Abstract
Popular television has a subtle but significant role in promoting circumcision in the United States. It seems almost obligatory to devote at least part of an episode of every sitcom and soap opera to the topic. The foreskin is commonly denigrated. Contradictory messages are given — for example, that only Jews circumcise babies but all men are circumcised. Pain and harm are minimized or treated as comic. Wherever circumcision is treated as controversial, it is also treated as trivial and inevitable. Talk shows find it good fodder for noisy controversy.
Circumcision occupies a peculiar place in United States culture, being simultaneously ubiquitous, controversial, and a taboo topic of conversation. Thus, to refer to it on television can be simultaneously mundane and daring, a contradiction to which much television programming aspires. It is hardly surprising that references to circumcision maintain a high level of ambiguity: while people may argue about it, the outcome is almost invariably to promote it.
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References
Young H. P. The Intactivism Pages: Treatment of Circumcision on TV. Cited 2006 May 20. Available from: URL: http://www.circumstitions.com/TVSitcoms.html
Glick, L. B. Marked in Your Flesh: Circumcision from Ancient Judea to Modern America. New York: OUP; 2005, p 241
Pilot, Season 1, Episode 1, first broadcast September 20, 1999
The population of the US was 300,282,868 on November 26, 2006 (according tohttp://www. census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html)of whom 6,155,000 (2.05%) were Jewish (according to http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/usjewpop.html). Assuming the same sex ratio (50:50) for both, and conservatively estimating that 100% of Jewish males and 60% of gentile males are circumcised, that would mean 3,077,500 Jewish males are circumcised and 90,084,860 gentiles, giving a maximum of 3.30% of US circumcision being Jewish.
Glick, L. B. Marked in Your Flesh: Circumcision from Ancient Judea to Modern America. New York: OUP; 2005, p 217
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Season 2, Episode 26, “Turn Turn Turn”, first broadcast October 7, 1998
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Season 1, Episode 3 (or 103), first broadcast December 10, 2000
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Series 2, Episode 1 “Roundheads And Cavaliers”, first broadcast September 16, 1996
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Young, H. (2009). “THAT THING”. In: Denniston, G.C., Hodges, F.M., Milos, M.F. (eds) Circumcision and Human Rights. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9167-4_23
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9167-4_23
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