To cut around?

Given my limited knowledge of word origins, I think that the word circumcision must be made up of "circum," which means around, and "cise," which means to cut or cut down. Whatever it means, one thing is for sure. A lot of people are very opinionated about this procedure.

Everyone knows circumcision is an elective procedure that is not medically necessary for infants. It is also a procedure my wife and I had to make a decision about this week for our newborn son.

One pediatrician at the hospital explained to us that it was a social decision. So far so good, I thought. It is based on the ancient religious traditions of the Jews, she said. Okay, but now she was coming close to professional boundaries. Then she proceeded to expound on how circumcision expressed God’s covenant with Abraham as the chosen people. I felt a bizarre atmosphere settled on the doctor’s office and music from the Fiddler on the Roof whispered faintly in the background: “Tradition…”.

At 9:00 p.m. the day after Braden was born a sincere nurse felt inspired to come and do all of the education on the required new family checklist. It was clear that she too thought the issue of circumcision was quite important. There was a subtle anti-circumcision—maybe “pro-foreskin” be a more positive label—feel to her message. She made a point to mention, as she made direct eye contact with me, that “most people circumcise because Dad is circumcised.” Besides the impression that being like Dad wasn’t a good enough reason for her, I was left with an eerie feeling that she thought she knew whether or not this dad was sportin’ all or just most of what he was born with. To foil any clandestine surveillance I started to turn off the lights when I used the bathroom at the hospital.

I found it interesting that most people who approached us about circumcision seemed to want to make people feel ashamed of considering the procedure. The most common tactic was to emphasize that circumcision was a socially influenced decision that is not medically necessary and akin to cosmetic surgery. Final decision aside—to cise or not to cise, that is the question—I didn’t find this shaming angle to be a very effective way to influence. I mean, let’s face it, most of the useful things we do everyday are socially influenced: taking regular showers, getting haircuts, combing our hair, getting dressed, holding in flatulence, or even not choosing to do any of these things. Most of the useful socially determined things we do are not “medically necessary.”

As far as cosmetic surgery is concerned, very few men use the look of their willy as a main attractor. If the appearance a guy’s johnson is going to be a deal maker or breaker, then he’s got bigger problems than whether or not his little friend has had some work done.

Having said that, the following story from the September 29 issue of THE WEEK magazine might prove me wrong.

A German woman hacked off her dead husband’s penis in order to keep it as a memento. Uta Schneider, 65 snuck a butcher knife into the hospital where Heinrich, her husband of 35 years, had just died, severed the corpse’s penis, wrapped it in foil, hid it in a lunchbox, and was trying to sneak out when spotted by a nurse and arrested. “It was his best asset and gave me so much pleasure,” Schneider told police. “I wanted it to remember him by.”