Why is there shame over foreskin in Japan? A feminist scholar examines its origins.

tubwheat

Would love to get her book translated into English.

OneManArmy

From what I've seen (mostly in hentai tbh) and heard, there's a big emphases on preventing phimosis. Like when you're erect your foreskin needs to be retracted.

zigzag

Never noticed too much talk from japan about circumcision in general to be honest though never watched too much hentai. Never actually watched much Japanese porn either lol too sensored. Though others have told me they have scene lots of Japanese pornstars who looked cut or at least retracted foreskin.

From the article and porn I think in japan a retracted foreskin is scene as more hygienic or proper. What I have read occasionally on Japanese beliefs men are thought from puberty to keep foreskin retracted in public. I believe it's called autocircumcision or something it's big in japan. They don't practice actual circumcision like the states but as the article said there's a stigma there still which probably caused the retraction phenomenon.

Squirrel

"I knew vaguely that a majority have a foreskin, and that if kept clean it wasn't an issue...". Replace 'a foreskin' with 'labia' and have a man say this and hear the cries about patriarchy and misogyny.

Similar to what ppl have said above, there is a trope (really a genre now) in hentai about young men or boys having their foreskin retract for the first time, usually as a prelude to sex. Consequently, there's a related sub-genre where someone is embarrassed/humiliated if theirs doesn't retract - or isn't aware that it can - and then someone shows/helps them and they are no longer a virgin.

This is also where the foreskin-forward = "false phimosis" meme developed.