Male Circumcision in Japan

by Genaro Castro-Vázquez

Male Circumcision in Japan offers an analysis of the surgical procedure based on extensive ethnographic investigation, and is framed within historical and current global debates to highlight the significance of the Japanese case.

264 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2015

Reviews

[Carfentanil · Rating 3 out of 5]

A neat book about an odd topic. I'm neither Japanese nor a sociologist, so I can't get too in the weeds, but I found some good insight in these sets of interviews and analysis that can be felt across cultures. The good old days of clocking in, clocking out, getting wasted with your boss, and never talking to your wife have disappeared and some guys don't know what to do about that. Lately there's been a phenomenon of men doing some really weird stuff to try regaining a sense of masculinity in the post-industrial, post-prosperity hellscape. This is especially the case when men do weird stuff that flies in the face of all known evidence. The women in the book are largely at a loss of what to say about something as bizarre as adult cosmetic circumcision (although the book gives the impression that Japanese women aren't supposed to know what sex is in public), and urologists maintain the line that you just need to clean your penis regularly. However, a break is visible when urologists say 'even a 5cm penis is capable of penetration, so there's nothing to worry about.' Meanwhile the cosmetic surgeons see that it's more about how these vulnerable men feel, rather than any facts, opening the way for selling them a cure. Perhaps the notion that women are expected to be ignorant of sexual matters also clears the path for these surgeons to swoop in and tell men what women really want. Apparently in Japan, a phimotic penis is associated with small size. The word 'hokei' is often translated as 'uncircumcised' or 'phimotic' but it carries with it the connotation of 'underdeveloped,' so I guess you could say another translation would be 'baby dick.' Afflicted men may believe they need to be circumcised to feel like a man, get women, etc. There's even the odd anecdote of men having their foreskins pulled back in baths, even when they're covered by towels and no one can see it anyway. Throughout the male interview section, the author asks men what kind of person they think would get such a procedure done. The speculation is all over the place, with some saying it must be older men since the procedure is so expensive, and others saying it's younger men since the business relies upon naiveté surrounding body image.

Another aspect of the book is how women relate to men. As with many countries, there are more self-reliant and sexually liberated women now than in the past. The author notes that before, women valued superficial things like height, status, and income, whereas now they value things like communication. The guys who don't know how to deal with that will literally spend $10,000 to mutilate their dick than do some soul-searching or real self-improvement. Mothers are also interviewed, describing their struggles maintaining their sons' penile hygiene when women aren't really supposed to know about that kind of stuff and the husbands aren't expected to take much of a role in child rearing. The men interviewed often describe their fathers as not saying much, just making allusions to 'cleaning down there.'

Also, I thought it was funny that one woman commented circumcision seems like the kind of thing an otaku would do. It was an unexpected yet unsurprising insight into that subculture.

[DW Rowlands · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a short, academic sociology monograph about the practice of male circumcision in Japan, where it is largely a cosmetic surgery for adult men concerned about their masculinity, much like "penis enlargement" practices in the US: Japanese urologists tend to strongly oppose it while cosmetic surgery clinics sell it with questionable data and advertising techniques. Part of the appeal, it seems, comes from the Japanese cultural practice of pulling back one's foreskin before being naked in public, such as public baths, which seems to be tied to a cultural belief that a mature or full-sized penis will have an exposed glans, and that a covered glans is a sign that one's penis is undersized or immature. I do wish the author had investigated that practice and its origins further: he mentions it on several occasions but never discusses how old it is, or where it might have originated. The overall thesis, however, is that circumcision in Japan is deeply tied to patriarchal ideas about manhood and sex, and men's insecurities about their ability to match up to these ideals.