In this week’s edition of the academic paper, we focus on a paper authored by medical anthropologist Lubabalo Mdedetyana that looks into the perceptions of voluntary medical male circumcision by Xhosa men in Khayelitsha township, Cape Town. The study further explores as to whether the introduction of voluntary medical male circumcision as a state HIV-prevention strategy had engendered shifts in constructions of masculinity and negative perceptions of men who had undergone voluntary medical male circumcisions.