Common Myths Exploded

Modern, non-religious circumcision began in the Victorian era as a means of deliberately desensitising and denuding the penis in order to discourage masturbation, which doctors then believed was the cause of insanity, epilepsy, hysteria, tuberculosis, short-sightedness, and death.

In 1891, Jonathan Hutchinson, president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, in his article “On Circumcision as a Preventative of Masturbation,” wrote:

Measures more radical than circumcision would, if public opinion permitted their adoption, be a true kindness to many patients of both sexes.

The myth that circumcision improves hygiene originated at this time to mean the improvement of moral hygiene.

Clarence was addicted to the secret vice practised among boys. I performed circumcision. He needed the rightful punishment of cutting pains after his illicit pleasures.

By the turn of the century, amputation of the foreskin was “scientifically proven” to cure and prevent malnutrition, paralysis, bed-wetting, hip-joint disease, headache, alcoholism, criminality, club-foot, and heart disease.

New myths about circumcision have arisen and continue to arise. These are as unfounded and misguided as the excuses used in the Victorian Era.

• Circumcision does not prevent penile cancer.
• Circumcision does not prevent cervical cancer in the female partners of circumcised men.
• Circumcision does not prevent sexually transmitted diseases.
• Circumcision does not prevent AIDS or HIV infection.
• Circumcision does not improve penile hygiene.
• Circumcision does not prevent infections.
• Circumcision does not prevent urinary tract infection.
• Circumcision is not painless.
• Circumcision does not prevent masturbation.