PMID: 9446966Feb 3, 1998Paper

A biocultural analysis of circumcision

Social Biology
R S Immerman, W C Mackey

Abstract

The phenomenon of circumcision may well serve a range of religious and symbolic functions. In addition to these conceptual categories, we argue that circumcision also serves a more mundane, practical function of lowering excitability and distractibility quotients--sexual arousal--of pubescent males, i.e., biasing young males more toward increased tractability which would enhance group efforts and less toward individual goals of amorous exchanges. Neurological data suggest that early lesions of the prepuce/foreskin tissues would generate a re-organization/atrophy of the brain circuitry. This re-organization/atrophy, in turn, is suggested to lower sexual excitability. Epithelial data indicate that keratinization of the more exposed glans penis would lower the sensibility, hence sexual excitability, of the circumcised male's genitalia. In addition, circumcision removes the foreskin-prepuce which, by secreting smegma, would also minimize any pheromonic qualities which the smegma may generate. Inferential data support the hypothesis that a practical consequence of circumcision, complementary to any religious-symbolic function, is to make a circumcised male less sexually excitable and distractible, and, hence, more amenable to his gr...Continue Reading

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Citations

Jan 21, 2006·The Journal of Sexual Medicine·Francesco Montorsi
Sep 3, 2008·The Journal of Sexual Medicine·John N KriegerStephen Moses
Oct 17, 2007·Medical Anthropology Quarterly·Robert Darby, J Steven Svoboda
Feb 5, 2013·BJU International·Guy A BronselaerPiet B Hoebeke
Jan 3, 2016·The Journal of Urology·Jennifer A BossioStephen S Steele
Aug 18, 2004·The Urologic Clinics of North America·Joel C Hutcheson
Sep 8, 1998·The Journal of Genetic Psychology·R S Immerman, W C Mackey
Feb 23, 2007·International Journal of Impotence Research·E AydurI Baser

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