Erasing the Foreskin
The “Excess Skin” Myth, Male Genital Mutilation, and Foreskin Trafficking in the United States
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Abstract
Despite growing criticism from human rights scholars and international medical experts, non-therapeutic penile circumcision of newborns in the United States continues to be widely accepted among American healthcare practitioners. While a wealth of literature exists on the topic, it can leave out cultural depictions of the foreskin as aesthetically displeasing, unhygienic, or as extra skin, presumptions that normalize its physical and psychological erasure. Highlighting how a cultural attitude treats a healthy body part as worthy only of excision, I show how this vilification rationalizes the wide-scale performance of a practice that in any other context is seen as grossly unethical: the painful and unnecessary modification of the sexual anatomy of a non-consenting person. I also discuss how this rationalization enables profit-driven trafficking in infant sexual tissue.
Contributor Notes
Shawn Welch received his PhD in English Language & Literature from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His scholarly work has appeared in publications such as the Journal of American Studies and Open Theology. He currently works as a Lecturer of English at the University of Michigan. Email: shawn.welch101@gmail.com