Some ancient cultures and some even today practice infibulation (drawing a ring or similar device through the prepuce or otherwise occluding it for the principal purpose of making coition impossible) [517]. A foreskin was thus a prerequisite for infibulation. It is, moreover, the opposite of circumcision. Infibulation was espoused in Europe and Britain in previous centuries as a way of reducing population growth amongst the poor and, possibly for some, to prevent masturbation [517].

Ancient Greece was similarly faced with severe overpopulation, putting pressure on food and resources. Infibulation was one method used to address this. Not to circumcise then became embedded in Greek cultural practice. The other reason ancient Greeks did not circumcise was because of the athletic ‘Games’ in which men were traditionally naked, so the foreskin served as a covering of sorts. Circumcised men who wanted to compete had to undergo stretching of the skin on the shaft to ‘recreate’ [!?] a foreskin. (More about ‘foreskin restoration’ in the section on anti-circumcision lobby groups).