A Surgical Temptation
The Demonization of the Foreskin and the Rise of Circumcision in Britain
- Contents
- Review Quotes

Part I. The European Background
1. Introduction: The Willful Organ Meets Fantasy Surgery
2. The Best of Your Property: What a Boy Once Knew about Sex
3. Pathologizing Male Sexuality: The Masturbation Phobia and the Invention of Spermatorrhea
Part II. Medico-Moral Politics in Victorian Britain
4. The Shadow of Parson Malthus: Sexual Morals from the Georgians to the Edwardians
5. The Priests of the Body: Doctors and Disease in an Antisensual Age
6. A Source of Serious Mischief: William Acton and the Case against the Foreskin
7. A Compromising and Unpublishable Mutilation: Clitoridectomy and Circumcision in the 1860s
Part III. The Demonization of the Foreskin
8. One of the Most Grievous Diseases of Humanity: Spermatorrhea in British Medical Practice
9. The Besetting Trial of Our Boys: Finding a Cure for Masturbation
10. The Unyielding Tube of Flesh: The Rise and Fall of Congenital Phimosis
11. Prevention Is Better Than Cure: Sanitizing the Modern Body
12. The Purity Movement and the Social Evil: Circumcision as a Preventive of Syphilis
13. The Stigmata of a Gentleman: Circumcision and British Society
14. Conclusion: The End of the Culture of Abstinence
Notes
References
Index
"Left to its devices, the human male foreskin goes on its merry way, but Victorian England would have none of that. The uncircumcised penis was blamed for the ’moral and physical decay’ of syphilis and masturbation, while doctors characterised the emission of sperm as ’a life-threatening illness that demanded drastic treatment if there was to be any hope of a cure’. Medical historian Robert Darby, . . . brilliantly records the rise of circumcision as ’a miracle-working cure-all’ for many ills, including hysteria."
You may purchase this title at these fine bookstores. Outside the USA, see our international sales information.