Superman has captured the imagination of every generation of American kids since 1938 when he first appeared in Action Comics #1, but leave it to satellite radio celebrity Howard Stern to tackle the really hard questions concerning this American superhero.
Monday’s The Howard Stern Show kicked off with a call-in question from Stern show correspondent Wolfie asking: Is Superman circumcised? “Of course the first question would likely be, how on Krypton would they come up with that barbaric ritual of cutting off a piece of a baby’s skin?” Stern asked. “Now Krypton was a very advanced society, as you know. They were very advanced in science and you would assume that on Krypton they would not practice circumcision,” he continued.
Robin Quivers pondered whether Superman might be able to circumcise himself using his heat vision. To which Stern replied: “Why would any guy want to circumcise himself?”
Stern, who is Jewish, considers male infant circumcision to be barbaric and a mutilation, and supports efforts to make the practice illegal.
Questions about the mythical Superman are common among a certain (nerdy) set. Is Superman real? Is Superman immortal? Is Superman faster than Flash? Apparently there is also considerable speculation about Superman’s Jewish roots.
An NYU thesis by adjunct English professor Roy Schwartz attempted to answer the question: Is Superman Jewish? Writing for The Jerusalem Post in 2013, Schwartz noted that the creators of the Superman comic, Jerry Seigel and Joe Shuster, were Jewish and that Superman’s Kryptonian name, Kal-El, has Hebrew roots.
So Superman is Jewish, and he isn’t circumcised. Go figure.
Howard Stern is AWESOME!!!
Wow. A reason to like and respect Howard Stern. Who woulda thunk?
First of all, a oollection of links to no end of information about circumcision
http://analytic-comments.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-circumcision-debate-links-and.html
http://analytic-comments.blogspot.com/2012/10/michael-wolffsohns-foreskin-of-heart.html
http://www.circumcisioncomplex.com/fundamentals/
http://eewiki.newint.org/index.php/Is_male_circumcisionyou%3F_bad_for_
http://academia.edu/1403058/Circumcision_Sabbath_Food_and_Purification_Rites_in_Early_Judaism
http://analytic-comments.blogspot.com/2012/08/psychotherapeutenyahoogroupsde.html
http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2431-13-136.pdf
Making it a taboo to compare male with female sexual
mutilation is the biggest scandal of the controversy. In both
instances the most sensitive and most erogenous zone of the
human body is amputated and severely damaged. In both
instances, what counts primarily is the cutting of human
sexuality. The imposition of control by the patriarchy. A
good look at a book on embryology will show the development of
the nerves and tissue and how they are the same.
What is lacking in all the talk about circumcision is
discussion of its archeological dimension – that it is the
left over of human sacrifice. What kind of god is it that
demands that of an infant? If the Bris constitutes the
identity of the male, what about the identity of a Jewish
girl? Or is this an entirely homosexual ceremony?
Also, unfortunately it is / has been circumcision that
has MADE for no end of anti-semitic sentiments. Freud found
that it was the chief reason for unconscious anti-Semitism.
And the myths surrounding it are at the core of the “blood
libel.” Thus, it's time to eliminate the Brit Milah because if
that is the chief reason for being anti-Semitic or
anti-Abrahamic [Islam too practices the rite] then why hang on
to this left-over of human sacrifice? that traumatizes the
child, cutting off 5,000 nerves, that is the equivalent of
female circumcision in the sense that it eliminates everything
but the clitoris,and only serves the Ultra Orthodox to
maintain their power? After all, reform Judaism sought to
eliminate the rite in the 19th century, and Jewish identity
depends on being born by a Jewish mother, or converting. Here
a link to an archive of the entire German and then some
debate, note especially Michael Wolffsohn's two pieces .
Circumcision has been controversial also within Jewry forever.
A wash cloth before and after sex or a clean mouth are
equally effective and leave the pleasure zones intact! Or
castration! That would eliminate any kind of danger from that
source!
Well, he landed in KANSAS as a baby.
I wonder if John & Martha ever tried to make him "look like other boys", but then fail miserably coz no earthly knife could cut his foreskin.
Certainly no mortal could circumcise Kal-El. For one thing there is no substance which could cut his Super flesh. And of course there's the pesky bit about holding him down long enough to cut off the most pleasure-receptive part of his penis while he violently resists with Super-human strength.
This site kicks ass. Thank you Rebecca!
I was very disappointed when watching the Superman movie with Christopher Reeve that they showed a naked, circumcised boy emerge from the capsule that landed on earth from Krypton.
Stern is an ethnic Jew who is anti-clerical, and who hated the religious aspect of his upbringing. From this stance, his scorn for bris follows logically. A Jew who is an atheist, and who changes the subject when he hears talk of the Chosen People or the Covenant, but who quietly insists that his own sons be circumcised, is a weird bundle of contradictions.
I would like to take this opportunity to praise Robin Quivers as well. On air, she has repeatedly mocked the way shallow American women say that intact men disgust them. Contrast Ms Quivers with Wendy Williams ranting about "turtlenecks" on YouTube. Or with Amy Schumer's or Chelsea Handler's smug shallow ranting about uncircumcised dates.
Quite a few secular Jews circumcise their sons for reasons similar to those that prevail in gentile America: the covered penis is silently seen as the hallmark of the immigrant, the Latino, and the hillbilly. Snobbishness is the most powerful human motivatin.