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Millions of years of evolution have fashioned the human body into a model of refinement, elegance, and efficiency, with every part having a function and purpose. Evolution has determined that mammals' genitals should be sheathed in a protective, responsive, multipurpose foreskin. Every normal human being is born with a foreskin. In females, it protects the glans of the clitoris; in males, it protects the glans of the penis. Thus, the foreskin is an essential part of human sexual anatomy.<ref>{{REFjournal
| last=Fleiss | first=Paul M. | coauthors= | title=The Case Against Circumcision | journal=Mothering: The Magazine of Natural Family Living | volume= | issue= | pages=36-45 | url=http://www.mothersagainstcirc.org/fleiss.html | quote= | pubmedID= | pubmedCID= | DOI= | date=1997 | accessdate=
}}</ref>
|note=
}}</ref> It has been proposed that the foreskin evolved to facilitate masturbation.<ref>{{REFjournal
| last=Cox | first=Guy | coauthors= | title=De virginibus puerisque: The function of the human foreskin considered from an evolutionary perspective | journal=Med Hypotheses | volume=45 | issue=6 | pages=617-21 | url= | quote= | pubmedID=8771059 | pubmedCID= | DOI= | date=1995 | accessdate=
}}</ref> The human prepuce has an increase in corpuscular innervation and concomitant decrease in corpuscular receptors in the human glans compared to the prepuce and glans of lower primates, demonstrating an evolutionary advancement.<ref>{{REFjournal
| last=Nadler | first=Ronald D. | coauthors= | title=Proximate and ultimate influences on the regulation of mating in the great apes | journal=American Journal of Primatology | volume=37 | issue=2 | pages=93-102 | url= | quote= | pubmedID= | pubmedCID= | DOI=10.1002/ajp.1350370204 | date=1995 | accessdate=
}}</ref><ref>{{REFjournal
| last=Williams-Ashman | first=HG | coauthors=H.G. | title=Enigmatic features of penile development and functions | journal=Perspectives in Biology and Medicine | volume=33 | issue= | pages=335-74 | url= | quote= | pubmedID=2188210 | pubmedCID= | DOI= | date=1990 | accessdate=
}}</ref> The human penis has retained and modified its prepuce over a period of extraordinarily evolution.<ref>{{REFjournal
| last=Dixson | first=A. F. | coauthors= | title=Baculum length and copulatory behavior in primates | journal=American Journal of Primatology | volume=13 | issue=1 | pages=51-60 | url= | quote= | pubmedID= | pubmedCID= | DOI=10.1002/ajp.1350130107 | date=1987 | accessdate=2010-06-22
}}</ref> The rapid divergence in external genital anatomy between humans and ancestral apes is thought to have occurred in the last seven million years.<ref name="cold-mcgrath"/>
A histologic study of the penile and clitoral prepuce, carried out on human and non-human primates, showed that corpuscular receptors are concentrated at the prepuce/glans penis and the prepuce/glans clitoridis interface in humans and rhesus monkeys.<ref name="macaca">{{REFjournal
| last=Cold, |first=C.; Tarara, R. | firstlast2=Tarara | coauthorsfirst2=R. | title=Penile and clitoral prepuce mucocutaneous receptors in macaca mulatta | journal=Vet Pathol | volume=34 | issue=506 | pages= | url= | quote= | pubmedID= | pubmedCID= | DOI= | date=1997 | accessdate=
}}</ref> Surprisingly different patterns of innervation, however, are seen between human and non-human male primates.<ref name="cold-mcgrath"/>