I promised in my first post that I would try to post as many thoughts as I can about how circumcision has affected my life. So here goes.
During the week I had Channel Nine’s Today show on in the background while getting ready for work. I didn’t catch the start of the segment, but turned around to see a stunningly beautiful young woman. She had a beautiful smile and such a fun and positive attitude that I had to stop and watch her.
Then I realised that the segment was about the uniforms of the Australian Paralympic team, and that the young woman, Kelly Cartwright, was an amputee. I then had to challenge my own character and ask myself if I now found her less attractive because of her amputation. Could I ever find myself with a person that was missing a limb? Am I a bad person for even thinking this way?
Now, before anyone goes on the attack, I conceed that with or without all of her limbs, she is still more attractive than me. That, combined with what I could tell from her personality, and her young age, puts her way out of my league. This is simply one of those inner conversations that I have with myself where I consider a hypothetical.
Then, to add some further complexity to this inane thought, something hit me. I remebered that I too was an amputee. And not one of my limbs, but the most intimate part of my body. If I am so shallow as to rule out someone because they were missing a limb I would have to accept that someone could rule me out because of what I am missing.
For those of you who sit back and say ‘big deal, you’re not missing anything’ I urge you to do a simple google search for ‘functions of the foreskin’ or go to ‘sex as nature intended it‘. Not only will you find out what a circumcised man is missing, but you will understand what his female partner is missing too.
And the worst part of all was that I was reminded that I am missing part of my body, not because of a necessity to cure me of cancer, or because of an accident, but because of an accepted cultural fetish in this country which allows parents to amputate the foreskin from their babies simply because they think it looks better. Sick stuff.
Kelly, my apologies for bringing you into this topic. But until people stop cutting our baby boys I feel I need to continue to talk about it. Good luck in London.
