One would think that cosmetic surgeries and having the appropriate look would not be required for spirituality. After all, religions often preach that they are places of acceptance where a person does not need to feel self-conscious about who they are. If this were actually the case, and not just a bit of clever propaganda, then we should be allowed to look and dress however we please. But, all too often, in religious organizations across the world, we are shamed into looking a certain way in order to fit in with people who call themselves "normal". But when you strip away all of the highfalutin language in whatever holy scripture you are reading, it becomes quite clear that these requirements for proper looks are nothing more than a holy fashion show meant to distinguish the chose ones from the "unclean". On this version of "holy cosmetics" (there is no way I can fit all of the odd requirements for looks into one episode so expect a part two, three and maybe even four) I will focus on circumcision, namely male circumcision. Do not get me wrong. I appreciate the severity of the harm that female circumcision does to women, but I also think that it gets a lot more press than male circumcision because, in western culture anyway, mutilating the penis is seen as normal, while mutilating the clitoris is generally discouraged. But it is important to note that there is no real medical benefit to circumcision in the modern world. While it is true that circumcision tends to prevent urinary tract infections, antibiotics can now quickly fix any problems with the urinary tract and they are widely available to the public. American parents and medical organizations are one of the only ones in the western world today to view circumcision as being medically beneficial. Many other western nations have found no real benefit to the ancient cosmetic surgery. “American parents are almost alone in the Western world in their desire  to separate boys from their foreskins for reasons other than religion,”  Jessica Wapner writes. “… In 2010, for instance, the Royal Dutch Medical Association reviewed the same studies the AAP looked at...it concluded that the health benefits of circumcision are ‘questionable,  weak, and likely to have little public health relevance in a Western  context." This does not sound like science to me; it sounds like culture run amuck to the point of where even esteemed organizations are making arguments for surgeries on children when they are probably not even necessary. "Today, about 75 percent of males aged 15 and older in the U.S. are circumcised for non-religious reasons, according to the World Health Organization. That compares with about 6 percent in Great Britain, 30 percent in Canada and 59 percent in Australia." (MinnPost, Susan Perry) So, how did circumcision become so popular? It turns out we have the Victorian era to thank, an era that also brought us the fashion industry and cosumerism, two other cultural phenomenons that have no practical use in the real world. Contrary to popular belief, Americans did not adopt the practice of circumcision from the Old Testament; that is where Jewish and some Muslim people got it from. "As Wapner explains, American families began adopting the practice in  large numbers for non-religious reasons during the late 19th century,  mainly because of misguided beliefs among some physicians that it would  cure several specific nerve-related ailments and reduce masturbation,  which many in the medical community had declared was linked to epilepsy,  mental illness and a host of other problems." Are you starting to see why this is so upsetting to me? Doctors used to believe that masturbation caused epilepsy and mental illness and so they used circumcision to discourage masturbation, even though there was no solid evidence for this.