Bittersweet Symphony
2004-03-25 at 12:10 a.m.
Rant the First: On Not Mutilating Your Children
I just saw this docu-show on Discovery Health about hermaphrodites and babies born with ambiguous genitals. For some reason, the subject fascinates me. Maybe it's because I'm jealous of this girl I saw on some prime time news show who had an enlarged clitoris. Penis envy, I think, is what they call it. Yeah, I want to be a girl, but could I also enjoy sex? Thanks. I know most girls do. But I? Don't.Anyway, this subject pisses me off. They have some jerk-off doctor talking about how it's important for a person's identity that they reconstruct their genitals to look normal. Hasn't it already been shown, like, 50 years ago, that you can't make a person into whatever gender you want them to be? How would YOU like to never have sex?! Someone should cut his dick off. Also, he said, it's important for the parents to feel "comfortable" treating their child as whatever gender they are. You know, it would be hard to see someone's penis while changing their diaper and then dress them in a dress. If you're not mature enough to handle that, maybe you shouldn't have children. "How are they going to have babysitters?" Boy Wonder Doctor ponders. Well, personally, I prefer NOT to have stupid people taking care of my children. There was one couple who chose to remain blurred. This, I suppose, is to save their "daughter" from embarrassment later in life (read: to teach their daughter how to be ashamed of herself).
I think my mom, whatever her faults, would have been cool enough to not have my psuedo-penis removed. She's into alternative medicine, I was born at home, etc. She's got a pretty good grasp of the "doctors don't know everything" concept.
Straight and sexually non-ambiguous children are just wasted on me. Hee. I'm sure I'll still love my kids if they're straight. But really, I just don't get parents who disown their offspring because of *who they are* (or, who are ignorant or trusting or cruel enough to allow doctors to mutilate their children). That's another thing, there was something about how 30% of some type of these children end up being gay or bisexual. Hmm. I suppose it's because they all chose it. By coincedence.
My heart really goes out to these people. There was one interesting guy who had a large number of surgeries, starting at 3 months, and he said that he thought the doctors had some sort of magic, and they could just make him normal. They're lobbying to get a bill passed about not performing these surgeries. "What these 'activists' don't understand," Magic Doctor explains, "is that our aims are geniunely humanitarian." What was that about that road of good intentions that led to... someplace bad? Oh yeah. HELL! (Actually that's not what he said, but pretty close, along docu-narrator voice-over)
When I found out we were having a boy, I immediately started thinking about circumcision. The American Pediatrics Association says it's not medically necessary (although it turns out they have a piss-poor position on gender identification surgery). So... I read a little about it. What I did was ask the question at a mostly-male forum I sometimes frequent that has users in many countries. It was interesting, because most everyone who was clipped, said it didn't matter, and everyone that wasn't was adamant that I not do it. So there must be something to that, there. Also, I saw a video of a circumcision on the internet. Terrifying. Watch it and say babies that small don't feel pain.
Current Terror Alert Level: