Desmond Morris
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Desmond Morris (24 January 1928 in Purton, Wiltshire, United Kingdom – 19 April 2026 in Naas, County Kildare, Ireland) The late Desmond John Morris, Ph.D., was British zoologist and ethologist. He became famous by applying the methods of animal study to humans.
Early life
Morris was born in Purton, Wiltshire, to Marjorie (née Hunt) and children's fiction author Harry Morris.
He attended Dauncey's School
Articles
Morris wrote articles throughout his long life. His prodigious output is indexed on his website. Please see Selected Articles.
Books
Dr. Morris is credited with the authorship of 104 books. For a complete list see books.php Bibliography
Morris, Desmond (1985): Bodywatching. Random House. ISBN 10-0517558149. Retrieved 4 June 2026.- Morris, Desmond (1994): The Human Animal: A Personal View of the Human Species. BBC Publications. ISBN 10 0563370211. Retrieved 3 June 2026.
- Morris, Desmond (1997): The Human Sexes. Netwook Books. ISBN 10 0563383585. Retrieved 3 June 2026.
- Morris, Desmond (1999): The Naked Ape: A Zoologist's Study of the Human Animal. Delta. ISBN 10 0385334303. Retrieved 3 June 2026.
- Morris, Desmond (2007): The Naked Woman: A Study of the Female Body. St. Martins Griffin. ISBN 10 9780312338534. Retrieved 3 June 2026.
- Morris, Desmond (2009): The Naked Man: A Study of the Male Body. Thomas Dunne Books. ISBN 10 0312385307. Retrieved 3 June 2026.
Comment on male and female circumcision (genital mutilation)
Comment on Circumcision and Genital Mutilation
Desmond Morris
For thousands of years, in many different cultures, the genitals have fallen victim to an amazing variety of mutilations and restrictions. For organs that are capable of giving us an immense amount of pleasure They have given us an inordinate amount of pain.
The commonest form of assault they have suffered is male and female circumcision. This strange mutilation is older than civilization and was probably well advance in the Stone Age. Although it is a piece of deliberate wounding of children by adults, it has been done with the best of intentions. Over the millennia it has cause countless deaths from infection, but its advantages have always been said to outweigh the risks involved. These alleged advantages have varied from epoch to epoch and culture to culture, but recent re-examination has shown that they are all imaginary.
It has been claimed that one of the oldest reasons for performing male circumcision—the removal of the foreskin—is that it provoked immortality in the shape of life after death. This odd notion was based on the observation that when the snake sheds its skin it emerges with glistening new scales and is “reborn.” If the snake can enjoy rebirth by the removal of skin, so too can the human being. For snake read penis; for snake-skin read foreskin.
Once male circumcision had become traditional it no longer mattered whether the old beliefs survived. Being circumcised was not the badge of belonging to a particular society. The ritual mutilation spread and spread. Ancient Egyptians were doing it as long ago as 4000 B.C. In the Old Testament, Abraham demanded it. Arabs circumcised as well as Jews. Mohammed was said to have been born without a foreskin (which he may well have been, as this condition is not unknown to medical science), a claim which automatically doomed the foreskins of his future male followers.
As the centuries passed, religious arguments gave way, for many to quack medical arguments. The possession of a foreskin was said to cause “masturbatory insanity.” Other medical horrors resulting from its retention included hysteria, epilepsy, nocturnal incontinence, and nervousness. Such ideas survived into the early part of the present century and even led to the formation of an Orificial Surgery Society devoted exclusively to the “modifications” of offending genital as a means of preventing mental illness.
When at last this nonsense was on the decline a crisis arose. What new reason could be found for mutilating children’s genitals? The solution had to be one that suited the rational climate of twentieth-century scientific inquiry. The answer appeared in The Lancet in 1932: foreskins caused cancer! By the end of the 1930s 75 per cent of the boys in the United States were being circumcised; by 1973 it was 84 per cent; by 1976 it was 87 per cent. Cancer had become the secular version of hellfire and brimstone, the perfect weapon for the anxiety makers of a post-religious society.
To be more precise, the claim that the “debris” called smegma which collects under retained foreskins could cause cancer of the penis and also cancer of the cervix of the wives of the uncircumcised. The paper which started this false rumour was founded on faulty statistics, but nobody minded because here was a plausible new reason for slicing away at the infantile penis. Subsequent experiments, however revealed that there is nothing remotely carcinogenic about the smegma produced under the fold of the foreskin, but they were widely ignored. Other investigations showed that women whose uncircumcised husbands always wore condoms were no more or less likely to develop cancer than those whose husbands never wore condoms. But again nobody wanted to know. In one country where there was no circumcision at all was compared to a country in which all males were circumcised. The results showed, to the relief of the foreskin snippers, that prostate cancer was higher in the uncircumcised country. Unfortunately this form of cancer is a disease of elderly men, and when a correction for age distribution was made the figures showed that this disorder was actually more likely in the circumcised country.
Videos
Desmond Morris (Writer))
Male genital mutilation ritual from Desmond Morris - The Human Sexes
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Desmond Morris - Avoiding death for the second time (3/37
Desmond Morris passes away (1928 - 2026) (UK) - UK News - 20/Apr/2026
Death
After his wife passed away, Morris went to live with his son's family in Naas, County Kildare, Ireland. He passed away there on 19 April 2026.[1] [2]
External links
Official website. Retrieved 4 June 2026- Wikipedia article: Desmond Morris
References
- ↑ Radford, Tim (20 April 2026).
Desmond Morris Obituary
, The Guardian. Retrieved 5 June 2026. - ↑ Woodhouse, Sam (20 April 2026).
Zoologist and author Desmond Morris dies aged 98
, BBC. Retrieved 5 June 2026.