
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8 hours ago
Indeed!!! Well put Jodi! I almost always avoid this conversation because it ends in frustration on my part. Of my 4 boys, 3 are intact. With the 1st, I was uneducated and didn't know any better, regretfully so. When this conversation pops up with some of my mom friends who are all about circumcision, I find that my sons aren't the focus of ridicule, but that I am. "How could you put your children thru that (teasing, etc)!?!" (But cutting them is okay???) Ugh, I say!
ReplyDeleteYou'll be happy to know that our stance on the "locker room teasing" bit is as follows: "Why the hell is your kid even looking at my son's penis in the first place?!!" That usually ends the conversation. :)