Mit "rational" hatte das nie was zu tun.
As a New York magazine feature puts it, “its history is driven by wildly shifting rationales: from tribal rite of passage to covenant with God to chastity guarantor to paralysis cure to cancer guard to unnecessary, painful surgery to a Hail Mary pass in the struggle with the AIDS pandemic”. Unlike the insignificance it seems to initially inspire, circumcision has caused its share of chaos throughout history through an enforcement of hierarchy and distinction. As Sociology and Public Health expert Peter Aggleton from University of London writes, “During the Ottoman and Moorish Empires, in Nazi Germany, in India at partition and in the recent genocides of Bosnia and East Timor, a man’s circumcision status had serious consequences for how he was treated: with violence, torture and death being the consequence for those who fell short of the mark”.