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Books about circumcision
ReferenceAuthor Title PublisherSummary

Aldeeb

Sami A. Aldeeb
Male Circumcision And Female Circumcision Among Jews, Christians, and Muslims: Religious, Medical, Social And Legal Debate
Abu-Sahlieh Publisher: Shangri-La Publications
ISBN 0-9677201-8-2, Cloth Handbound
[ISBN 0-9677201 ??, Paperback]

A revised English translation of the book in two volumes published in Arabic by Riad El-Rayyes in Beirut and prefaced by Dr. Nawal Al-Saadawi. It is also available in French, published by L'Harmattan.

Orders are accepted from the publisher,

Shangri-La Publications
#3 Coburn Hill Rd
Warren Center PA 19951, USA
circa 530 pages

by email:
or off the website
Price: $US44.50 Cloth Handbound
$US36.00 if and when published in paperback
A pre-publication subscription discount of 10% is available until January 2002 Also available through Barnes and Noble

Sami Aldeeb
Male and female circumcision in the Jewish, Christian and Muslim communities, religious debate
Riad El-Rayyes Books
Sanayeh - Union Building
P.O.Box 113/5796
Beirut
Lebanon
Fax 00961 1 743 641
562 pp, $US15
ISBN 1 85513 406 3

In Arabic

You can see an English translation of the foreword by Dr. Nawal El-Saadawi.

Sami Aldeeb is staff legal adviser for Arab and Islamic Law, at the Swiss Institute of Comparative Law, Dorigny,1015 Lausanne, Switzerland

Un livre par
Sami A. Aldeeb Abu-Sahlieh
Circoncision masculine - Circoncision féminine:
débat religieux, médical, social et juridique

Editeur: L'Harmattan, Paris
24x16 cm, 539 pages.
Prix: 290 Francs français

En français

Il peut être ordonné par internet ou email.

Berkeley

Bud Berkeley,
Foreskin: A Closer Look
Alyson

A loosely organised compendium of history, first person accounts and photographs, of both the foreskin and circumcision, more suited to the person with a sexual interest in one or the other.


Out of print in April 2000

Bigelow

Jim Bigelow & James L. Snyder,
The Joy of Uncircumcising! : Exploring Circumcision : History, Myths, Psychology, Restoration, Sexual Pleasure, and Human Rights
2nd edition (January 1995)
Hourglass Book Publishers
ISBN: 093406122X

This book goes far beyond its short title; it is a comprehensive review of circumcision and the case against it.


cover

"The Joy of Uncircumcising", amended in the light of recent developments, is now available on paper, on CD, or as an eBook from the NORM website.

Bisque

Lisa Bisque,
You Call This Love: The Real Reason Women Don't Like Sex
iUniverse.com

One woman's investigation of the effect of circumcision on sexuality. cover

Boyd

Billy Ray Boyd,
Circumcision Exposed: Rethinking a Medical and Cultural Tradition
Crossing Press
ISBN: 0895949393

Previously published as Circumcision, what it does

An excellent short summary, with a sensitive treatment of Brit Milah and appropriate first-person involvement.


cover

Read reviews and order
Circumcision Exposed
directly using PayPal from the book's own website.

Carlquist

Sherwin Carlquist
Uncut: The Natural History of the Foreskin
Pinecone Educational, Santa Barbara
ISBN-0-964881-9-7. [Adult content.]

It is hard to say anything about "Uncut" that it has not already said about itself. From the dustjacket:

Text placed on a dust jacket flap is a publisher's device to introduce a book's merits in a simple and convincing way. Thereby, the publisher hopes to capture a reader's interest sufficiently to make a sale. UNCUT is a book with some merits—but what are they?

Is UNCUT an anti-circumcision document based on full and accurate information? Yes, but in the form of a pretentious photo-essay depicting the human male foreskin with an overly zealous intensity. In contrast to the simple and effective drawings found in medical books, Carlquist's photographs are so explicit that they veer into fetishism.

UNCUT invites the reader to accept the foreskin, like other parts of the human body, as beautiful in its functionality. Those with a normal sense of propriety and modesty are not likely to accept this invitation. A biologist's sense of the wonders of natural structures is probably needed to see the beauty in the varied forms of living objects.

UNCUT makes an unprecedented effort to demonstrate how much fun a foreskin can be, what a useful and enjoyable structure it is. If this effort succeeds, however, circumcised men may develop considerable foreskin envy. For such unfortunate men, UNCUT may not be the outrageously funny, taboo-breaking, ironic and iconic celebration of the intact male that it is intended to be. Not a book for all kinds of people, then, and not for all ages (the elderly are not likely to be amused or interested). Despite the wonderful graphic design, high production values, and ingenious content, UNCUT is a book in search of an audience. Its small edition size and the fact that it is likely to go out of print soon make UNCUT an ideal collector's item that will probably increase rapidly in value.

 

Original Joes
review by Robert Julian [whose disquiet with the subect is palpable.] in the Bay Area Reporter

"Of all the books I never expected to see, Uncut, an agitprop homage to foreskin, zooms right to the top of the list. Written by a 77-year-old biologist from the University of California, Uncut not only contains over 100 black-and-white images of uncircumcised penises, but the author creates an action hero, Captain Uncut, to guide readers through the text, courtesy of little cartoon bubbles. Readers may be amused, horrified, or disgusted [how about "pleasantly surprised"?] when they notice Captain Uncut's head is topped by a large foreskin.

Captain Uncut introduces himself ''Captain Uncut KO's Dr Snipper!'' POW!

"Author Carlquist spends the first quarter of the book describing specific parts of the intact male penis, as well as their uses and functions. Each description is accompanied by photos, and the information provided is precise and detailed. Carlquist is an anti-circumcision crusader (aka intactivist), and he carefully details the benefits of being uncircumcised, as well as the damage circumcision inflicts on male sexual response. ...

"All the photos of male genitalia in the book are close-ups, except for one shot that contains a face tugging on a long piece of foreskin like that little dog pulling at that bathing suit in the Coppertone ad, and a second that includes the body attached to one of the penises. ...

"But Carlquist really hits his stride in the final three-quarters of the text, which provide a visual cornucopia of penile images akin to those created off-Broadway in the show The Puppetry of the Penis. Carlquist demonstrates, in extreme close-up on high-quality paper stock, how the uncircumcised penis can be used as a vase, a change purse, a key holder, and an objet d'art. Stretched, pierced, tattooed, ringed, and weighted foreskins abound. It can never be said that Sherwin Carlquist lacks a sense of humor ...

"Uncut, which the author describes as "a book more than 20 years in the making," is being published in a limited edition of 1,000. ... The information Carlquist provides in Uncut is useful and potentially helpful to parents who might be considering the circumcision of a male child. ... "

Cover of

$25 ppd. Send check payable to Sherwin Carlquist to Pinecone Press, 4539 Via Huerto, Santa Barbara, CA 93110.

The same author has published a series of albums of "Natural Men" - not only intact but without piercings, tattoos, tanlines or shaved bodies.

Cohen

Shaye J. D. Cohen,
Why Aren't Jewish Women Circumcised?
Univ. of California Press, 2005.

Cohen is a Jewish Studies professor at Harvard, a specialist in rabbinic studies. He has a beginner's knowledge of the arguments against circumcision. but gives them only guarded recognition. He concludes with a vaguely worded defense that slides past the central issue of whether anyone has the right to do this to an infant.

His essential answer to the question in the title comes on p. 111, beginning of Part 2, where he discusses four "responses," the first being most important:

"Why do Jewish men bear a covenantal mark on their bodies but not Jewish women? The fundamental answer . . . is that the Jewishness of women is different from the Jewishness of men, or, to be more blunt, the Jewishness of women is of a lesser kind than the Jewishness of men. The absence of circumcision bespeaks their second-tier status. This is the answer that I have been calling the implicit answer of rabbinic Judaism . . . What was implicit for [the earlier rabbis] became explicit in the thirteenth century."

Jewish women especially may wish to consider the implications of that.

Darby

Robert Darby,
A Surgical Temptation: The Demonization of the Foreskin and the Rise of Circumcision in Britain
University of Chicago Press
0-226-13645-0
2005

In the eighteenth century, the Western world viewed circumcision as an embarrassing disfigurement peculiar to Jews. A century later, British doctors urged parents to circumcise their sons as a routine precaution against every imaginable sexual dysfunction, from syphilis and phimosis to masturbation and bed-wetting. Thirty years later the procedure again came under hostile scrutiny, culminating in its disappearance during the 1960s.

Why Britain adopted a practice it had traditionally abhorred and then abandoned it after only two generations is the subject of A Surgical Temptation. Robert Darby reveals that circumcision has always been related to the question of how to control male sexuality. This study explores the process by which the male genitals, and the foreskin especially, were pathologized, while offering glimpses into the lives of such figures as James Boswell, John Maynard Keynes, and W. H. Auden. Examining the development of knowledge about genital anatomy, concepts of health, sexual morality, the rise of the medical profession, and the nature of disease, Darby shows how these factors transformed attitudes toward the male body and its management and played a vital role in the emergence of modern medicine.

Glick

Leonard Glick,
Marked in Your Flesh, Circumcision from Ancient Judea to Modern America
Oxford University Press, New York, 2005
ISBN: 019517674X

Leonard Glick
Leonard Glick

This important book traces the history of circumcision from the ancient Middle East to the modern US and its transformation, from a blood ritual to a surgical procedure with extraordinary cultural power, weaving history and analysis together in a very readable way.

You can hear an interview with Dr. Glick from Station WFCR by clicking the MP3 button here.

cover
Available in paperback

Goldman
(1997)

Ronald Goldman,
Circumcision--The Hidden Trauma: How an American Cultural Practice Affects Infants and Ultimately Us All
Paperback - 320 pages
Vanguard Publications
ISBN: 0964489538

Goldman
(1998)

Ronald Goldman,
Questioning Circumcision: A Jewish perspective
Vanguard Publications
ISBN: 0964489562

As the title implies, this thoughtfully argues the case for a Brit without Milah. Recommended by five rabbis.

Gollaher

David L. Gollaher,
Circumcision: A History of the World's Most Controversial Surgery
Mark Dastrup/Basic Books
ISBN: 0465043976

This ground-breaking book attempts to explain the worldwide obsession with circumcising, and puts the current US medical preoccupation into that context.

To a review in the New York Times. (Requires registration. Let me know if this link fails and I will post the whole review.)

Griffin

Gary M. Griffin
Decircumcision: Foreskin Restoration, Methods and Circumcision Practices
Paperback, 1992

This pioneering work is out of print.

Gruenbaum

Ellen Gruenbaum
The Female Circumcision Controversy: An Anthropological Perspective
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001

For better understanding of the obstacles of opposing FGM & MGM, and for implicit suggestions on how to use careful strategy rather than head-on confrontation. Gruenbaum worked in Sudan, now teaches at California State University, Fresno.
Available in paperback at $24.95

Hodges and Fleiss

Frederick M. Hodges and Paul M. Fleiss M.D.
What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Circumcision:
Untold Facts on America's Most Widely Performed-and Most Unnecessary Surgery

Warner Books
ISBN: 0446678805

"Packed with sensible information, practical solutions that work, and landmark information on male health and child care...an indispensible guide for parents"

- Dr Dean Edell


cover
Read reviews and order
What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Circumcision
from Barns and Noble

Hoffman

Lawrence A. Hoffman,
Covenant of Blood :
Circumcision and Gender in Rabbinic Judaism
(Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism)

University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226347842

This book traces Jewish doubts about circumcision over the last 150 years, and the progressive separation of women from the rite over centuries. The writer himself does not take a stand, at least in part because he is part of the system he is trying to analyse.

Lewis

Joseph Lewis
In the name of humanity!
Eugenics Pub. co.
New York, 1949

Perhaps the first book ever to challenge routine infant circumcision. Long out of print and hard to get hold of, it is highly regarded by some of those who have read it, criticised as anti-Semitic by others.

Lightfoot
-Klein

Hanny Lightfoot-Klein,
Prisoners of Ritual: An Odyssey Into Female Genital Circumcision in Africa
Harrington Park Press, Binghamton, NY
ISBN: 091839368X

Hanny Lightfoot-Klein
Hanny Lightfoot-Klein

Primarily about FGM, but has a chapter on male circumcision.

Mgqolozana

Thando Mgqolozana,
A Man Who is Not a Man
UKZN Press, 2009
EAN: 9781869141769

First-person novel about a survivor of a botched Xhosa circumcision.

"With frankness and courage, new author Thando Mgqolozana details the pain and life-long shame that is experienced as a result of not just the physical trauma, but the social ostracism of being labelled ‘a failed man’. He decodes the values and mysteries of this deep-seated cultural tradition and calls to account the elders for the disintegrating support systems that allow such tragic outcomes to happen. But it is also through this life-changing experience that his protagonist is forced to find his strength and humanity, and reassess what it really means to be a man."

This excerpt tells of his abuse by a nurse.

O'Hara

Kristen O'Hara with Jeffrey O'Hara
Sex As Nature Intended It
The Most Important Thing You Need to Know About Making Love But No One Could Tell You Until Now

(2nd edition, revised, with new material)
ISBN 0970044208
Turning Point Publications
PO Box 486
Hudson, MA 01749
ph 1-800-247-6553

$19.95 plus $3.50 S/H
(MA residents add $1.00 sales tax)

Largely based on the O'Haras' survey of women who have had sex with both intact and circumcised men, it argues in favour of the intact penis as enhancing women's sexual pleasure (as well as the man's). The book's webpage offers extensive summaries.

Ritter

Thomas J. Ritter
(with George C. Denniston)
Say NO to Circumcision: 40 Compelling Reasons
Marketscope Books
ISBN: 0934061300

Updated and revised by George C. Denniston, MD and reissued as Doctors Re-examine Circumcision. Now includes the most recent research, data, terminology, and medical-association position-statements available about infant circumcision.

Case of 66 books ($4 per book) = $289
30 books ($6 per book) = $195
20 books ($7 per book) = $152
10 books ($8 per book) = $90
5 books ($9 per book) = $53
2 books ($10 per book) = $25
1 book ($11.95 per book) = $15

All prices include shipping to a single address in the US. Orders to outside the US will have different shipping charges. All the proceeds from the sale of this book will be used for circumcision education and outreach programs.

Order via email to MusiciansUnited@aol.com or send a cheque or money order, made payable to NOCIRC-PA, to
NOCIRC-PA
PO Box 103
Mountville, PA 17554.

Robinett

Patricia Robinett,
The Rape of Innocence One Woman's Story of Female Genital Mutilation in the USA
Aesculapius Press
P O Box 256
Eugene, OR 97440

Patricia Robinett
Patricia Robinett

The story of how one woman discovered she had been the victim of female genital mutilation as a child in Kansas. Deals with both the female and male operations.
Available as an e-book and as a talking book on CD. Download brochure (pdf)
Rape of Innocence cover

Romberg

Rosemary Romberg,
Circumcision: the painful dilemma
Bergin & Garvey , Massechusetts, 1985

An excellent overview of most aspects of circumcision. The author had her three sons circumcised before beginning to doubt the procedure. Extremely moderate, and more convincing for that reason.

Schutt

Carl Schutt,
I Want My Foreskin for Giftmas
34pp
Inkus Imagination, 2004

A quirky work: a poem for expectant parents presented in images worked in paper-sculpture.
''I want my foreskin for Giftmas'' cover

The author sings it on VideoGoogle.

Available from http://www.iwantmyforeskinforgiftmas.com/mainsiteflash.html

Silverman

Eric Silverman,
From Abraham to America: A History of Jewish Circumcision
Rowman & Littlefield, 2006

From the publisher: "...a comprehensive overview of Jewish circumcision throughout history. Beginning with Genesis, the author traces paradoxes and tensions in biblical-Jewish circumcision as seen both within Judaism and from the dominant, non-Jewish culture, and ends with the current debate over Jewish and routine medical circumcision in America."

From the author: "... while I did, in the spirit of intellectual honestly, critique many anti-circumcision arguments, especially the rather disturbing images of Jews, I also critique the pro-circumcision arguments. I endorse no position."

Wallerstein

Edward Wallerstein,
Circumcision: An American Health Fallacy
Springer Publishing: 1980.
Available from Birth & Life

This classic condemnation of circumcision covers all the bases known in 1980 (not HIV/AIDS). Its final chapter is reproduced here.

Books with significant circumcision content
ReferenceAuthor Title PublisherSummary

Auslander

Shalom Auslander
Foreskin's Lament
Riverside Books, 2007

"Thousands of years ago, a terrified, half-mad old man genitally mutilated his son, hoping it would buy him some points with the Being he hoped was running the show. Over the years, equally terrified men wrote blessings and composed prayers and devised rituals and ordained that an empty seat be left for Elijah. Six thousand years later, a father will not look his grandson in the face, and a mother and sister will defend such behavior, because the child wasn't mutilitated in precisely the right fashion."

Memoir of (partially) escaping from a highly Orthodox Jewish family and community.

From a review:"His father was belligerent and volatile and given to threats involving amputation."

From an interview: "[Deciding whether to circumcise my son] was incredibly difficult and it was at that point, or afterwards that I realised that's really what the book was about. ... I was enraged that when a nurse turned to me, and said "This is- it's a boy" it turned my life upside down. ... what my mind became increadibly occupied with was, "Do I mutilate this kid or don't I?" ... Ah, I think it's very funny (laughs) that talking about my son's willy ruins the book. (Laughs) So, his name is Pax and if you're listening to this in 20 years, apologies ahead of time, but um, ... our son had a very difficult time getting into this world, and without going into too many details I was afraid that God might make it very easy for him to leave, and it was right after that, ... that a doctor came in and asked us if we were going to circumcise and, and we looked at each other and my wife shrugged and I shrugged and then I thought, "I'm not messing around with this guy right now." There's this tiny little boy hooked up to a bunch of tubes, and I said "Yeah. We will." And I mention in the book that next day, a few hours after that, I think it was the next day, they came and they took his little sealed cart that he was in and rolled him down the hall, and did it, and I couldn't watch. I walked out, and heard him screaming and, I say in the book that the moment my son became a Jew was the moment I felt least like one." [Surgical circumcision in a hospital on an unspecified day by an unknown doctor without ritual has nothing to do with being a Jew, let alone becoming one.]

Foreskin's Lament is also the title of a 1981 New Zealand play.

Cohen

Joseph Cohen
The Penis Book
Könemann, Cologne
ISBN 382902186-0

A thin, jokey book of penis-lore (such as Penis Day). One page of the two-page "Great Circumcision Debate" is a picture of a butcher with a chopper and a string of sausages. Both sides get exactly equal space, fewer than 100 words each. (No room to rebut circumcisionist claims or mention human rights.) Though there are good photos of intact penises, some key diagrams are not.

The text mentions common and medical terms from 'bladder' to 'corpus spongiosum' - but neither 'foreskin' nor 'prepuce'. It attributes sensitivity to the frenulum (a common displacement when that is all that is left of the ridged band) and says the most dense concentration of nerves is in the testicles! (Possibly assumed from the acute pain caused by a kick to them, but there is more to nerves than pain.)


''Penis Book'' cover

Don't confuse it with The Penis Book: an owner's manual by Margaret Gore or The Book of the Penis by Maggie Paley.

Forfar

AGM Campbell and N McIntosh (eds)
Forfar and Arneil's Textbook of Pediatrics
Churchill Livingston
Fifth edition 1998

"Routine circumcision of the newborn as commonly practiced in the USA is to be condemned, the incidence of complications, including death, far outweighing the supposed advantage of avoiding such problems as carcinoma of the penis. ... The fact that it is 'more hygienic' is often used as an excuse for circumcision but one does not chop off the ears to save washing them, or the feet because they may smell!... The only valid [reason] is a fibrous phimosis. This may be due to inappropriate attempts at retraction at an early age, causing splitting and scarring of the preputial meatus ... Circumcision is thus performed either for religious or tribal reasons, for fibrous phimosis or, perhaps most frequently, for remuneration!"

Gisselquist

David Gisselquist,
Points to Consider:
Responses to HIV/AIDS in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean

2nd ed. London: Adonis & Abbey, 2008

A critique of approaches to the AIDS epidemic to date, focusing on erroneous beliefs about transmission, especially the discounting of blood-borne transmission and overcounting of sexual transmission. (NB: it does not deny HIV as the agent of AIDS.)

The entire book is online. Chaper 7 has a section on circumcision trials.

Halliday

Ayun Halliday
The Big Rumpus
(Seal Press, 2002)
ISBN 1580050719
Distributed by Ingrams and Publishers Group West

A first-person account of childbirth and rearing includes a chapter divided three ways between the son's intactness, the daughter's (born with a third thumb) and the decision whether to declaw the cat.


''The Big Rumpus'' cover

Hitchins

Christopher Hitchins,
god Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
Twelve Books, Hachette Book Group, New York, 2007
ISBN 0446579807

"In more recent times, some pseudosecular arguments have been adduced for male circumcision. ... Full excision, originally ordered by god as the blood price for the promised future massacre of the Canaanites, is now exposed for what it is - a mutilation of a powerless infant with the aim of ruining its future sex life. The connection between religious barbarism and sexual repression could not be plainer than when it is ˜marked in your flesh." Who can count the number of lives that have been made miserable in this way, especially since Christian doctors began to adopt ancient Jewish folklore in their hospitals? ... If religion and its arrogance were not involved, no healthy society would permit this primitive amputation, nor allow any surgery to be practiced on the genitalia without the full and informed consent of the person concerned."
'god Is Not Great'' cover

Hamilton

Dr. Terri Hamilton
Skin Flutes & Velvet Gloves: A Collection of Facts and Fancies, Legends and Oddities About the Body's Private Parts
First U.S. edition, April 2002
St Martin's Press
$25.95US or $38.95CAN

Emphasises the important structure and role of the foreskin. Has a chapter on circumcision. Does not mention the ridged band, however.
There is an excellent chapter on female genital mutilation.


''Skin Flutes'' cover

Jones

Steve Jones,
Y: the Descent of Men
Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316856150

In a sometimes irritating journalistic style, eleven pages of a chapter, "Man Mutilated" unequivocally condemn circumcision. Coverage is wide-ranging but sketchy, and some information is out of date or inaccurate,


Y: cover

Kick

Russ Kick (ed.),
Everything You Know About SEX is WRONG, The disinformation Guide to Extremes of human sexuality (and everything in between)
The Disinformation Co. Ltd, 163 Third Ave, Suite 108, NYC 10003 - 2523 , FAX 212-691-1606, phone ---1605 website www.disinfo.com

In it there is a chapter by Diane Petryk-Bloom on "Circumcision and Sex" which is the most devastating critique of circumcision, about how it damages sexual pleasure The price is $24.95 and it is a paperbound large type.

Kitzinger

Sheila Kitzinger,
The New Pregnancy & Childbirth: Choices and Challenges
Dorling Kindersley, 4th edition, 2003
ISBN 075136438X

Succinctly and unequivocally condemns circumcision.


At least the UK edition, published by Dorling Kindersley, does.

Kitzinger, ''New Pregancy & Childbirth'' UK cover

It is not confirmed that the two editions have the same content. They have the same number of pages, 448.

Madaras

Lynda Madaras
The What's Happening to My Body? Book for Boys: The New Growing-Up Guide for Parents and Sons,
Third Edition, Newmarket Press
ISBN: 1557044473

This book, aimed at 9-12 year olds, is particularly suited to intact boys.
Cover

Matteoli

Richard Matteoli
Blood Ritual I: the Munchausen Complex
Nunzio Press, 2008

The Munchausen Syndrome is the tendency to make up stories, especially about one's health to justify unnecessary treatment. More contentious is "Munchausen by proxy" the fabrication of symptoms in someone else, such as a child. Richard Matteoli explores issues around Munchausens, including those used to justify unnecessary circumcision.

Miles

Rosiland Miles
The Rites of Man: Love, Sex and Death in the Making of the Male
GraftonBooks, London, 1991

A study of the roots of male violence. Several passages touch on circumcision, but she seems unaware of the frequency of Routine Infant Circumcision in the US.

Morris

Desmond Morris,
Babywatching
Jonathan Cape, London, 1991

A chapter "Why are babies circumcised?" is a 2½ page attack on the practice. Has a light touch: "[Circumcision] has been said to be valuable because ...The Devil hides beneath the foreskin, ... The truth ...is... Those who believe in the Devil know perfectly well that he can enter the body through any unprotected orifice, which makes the circumcised individual more vulnerable than the uncircumcised." Considers the foreskin only as protective of the glans, however, not as erogenous in its own right, saying that circumcision "has no effect, one way or the other, on the sexual performance of the adult male" - presumably following Masters and Johnson.


Desmond Morris,
The Human Sexes: A Natural History of Man and Woman
Network (BBC), London, 1997

Three pages strongly condemn all genital mutilation and attempt to explain it. Nearly half a page about foreskin restoration.

Desmond Morris
The Naked Man: a study of the male body
Jonathan Cape, London, 2008

Has a chapter on the penis, including "the Greek obsession with the foreskin", Australian subincision, circumcision, which he calls "this unusual form of child abuse" and "the most common, and most profitable, form of surgey known to man" and foreskin restoration:

"If men are prepared to subject themselves to such extraordinary measures, it is clear that, for some at least, circumcision is a continuing nightmare that should, in future, be stamped out completely.

"The pro-circumcision lobby counter-claims that there are important medical benefits from circumcision and denies that there is any evidence of later psychological harm or loss of sexual pleasure.

"Clearly these two schools of thought contradict one another on three key issues: psychological, sexual and medical. Their conclu­sions, based in both cases on extensive medical research, are flatly opposed to one another. Obviously, emotional factors are playing too big a part here and it will no doubt be some time before a final, unbiased, objective statement can be achieved."

Order from Borders.

Simblet

Sarah Simblet
Anatomy for the Artist
with photographs by John Davis
Dorling Kindersley (DK) Publishing Inc; 1st American ed edition, 2001

Unlike most anatomy books, includes a section on the genitals, with four photographs of different lengths of foreskin and one of a circumcised penis. [at least the British edition does....]


''Anatomy for the Artist'''' cover

Somerville

Margaret Somerville
The Ethical Canary: Science, Society and the Human Spirit
Toronto, 2000: Viking
ISBN 0-670-89302-1
344 pages

Margaret Somerville is the first academic ethicist to question the ethics of neonatal circumcision. Her book has a chapter on circumcision called "Altering Baby Boys' Bodies: The Ethics of Infant Male Circumcision" (pp. 202-219).


Ethical Canary
Available online from Indigo (Sale price: Can$23.79, about US$16) Here are excerpts and here is more information

Books of Intact Men

Sherwin Carlquist

Photographs of natural (intact, untattooed, undepilated, without tanlines) male nudes in natural surroundings

Natural Man (1991)
124 photographs (duotone process) hardbound, cloth, 10"x14"
Limited edition, now out of print.

Natural man bookcover
You can go to Sherwin Carlquist's website to see images from Natural Man

Man Naturally (1996)
212 photographs emphasising athletic action by models in scenic places, hardbound, cloth, 10"x10"
limited, numbered edition
$39 per copy, shipping, handling, and applicable tax included.

Man Naturally bookcover
Go to Sherwin Carlquist's website as above.

The Natural Male (1999)
210 photographs, hardbound, cloth, 10"x10", limited, numbered edition
$42 per copy, shipping, handling, and applicable tax included.

Natural Male bookcover
Go to Sherwin Carlquist's website. as above.

Forthcoming: The Nature/Man Panels - mid-2002 or earlier.

 

See also "Uncut: the natural history of the foreskin"

 
Other Useful Books
ReferenceAuthor Title PublisherSummary

Andrews

Lori B. Andrews and Dorothy Nelkin
Body Bazaar: The Market for Human Tissue in the Biotechnology Age
Crown, New York
2001

Although it conspicuously fails to mention the trade in foreskins, it has a wealth of information about the ethics and legality of the trade in body parts.


Cover

Barbier

Patrick Barbier
The World of the Castrati: the History of an Extraordinary Operatic Phenomenon
Souvenir, 1996
ISBN 0285633090

Castration of boys to keep their high singing voices throughout manhood (and for familiar "medical reasons") was as acceptable in 18th and 19th Century Italy as circumcision is in the US today.


cover: The World of the Castrati

Dreger

Alice Dreger,
One of Us: Conjoined Twins and the Future of Normal
Harvard 2004

From a review by Georganne Chapin:
"First through her work on hermaphrodites (or “intersex” persons), and now in an engaging and accessible book about conjoined twins, Dreger shows how cultural strivings toward “normality” and the medicalization of “nearly everything anatomical” rob children of the rights to determine their own identities and futures.

... Dreger concludes that children who are born attached are generally not just accepting of, but happy with their lives. ... Rather, it is the medical establishment that rushes to intervene, capitalizing on the drama of the event and parents' understandable confusion and lack of a roadmap for navigating the unexpected.

... Dreger shows that with the exception of emergencies, separation surgeries are often not medically necessary procedures, and often do nothing to improve the physical health or function of either child. “In fact, they often leave the children's bodies - at least temporarily and often permanently - much more ill and impaired than before ….”

Related to this is “anxiety about conjoined children's future sexuality.” ...Dreger notes that, as is true generally of pediatric surgeries performed in the United States, virtually no information is available as to the actual results of separation surgeries...

...one cannot miss the point that the bioethical issues are the same, whether dealing with extremely rare phenomena such as conjoined twins or a condition that afflicts just about half of all people on earth - possession of a penile prepuce at birth."

Hacking

Ian Hacking
Probability and Inductive Logic
2001

Includes a valuable warning about the misuse of statistics, as commonly done in studies claiming to prove links between intactness and various diseases.


Cover

Watson

Lyall Watson
Jacobson's Organ and the remarkable nature of smell
Penguin Press, 1999

Jacobson's organ, like the foreskin, has been commonly removed in the false belief that it has no function.
The detailed discussion of our prejudice against our natural odours - and their importance in sexual attraction - bears on the prejudice against the foreskin and smegma as "smelly".
Read quotations.


Cover

To scientific papers.

Circumcision in fiction.

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