Preventing unwanted exposure of the glans was a sign of the modesty and decency expected in particular of the older participants
in the symposium and the unseemly externalization of the glans in public, that a deficient or loose lipped prepuce was unable to prevent
was seen as a disgrace and was the main reason for wearing a kynodesme. The kynodesme, then is a means by which any male so affected
can maintain his dignity with in the nude. For those who continuously wore the kynodesme, the resulting traction on the ‘akroposthion’ would
have the benefit of permanently elongating it. It is conceivable, then, that the lengthening of the prepuce could have been the primary
object, at least in some cases as aesthetics would be improved, and morals preserved.
The intensity with which the Greeks esteemed the prepuce was equalled by the intensity with which they deplored its ablation as practiced
in certain communities scattered throughout the south eastern fringes of the known world. The Greeks were highly sceptical about any
of the religious rationales used by certain foreigners in an attempt to justify their blood rites of penile reduction through the
practice of genital mutilation of various degrees from circumcision to more severe penile mutilations such as amputating the glans
to the even more horrifying amputation of the entire penis. They also highlight the association between the circumcised penis (and,
therefore, the exposed glans) and the linked concepts of primitiveness, barbarity, backwardness, superstition, and oppression.