To chop or not to chop?

**Moros** · 08-11-2006, 19:08

That why I have never behaved human!

**Lemur** · 08-11-2006, 23:03

I'm not going to re-create the weeks of research I did on the subject, but here's a little something:

Before the 1870s, in the United States, routine medical circumcision was quite rare, hovering around 5 to 6 percent of all newborn baby boys. Subscribers to the new Victorian sexual morality sought to reduce what critics perceived to be rampant sexual promiscuity, and especially masturbation, which, they believed, resulted in all sorts of debilities and even death. Masturbation was said to cause all manner of emotional, psychological, and physiological problems, from bed-wetting to adolescent insolence, acne to mental retardation, insanity, psychological exhaustion, and neurasthenia.

Circumcision's well-established ability to curb sexual appetite and pleasure was prescribed as a potential cure for sexual profligacy. Lewis Sayre, a prominent New York physician, hailed as "the Columbus of the prepuce" by his colleagues, experimented with circumcision as a cure for paralysis and other muscular ailments. Sayre's colleagues also noted that Jews had a lower rate of STDs than non-Jews, and hypothesized that this had to do with circumcision. (Actually this had to do with the fact that Jews had very little sexual contact with non-Jews.)

Another physician, Dr. Peter Remondino, advocated universal male circumcision since the foreskin, which he labeled "an unyielding tube," left the intact male "a victim to all manner of ills, sufferings...and other conditions calculated to weaken him physically, mentally, and morally; to land him, perchance, in jail, or even in a lunatic asylum." And Robert Tooke's popular All About the Baby (1896) recommended circumcision to prevent "the vile habit of masturbation."

J. H. Kellogg, pioneering health reformer, cereal inventor, and general medical quack also sounded the alarm; his best-selling health advice book, Plain Facts for Old and Young (1888), included nearly 100 pages on the dangers of masturbation. Circumcision is almost always successful in curbing masturbation, he counseled, and he suggested that the operation be performed "by a surgeon without administering anesthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind...."

**Divinus Arma** · 08-12-2006, 00:31

We scorn such idiocy now, Lemur. But people in 100 years will scorn as us well. Imagine when religion no longer causes/contributes to wars? The people then will shake their head in disbelief at our ancient human intolerance.

**Lemur** · 08-12-2006, 02:59

Perhaps I should have made my point more clearly -- in the late 1800s surgical circumcision was at something like 5%. After the anti-masturbation hysteria, it became an American institution. This is how it happened.

We may very well scorn such idiocy, but every time someone unthinkingly submits their baby boy to an unnecessary operation (without anesthesia) they're aping it. As I said to my wife when we were having this debate, "Doing something just because it's been done is the worst sort of traditionalism."