Castration Anxiety
I saw myself sitting in a small bohemian sort of coffee shop with two dream-context-only guy friends (those friends you have in dreams who don't seem to correlate to anyone you actually know). We were discussing recent books we'd read, and a few current event situations, when the conversation shifted to one of the friends' impending religious transformation.
He explained that, as he believed he'd mentioned to us before, he was in the process of investigating a conversion to Judaism. The most recent development, however, was with regard to circumcision.
"I guess I never realized they took it that seriously. I mean, not in adult converts anyway," he said. "I always figured they took care of that with infants, but kind of left things well enough alone when it came to, well, you know," he continued, blushing visibly, "the rest of us. Not exactly a good sales tactic, is it?"
"So, you're, um, not, I assume?" our friend asked.
"Um, obviously, no. Not. Uncut, or . . . you know what I mean. Hence the reason I'm a little freaked out here," he answered.
For some reason neither of us asked him if this situation was serious enough to be a deal-killer. I, for one, was definitely wondering about it.
"So, do they put you under for this, I hope?" I finally asked, to break the awkward silence.
"See, no," he said. "That's the real sticky bit of it all. Like, if someone were to need it for some sort of medical reason, or just opted to do it for fun, I suppose," he added, a little facetiously. ". . . Then they'd at least use a local anaesthetic. But for this situation, allegedly, I've gotta take it straight, so to speak."
All three of us sort of winced at the thought.
"I mean," he continued, "it's not as if they whip out a kitchen knife or something, right? They have a special clamp machine widget thing to do it."
"That's almost worse," the two of us answered.
"No, no," he responded, "like, it's really quick — so they tell me at least."
At this point, in an odd twist of dream narration, the visual switched to a hand-drawn diagram of a penis in a frightening circumcision contraption — the whole drawing being in the seafoam green and block letter style of those 1950s-era scientific films that were still lingering around during my late-70s / early-80s childhood, until the arrival of the VHS videotape into schools around 1986 had, mercifully, obsoleted them for good. The image even had that projected-onto-a-screen flickery quality.
My friend continued explaining the procedure in horrifying detail, and the picture on the screen followed along, complete with spurting blood and a cartoon caricature of a screaming man, with lines of force drawn originating from his mouth.
"Actually, as long as we're hashing through the gory detail of it," my friend added, "they told me one guy — you know those guys all into amputating their own limbs and freaky shit like that — well, this guy got a hold of one of these and castrated himself with it." Once again, the film picture illustrated the scene vividly, depicting the cartoon man sliding his testicles through the gap in the device.
"Like on purpose?" I shouted, a little self-conscious as I realized that people were beginning to eavesdrop. "Did he live through that?"
"Sure he did. Made a nice clean cut, actually, and supposedly healed up quite nicely." With this answer the visual for the dream (thankfully) returned to the three of us in the cafe. Accompanied by sudden music, our conversation trailed off, and I realized my alarm was sounding, and woke up.
He explained that, as he believed he'd mentioned to us before, he was in the process of investigating a conversion to Judaism. The most recent development, however, was with regard to circumcision.
"I guess I never realized they took it that seriously. I mean, not in adult converts anyway," he said. "I always figured they took care of that with infants, but kind of left things well enough alone when it came to, well, you know," he continued, blushing visibly, "the rest of us. Not exactly a good sales tactic, is it?"
"So, you're, um, not, I assume?" our friend asked.
"Um, obviously, no. Not. Uncut, or . . . you know what I mean. Hence the reason I'm a little freaked out here," he answered.
For some reason neither of us asked him if this situation was serious enough to be a deal-killer. I, for one, was definitely wondering about it.
"So, do they put you under for this, I hope?" I finally asked, to break the awkward silence.
"See, no," he said. "That's the real sticky bit of it all. Like, if someone were to need it for some sort of medical reason, or just opted to do it for fun, I suppose," he added, a little facetiously. ". . . Then they'd at least use a local anaesthetic. But for this situation, allegedly, I've gotta take it straight, so to speak."
All three of us sort of winced at the thought.
"I mean," he continued, "it's not as if they whip out a kitchen knife or something, right? They have a special clamp machine widget thing to do it."
"That's almost worse," the two of us answered.
"No, no," he responded, "like, it's really quick — so they tell me at least."
At this point, in an odd twist of dream narration, the visual switched to a hand-drawn diagram of a penis in a frightening circumcision contraption — the whole drawing being in the seafoam green and block letter style of those 1950s-era scientific films that were still lingering around during my late-70s / early-80s childhood, until the arrival of the VHS videotape into schools around 1986 had, mercifully, obsoleted them for good. The image even had that projected-onto-a-screen flickery quality.
My friend continued explaining the procedure in horrifying detail, and the picture on the screen followed along, complete with spurting blood and a cartoon caricature of a screaming man, with lines of force drawn originating from his mouth.
"Actually, as long as we're hashing through the gory detail of it," my friend added, "they told me one guy — you know those guys all into amputating their own limbs and freaky shit like that — well, this guy got a hold of one of these and castrated himself with it." Once again, the film picture illustrated the scene vividly, depicting the cartoon man sliding his testicles through the gap in the device.
"Like on purpose?" I shouted, a little self-conscious as I realized that people were beginning to eavesdrop. "Did he live through that?"
"Sure he did. Made a nice clean cut, actually, and supposedly healed up quite nicely." With this answer the visual for the dream (thankfully) returned to the three of us in the cafe. Accompanied by sudden music, our conversation trailed off, and I realized my alarm was sounding, and woke up.