The World's Most Idiotic Debate

Because I knew Andrew Sullivan to be a foreskin fetishist (NTTAWWT), I intended only to have some mocking fun with his guest-blogger Hannah Rosin, who so heedlessly violated a Daily Dish taboo by expressing indifference to the procedure that Sully calls "Male Genital Mutilation."

That Sully is himself "cut," and yet expresses such a vehement preference for the "uncut" variety -- circumcision self-hatred, we might call it -- suggests to me merely that Sully has devoted too much of his life to other men's penises. NTTAWWT.

Because I am currently on deadline for an American Spectator article having nothing to do with the Great Prepuce Debate, I don't have time to engage in a full-bore reaction to Mara Gay's claim that Ms. Rosin has provoked "a very intimate kind of outcry from male commentators" -- myself among them.

Being quite happily married for 20 years, after having previously spent more than a decade as an equally happy and reasonably popular bachelor, I protest any suggestion that I really give a damn about anyone else's penis but my own. While quite satisfied with my own equipment, I think it unseemly that I should boast of its merits, or to cast aspersions on the equipment of others.

What obtrudes here -- and it obtrudes from only one direction in the present discourse -- is the Foreskin Lobby's repeated assertion that the circumcised penis is "mutilated" or in some other way inferior to the unmodified phallus.

This is an attack requiring a response, you see, and while loath to engage in such a time-wasting and uncivilized discussion, I've just about had enough of these hateful insinuations.

A Gentile myself, yet having been circumcised as an infant (as were my brothers), we might speculate that this decision was made on the basis of medical advice related to convenience of hygiene and health. Or one might speculate that my farm-born father, having the rather common experience of men who underwent this procedure as adults after being drafted into the Army in World War II, thought it wise to spare his sons such trauma. Or one might even speculate that it was my mother who most influenced this decision.

All that is speculation of a fruitless sort, and given the extreme unlikelihood that Andrew Sullivan shall ever sire his own sons, his relentless advocacy -- which amounts to a personal insult to my penis -- is in extraordinarily bad taste. Given the well-known nature of his interest in penises, it well behooves Sully to stop attempting to influence the decisions of parents in regard to their own sons.

While it might be too much to assume the ethnicity or religious affiliation of someone named "Hannah Rosin," let us stipulate the likelihood that she is Jewish. If this is true, then it is very much to be expected that Ms. Rosin would defend the historic custom -- indeed, the divine covenant -- which requires that every male heir of the patrimony of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob be circumcised.

So, are those who derogate the foreskinless phallus as "mutilated" expressing some sort of religious bigotry? I hesitate to suggest such a thing, but sincerely wish that these barbaric aficionados of heathen penises would cease inciting unseemly debates over a subject so offensive to so many.

Grab a cup of STFU, you foreskin-fascinated freaks! By your folly you are in danger of inciting wrath such as befell the residents Shalem, when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite offended Levi and Simeon by shamefully mistreating their sister, Jacob and Leah's daughter Dinah.

Somehow, that old story seems relevant. Look it up, heathen -- and beware!

UPDATE: Sigh. No sooner do I attempt to return to my work -- dammit, I'm on deadline here, people! -- than Memeorandum calls my attention to this, this, this and (unkindest uncut of all) Cassandra at Villainous Company, with my own Porsche Manque in the comments!

Smitty, how are we supposed to accomplish our goal of world domination, when we're working at cross-purposes?

Hanna Rosin has guest-blogged her last

She dares defend circumcision while guest blogging at the site of the world's foremost foreskin fetishist, Andrew Sullivan.

"Male genital mutilation!" scream the connoisseurs of uncut, preservationists of the precious prepuce.

Get over it, people. Only porn freaks and gay men -- having ample opportunity to comparison shop, as it were -- obsess so fanatically over the difference. As I was taught in commercial design classes 30 years ago, form follows function, and familiarity with the fact of foreskinless functionality (i.e., I've fathered six kids) indicate my circumcised state is entirely adequate to the rigors of the task.

The advantages in terms of hygiene are well-known, and tend to be especially appreciated by mothers who have a difficult enough time getting boys to bath, much less to wash their winkies with health-conscious care. And it is certainly my impression -- based on comments whenever the subject is raised -- that women generally prefer what we might call the kosher pickle.

Those who prefer the sword-and-scabbard setup are perfectly entitled to their preference, without casting aspersions upon those of us who've forsaken the sheath and keep the blade ready. "Mutilation," indeed!

UPDATE 8/28: For those who can't get enough of this topic, The World's Most Idiotic Debate continues.