Ask Dad has returned from his wintry hibernation. I'm declaring that 2011 is time to get back to the basics of love. So give me your troubles, we'll clear them right up:
I'm very much in love with a new man. I think he's the one. Marriage material. There's just one little problem. He's uncut, and I hate to say it, but it really grosses me out. I want him to get circumcised, but how could I possibly ask?
Pity the poor foreskin. Little guy just wants to do his important little job and everyone's always looking to hack him off. Won't you consider his feelings? But I've written that lament before.
So let's set aside the merits. I think you've really hit on something here. A truer test of devotion you will not find. His saying "I love you," giving you a ring, buying you a house, all good signs to be sure. But cutting off part of his body, in the most sensitive and nerve-wracking spot possible? That, my dear, is true love. If he'll do it, you've got a keeper.
Unless, of course, a man cuts something off without your asking him to, maybe in your front yard, while shouting about how he'll never be whole without you. (Fellas, don't try this. Believe me, it doesn't work.)
I've seen a situation just like yours — I have a friend who was circumcised in his late teen years after his girlfriend asked. I was jealous in one sense, he had about the most compelling story you could ever tell. When he got an erection in the lead-up to the procedure, the nurse called him, with a bit of a smile, a "very bad boy." "Wow, if that makes you a bad boy," I thought, "I must be HItler."
After he had the hack done, he claimed that, contrary to what we'd all heard, that sex actually felt better without the hood. But we concluded that it was because he was a newborn and hadn't had time to get rubbed down and desensitized yet. Still, this could be a selling point. You could tell your man that the sex will feel all the more amazing for a while, and it'll stop feeling as good right about the time the passion wears off anyway and your only marital interaction is trying to out-catty-comment each other over Real Housewives.
Here are some more ways you might sell him on the unkind cut:
Offer to cut off some part of your body: Clitorectomy is the obvious counterpart but that's, you know, brutal, probably illegal, and might have an adverse effect on your sex life. So how about a nicely polished toe, like the one the Dude got in the mail in The Big Lebowski? You can put it on a necklace and give it to him as a sign of your undying love.
Set out a Playgirl and tell him he's just a quick snip away from looking just like all those hot, hung, and cut men: And hope he doesn't enjoy it too much. At least if you're looking to marry him. (Are they still making Playgirl? And is there a Playgirl Mansion somewhere? It's probably a run-down crackhouse by now, filled with muscular junkies begging for just one last hit of chest wax.)
Tell him that you hear from your lady friends that the other husbands and boyfriends secretly laugh at his manhood down at the Y: It's brutal, but efficient. It'll play on his high school fears.
Offer to do it for him: Think of it. A sweet, romantic evening, a bubble bath, some champagne and chocolates, candles, and some sexy silver surgery equipment. It could be a night neither of you will ever forget.
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Image via Flickr/Ciron810