>From: "Sam Richmond" <sam_richmond@hotmail.com>

Maimonides (or Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, of which "Rambam" is a
contraction) was a twelfth-century philosopher, legal scholar, and,
tellingly, physician.  Some refer to him habitually as "Judaism's
Aristotle."  He wrote:

"As regards circumcision, I think that one of its objects is to limit 
sexual intercourse, and to weaken the organ of generation as far as 
possible, and thus cause man to be moderate.  Some people belive that 
circumcision is to remove a defect in man's formation; but every one can 
easily reply: How can products of nature be deficient so as to require 
external completion, especially as the use of the foreskin to that organ 
is evident.  This commandment has not been enjoined as a complement to a 
deficient physical creation, but as a means for perfecting man's moral 
shortcomings. 

"The bodily injury caused to that organ is exactly that which is
desired; it does not interrupt any vital function, nor does it destroy
the power of generation.  Circumcision simply counteracts excessive
lust; for there is no doubt that circumcision weakens the power of
sexual excitement, and sometimes lessens the natural enjoyment; the
organ necessarily becomes weak when it loses blood and is deprived of
its covering from the beginning. Our sages (Bereshis Rabbah, c. 80) say
distinctly: It is hard for a woman, with whom an uncircumcised [man]
had sexual intercourse, to separate from him.  This is, I believe, the
best reason for the commandment regarding circumcision."

Notwithstanding an incomplete grasp of human nature frustrated by injury 
(as we now know, circumcision impairs ability, not desire; this is the 
same as the "castrate-the-rapist" fallacy), the passage is noteworthy 
for its wish to control women as well as men.  In this the motivation is 
scarcely different from that behind female genital mutilation.

"The bodily injury... is exactly that which is desired."  Enough said.