This is certainly a brain teaser for me. I can see why the Jews do it, because they need to to create the covenant between God and the circumsizee. But, why do the gentiles do it? Apparently, 2000 years ago, the Christians decided they didn’t need to remove the foreskin, and of course, the non-Jews never even considered it*.
So how did it become so popular with the gentiles in modern times?
*Maybe they did, but I ain’t no anthropologist.
Very few people circumsize themselves. Most have it done by profesionals.
It is worth pointing out that gentile circumcision is almost exclusively a US phenomenon. In Europe it’s considered mutilation, and frowned upon.
I believe that the original reason for circumcision was lack of hygiene. That is one place where you don’t want a build-up of gunk, and in the days prior to daily showers I believe that it would have been difficult to clean.
I vaguely remember reading a report statig that there are fewer occurances of some kind of genitally related disease for circumsized men, but that it was offset more-or-less equaly by the risk for complications.
If you search the forums here you will find out that it has been the scope for many a Great Debate.
I definitely remember reading that circumcision severely reduces the amount of sexually sensitive tissue in that general area. Give me a few hours and I might even dig up the cite from an ancient bookmarks file or something.
My dad circumcised himself when he was a teen because he had an unusually tight foreskin which made it difficult to pee & such, and he wasn’t raised in an environment where it was considered acceptable to talk about such things. He used a jack-knife.
He was a tough guy, my old man.
AAAAAAAGGGGH!
Did he eat nails too? Geez.
The Straight Dope on circumcision.
Larry, is your dad’s name Sue? Did your grandad leave home when he was 3? Does he do his own dentistry?
It isn’t popular. The vast majority of males in the world (gentile or otherwise) are not circumsized. It’s a ritual that the US seems fixated by though.