A circumcised man has lost between 50% and 80% of his penile skin, along with almost a metre of veins, arteries and capillaries, 70 metres of nerves, and more than 20 000 nerve endings. There is a richer variety and greater concentration of nerve receptors in the foreskin than any other area of the penis. If you were circumcised as a baby you lost the most erotically sensitive part of your penis, before you even knew it were there.

Don't feel too aggrieved though, or sue your parents, if you are cut. Masters & Johnson, the '60s sex researchers, found that the sexual pleasure achieved by circumcised men, despite the loss of all those nerve-endings, is much the same as that of uncircumcised men. And a sociologist at the University of Chicago reported in 1997 that circumcised men masturbate more, and engage in more oral and anal sex than uncut men. So does that mean Tom Cruise has more anal sex than Eddie Murphy?

When you were circumcised you could have done your good deed for that day. The genetic material of a single foreskin can yield 2 000 square metres of skin that can be used for skin grafts on burn victims. Recycled infant foreskins are also used in the manufacture of insulin. So there could be a few grateful people out there that benefited from your loss.

When did it all start? Maybe, believing that before one could receive one needed to give, farmers in pre-history offered their foreskins to the fertility gods to ensure good crops. What conscientious god could refuse? The Egyptians might have invented the rite 15 000 years ago as part of a sun-worshiping cult in the Nile Valley. Or it could have been used as a mark of slavery, or the defilement of prisoners. The theories are many.

To expose the head of the penis in public was considered to be in very poor taste by the Ancient Greeks, so circumcision wasn't an option. That is why, when the men exercised naked at the gymnasium, they would pull the foreskin over the head and tie it down with a piece of string, or a safety pin like object called a fibula.

For the Jews and Muslims it all began when God asked Abraham, at the ripe old age of 99, to circumcise himself and his sons. One of Abraham's many sons was the Jewish patriarch Isaac, and another Ishmael, the founder of the Arab nation. Jewish and Muslim boys have been circumcised ever since, linking man to the most mysterious force of the universe, God, by permanently marking a man's most mysterious organ, his penis.

In Africa circumcision is a custom amongst several nations, including the Xhosa, where it forms part of the initiation rite marking a boy's passage to manhood.

Worldwide only 15% of men have circumcised dicks, while two-thirds of American men living in the 'Land of the Free', have been freed of their foreskins, largely without their consent. The American phobia for foreskins grew from their phobia for masturbation. Circumcision was thought to be a cure for the evil of masturbation, so from 1870 doctors, considering the foreskin a design flaw that could be corrected by surgery, started to recommend the chop.

It was upper middle-class Americans that first circumcised their sons, not when they were babies, but when anxious parents realised their sons were wanking on the quiet. The boy's penis would first be anesthetised with an injection of cocaine, then the foreskin snipped off, not always very neatly. A circumcised penis soon became a status symbol. If you had a foreskin you had no chance of ever becoming part of the American elite.

It was the French King Louis XIV that made circumcision fashionable amongst European aristocracy. The king had a tight foreskin that couldn't be retracted, making erections difficult and painful. To relieve the problem the royal penis was circumcised when Louis was 22. It then became fashionable for the nobility of Europe, but unlike in America, circumcision never caught on amongst the lower classes.

Besides considering it more aesthetically pleasing, the pro-circumcision lobby contend that as all sorts of nasty secretions collect under a foreskin, a naked cock is prettier, cleaner, healthier and sweeter smelling. If cleanliness is the concern, one wonders what is wrong with soap and water. And what about that rather unattractive appendage, the ear? It also collects gummy secretions. If the penis is mutilated for cleanliness sake, shouldn't ears also be chopped off? After all, they don't appear to do much, except help keep your sunglasses in place. Anyone in favour of a new fashion trend, the smooth-line, earless head?