Myra-Breckinridge-Gore-Vidal

phrase, "a rape of the penis." Until the Forties, only theupper or educated classes were circumcised in America.The real people were spared this humiliation. But during theaffluent postwar years the operation became standardprocedure, making money for doctors as well as allowingthe American mother to mutilate her son in order that hemight never forget her early power over him. Today only thepoor Boston Irish, the Midwestern Poles and theAppalachian Southerners can be counted upon to becomplete. Myron never forgave Gertrude for hercircumcision of him. In fact, he once denounced her in mypresence for it. She defended herself by saying that thedoctor had recommended it on hygienic grounds--which ofcourse does not hold water since most foreskins are easilymanipulated and kept clean. What is truly sinister is the factthat with the foreskin's removal, up to fifty per cent ofsensation in the glans penis is reduced... a condition nodoubt as pleasing to the puritan American mother as it is toher co-conspirator, the puritan Jewish doctor who delightsin being able to mutilate the goyim in the same vivid waythat his religion (and mother!) mutilated him. I once had thesubject out with Dr. Montag, who granted me every singlepoint and yet, finally, turned dentist and confessed,"Whenever I hear the word 'smegma,' I become physicallyill." I am sure Moses is roasting in hell, along with Jesus,Saint Paul, and Gertrude Percey Breckinridge. I was notable to find Rusty's medical report and so do not knowwhether or not he has been circumcised. I hope not for Iprefer the penis intact... in order that it be raped not by