Religious Special Pleading

Just jumping in at this point, not having contributed before quite frankly surprised this topic is still raging. For myself as a minor, it was my parents' choice, not my own. Though it happened around the age of 8 years, not days.As I was having to go in for a tonsillectomy at age 8, apparently our family doctor had misgivings about my foreskin not growing fast enough to keep up with the rest of my body (Dr. Brandt, same as Hitler's last MD, but that's purely a coincidence). I heard that French king Louis XVI had problems producing an heir because he had a physical condition which made intercourse painful; whether that involved a sluggish foreskin, I have no idea.Anyway, being a smart kid with some sense of anatomy, I went into that surgery knowing that my tonsils were at the back of my mouth (even though I was unprepared for the ether mask). When I woke up, my throat was sore as expected, but then there were those bandages around the end of my penis. It was at least a day or more before anybody ever explained that to me. I spent all that time trying to understand how they had to go through my penis in order to get to my tonsils at the back of my mouth (oral cavity for you geeks).Object lesson: kids know a helluva lot more than you think they do.Then for my own two sons, it was their mother calling the shots and I didn't know why I should have any reason to object.

Another story, though this time involving adults.I am a Chief, son of a Chief. That is to say that I retired from the Naval Reserve as a Chief Petty Officer and my father's highest rank in the Naval Reserve was as a Chief Petty Officer in the Seabees (go ahead and try to pick a fight with me about the Seabees).After the official pacification of Saipan, my father's Seabee unit arrived with many Japanese belligerents still on the island. Sailors will be sailors (in one of my units, a mustang (ie, former enlisted) LtJG offered the real sailor creed: "If you're not lyin', you're not tryin'"). In my father's unit, a number of sailors decided to convert to Judaism since that would require circumcision which would require at least a week's medical rest. The corpsmen knew what was going on. For those sailors, they put on risque shows (with balloons under military blouses, etc) and distributed whatever the then limits of pornography could allow. Needless to say, many penile sutures ended up being split. Served those wankers right.

Blame their mother. That's what she's there for.Part of this might be a cultural thing, even among English speakers.Think back to "An American Werewolf in London" (1981). The English nurses involved in his case (one of which actually gets involved with him) talk about him. One of them says that he's Jewish, just because he's circumcised. Another nurse points out that it's common with Americans.Most new parents are told that it's normal and do not know enough to question that conclusion.