This articles considers the ongoing penile circumcision debates by focusing on the deployment of ‘docking,’ a sexual practice between men. Docking involves pulling one’s foreskin over the glans of another penis. In this article, I consider both “anti” and “pro” circumcision literature and the use of docking in the service of arguments about the procedure. I show that the use of docking can be traced to Daniel M. Harrison’s article “Rethinking Circumcision and Sexuality in the United States” published in Sexualities. Ultimately, I argue that while docking is interesting to consider, it remains something of spectre that haunts the debates more than it is an empirical concern. Consequently, I argue that further study is needed about docking in general, as well as in the particular context of circumcision debates.

Circumcision remains a hotly contested site of debate. The ‘sides’ of the debate are deeply divided between those in favour of routine circumcision for the purposes of hygiene and prophylaxis and those who are in opposition to routine circumcision. These debates tend to be predictable, particularly in the rhetorical sense, wherein, one can seemingly anticipate arguments. In this article, I set out to consider a relatively minor example, but one that is nonetheless worth considering precisely because of how often it is deployed. Circumcision debates have long centered upon the heteronormative logic that men will have sex with women, and thus, recent turns have asked about particular sexual practices that are unique to gay men, namely, docking. I argue that discussion of docking is itself limited, in large part because it is informed by a singular source across numerous articles, and secondly, because there is a lack of information. Thus, docking is not so much an empirical concern, as it is a compelling idea. Indeed, this may well be about the spectre of docking more than actual docking. We might well ask: is docking a useful example in the critical study of circumcision and the foreskin? In this article, I set out to firstly consider how docking appears in the scholarship, considering both sides, and then move to a discussion of the politics of this moment in circumcision debates, particularly the turn to gay men and queer subjects in relation to circumcision. Ultimately, I suggest that docking functions as a kind of spectre in these debates and that more research, especially empirical research, is necessary.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5765173&forum_id=2,#49204915)