Yes, Robinson is right. Male genital mutilation was fashionable. I was a victim of that fashion.
At a few days of age, in the privacy of my mother's bedroom, a midwife removed my prepuce. Shortly after their births, those of my brothers were similarly removed. To the best of my knowledge no doctor was involved and nor was my father (though he, too, was without prepuce). Midwives offered the additional service and possessed a little device to grip and slice off the small sliver of skin. There was no anaesthesia. It was a conspiracy between women - as its female equivalent.
I doubt that circumcision will ever be shown happening in Call The Midwife.
When I changed for PE or swimming, I realised that a majority of boys my age had been similarly treated.
Its origin appears to have been the USA and I suppose the American use of the English language is the reason it was not practised in Continental Europe. It was advocated originally by John Harvey Kellogg, a man who demonised sexual intercourse (and also invented a breakfast cereal that was so lacking in nutrients that it would not provide energy that could be wasted in sexual activity). He believed that removal of the prepuce would reduce the physical sensations of coitus and hence make it less attractive. Certainly, it removes the most highly innervated tissue of the male sexual apparatus.
To say that there is no comparison between FGN and MGN is disingenuous, Robinson, they both involve removal of highly innervated structures without the informed consent of the possessor of those structures, though I do agree that FGN is more destructive.
Kellogg's distaste for sexual activity became translated into a need for "hygiene" and the belief that a circumcised penis would not harbour dangerous bacteria in its folds. Naive, enthusiastic young mothers were convinced of the advantages of "cleanliness" and, presumably, the additional service became a nice little earner for midwives.
It was a conspiracy between women.
