Foreskin Fears and Fantasies with Jonathan Allan

We talk a lot about Jewish circumcision on this podcast, but what’s the significance of the foreskin? Can we even think about the foreskin apart from circumcision? Eli and Max are joined by Prof. Jonathan Allan (Brandon University), author of Uncut: A Cultural Analysis of the Foreskin, to tackle these questions. We discuss the impact of the foreskin on identity, and the aesthetic power of the foreskin (including the foreskin on Michelangelo’s David!). We also discuss pregnancy manuals’ framing of parental choice about circumcision, sex manuals’ framing of the foreskin as pleasurable, the significance of foreskin restoration, and why genital autonomy activism isn’t just an online movement.

Jonathan Allan, Uncut: A Cultural Analysis of the Foreskin 

Jordan Osserman, Circumcision on the Couch: The Cultural, Psychological, and Gendered Dimensions of the World's Oldest Surgery 

Patrick Stewart’s circumcision story on The Graham Norton Show

Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon, Cut: Slicing Through the Myths of Circumcision 

Marilyn Fayre Milos with Judy Kirkwood, Please Don't Cut the Baby!: A Nurse's Memoir