The Foreskin Aesthetic or Ugliness Reconsidered

The Importance of the Foreskin

The anthropologist James Boon (1999) has argued that the foreskin has meaning, noting that “foreskins are—cultural facts—whether removed or retained. Absent versus present, prepuces have divided many religions, politics, and ritual persuasions” (p. 43). The foreskin, it seems fair to say, carries significant symbolic energy, which, of course, is obvious when we consider sacred and religious contexts. We can think of the energy spent by anxious parents deciding whether or not to circumcise their sons. Consider, for example, Kimmel’s (2001) essay, “The Un-Kindest Cut: Feminism, Judaism, and My Son’s Foreskin,” in which he accounts for his and his partner’s decision regarding the circumcision of their son. But this significance is perhaps less obvious when we move away from the sacred context and toward the secular context. In the American context, then, the penis without a foreskin is understood as “the judgment of taste” (Bourdieu 2010, 3), and moreover, “It is also a distinctive expression of a privileged position in social space whose distinctive value is objectively established in its relationship to expressions generated from different conditions” (Bourdieu 2010, 49). The absence of the foreskin becomes a kind of American sexual exceptionalism (Puar 2007, 2), recalling here that “the United States is the only nation that has routinely circumcised its male infants for nonreligious reasons” (Sardi 2011, 306). ¹ In the American context, then, we find a discourse wherein the circumcised penis has become normalized, and the uncircumcised penis is an anomaly, foreign, and strange. Accordingly, I argue that it becomes necessary to think carefully about the deployment of aesthetics in discussions surrounding the foreskin and circumcision, particularly in the United States where the foreskin is often the butt of the joke or understood to be ugly.

In her pioneering work, The Beauty Myth, Wolf (1991) imagined a distant future wherein men, in addition to women, would worry about the “beauty” of their genitals. She writes: “Imagine this: penis implants, penis augmentation, foreskin enhancement, testicular silicone injections to correct asymmetry, saline injections with a choice of three sizes, surgery to correct the angle of erection, to lift the scrotum and make it pert” (p. 242). Truth be told, twenty-five years later, much of this seems to have come to fruition. Mail Online, for instance, recently reported on the “rise of the scrotal lift,” so much so that one plastic surgeon “said the popularity of the procedure has risen in the last 18 months and said it was equivalent to women choosing to have breast surgery” (Pickles 2016). The larger point, however, is that men, like women, are worrying about their bodies and more importantly its aesthetics and beauty. In her book, Looking Good: Male Body Image in America, Luciano (2001) notes that “the traditional image of women as sexual objects has been expanded: everyone has become an object to be seen” (p. 12), which is why it is, to my mind, necessary to understand the foreskin—whether absent or present—as part and parcel of men’s bodies, particularly in light of recent discussions about foreskin restoration (Kennedy 2015), cosmetic circumcision (Eid 2013; Miller 2004; Castro-Vázquez 2015), and anticircumcision activism, also known as “intactivism” (Kennedy and Sardi 2016).

A Brief History of the Foreskin in Art

In her study of foreskin restoration, Kennedy (2015) has noted that “the culturally dominant aesthetics of the penis […] continue to value circumcision” (p. 46). Her context is specifically the United States where circumcision, as noted, remains normative (though not universal). From where, then, we might ask does this “culturally dominant aesthetic” originate? Or perhaps, in which cultural contexts must we find ourselves to make this claim with such assurance? I treat the claim with a critical suspicion because it seems to me if one were to look, even superficially, at the history of art, we could find the foreskin is seemingly everywhere, including Michelangelo’s David, arguably one of the most photographed penises in the history of art. I am not staking an argument here about Renaissance sculpture; rather, I would suggest that the David can be understood as an archetype, which is to say, “A typical or recurring image” (Frye 1957, 99). In his work, Frye (1957) argues that an archetype is a “larger communicable symbol” and that “it is possible for a story about the sea to be archetypal, to make a profound imaginative impact, on a reader who has never been out of Saskatchewan” (p. 99), a landlocked Canadian province. The point is that the David exists both within and beyond his particular context and has become an archetype of the male nude that looks back to the ancient and forward to the present.

The David’s foreskin has provoked discussion among scholars. McCarthy (1950) argues, “It was unthinkable to Donatello or Michelangelo to represent David bearing the mark of his religion or race, though they did not spare him many an awkwardness and imperfection of youth” (p. 304). van Driel (2009) likewise explains,

There is the well-known discussion about King David’s “marble foreskin,” since Michelangelo’s celebrated statue of this Jewish patriarch shows him apparently uncircumcised. Scholars had a field day with this and finally declared that Michelangelo knew exactly what he was doing: King David lived around 1000 BC, and it was not until after 300BC that the circumcision laws were tightened. Before that time only a small fringe of the foreskin was removed, which is exactly what one sees in Michelangelo’s sculpture, where the foreskin does not cover the glans…. (p. 211)

Incidentally, while researching at the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, I learned that the “replica [of Michelangelo’s David] in Forrest Lawn (Hollywood’s favorite cemetery) is circumcised” (Uncut America Newsletter 1977, 5). Likewise, Ciaglia (1971) reports in a letter to the editor of Journal of the American Medical Association that

Three versions of Michelangelo’s “David” exist. A colleague, a urologist, has a small reproduction of the David in his office which he was given as a gift. He reports that his David is indeed circumcised. This was completely unexpected and most intriguing; evidently he possesses the Judeao-American version. No doubt, some outraged Zionist had felt that 400 years was enough to suffer this indignity to the House of David, and therefore had acted to correct it.

The third version of Michelangelo’s “David” is strictly early American. A fig leaf placed with Puritan strategy protects the beholder. (p. 1304)

The Beautiful Foreskin

Historically, the foreskin has been tied to conceptions of male beauty, a point we should not lose sight of when we are thinking about penile aesthetics, and especially the ease with which we can speak of “culturally dominant aesthetics” (Kennedy 2015, 46). Fisher (2014), for instance, observes that for the Ancient Greeks, “the ideal of youthful beauty seems normally to be impressive musculature, shiny complexion, large buttocks, and a small penis with a long, tapered prepuce” (p. 2249). Jackson (2005) observes, likewise, that “circumcision […] was contrary to Greek and Roman aesthetics, for it went against the ancient Greek ideal of bodily beauty and perfection” (p. 24). Indeed, the foreskin was so important “in the ancient world that decircumcision was developed as a procedure to reverse the original operation and was sought out by those who wished to reclaim full Roman identity” (p. 23). Clark (2005) notes that “men who had a foreskin mocked, and sometimes oppressed, those who did not, alleging that they had interfered with nature and were sexually excessive” (p. 43). The foreskin, thus, was of significant value and meaning to the ancients.

Likewise, in his book, Greek Homosexuality, Dover (1978) observes, “A special feature of Greek art is the artists’ interest in the foreskin, which the vase-painters, at least, often seem to treat as an entity separate from the penis” (p. 127). Dover explains that “very often the slight constriction at the tip of the glans is meticulously portrayed; exaggerated, this gives a teat-shaped or funnel-shaped foreskin” (p. 217). For the Greeks, the foreskin was central to conceptions of male beauty, and great time and energy was spent on crafting and representing the foreskin in art.

To the modern American, however, this realization likely runs counter to the aesthetic norms of today, which privilege circumcision. And indeed, it is men who have a foreskin who are “mocked, and sometimes oppressed” (Clark 2005, 43). Bigelow (1998), for instance, provides a telling anecdote that reveals how the times have changed: “I was told of an urologist, as late as the winter of 1991, that men who seek the restoration of their foreskin are ‘at least borderline schizophrenics’” (p. 5). Whether absent or present, the foreskin is a site of cultural desire and anxiety. The foreskin speaks to what a culture values, especially with regard to idealized masculinity and beauty. In the case that Bigelow (1998) discusses, a desire for the foreskin is akin to madness.

Arguments about the aesthetics of the foreskin become increasingly complicated, I argue, when confronted by the history of art, especially the male nude in history, which is replete with foreskins—truth be told, it is harder to find a circumcised penis in art than one might imagine. Outside of images of the circumcision of Christ, the vast majority of penises, it would seem, are not circumcised. It seems that it is only in the twentieth century that the foreskin begins to disappear in art, and this is largely a result of the rise of photography, and even then, we must admit that some of the most famous and controversial nudes are intact. Robert Mapplethorpe’s Man in a Polyester Suit (1980), for instance, is not circumcised. In his analysis of the photograph, Kalha (2014) contends that it “was a scandal of sexuality as well as a scandal of race, but it was also—or so I wish to suggest—a little big scandal of the foreskin” (p. 375). Kalha argues that in the United States the foreskin “became irregular—dysfunctional, queer, and peculiar, even somewhat repulsive” (p. 378). ²

The Circumcision Decision

Over the course of the twentieth century, we have witnessed arguments for (and against) circumcision. And while I would very much like to bracket circumcision from this discussion of the foreskin, it does seem imperative to understand, at least briefly, the context for nonreligious circumcisions. Gollaher (2000), for instance, has noted that in the late nineteenth century, circumcision became “an omnibus procedure, effective against dozes of widely feared yet poorly understood disorders” (p. 101). Harrison (2002) argues likewise: “The roots of circumcision in the USA can be traced to 1870 when Dr. John Lewis A. Sayre, an orthopedic surgeon, discovered the (now questionable) merits of circumcision in curing paralysis among male children suffering from phimosis” (p. 303). Gollaher (1994) moreover has suggested that “not only orthopedia problems, but epilepsy, hernia, and even lunacy appeared to respond to circumcision” (p. 8). And Aggleton (2007) contends that “it has been viewed in the USA in a particular panacea for a wide range of medical and social problems historically—from paralysis and hip joint disease to nervousness, anti-social behavior, and imbecility” (p. 15). One additional benefit, along with all of the health ones, is that circumcision was thought to limit masturbation. van Driel (2012) has noted that circumcision “would not only prevent masturbation, but would also combat sexually transmitted diseases or sexual neurasthenia, urinary tract infections and cervical cancer” (p. 115). Since the nineteenth century, then, circumcision has been aligned with protection from illness and disease, from the ancient illness of epilepsy through to HIV/AIDS. However, today the vast majority of these “reasons” for circumcision have been disproven, and even today, we continue to see significant debates about the value of circumcision in the fight against HIV/AIDS, for example. But I would argue that the one argument that seems to have lasting power, the one that is perhaps the hardest to debunk, is also the most subjective: the aesthetic.

In The Circumcision Decision: An Unbiased Guide for Parents, the authors Terkel, a pro-circumcision writer, and Greenberg (2012), an anticircumcision writer, write, “Some cultures circumcised for aesthetic reasons, believing that removing a foreskin enabled a male to ‘look perfect,’ and be pure and godlike” (p. 83). However, they also note,

In other cultures, circumcision identified an elite class, such as when only circumcised and physically perfect males could be temple priests. Even in the United States, during the 1940s, circumcision served as a subtle class distinction, since many boys whose parents could afford hospital births were circumcised but boys born at home, in rural settings, were often left intact. (p. 83)

A similar tactic is used by Morris who, as a writer, uses some particularly interesting prose that is worthy of consideration. Morris (2007) observes, “When humans roamed naked on the African savannah, the prepuce protected the glans penis. But once human started to cover genitals with clothing, that benefit was lost” (p. 1147). I want to pause here briefly to acknowledge that Morris (1999) has long advocated for circumcision and is the author of In Favour of Circumcision. For Earp and Darby (2014), Morris “has been waging a quixotic campaign against the foreskin.” Regardless of this campaign, I am interested in Morris’s language rather than his methods. He prefers to think of the foreskin as a remnant of a prehistoric time that is no longer needed. Of course, he is not alone; in an article by Dehovitz (2000), readers are told that the foreskin is a “piece of prehistoric human culture that now exists as a reservoir of infection” (p. 65; cited in Fox and Thomson 2009, 204). Melvin Anchell has suggested that “the foreskin is an anatomical remnant from a previous stage of evolution when it served a purpose” (in Harrison 2002, 303). Very quickly in the discourse above, we see a primitivist logic underpinning the foreskin. The foreskin is part of a primitive past from which civilized society has surely evolved.

Attached to this primitivist logic is a corollary: “those who are not circumcised,” Morris (2007) argues, “Are mainly from cultures in which circumcision is unfamiliar” (p. 1147). In this example, then, we see the braiding together of primitivism, class, and immigration. For Morris, the foreskin stands for everything that civilized society has moved away from. To keep the foreskin is to be a primitive subject or an immigrant, one who has not yet achieved or conformed to the norms of circumcision. Morris has thus “sought to demonize the humble prepuce” (Earp and Darby 2014), and by extension has also relied on the distinction between civilization and the uncivilized, and whether they be primitive or immigrants. Of course, we cannot help but note that the discourse works “both ways,” insofar as Earp and Darby prefer to think of the foreskin as being helpless against a medical industry intent on destroying it. After all, Morris (2007) does suggest that circumcision is a “biomedical necessity.” By way of contrast, the foreskin, for Earp and Darby, is “humble,” almost as if it is helpless against the “quixotic campaign” (Earp and Darby 2014).

Men and the Foreskin

In a recent study, Male Circumcision in Japan, Castro-Vázquez (2015) shows the ways in which circumcision has become a “financially profitable biomedical project” (p. 8). Castro-Vázquez argues that “circumcision in Japan is commercialized as a ‘technology of the self’ that allegedly conveys a method to regain control over the male body and, by extension, to dominate the female one” (p. 13). In the case of Japan, where routine neonatal circumcision “has never been routinized” (Castro-Vázquez 2015, 43), we learn that circumcision has become an aesthetic project of “self-fashioning,” in which men are able to improve upon their body and its image. Such a rendering then compels us, once more and again, to think through the aesthetics of the foreskin. Indeed, Castro-Vázquez is not alone in considering circumcision and Japan, Miller (2004), for instance, has noted that “one new fad offered as a technique to upgrade a man’s appearance is cosmetic circumcision. Because the majority of Japanese men are not usually circumcised at birth, many young men are now simply having the foreskin surgically removed at male-only clinics” (p. 93). To explain this fad, Miller offers the possibility that

male worries about this aspect of the penis may stem from the role of international pornography, in which the circumcised foreign penis is available for emulation, but more effective is the prevalent of media commentary from young women who openly discussion penile qualities. For instance, an uncircumcised penis is often referred to derogatorily as an “eyeless stick” (menashibō) or “mud turtle” (suppon). These new views concerning the circumcised penis contrast with historic attitudes towards the practice, in which it was usually seen as quite bizarre. (p. 94)

Of course, it should not be lost on us, that circumcision itself is not a guaranteed aesthetic success. Gollaher (2000), for instance, has suggested, “The chief criterion of a successful circumcision, whether medical or ritual, has always been aesthetic. The most common cause of cosmetic and functional problems is simply cutting too much or too little” (p. 133). Not all circumcisions are created equally, some are more aesthetically pleasing than others, and some are less successful in the eyes of the beholder. ⁴

It has been well-documented that “men seem to be increasingly interested in penis aesthetics” (Hall 2015, 118), and, in large part, it can be argued that penile aesthetics are central to how we think about masculinity and the male body more generally. The male body, of course, has long held a special place in the history of art and up until quite recently was frequently represented in nude splendor. As much as we might be tempted to separate men from masculinity, we must also at the same time contend with the very real physical presence of masculinity written upon men’s bodies by way of the penis. As Potts (2000) has argued, “There exists a synecdochal relationship between the man and his penis” and further that the “penis stands in and up for the man” (p. 85). While critical theorists of gender certainly can argue against this perspective (and for good reasons they might), there is still the nagging question of men’s phenomenology of the body and the psychology of the penis in relation to the construction of male identity. I am thus reluctant to separate them wholeheartedly as someone like Sedgwick (1995) is wont to do (p. 12). I agree with Sedgwick on the point that masculinity is not exclusive to men, just as femininity is not exclusive to women; however, I am reluctant to treat these categories as essentially independent of one another, and rather see them as interdigitating. Given the debates about the “size” of men’s penises, for instance, it is hardly surprising at all that men are worried about their penile aesthetics, especially since their penises “stand in and up for the man,” as Potts (2000) has suggested (p. 85).

The Foreskin Aesthetic

Sexual, erotic, and aesthetic desires are in flux. We need only consider the aesthetics of pubic hair, for instance. While Michelangelo’s David boasts a full bush, the male today is often reminded of the importance of “manscaping,” because, as Hall (2015) has noted, one may “trim the bush to make the tree appear taller” (p. 104). Likewise, another study speaks of men’s hairlessness as a “striking facet of contemporary media portrayals of the ideal male body,” and further recognizing that historically “men in modern Western societies have not engaged in body depilation (i.e., removal/reduction of hair below the neck), since body hair has been viewed as symbolic of men’s masculinity and virility” (Martins, Tiggemannn, and Churchett 2008, 312). There is a sexual and erotic desirability, thus, attached to the removal of pubic hair, which speaks to the fluidity of (idealized) masculinity. That is, penile aesthetics are contextual. Sexual, erotic, and aesthetics desires are responses to a cultural framework that is always shifting, modifying itself, and rewriting the rules of desire. Even the most cursory review of bodies in the history of art shows shifting bodily norms.

In the episode of Sex and the City, mentioned above, Charlotte “justified her concerns by saying, ‘Aesthetics are important to me’” (Rosewarne 2013, 200), and Charlotte is surely not alone. Even the most cursory review of American popular culture will quickly reveal that the uncircumcised penis is not the aesthetic ideal. Indeed, there are so many examples in popular culture that Rosewarne (2013) is able to speak in terms of a “narrative theme” that appears in popular culture and that “works to reiterate that the circumcised penis is the normal penis; those who deviate are abnormal, are heinous” (p. 202). Rosewarne finds a number of tropes in popular culture: circumcision and civility, circumcision and cleanliness, circumcision and sexual prowess, “the aesthetic horror of the foreskin,” as well as more particular instances of adult circumcision, deciding “to circumcise or not to circumcise,” circumcision as child abuse, foreskin restoration, and the botched circumcision. Additionally, and perhaps importantly for the purposes of this article, the foreskin is sexualized as something “exotic,” for example, when Homer Simpson declared, “How Euro!” upon seeing a newborn’s penis. Popular culture is replete with examples of discussions, representations, jokes, and gossip about the foreskin, and so often, I would argue, the question of aesthetics begins to trump other arguments, for it is the one argument that is most difficult with which to argue. Again, as Charlotte said, “Aesthetics are important to me” (Rosewarne 2013, 200).

Aesthetics and Sexual Pleasure

One of the most common, and perhaps strongest, ways to argue for circumcision has been to suggest that the circumcised penis while being aesthetically pleasing is also sexually so. In a sense, the aesthetic argument reaches its apotheosis once we begin to account for sexual preferences and desire. Indeed, as Hickman (2013) has suggested, “Women, of course, do have preferences about body parts, just like men. Some, for instance, have a taste for the circumcised penis, finding it neater, some for the uncircumcised penis, because the foreskin is another element and that it rolls back on the erection adds intrigue” (p. 58). It is, of course, difficult to argue with this claim. People have preferences for all kinds of things. One critique of this argument may well be its insistence upon heteronormativity; however, as Carpenter and Kettrey (2015) found in their study of newspaper discussions of circumcision, “Heteronormativity was particularly pronounced in discussions of partner pleasure” (p. 852). Nonetheless, the claim shows the complexity of sexual, erotic, and aesthetic desires.

Foreskin preferences, of course, are not unique to heterosexual women. Gay and queer men, as well, have said much about foreskin preferences and aesthetics; however, it must be admitted that much research remains to be done on circumcision status and desire or preference outside of the heterosexuality. Writing from the field of psychology and sexuality, Bossio, Pukall, and Bartley (2015) note, “Future research should aim to replicate the finds in this paper using a larger sample of MSM [men who have sex with men]” (p. 117). Their study concludes that foreskin status does play a role in the sexual life of a man and his partner, but also that “women and men reported overall high satisfaction with their partner’s genitals, and overwhelmingly reported that they did not wish for a change in their partner’s circumcision status” (p. 118). What they do not tell readers, however, is whether or not men or women inquired about a sexual partner’s foreskin status before engaging in sexual relations. Certainly, as noted in The Joy of Gay Sex, many men do find the foreskin status to be of significant importance, either for or against. Silverstein and White (1997), in the first edition of The Joy of Gay Sex, explain,

Many gay men register strong preferences for “cut” or “uncut” meat: in fact personal ads in gay publications often specify which. This has to be an entirely personal choice since when erect circumcised and uncircumcised cocks look and feel much the same. (p. 104)

Scholarly articles, which of course are not infallible, would seemingly affirm the desire for the circumcised penis rather than the foreskin. In “Male Circumcision: Implications for Women as Sexual Partners and Parents,” Hankins (2007) observes that

women who had experienced sex with both circumcised and uncircumcised partners in a US study reported a strong preference for circumcised over uncircumcised sexual partners, both for aesthetic reasons and for various sexual activities, ranging from fellatio and manual stimulation to sexual intercourse. (p. 64)

Indeed, this question of parents and partners becomes all the more important when we critique the heteronormativity that is so central to these discussions. Throughout their work, Bossio, Pukall, and Bartley (2015) found that “men with intact partners reported consistently higher levels of satisfaction with their partner’s circumcision status compared to those with circumcised partners” (p. 115). The authors thus conclude that “it is unclear why gender differences in satisfaction with partner circumcision status emerged in the current sample” (p. 115). Moreover, the authors note, “Men […] showed a large preference for intact partners for anal intercourse, fellatio, and manual stimulation of his partner’s genitals” (p. 116). The authors thus admitted the need for further study, noting that “the rationale behind this finding cannot be gleaned from the current study” (p. 117). Indeed, this is a curious revelation and one which merits further study. So much of the available scholarship on circumcision and preference has been heteronormative in nature. Even when parents discuss why they had their sons circumcised, the parents often explain reasons for the future sexuality of the child, which is presumed to be heterosexual. ⁵ But if it turns out that men prefer uncircumcised penises in their partners, what then can be said of the social reasons for routine neonatal circumcision? What is an aesthetic question or reason suddenly affects the sexual life of the subject, especially when predicated upon the idea that one’s child is always already heterosexual?

Bossio, Pukall, and Bartley (2015) assessed “beliefs about circumcision status” and found that the circumcised penis was imagined as:

most hygienic, cleaner, the social norm, most common in my country, most common for my age group, more erotic, more attractive, more natural, provides greater pleasure during penile-vaginal intercourse, provides greater pleasure during penile-anal intercourse, feels nicer to touch, is more interesting, reduces risk of transmitting STIs, is preferred by men themselves, is preferred by female sexual partners of men, and is preferred by male sexual partners of men. (p. 108, emphasis mine)

Preferences for circumcision are, as we are seeing here, notoriously slippery or perhaps are double-sided like the foreskin itself. Aesthetics quickly become sexuality, and in so doing, we also begin to see a series of expectations imposed upon gender. The circumcised penis, for instance, is afforded better sex, at least within the heterosexual paradigm in the studies noted above. Perhaps nowhere is this discussion of sexuality and aesthetics more rich than in sub-Saharan Africa where circumcision has become indicative of healthy masculinity. The challenge with studying circumcision in Africa is that “there are very few contemporary studies on the history of male circumcision in Africa, its symbolism and related cultural concepts, changing in how it is being practised, or the influence of social environments on how it is perceived” (Niang and Boiro 2007, 22). Of the research that is available, much of it is “descriptive or ethnographic. Most of the practices are presented according to their differences from each other and as something exotic, and there is no attempt to understand the coherence in the conceptual and philosophical principles and broader social dynamics involved” (Niang and Boiro 2007, 22). What we do know, however, is that many in the biomedical sciences and their partners have advocated circumcision as a prophylaxis that can be used to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS. Of course, such an approach is as dependent upon ideas about health as it is about gender, for example, one study found that there was “a very strong social pressure for men to be circumcised. Uncircumcised men were described as being dirty, uneducated and ‘out of fashion’” (Zea et al. 2013, 4, emphasis mine). Even if the reasons for circumcision are prophylactic, the ideas surrounding circumcision are tied to aesthetics, sexuality, and gender. In the same study, “One woman discussed how embarrassed she would be if someone found out her husband was uncircumcised” (Zea et al. 2013, 4). The authors ultimately found that “women in Iringa, Tanzania strongly prefer circumcised men because of the low risk perception of HIV with circumcised men, social norms favoring circumcised men, and perceived increased sexual desirability of circumcised men” (Zea et al. 2013, 6). These women, like Charlotte, prefer the circumcised penis not just for the apparent health benefits but also for what we might understand as aesthetic, or at the very least, subjective, reasons.

Circumcision preference is, as I hope is becoming apparent, deeply subjective and most often tied to the cultural framework in which research is conducted. Carpenter and Ketterly (2015) have observed that:

Claims that male circumcision could enhance sexual pleasure make sense in the United States, where male circumcision is the norm and few men express intense sexual discontent, but may be less plausible (or more discomfiting) in England, where male circumcision is rare and most men also seem sexually contented. Conversely, claims that male circumcision causes sexual problems makes more sense in male circumcision-averse England than in male circumcision-prone United States. (p. 853)

Conclusion

In conclusion, when the foreskin is discussed, it is so often situated in the subjective and the aesthetic. For example, numerous studies have demonstrated a kind of “sexual preference” for the foreskin or for circumcision, which moves the discussion of circumcision well beyond the prophylactic. Indeed, some studies have argued that women have a significant role to play in voluntary male circumcision for prophylactic purposes. Riess, Achieng, and Bailey (2014) in their study, “Women’s Beliefs about Male Circumcision, HIV Prevention, and Sexual Behaviors in Kisumu, Kenya,” note that “the role of women’s sexual behavior as it relates to men’s circumcision status is an important component of HIV prevention” (p. 1), and moreover, they argue that “women play an important part in influence male circumcision. Women have been shown to influence and make decisions about whether their sons are circumcised as well as sway their male partner’s decisions to become circumcised” (p. 2). Time and again, the arguments move from the prophylactic toward more subjective concerns. The authors conclude that

since the sexual gratification of both partners is important to the success of MMC [Medical Male Circumcision] programs and some women in this study expressed greater sexual satisfaction with circumcised partners, messaging around women’s sexual pleasure may be worthwhile to explore for MMC campaigns in order to promote the idea of women’s sexual pleasure as part of MMC.” (p. 6)