A surgical temptation : the demonization of the foreskin and the rise of circumcision in Britain / Robert Darby.

Chicago ; London : University of Chicago Press, 2005.

xi, 374 pages ; 24 cm

Introduction: the willful organ meets fantasy surgery -- The best of your property : what a boy once knew about sex -- Pathologizing male sexuality : the masturbation phobia and the invention of spermatorrhea -- The shadow of Parson Malthus : sexual morals from the Georgians to the Edwardians -- The priests of the body : doctors and disease in an antisensual age -- A source of serious mischief : William Acton and the case against the foreskin -- A compromising and unpublishable mutilation : clitoridectomy and circumcision in the 1860s -- One of the most grievous diseases of humanity : spermatorrhea in British medical practice -- The besetting trial of our boys : finding a cure for masturbation -- This unyielding tube of flesh : the rise and fall of congenital phimosis -- Prevention is better than cure : sanitizing the modern body -- The purity movement and the social evil : circumcision as a preventive of syphilis -- The stigmata of a gentleman : circumcision and British society -- Conclusion: the end of the culture of abstinence.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 321-364) and index.