I’m “uncut”, I think most UK males are. I really dont get the hygene issue, if you wash it every day it’s fine and doesnt smell at all. It also protects your sensitive bell-end. Way I see it is we are born with a foreskin so presumably it must have some function otherwise the foreskin would never have evolved.
Does anyone know if all animals have foreskins?
Yes, but these studies came a bit late in the game, really.
My speculation is the US practice may have been based on:
(1) the masturbation hysteria of the late 19th/early 20th centuries (and may I say quite confidently that Kellog’s Corn Flakes, or Graham Crackers, reduce masturbation only during the specific time that you are actually eating them due to the crumbs-on-your-lap issue … 
). As hinted at in an earlier post, the point was that the circumcised male would find ir, erm, “rougher” to masturbate w/o the extra material at hand.
(2) “hygienic” concerns – that really tied in to how, during that time period, much of the population did not exactly bathe that much. Now, it’s true that proper care and cleanup is not that difficult and takes care of most hygienic/aesthetic concerns, but then we fall again into (1) again – the Powers That Be did not want the kids paying too much attention to fiddling about with that part of the body in the first place, so let’s make it as maintenance-free as possible. (I’ve heard a bit of anecdote that this “maintenance-free” element was much influenced also by the deployment of so many Americans to the insalubrious trenches of WWI. However the Europeans were in those mudholes for 3 times as long, and went on as usual.)
2(a) another “hygienic” concern was the idea that the uncut prepuce created additional grounds for breeding and communication of venereal disease, at the time considered a major Public Health threat. Of course, the real reason if any for this was overall bad hygiene to begin with, but hindsight is 20/20
2(b) yet another was prophilactic attention to phimosis (the constricted foreskin that afflicts a significant % of various population groups). Thing with this is that, as tanookie has noticed, for practical purposes newborns are all phimotic and you can’t really tell at that point if they’ll need it. But if it needs to be resolved as an adult through surgery, that hurts like crazy.
(3) There would have been a religio-cultural component here, but not necessarily Jewish – let’s remember the USA “heartland” is (stereotypically, but stereotypes are based on something) very fond of its Bible’s Old Testament. So regardless of what Paul says about it in the NT, there they found that this surgical procedure, that at the time was advocated by the doctors, was also very favourably looked-upon by God. So, easy acceptance.
(4) Then (my hypothesis) it became generally known as the “modern” thing to do and acceptance spread even further and faster.
Nowadays I agree it’s cultural inertia
contrary to popular belief, there is no muscle in the penis.
American female checking in here.
I want to state that I have NO verifiable proof of this, but my mom tells me that my dad is uncut (he was born in the 30s when only Jewish boys were cut) but my brother is cut (because in the 60s, boys of all religions were generally cut). The trend is changing, I hear, and it is not automatically assumed a non-Jewish boy will be cut nowadays.
Having, uh, experienced, both the cut and uncut versions (makes me sound slutty!) I would say that there is no real difference as far as I could, uh, tell. (The uncut version looked like a sleeping bag that is crammed into a bag and closed with a drawstring, BTW). I do think the cutting is unnecessary and wouldn’t choose it for my son, but I told jeevmon he could decide on topics related to male anatomy and I think he would pick to have it snipped. Most recently-born boys I know were snipped but it was a decision the parents did not take lightly. For gentiles, it is done in the first 2 days, while the baby is still at the hospital.
Jews don’t care if goyim get circumcized or not. Indeed, if they were really so steadfastly traditional that they cared about circumcision at all, the idea of doing it willy-nilly (so to speak) on all non-Jews would be repugnant, since these people would not be of the Covenant.
Never, I say, never underestimate the power of an absurd belief (“curing” masturbation and its alleged “mental” effects) in swaying public opinion. The USA passed Prohibition, after all.
As a matter of fact, this is part of the issue.
I become the uncle of my brother’s baby boy yesterday, and he is probably going to have the boy cut. All of us on my side of the family are very much against it. In fact, my brother is not circumcised, and I think he wants to have it done, because he was made fun of for looking different when he was younger. Now that the rates are about 50-50 in the US, I’m trying to convince him it doesn’t matter, but I think it’s quite a personal issue to him.
Me, I was made fun of too, but I always pulled trick mentioed in the quote above. Someone would crack wise, and I’d just ask “Why are you looking at my penis?”
That usually ended the ridicule right away.
Not too absurd. After Prohibition was repealed in 1933, the per capita rate of alcohol consumption in the U.S. had dropped to half its pre-Prohibition level, and did not return there until the 1970s.
The difference here is that little toes are still quite useful for fine balance control, you would be slightly disadvantaged without them.
Third-leg jokes aside, the foreskin isn’t at all useful for balance or locomotion, or anything else really.
I don’t see it as any different that losing an appendix, piercing an ear, or getting a tattoo. There are many other places in society that we perform regular body modification, or “mutilation” if you insist, that has no inarguable benefit but is purely done for aesthetics.
Besides, my little joey looks cuter without the pouch.
I always heard US boys were circumcised routinely after WWI because of the number of infections suffered by the men in the trenches. My Dad a WW2 and Korean vet told me this (why I don’t know). I never heard the masturbation story. We did it to our son in the 70’s so he’d look like daddy (even though hubbies dad is uncut, how’s that for inconsistant?)
This question arose between ladybug and I the other night, as she filled out the newly-expectant-mother questionnaire prior to our first OB visit tomorrow. And honestly, I was shocked that she was so closed minded about the subject.
(She found out from her GYN that she was pregnant with an internal ultrasound, about a month ago.)
Among questions about family health history was a question “If your child is male, will he be circumsized? Circle one: Yes/No/Maybe”
BH: “Circle no.”
LB (incredulous): “What do you mean, ‘no’?”
BH: “I mean No. Why would we circumsize him?”
LB (becoming aghast): “Why wouldn’t we??”
BH (recognizing an entrenched assumption when he’s clubbed over the head with it): “It’s barbaric. I resent that it was done to me.”
LB (shuddering): “Women will find it repulsive.”
BH (becoming mischevious): “Jewish women, and closed-minded Americans, perhaps. So he’ll marry a Chicana, or an Asian or European woman. Or if he goes gay, there are lots of gay men out there who have foreskin fetishes.”
LB (not coping well): “You’re not concerned that he’ll look different than his father?”
BH: “I’ll explain to him the difference, and why it was done to me and not him. And I’ll show him how to take care of it.” (and thinking geez, now we’re talking about it like it’s a pet. Shall we pick out a name for it, too?)
LB (looking skeptical): “I’ll circle maybe.”
BH: “Good. That will remind the doctor to talk to us about it. But the answer will be no.”