Greetings: Rrhain, Crashfrog, Greyline, et. al.
Take it from an old "uncut" manimal slut with a degree in biology/pre-med and a specialty in human anatomy and physiology:
Circumcision may be "normal" but it ain't Natural.
As Greyline attests, the foreskin acts to protect the glans penis. Not a mucous membrane though, greyline, but a very tender and sensitive tissue indeed, in its natural state. It is the glans which contains those rare and special nerve endings you were talking about, not the foreskin. Sorry about that. Those same "corpuscles" are found in the clitoris as well. I suspect you already know the evolutionary implications of that bit of trivia.
My parents decided not to circumcize their boys. And the girls have their genitals intact as god intended. But they did have the girls tongues removed. Well, not the whole tongue, just the tip of it. Just enough to assure they they could not offend their future husbands with unhealthy or unattractive conversation. I think most men prefer their women that way. (The tongue only gets us into trouble anyway, according to the Bible). {hope you know this is written
tongue-in-cheek}
Seriously now. I have never been turned down by any female on the basis of the make, model, or serial number of my tool. By the same token, I have never turned down a female based on the curves, colors, or protuberances of her flesh. By the time we are ready to take that trip, we are way past kicking tires. In fact, even bald and weatherchecked tires can make a number of turns around the block. Anyhow, most of the time, this sort of thing starts out in the dark! Personality, character and intelligence are the universal beauty marks. But yes, let's stop chopping up the children. It would be arrogant and stupid of us to require other cultures to desist from altering their females while we reserve the right to alter our males. A sexist double standard. An hypocrisy that would not be lost on anyone looking at it from the other side of our fence.
I've only read about half this thread. The last half. Has anyone discussed the hemorrhaging and infections which used to kill a number of freshly circumcized infants? Could we call that Natural Selection of the Surgically Unfit?
This sort of conversation drives me ape!