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sci.anthropology: Oct-96: Male Circumcision - the Origins # Male Circumcision - the Origins Robin Stuart (fo6a001@rrz.uni-hamburg.de) Mon, 30 Sep 1996 13:26:27 +0200 The Origins of the Practice of Routine Male Circumcision The anthropological discussion so far, on congenital abnormalities of the penis, as a cause for the ancient ritual of circumcision, involves only the rare cases of phimosis which hinder procreation. When we study Beauge M.D,'s statistics : (almost 10% for phimosis) and reports on masturbation, http://www.cirp.org/CIRP/library/treatment/phimosis/beauge/ we realise that this argument is null and void. It is further disproven by Dr. Med. Schoeberlein (1) who studied 3,000 young men and discovered 8.8% had a phimosis. https://www.male-initiation.net/library/medicus/schoeberlein.html Neither of these statistics include the frenulum breve, infections, or a number of other foreskin complaints which may also be resolved by circumcision. A re-evaluation of these congenital phenomena is available under https://www.male-initiation.net/welcome.html The significance of this information is discussed under https://www.male-initiation.net/anthropolgy.html Probably the simplest abstract I could give is that I find it helpful to consider the question "What is the origin of the practice?" in three parts 1) Why was the original operation performed? 2) Why was the measure introduced? 3) Why did the practice continue and sometimes spread? My main interest is no. 2) Why was this introduced as a general measure? The human mind in the late Stone Age, was certainly very different to ours, however their bodies were similar. The possibility is that men in those days also had some sort of unpleasant subjective experience with these congenital conditions. Such men could have had the personal conviction (or deluded fanaticism), to introduce this measure, in order to prevent similar experiences happening to any other member of their family. Robin Stuart