Parting Glances
It's been decades since I sat on a tiny stool at Primary Sunday School; but I do recall hearing there — with a six-year-old's vivid, but untutored, imagination — the Old Testament story of how David collected the foreskins of 200 slain Philistine warriors to give to King Saul, trading said battle trophies for Saul's daughter's hand in marriage.
(Unitarian/Universalists tend to be somewhat liberal in teaching moral values. It's felt that the marriage customs of the rich and famous provide authentic lessons for adults as well as children.)
That Bible story — coupled with the goodie about King Solomon's 700 sexy wives — made a marvelous and, I must add, as someone still joyfully riding Life's Escalator to the Bottom Floor, a long-lasting impression on me. (Fetish freaks are directed to l Samuel 18: 25-27 for David's X-rated do-whack-a-do adventure.)
Although PG presents ecumenical reading material, I'm just a tad reticent to tickle, er, tackle foreskins and circumcision, topics much in the news these days. (If it'll help the squeamish — I understand there are a few living circumspectly uncut in Battle Creek MI — I'll just refer to foreskins as prepuces, or PPs, pronounced politely for sensitivities concerned: pee-pees.)
As to circumcision, the international medical and scientific powers that be have decreed that the PP-slicing is possibly an AIDS deterrent. Reports New Scientist, April 6th issue: "Circumcised men are 60 per cent less likely to pick up HIV than uncircumcised men." (Run that by me again.)
There's a caveat: "The procedure must be done by a trained physician [no self-taught S/M backroom amateurs], and men must realize that it doesn't provide full protection, so they should carry on using condoms and having fewer partners [hopefully all properly bris'd]."
An additional warning comes by way of World Health Organization and UNAIDS. "Newly circumcised men should also avoid sex for at least six weeks, until they're healed." (Twelve cold showers a day can help.)
Thankfully, discussing these PP topics won't give umbrage to Southern Baptists, the AFA, Focus On the Family, or Ann Coulter. The New Testament Book of Hebrews goes on at great length about clip jobs, spiritual and otherwise, and there are — or, at least there were by some counts — 18 European RC churches claimant to having Baby Jesus' authentic PP as a cherished — if somewhat biblically bizarre — keepsake. (And we all know about January 1st: Feast of the Circumcision, a former Holy Day of Obligation.)
There's also good PP news for American gals 35 and over (straights; lipstick lesbians; Coulter lookalikes). The lowly, 20-centimeter, tip-of-the-morning-tumescence discard is now used as the basis for a beauty creme designed to take off years of wrinkles for anyone who faithfully applies the product to face, fanny, or fantasy. (Please note my unretouched column picture above.)
The creme, called SkinMedica ($100 a 63-oz. bottle), was actually discussed on Oprah's TV show not long ago. It's concocted from PP fibroblast (a piece of human skin used as a culture to grow other skin or cells — like human yogurt). Fibroblast is applied in medical procedures for burn victims, eyelid replacement (ditto, photo above), treatment of diabetic ulcers. It's also injected into puffy, movie-starlet lips (ditto!). One recycled PP can be used ad infinitum.
My internet beauty counselor tells me the wonder elixir is also available from The Coriell Institute in flake form ($85). Ideal for low-cal breakfast cereals, with or without fruit or nuts. Yes, indeedy: good things do come gift-wrapped in small packages. Ask me: I know first hand.
