Lilac Colored Glasses

I wanted CB to be a guest poster today to talk about the whole foreskin thing from a male perspective. I asked him to do it several times over the past few weeks but there was no post prepared for this evening. In fact, I’ll probably be asked to remove this part of the post by him after he reads it tonight. But I don’t think I will.

Anyway, in lieu of what I was hoping to give you, I’ve opted to take a creative route and I am combining Haiku Friday with the final installment of For Skin Fridays:

Intact penises
Unlike cut ones, have built in
Moisturization

No matter your choice
All parents really want is
A happy penis

And that, my friends, is all I have to say about that. For other haikus click on the pretty button below.

So I’m registered in a series of lectures offered through Gent Univeristy called “Low Countries Studies” which offers a 90 minute talk every Thursday evening on different aspects of the “low countries” which are Flanders and the Netherlands. There are 12 lectures and if you attend at least 6 of them you get a nifty little certificate. We figured this was a good idea for me to do, a. because it forces me to get my reclusive ass out of the house at least once a week and b. a certificate stating that I completed a university affiliated course about Flanders definitely can’t hurt when I have to take my legally required integration classes.

I missed the first lecture because I forgot to look up when it started and I opted out of the second one cause it was cold and rainy and I’m a whining baby when it comes to cold and rainy. The third one took place this evening and was titled ” The Urban Roots of Medieval Europe”. This one definitely sounded like it was worth attending. I’m a huge fan of Medieval history so I figured this one would be right up my alley.

Here are the two things that I learned today during the lecture. I am passing this wisdom on to all of you:

1. The most annoying words to type into a text message are words with the “igh” combination ( i.e. might, light, sight). I hate waiting for the little cursor to stop blinking so that I can move on to the next letter. I don’t think Dutch has that letter combination…I should start texting CB in Dutch.
2. For anyone who ever chooses to visit a foreign country, keep this in mind; I highly doubt that my lack of smell will ever make anyone gag or give anyone a headache. I don’t wear scented deodorant (in fact I just discovered Nivea deodorant and I’m in love) and I use 2 spritzes of perfume in the morning so when I say lack of smell, I really mean it. To the people out there who opt not to wear something as simple as deodorant…no, who opt to not event pat some baking powder under their arms, I would like to tell you that your pungent pits can and will make some of us gag. And when there are 50 of you in a room of 100 it is enough to drive someone to distraction. Please, and I’m not trying to be ethnocentric here but, please for the love of all that is good and kind in this world, if you travel to a country where the common standard of hygiene is to NOT smell of unwashed sweaty armpit, do us all a favor and buy a stick of deo, or at least a box of Arm n Hammer.
   

Every day for the past couple weeks, late in the afternoon, Rex approaches the bottom drawer of the large desk in the office. He stands up and paws it until I open it and then he hops in, curls up and goes to sleep.

At least we know he’s not claustrophobic.
Crazy friggin cat.

In case I haven’t ever mentioned this, I am an esteemed alumnus of the Robert E. Cook Honors College of Indiana University of Pennsylvania (RECHC for short). For each unit of honors core we had to use the knowledge gained from our class to answer specific core questions. For instance, for my first unit the core question was: What is good, what is bad, therefore, what do I do? And joy of joys I got to take philosophy for that unit. My proffessor, Dr. B, was an intimidating but totally cool woman who started off the class by asking us why incest was wrong and then, when we gave reasons, she disproved all of them. And when we were all shaken and scared and convinced that incest was, in fact, totally ok, she informed us that it was wrong because it was a socially prescribed paradigm. Hello, world of relativity. Ugh.

Anyway, over the past couple weeks I have given some history of circumcision as well as my own personal experience with circumcision as an adult. And now that I have that knowledge, what do I do?

Well, I have to say that it is my belief that circumcision, like most of the other rules listed in Leviticus, was most likely enforced for hygiene purposes. Perhaps it was even a way for the people back then who followed the Jewish (or Muslim) religion to distinguish themselves from their gentile counterparts. In this day and age, however, I see foreskin pretty much the same way as I see tonsils; it’s a part of the body that does serve a specific function and removing it as a preventative measure or simply because it’s routine, does not make sense to me. Nor do I feel that it’s neccesary to physically alter any of my children as a means of showing a covenant to a god that I don’t believe exists.

Besides, I personally have pierced ears (and at one point my eyebrow and tongue were pierced too) and a tattoo, which, according to Judaism is a desecration of my body. Somehow I have a hard time seeing circumcision as being much different. In other words, if I have sons and they grow up and decide that, yes, they want to make their covenant with a particular god and that god demands foreskin, they are more than welcome to get a circumcision when they are old enough to decide for themselves. I won’t do that for them.

I’ve already discussed the matter with my parents (and even a lady from work…older Jewish women just looove to get all up in other people’s business, no matter how personal) and they understand our decision (this is CB’s decision too, by the way, not just mine). I figure the only people at this point who would be shocked to see foreskin on my babies would be my grandparents but I doubt they’ll ever have to change a diaper by the time we have kids, so no worries there.

So, I guess that nearly wraps us up. I’m trying to get a guest to post next Friday to give another perspective on circumcision before I bring Fridays For Skin to a close. Oh, and before I forget, as always, the contents herein are my opinion and my opinion only. I don’t think ill of parents who opt to circumcise their sons, it just simply isn’t what I plan to do.