Interesting, Kaleea. Can't find the webpage right now, but I was reading yesterday how circumcision was often performed on ancient Egyptian, African, and Middle Eastern armies just prior to battle, to protect the men from diseases. Apparently certain painful penile infections were quite a problem in those dry, hot, desert countries - sometimes to the point of taking out whole armies. And to this day, American soldiers line up for circumcision before being sent overseas (the Gulf War, Vietnam).

Someone mentioned that the foreskin evolved in apes and early hominids to protect the glans while running through tall grasses. Found a couple references to that, including this one

    "The foreskin is a remnant of earlier stages of evolution (much as the appendix is) where it was necessary to protect the glans from abrasion from undergrowth and tree branches. Now that man travels on 2 legs rather than 4 and is generally clothed the foreskin serves no further purpose.
      
    The presence of a foreskin can lead to phimosis, paraphimosis, balanitis, urethritis, retained smegma, a higher risk for penile and cervical cancer, and a higher risk for sexually transmitted diseases including AIDS."

Other 'experts' claim that once humans learned to make clothing, the foreskin became redundant. Hmmm .... while I have no doubt about hygiene and protection against disease, I question the long grasses bit - not only because of what Mark just said about recently-discovered purposes of the appendix (thanks, Mark! Very cool!) but if that's the case, why then do elephants and horses have foreskins? Must be some mighty tall grasses in those locales!

There's some pretty ridiculous claims on both pro and anti-circumcision sites ie circumcision reduces "bathroom splatter"!?!
HA! :-D After living in an all-male household for almost 30 years, I can tell you without doubt that scuplted guys splatter all over too. Especially very young little sculpted guys.

Peace, that's some pic! :-O   I do see why you shave your beard! ANd let it hereby be known that notwithstanding all the evidence that women sacrifice so much more than men to pass on their genes, men's sacrifices in so many other areas of community life (and death) have been duly noted and are very much appreciated.