[ ARC forum 2 ]
Written by Paul B. at 15 Sep 2002 23:53:04: The really big question.
As an answer to: why? written by why? at 15 Sep 2002 18:15:21:
> why did people start cutting it off anyway?
Remember the humourous answer to "Why does a dog lick its balls"? I think that answer really says it all if the truth be told. It may be postulated that primitive societies very occasionally resorted to crude surgery where there really was some severe problem related to phimosis, but two things argue against this - one is that forcible retraction or stretching of the foreskin would have been more intuitive, i.e., given that one "wise man" in the society knows that it is normal for a foreskin to retract, faced with one that does not, the logical thing is make it retract. Cutting it off, producing a wound (which is very likely to get infected and) which has to heal at length, is not an intuitive "cure".
Support for this argument that circumcision was never therapeutic, but rather speculative, comes form the observation that many societies that practiced it, also practiced the mutilation of "trephination" - boring holes in someone's skull to "let out evil spirits".
This is such a risky procedure, more likely than not to be fatal, that it is exceptionally implausible that it could have been effectively performed for the very limited medical indications for which it is now practiced, so we must observe that it was performed "just for the heck of it" or on some totally speculative basis. As it is said, anyone on whom it was performed and survived, would undoubtedly have learned not to complain of whatever it was caused it to be done!
And the same would appear to hold to the less risky procedure, circumcision.
> doesnt it hurt? especially back in the day when there was no anaesthetics?
And again, that only goes to argue that it was not performed for any value which we would consider therapeutic. Circumcision is in tradition, one of the procedures performed exactly because it was painful, but had a (relatively) low mortality. Like other ritual scarifications, the "test" is that the subject undergoes it with equanimity.
And this same intent is still behind its popularity in recent times.
You will note that the significance of circumcision in the Jewish tradition is quite different in many of these respects, though some (deliberate infliction of pain) apply, albeit only in limited form. If you want to research that, then just go to the source document!