Circumcision and Masterbation

[Poodge]

When researching circumcision I read that it started in the US as a way to curb masterbation. Is this true? I don't want to pass on incorrect information.
Thanks!

[tennisdude23]

Yes, for the past hundred years, "experts" from the American medical community have claimed that circumcision could cure a myriad of diseases and habits ranging from masturbation to epilepsy, mental illness, etc. Whatever the disease of the era was, circumcision was the answer as well. It's truly a "cure" in search of a disease fueled by hysteria, fear, ill-logic, and prudish attitudes towards sex.

[Quirky]

Yes. Here's a good website (written by a historian):

http://www.historyofcircumcision.net...d=72&Itemid=51

http://www.historyofcircumcision.net...d=73&Itemid=52

Circumcision to prevent/cure masturbation (yeah, that worked well ) actually started in Great Britain and France, and was promoted in this country by John Harvey Kellogg (of Kellogg's breakfast cereal) among others in the mid-19th century.

(True story about cornflakes - invented to try to calm the blood of hot-blooded males. Boring breakfast food => less masturbation, went the theory).

this is an excellent slideshow on the medicalization of circ:

http://www.icgi.org/information/medicalization/

[Minarai]

Originally Posted by Quirky

Yes. Here's a good website (written by a historian):

http://www.historyofcircumcision.net...d=72&Itemid=51

http://www.historyofcircumcision.net...d=73&Itemid=52

Circumcision to prevent/cure masturbation (yeah, that worked well ) actually started in Great Britain and France, and was promoted in this country by John Harvey Kellogg (of Kellogg's breakfast cereal) among others in the mid-19th century.

(True story about cornflakes - invented to try to calm the blood of hot-blooded males. Boring breakfast food => less masturbation, went the theory).

this is an excellent slideshow on the medicalization of circ:

http://www.icgi.org/information/medicalization/

Note: It was John Kellogg's brother William who founded the cereal company. The elder brother managed the asylum where the cornflakes were invented.

[tlh]

And history is repeating once again.I wish that people in Africa were shown this.


http://www.historyofcircumcision.net...ask=view&id=63


In the 1880s there were suggestions that African Americans should be forcibly circumcised as part of a campaign against venereal disease. It was asserted that they were irredeemably promiscuous and impossible to educate in the laws of hygiene. In the 1890s some white doctors went further, arguing that Negroes committing sexual assaults should be summarily castrated, while Dr P.C. Remondino thought it would be both more effective and more humane to pass a law requiring all Negro boys to be routinely circumcised, since the surgery was guaranteed to keep their innate lust within reasonable bounds.

[jessjgh1]

I think more americans need to see this

[Yulia_R]

A Short History of Circumcision in North America: In the Physicians' Own Words

http://www.noharmm.org/docswords.htm