"I love you even more for not doing that to our son."

J and I were lying in bed last night after watching American Reunion. (Sadly, I realized the first American Pie came out 13 years ago. I saw it. I was 11. Now I’m pretty horrified). Somehow, while lying in bed, circumcision came up.

Anyone who knows me knows that I feel extremely passionate and strongly about this human rights issue. Everyone is entitled to bodily integrity, and no one other than to whom the body belongs has the right to choose to mutilate or alter the body in any cosmetic way. Period.

But I digress, because this is not about that exactly. It’s about J. And him learning what circumcision really is. (That’s right; he’s 40+ years old and didn’t really know what it was!)

So while we were discussing this J tells me, “Well, I mean, obviously I don’t want it done, but they just snip the frenulem (spelling?). I get that they shouldn’t, but is it really that big of a deal?”

“You’re kidding me, right?” I shot back, seething. “They cut the whole top of the foreskin off! That way there is no foreskin to pull over the head of the penis.”

“No they don’t,” he insisted. “They cut the frenulem and then it doesn’t naturally retract over the head. They don’t actually cut the foreskin.”

“Um, yes they do. Look it up. Now.”

So J whipped out his cell phone and looked it up. First he looked at a picture on Wikipedia. His exact words were, “Oh my fucking God. This is a really sick joke.”

“No,” I insisted. “That is what circumcision is.”

“No way. No one would do that to their kid. Hang on, Wiki isn’t very reliable.” So he proceeded to look at three different medical website.

“Holy fuck! Why would someone do that to their boy? Especially if they actually know what they are doing? That’s sick, sick, sick. Oh, I want to vomit. People really do this to their kids?”

“Yep. Because it’s ‘cleaner,’ because condoms are too much trouble, because they want them to look like daddy, because their doctor told them to and he needs to make a boat payment.”

J shook his head and shuddered. “I love you. I loved you all ready. But I love you even more for not letting that happen to our son. I love you for protecting him from that. I didn’t get it. But now I do. And I love you so much for caring.”

To be honest, I always thought J and I were on the same page with circumcision. He’s intact, so he never saw a reason to cut our son. But he also didn’t get how wrong routine infant circumcision is. Now he does. That’s one more person whose eyes have been opened.

It’s estimated that approximately 30% of newborn males in America will have their genitals mutilated this year. Don’t let it be your baby. Do the research. Protect him. You owe it to him.