Experts have been unable to understand the origin of the practice of routine male circumcision. Most of the literature shows no awareness of phimosis - its frequency - or the sexual and erectile problems which can be cured by circumcision. If routine circumcision had been introduced for this most obvious reason of eliminating difficult foreskins; then the importance of an alternative modern method, suitable to our culture's attitudes in this day and age, would be clear.

FERTILITY The anthropologists who rejected the phimosis-fertility theory and in fact any of the theories involving fertility, did this for the reason that the lower cultures (the hunting tribes) did not possess the facility of abstract thought necessary to understand fertility or the facts of life about semen and the conception of babies. Spencer-Gillan (97) reported that the hunting tribes who they studied "have no idea of procreation as being directly associated with sexual intercourse, and firmly believe that children can be born without this taking place." (64) Bettelheim "to relate the penis in any way with fertility,... calls for its recognition in procreation; and this understanding is found in the higher, not the lower civilisations" (38). The higher civilisations, refers to the cultivators and circumcision finds its origins in hunting tribes.
I find it fascinating and somehow wonderful that the natural peoples don't understand our facts of life and we don't understand circumcision which appears to be one of theirs.
It is frankly amazing how much thought has been put into the irrelevant question of if phimosis hinders fertility. A series of medical studies which continued through the 1800s right up until the 1960s investigated this. In turn many anthropologists believed that the only medical significance of phimosis was the influence it had on fertility. The answer the doctors eventually decided was that phimosis does not effect sperm-count and so scientifically speaking it does not effect fertility. Perhaps the entire discussion about fertility reflects the legacy of 19th century sexual attitudes where morality reigned and the sole purpose of sexual contact was considered to be fertilisation. Primitive peoples were arguably not so prudish. The desire for sex is based on an instinct, and the natural peoples would have wanted sex regardless of any ulterior motive or abstract reason for having sex. Such a profound instinct can certainly manifest in a number of different ways, and can be understood from a number of perspectives. Whatever meaning sex might have had, I believe the anatomical reality of pain difficulty and frustration from phimosis during sex, would require no deep explanation - and from the perspective of a people who required practical answers, the best reasoning would have been done with a sharp knife. Open to discussion - (as always) Robin Stuart
| © R.Stuart
FIELD REPORTS Bettelheim, (who never mentions phimosis), wrote in 1968: "to relate the penis in any way with fertility,... calls for its recognition in procreation; and this understanding is found in the higher, not the lower civilisations" (38). - The higher civilisations, refers to the cultivators and circumcision also finds its origins in hunting tribes. Some hunting tribes who practice circumcision have no sense of the facts of life about conception. Spencer and Gillan whose famous study broke this anthropological news in 1899 wrote "the natives, one and all in these tribes, believe that the child is the direct result of the entrance into the mother of an ancestral spirit individual. They have no idea of procreation as being directly associated with sexual intercourse, and firmly believe that children can be born without this taking place." (64) Kaberry in "Aboriginal Women, Sacred and Profane" wrote in 1931 "I investigated the problem as exhaustively as possible, and these natives in spite of over thirty years contact with the white had still no idea of the true relation between sexual intercourse and conception. The aborigines asserted that a young girl could not bear children; after puberty conception only occurred when a man, generally her husband, found a spirit child. Questioned on the function of sexual intercourse natives admitted that it prepared the way for entry of the spirit child, "Him made `em road ...; young girl no got `em road." Most women believed that the semen remained in the vagina and had nothing to do with the child. "Him nothing," was the trenchant reply, when after circuitous inquiry I finally suggested the facts of the case. Several women thought that the semen entered the uterus, and that the embryo floated in it "like a waterlily," as one expressed it. Natives with a hint of ridicule for the illogicality of the white would declare impatiently -"All day me bin sleep alonga him. Me no more bin catch `em picaninny." A Forest River women whose child was born some months after her husband`s death, advanced this as evidence of the irrelevance of sexual intercourse, which all natives, apart from its preparatory function, regarded simply as an erotic pastime." (96)