Male circumcision has been a subject of controversy for a number of reasons including religious, ethical, sexual, and medical.[1][2][3][4][5]
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in a rapidly changing medical and surgical world, circumcision rose in popularity as a means of primitive prophylaxis in the Anglosphere.[6] Its primary justification was to promote cleanliness,[7][8][9] as well as reducing and preventing the incidence of disease.[10][11][12] Many medical professionals and advocates of the procedure also believed that it would reduce pleasure and the urge to masturbate, which was considered a social ill of the era.[1][4][13][11][9]
Modern proponents say that circumcision reduces the risks of a range of infections and diseases and confers sexual benefits.[1][14][4][2][15] By contrast, some opponents, particularly of routine neonatal circumcision, question its preventive efficacy and object to subjecting non-consenting newborn males to a procedure that is potentially harmful, in their view, with little to no benefit, as well as violating their human rights and possibly negatively impacting their sex life.[1][2][4][5][3][16][17][18][19]
^Neusner, Jacob (1993). Approaches to Ancient Judaism, New Series: Religious and Theological Studies. Scholars Press. p. 149. Circumcised barbarians, along with any others who revealed the glans penis, were the butt of ribald humor. For Greek art portrays the foreskin, often drawn in meticulous detail, as an emblem of male beauty; and children with congenitally short foreskins were sometimes subjected to a treatment, known as epispasm, that was aimed at elongation.
^N. Stearns, Peter (2008). The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World. Oxford University Press. p. 179. ISBN9780195176322. Uniformly practiced by Jews, Muslims, and the members of Coptic, Ethiopian, and Eritrean Orthodox Churches, male circumcision remains prevalent in many regions of the world, particularly Africa, South and East Asia, Oceania, and Anglosphere countries.