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Originally Posted by Lucky In American as in the Jewish belief is that it is much more sanitary and clean to be cut. Of course this developed back when the sanitary habits of people were not as they are today. Now it is just a tradition and most want their boys to look like them and not stand out. It really has nothing to do with masturbation and feeling during sex. |
In the US during the 1800s, circumcision was done for health reasons (it was thought to cure insomnia, insanity, and many other diseases) and for sexuality reasons (the Victorian era religious nuts wanted to suppress sexuality of boys and girls - see
J H Kellogg).
As medical science debunked some of the reasons for circumcision, new health reasons popped up, to be later debunked themselves. Currently, male circumcision is thought to reduce HIV even though the US, where most sexually active men are circumcised, has a much higher HIV rate than intact European countries. Female circumcision was common until the '60s, paid for by insurance until the '70s, and made illegal in 1996.
Although male circumcision has been deeply entrenched in US culture, it was recently announced that the male infant circumcision rate was 33% in 2009.