Zombie Zero by J.K. Norry Page A

untrue?” Allen ventured.
    “Nothing I said was untrue,” Todd shot back.
    “Alright!” Elayna shook her head. “This is even worse than the ‘what if Elayna had a penis’ discussion. Let’s just go back to that. Dad, would you have circumcised me if I had been born a boy?”
    “Or, more along the lines of what Allen really wants to know,” Maya interjected. “Would you have subjected her to female genital mutilation if she had been born in a mostly Muslim country instead of a mostly Christian one?”
    “That’s different,” Elayna crinkled her nose. “Circumcision is about cleanliness and infection, not sexual discrimination and oppression.”
    “You sound just like a Muslim talking about female circumcision,” Allen said. “Women are much more prone to infection than men, however; so the argument actually makes more sense from the other side. Since there is no medical research that supports either claim, let’s just set that entire argument aside.”
    “Well, it looks different,” Elayna commented.
    “Actually,” Maya frowned. “That’s what they say about female genital mutilation as well. If all of the women around you were cut, you would look as unusual and unappealing to men down there as uncut men do to you.”
    “I didn’t say unappealing,” Elayna pointed out. “Besides, they all look the same when they get hard.”
    “Elayna.” Mallory made his first comment in some time. “Please.”
    “Sorry, Dad.” She flashed him a smile. “What do you think?”
    “I think it’s an issue people should definitely research before drawing any conclusions,” Mallory responded. “And definitely before cutting their kid, or having someone else do it. The only reason I’ve ever heard of a grown man doing it was to look the way a woman or women expected him to. That being said, plenty of grown men do it in America. Are we calling it circumcision here, or genital mutilation?”
    Allen and Maya answered at the same time, as they tended to do.
    “Circumcision,” Allen said, resolute.
    “Genital mutilation,” Maya said firmly.
    They looked at each other.
    “What do you call it when it is done to a male?” Allen asked.
    “I call it what it is,” Maya retorted. “Genital mutilation. The gender doesn’t matter. It’s an unnecessary procedure either way. Everyone’s reasons for doing it are social or religious, not medical. We can call it elective surgery, if it’s requested by a legal adult on themselves; but if we do it to babies without their consent, it’s mutilation. We could chop everyone’s noses off at birth, get rid of that unsightly and unnecessary protrusion. If you were the one person with a nose, how long would it take before you paid someone to chop it off?”
    “Gross, Maya,” Elayna giggled.
    “I agree,” Allen said. “With both of you. We’re calling it gender mutilation, Professor Mallory. Unless it’s a surgery that the individual elects for as a legal adult.”
    “Well, then,” Mallory said. “To answer your original question, I would not have mutilated Elayna’s genitals even if they had been different. I can’t claim any high-minded ideals, other than being a hippie in love with another hippie. We weren’t Jewish, and we weren’t completely ignorant on these matters, so I think I can say that we would have agreed.”
    “Are you sure?” Allen asked. “It turns out that mothers often sway fathers on their opinion on this just by saying ‘it looks better’ or ‘it’s easier to keep clean’. Guys don’t want their kid to be the only one in the locker room that looks different than everyone else.”
    “That’s weak-mindedness,” Mallory argued. “You can’t blame an opinionated woman for a man’s spinelessness. If he changes his mind, that’s on him. It would be more telling to point out that our country has legislated a woman’s ability to conceive and give birth to a child without informing the biological father, or even meeting him. If that