ever wondered about why it is only jewish males that have the privilege of making the sacrificial bond with god?
ah good old patriarchy. The fear of women seems to be a deep pathology within these traditions - i've heard speculation that circumcision was partially supported by the fear of the mother-infant bond.
Circumcision was a formal and traumatic way to break that bond - thus initiating the boy into the male tribe.
This quote's a gem:
Isaac ben Yediah, 13th Century
When a woman makes love to an uncircumcised man, she feels pleasure and reaches orgasm first. When an uncircumcised man sleeps with her and then resolves to return to his home, she brazenly grasps him, holding onto his genitals and says to him, "Come back, make love to me". This is because of the pleasure that she finds in intercourse with him, from the sinews of his testicles -- sinew of iron and from his ejaculation -- that of a horse -- which he shoots like an arrow into her womb.
With the circumcised man it is different. He will find himself performing his task quickly, emitting his seed as soon as he inserts the crown. … As soon as he begins intercourse, he immediately comes to a climax. The woman has no pleasure from him. She leaves the marriage bed frustrated. She does not have an orgasm once a year, except on rare occasions.
[This is good for her husband: freed from lascivious desires] he will not empty his brain because of his wife [and] his heart will be strong to seek out God.
Quoted in David Gollaher, Circumcision: A history of the world's most controversial surgery, p. 22
Isaac ben Yediah was a disciple of Maimonides.
http://www.circumstitions.com/Pleasure.html
whether or not circumcision did in fact affect lovemaking, or the psychosexual relationship between a man and his wife, is somewhat irrelevant - the point is that the idea reflected the wisdom around circumcision at the time.
Here's a quote from another post I made:
...oppressing male sexuality may indeed be useful wisdom - i personally feel it's not a very enlightened idea - but what I can assert unequivocally is that this wisdom is not being transmitted honestly. There is something of a noble lie at play here, where palatable lies (i.e. extent of medical prophylaxis), or obscure spiritual references (the foreskin is a source of spiritual evil), are employed in favour of hard truths (circumcision reduces sexual pleasure, which is important for a healthy and godly society). There has been a radical break from the tradition of circumcision: where it was once understood by scholars, religious authorities, and physicians to be a form of control over male sexuality, we are now in an era of hypocrisy.
I do not believe in noble lies, as I believe they ultimately stunt intellectual and spiritual growth, if not overcome. It is spiritually dishonest, not to mention immoral, to use religious duty, or faith, as a justification for a procedure that is proved to be harmful, without any reflection on the wisdom. Reflection on the "command to circumcise" would involve the same sort of reflection on why recreational drug use is considered spiritually dangerous. Reflection does not stop at the thought that drugs are simply spiritually evil. Reflection requires the question of the mechanism of this evil. A deeper understanding is thus acquired. We have no problem reflecting on issues such as drugs, sex, murder, etc., but with circumcision very few are willing to take that step.
