uncut losses

i was around 15 when i googled circumcision practices around the world. coincidentally also the year i first held another dick but my own. he was not circumcised though, i was. to this date, this remains a sort of personal inside joke in my life. my favourite is when grindr dates think i’m lying when i say i’m not muslim. strangely, they also think it's cute that i’m lying.

anyway, the part of the wikipedia page that really got my attention was that policy makers enjoy debating the ethics of the practice, that it doesn't ‘take the child's consent’. or, in other words, that a child does not yet fully understand the worldly consequences of it. which was funny, it's just that i would never have thought of actively organising for such a cause. until Big Pharma takes over and makes it compulsory for everyone or something.

how do i feel about my circumcision? uh, idk, how do you feel about your nose? but more specifically, how does one feel about an absence? and if i mean how technically, that becomes a philosophical question. how can one feel about an absence. it is, by definition, not there. how do i feel it? i can't sense it! absence does not make sense. i don’t know what it would have been like to ‘be uncut’. and i don't feel particularly disabled in life by my LACK of foreskin. in fact, doctors universally recommend it. and there's plenty peer-reviewed, UN amplified, scientific propoganda that the longer term health benefits of circumcision actually saves money for hospitals. Big Pharma is clearly this enby’s eternal muse. i should do some money saving myself and transition. point being, bodily autonomy is still ftw. it’s just this doesn't effect my life significantly? maybe soon though when the bhakts start doing strip searches and executions. and i know i don't need to bring religion into this but that's what it is right- i want to. there's a second word for religion and it's fragile masculinity. it's Insecurity. fr, who is afraid of gender? the believers.

what is an uncut loss? something you want to keep. because otherwise, we're usually very good at cutting our losses. varun grover’s mann kasturi is an ode to the musk deer, who chases its own scent in heat, looking for a mate, not realising it was his own musk. naming your feelings is just the first step. the real question is- do you know what your feelings are about?

p.s. the etymology of the word musk has a sanskrit root meaning ‘small testicle’.