WOW. I must admit, Restoring Tally, that when I read your percentages I had to go googling for a source, because I couldn’t believe it. But you aren’t kidding, the CDC actually says circumcision rates in our country have dropped that much – to 32.5% in 2009!! WOW! (Side note: how witty is it that proponents of keeping infants intact are called “intactivists”? It made me smile.)
Now, in 2006, the year after Nate was born, the circ rates were at 56%, according to the CDC, so he would still be in the minority, especially among white Southerners. But still, it should be much less of an issue than I previously thought.
Before I address Stardust and Kibbies, I want to first say that I am not even about trying to pit women against each other in any way. I think ultimately we should respect each others choices. I know you bishes, I know you want what is best for your children, and at the end of the day whatever decision you make about ANYTHING – be it breastfeeding, circumcising, stay-at-home vs. working, WHATEVER, it is in the best interest of your kids. Sometimes giving our kids what’s best for them means doing things that are best for us. For instance, I chose to not even try to breastfeed my second child because ultimately the stress it caused me was detrimental enough to his well-being that I believed it outweighed the benefits of breast milk. I expect my friends to trust my decision and know it was made with his well-being at heart. I’ve had my decisions as a mother ridiculed again and again, and I won’t stand for it, nor will I ever impose that judgment on another parent.
Back to circumcising. I think I’m the only one here that has had the unique benefit of assisting in an infant circumcision. I went through surgical technology school back when Jade was a baby, and got to see all kinds of neat stuff, from partial lobectomies (removing part of a diseased lung), heart surgery, breast reductions, amputations, and yes, circumcisions. It isn’t the most barbaric thing I witnessed (that would be the breast reduction – Christ Almighty the smell alone is the worst), but it was pretty brutal.
To say a baby doesn’t remember that – well of course they don’t. How much do you remember of your first year of life? Your first WEEK of life? Not shit, you don’t remember a thing. So it’s okay to cut a baby because they won’t remember the pain later?? Give me a break, dude. That kid cries like all hell. Mommy is nowhere to be found, no one is holding the baby, it is laying on an operating table, alone, cold, scared. No anesthesia. It’s risky to anesthetize an infant, so it’s just local anesthetic. I don’t think the baby hurts from the cutting so much, really, because the local works.
But wait, what is a local anesthetic? Let us be completely clear about what we’re saying, shall we? IT IS A FUCKING SHOT IN THE PENIS. Believe me, the kid feels that. It is unpleasant to say the least. Trust.
Not only that, but afterward the poor baby has to heal. A diaper rubbing up against it isn’t pleasant either. But for argument’s sake, let’s say the whole ordeal isn’t THAT painful. (I may beg to differ, but let’s just say it’s not.)
Why put your precious infant through any amount of pain for any amount of time? I hear various arguments: cleanliness, risk of infection later, aesthetics, to be like dad…
Let us tackle each one.
1. Cleanliness: I have had no problems thus far in keeping Nate’s penis clean and free from infection. Through research when making my decision I learned the best care was to leave the damn thing alone. I bathe Nate daily and rub his scrawny butt down with lotion, so I’d notice if it was red or swollen. I haven’t noticed it retracting yet, and to be quite honest, his penis requires so little maintenance that I just paused writing this to google whether that was normal. I just read that it normally begins retracting at about 5 or 6 years old, but unless there is complaint of pain, there’s nothing to worry about if it doesn’t, and you shouldn’t try retracting it. Nate has had spontaneous erections for a while, and none are painful (as would be the case if something were wrong). He says “George stands up when I’m mad.” Good God I had to leave the room to laugh at that one. Nate’s quite vocal about George (his penis), so I know he’d tell me if George ever caused him concern. So far, apart from his standing at attention when Nate is agitated, all we know about George is that he is quite proud of how far he can pee from atop the pool ladder and that “George likes cookies” (told to me when I scolded Nate for pigging out on oreos while naked on my couch – he gave me this reply when I told him he was “getting crumbs all over George”.) Oh, also – George talks to Nate sometimes and he has a squeaky little girly voice. Yes, boys become fascinated with their member at a very early age and, from what I can tell, this enchantment never ends. My dad is the only other person I’ve personally known who was uncut, but he was quite the ladies’ man, and I think that may not have been the case if his penis was particularly unclean, no? A quick quote from someone smarter than me:
The notion that boys need special hygiene merely repeats an old myth that has led to much unnecessary genital tampering. Such a notion does not even credit evolution. If boys ever did need such care, that line of hominids never survived evolution as they would never have reproduced. Our primate ancestors did not waste valuable food foraging time cleaning their children’s genitalia down at some river.
Penises are self-cleaning and have been for hundreds of thousands of years. Urine is sterile, and the interior of the penis is washed at each urination. The other secretions are are moisturizers and the body’s first-line of protection against pathogens. Its appearance, just as it [is] in females, is no cause for alarm.
Many cases of UTI and other irritations and infections can be traced directly to genital tampering, not to failure of hygiene.
The notion that boys need aggressive cleaning is an invented one, which dates to the 1870′s and was part of an advertising campaign for circumcision. The notion does not exist outside the influence of Anglo-American medicine.
Parents do best if they practice ‘benign neglect’ and leave their child’s penis to develop on its own. The occasional bath is all the hygiene the child needs.
John Geisheker, JD, LL.M.
Executive Director
Doctors Opposing Circumcision
2. Risk of infection later: I brought this up to my father when we were discussing it. Phimosis was the issue I heard was a risk to uncut men. Phimosis is when the foreskin fails to retract upon erection, and it can be painful. My ex husband knew a guy who worked with him who had a circumcision at age 28 due to phimosis, and the guy really wished he had been circumcised as an infant. However, that is pretty rare, and I do have to wonder if Southern doctors could have tried a less invasive approach to the problem but due to ignorance of the issue chose not to. Either way, it is a legitimate concern. When I brought it up to my father he said, “Oh well, shit, why don’t you just have them take the kid’s tonsils out? Or their appendix? Go ahead and remove any risk of infection, who cares how your baby will be cut on to prevent something that may never happen!” Touche, Father. But that’s not really what sold me. Having been hospitalized for a tonsillectomy myself, that really didn’t sound like the worst idea. (Nate has since experienced a tonsillectomy – it’s HORRIFIC.) What got me on this point was the RISK OF CIRCUMCISION. It is low – very low. But it exists. I got on parent discussion board after parent discussion board weighing my decision, and all it took was ONE MOTHER on there warning parents of her son’s botched circumcision to make my mind up. What if that surgery goes wrong? Dude. As straight women, we know how important a man’s penis is – I mean, it’s pretty important to us, but it is damn near everything to them. When I heard about Lorena Bobbit I remember exactly how old I was – I was 13 (a quick wikipedia search confirmed this, but I was right). I knew because that story resonated with me. I watched the news dumb-struck, my teenage mind still a few years from penile contact, but knowing, “That bitch fucked up.” There is not one man on this planet whom I hate. Not the cousin who molested me, not the ex husband who abandoned my children. I don’t hold hate in my heart for any man. But I have! Maybe just for a day, maybe just for an hour, but I have hated a man with every fiber of my being, and never have I hated a man enough to even contemplate hurting his penis. Can you imagine loving a little man more than any creature to ever walk the Earth and then making a decision which in any way marred his penis? No way, man. Not gonna be that woman. I can’t even risk it. The rate of botched circumcisions is estimated by many sources, and they are all over the charts, so I won’t even reference them. (All it took for me was a .012% chance – that is the prevalence of having a prolapsed umbilical cord, which I had with Nate. He also had an unusually long umbilical cord, which was tightly wrapped around his neck. Had he not been taken by emergency C-Section due to the prolapse, he would have likely died during birth or had oxygen cut off long enough to have Cerebral Palsy, so in a way the prolapsed cord saved his life. He’s my little miracle.) Google “botched circumcision”. I don’t have it in me to post pictures here.
That’s not the only risk, either. There’s blood loss, infection, necrotizing fasciitis, cellulitis, meatal stenosis (which can lead to UTIs), urinary fistulas, chordee, cysts, lymphedema, ulceration of the glans, hypospadias… I could go on, but you’re likely going to have to google what the hell those even mean anyway, and surely you can read wikipedia for yourself. The point is that medically the risks of circumcision are far greater than the risks of leaving it alone. What’s scary is that statistically those risks are not lessened by how experienced the surgeon is.
3. Aesthetics: Well, most women I know think a circumcised penis is prettier, but that is the norm in this country, in pornography, and in most of our experience. I’ve never a seen a real live uncircumcised penis besides my son’s. I don’t believe I’ve ever been particularly promiscuous, but I’ve become acquainted with a number of penises in my lifetime and they were all cut. So anything radically different from that would initially not be as pleasing aesthetically. However, I spoke to a woman about this on a parents’ forum and she, being European, told me that until she came to the States she had never seen a circumcised penis, and when she saw her American friend’s toddler running around naked, she was shocked and a little sickened. Being accustomed to only viewing the glans when a man is erect, seeing that on a little boy seemed “sick and pornographic”. So that’s all about norms, and you know how I feel about conforming to societal norms. I’m not awesome at it, and I’m not a huge fan. Also, thinking back on every man I ever cared anything about, if any one of them had an uncircumcised penis, that would not have deterred me in the least. Apart from a reckless decision or two, I’ve never slept with a man I didn’t love on some level. If you feel that way about a man, enough to share your body with him, that’s a pretty shallow thing with which to be concerned. I hope my son is selective enough in the women with whom he chooses to share his body that it would never be an issue.
4. To be like Daddy: Well, I’m glad I didn’t go with this one, since the only daddy my son knows is my father, and he’s uncut. But it’s also a consideration that he may (or may not, as statistics indicate now!) be different from the boys in the locker room. It sounds so silly, to make a decision based on something like this, but I don’t think it’s silly at all!! Do y’all remember what it was like to be a teenager? It was horrible. You are constantly comparing your body to every other kid around you. And no matter how beautiful you are, you never measure up. I remember being 123 pounds in high school, and 5’7. I thought I was fat every single day of my life back then. It didn’t matter how many 28″ waist J. Crew button fly jeans I snapped on my butt, all I could see was pudginess where a perfectly concave belly should have been. Imagine if there was an awkward and mortifyingly uncontrollable part dangling from your body… as if men don’t already have to worry about length, girth, and coloration, not to mention getting erections at inappropriate times. I can’t fathom what it must be like to be the only uncut male in a locker room. I do know that when I was pregnant with Nate a friend’s boyfriend overheard me discussing my cut-or-don’t-cut dilemma and advised, “Oh my god, circumcise. You can’t imagine what torture me and the other guys put ‘John Doe’ through in the locker room because he wasn’t cut. We were so mean, and I regret it now, but I’d never want to subject my son to that.” Hey man, that’s painful shit. Mentally, emotionally… I don’t want my son hurt like that! I promised myself that if I didn’t circ, I’d have the money ready for him, and if he EVER wanted it done, we’d have it done immediately.
I’m proud of my choice. I never, ever want to make someone feel like less of a mother for choosing otherwise. No choice made with your child’s best interest at heart is the wrong choice. But for me, the decision wound up being very easy. If you choose to leave it up to your son, educate yourself. There are a lot of ignorant people in this world, even doctors. My mom took Nate to a pediatrician in Memphis when I was at work, for a routine check-up. He’d never been to her before, and she attempted to retract his penis. Upon finding it unretractable, she diagnosed him with phimosis (a diagnosis that cannot be made at such a young age – my son was 2! Oh, and her prescription was a circumcision.) I. CAME. UNGLUED. You hear me? Unglued. I waltzed into that doctor’s office on a very lucky day for that clueless pediatrician – she wasn’t in. That didn’t stop me from loudly, in a room full of parents, telling a nurse and the receptionist that she will “Never, ever touch my son again,” and that I had not dismissed the notion of a lawsuit. I informed them that I did not expect to receive a bill from that office, and we weren’t charged for the visit. My mom felt awful, but it wasn’t her fault. From then on, I made sure that the whole family was educated on care for the intact penis, and I still carry a form on me for doctors to sign – but I find that a friendly discussion of the matter before any examination of my son is all it takes to get a handle on a doctor’s know-how of the issue. I have yet to meet another doctor who doesn’t know right up front just how ignorant it is to try and retract a young male’s foreskin.
One more thing that sold me on not circumcising: female genital mutilation. Y’all know my online moniker (Raisin Girl) is from a Tori Amos song (Cornflake Girl), but what you may not know is that Tori wrote that song after becoming inspired by a piece Alice Walker wrote on female genital mutilation. It makes my heart hurt to think of the little girls whose clitorises are painfully removed due to ignorance, and I thought to myself that if I go through with this surgery knowing what I know now, it will only be to follow my cultural customs… and how is that different? I don’t want to make a stand at the expense of my son’s physical or emotional well-being, but I had to take a stand on this. And I hope that I am a good enough mother to raise my son to be fiercely independent and sure of himself, so much so that whether his penis looks like other boys’ will never cause him to lose any sleep. And if that isn’t the case, I’ll be there for him should he ever choose to alter it – because ultimately, it’s his penis, and I just couldn’t make that decision for him.
Peace and happy parenting to all,
Raisin Girl, Intactivist
Just to be nitpicky. Urine is only sterile inside the body and only in the absence of any sort of infection. It’s really rare for boys to get UTI, kidney or bladder infections anyway because they have such a long urethra. But I just had to say that lol
Haha, that’s cool, Manna, I love having an R.N. in our little posse. I wondered about that statement myself, as I always thought of it as, well, bodily waste, which it is, and the term “waste” seems to imply that it’s not sterile. Like poop. Feces is obviously not sterile. I did hear somewhere, however, that if you were like dying of thirst or dehydration or what have you, you could drink your urine. How you would have urine if you were dehydrated to the point of death is beyond me. Maybe you’ve been saving it in a jar, anticipating your impending predicament because you’re stranded in the desert?
Things like that could bother me forever, so I’m gonna drop it. The main thing I got from that doctor dude who said that was that if circumcision was such a medical necessity our species would have never made it this far, seeing as how circumcision is a pretty new fad in the grand scheme of humanity.
By the way, ladies… looking over my post, I feel like I said too much, like I was trying to argue the point too much. I didn’t mean to belittle anyone’s decision, honestly.
I do feel passionately about this issue in the case of my son’s penis. But I’m not really trying to sell anyone else… this blog, this post and the previous circ post, that was just the process I went through when I was pregnant with a boy and struggling with this. Jeremy’s friend saying he wishes his mother had done it, my dad spazzing out at the mere suggestion, Jeremy concerned with aesthetics and teaching him to clean it, friends who cautioned me that uncut pensises were “icky” or “gross”, etc etc. I had to lay it all out for myself, and that’s how I made my decision.
I tell you what, though. You could lay out all the damn Breast is Best info on the planet and I straight up do not give a shit. I have an aversion to it now. Psychologically, I have paired that experience in my mind with depression and failure. It sickens me to think of using my breasts in this way. I *KNOW* in the logical part of my brain that it is beautiful and natural and best for Baby. But the reptilian part of my brain that just reacts without reason shouts “Hell no, hell nooooo!!”
I think it’s important to make ourselves, as mothers, happy. If it would freak you out to bathe your son or change his diaper, if there is just some strong pull in you to circumcise, well who the hell am I to tell you different??
You have to do what is best for you and your family, do it with love, and don’t judge other women. I wasn’t here to start a Mommy War. Not that my bitch ass doesn’t love a good debate! But this doesn’t have to be one. I love y’all and appreciate your supporting my decisions even when you know you’d make a different choice, and I’m more than pleased to extend to you the same courtesy. Peace!
I have heard that there are some people that drink urine, like, as a health drink or some retarded shit. What. The. Fuck. Ok, Mister Health Nut, you keep drinking piss, I’m gonna sit my fat ass over here with my double stack, fries with extra salt & Sprite.
The argument based on our evolution is brilliant. Like, why didn’t I think of that shit when I started the discussion with R? If Squishy does in fact, have foreskin, then I’ll probably direct him to this blog.
Raisin Girl, glad I was the inspiration for your blog.
I feel special.
You are right, your reply is “super hella long,” but you cover a lot of material and do it well. I do not think it is overly long.
Every parent (I hope) wants to do the right thing for their children. One way we do that is by educating ourselves and learning about our options. Your post provides a source for parents to learn and do better for their children. As a son who was circumcised against my wishes shortly after birth (I screamed like hell, but they still cut me!), I hope that the circumcision rate keeps dropping. No child should have to go through what most of my generation went through.
What they cut out during breast reduction can stink to high heaven. I learn something every day of my life…. So much for the human body beautiful…
Bay boys scream when they are being cut even if they’ve been shot up with lidocaine (which many doctors still refuse to use) because the nervous system of the front of the penis is different from that of the underside. It is impossible to properly anesthetise the entire penis with a mere one injection of lidocaine. Another thing is that doctors are in a hurry and they tend not to allow enough time for the lidocaine to have full effect. In Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, all circs after the first birthday have to be done under general anesthesia. That should give you clue.
Most cases of phimosis can be cured without surgery, although many American doctors don’t seem to know that. In Europe, they have a surgical procedure for curing bad phimosis that preserves the foreskin. American medical schools don’t teach that procedure.
You’ve never bonked a man whose johnson had all the moving bits and so are silent about the sexual advantages of being intact. When the penis is erect, the tip of the foreskin forms a ring of very sensitive tissue that sits about 1cm behind the rim of the glans. The frenulum, as well as the skin anchoring the frenulum, called the frenular delta, are also highly sensitive. Circumcision removes stuff that plays a central role in all sexual activity, and that comes into direct contact with the vaginal wall during intercourse. I say that it’s a no-brainer that intact men find sex more thrilling, especially after age 40, when the glans begins to dull. BTW, if you believe that young men should masturbate instead of devoting so much energy perving at the opposite sex, that is a good reason to prefer intact. Foreskin makes self-pleasure a lot easier, more fun, and no need for lube or lotion.
There are women of your generation who have bonked both flavours of men, and have blogged about the fact. (Kiss and tell for the cyber age…) They have done this without condoms (kids, don’t try this at home, got that?) Some find the elephant trunk unappetising to look at. Quite a few have written that foreplay has made them well aware of this anatomical variation, but they have not noticed any difference during the Main Event. But some definitely prefer intact. Some say that their discovery of the intact johnson is a defining moment in their lifetime journey of sexual discovery. Some even say that they climax easily with intact, and seldom with cut. There are women who write about being pretty miserable Down There for 1-2 days after a hot weekend with a date, and who thought that this was simply a fact of life. Then after several years of this, they hook up with their first intact man and presto, no Monday Blues! The foreskin cushions the thrusting and interacts nicely with his and her lubrication. Mother Nature knows what she is on about.
I am a white Baby Boomer who grew up in the upper South. My mother wanted me to be intact so badly that she shut my father up (he wanted me cut) by threatening to divorce him — in 1949. When my kid brother came along several years later, he was cut without my mother’s permission. So I grew up the only intact male in my family of origin. At the grade school piss trough, I was one of two intact males. I figured out how to pull the skin back in order to disguise the fact that I was an Anteater. That skill came in handy when I started doing time in locker rooms.
By the time I graduated from high school, the number of intact johnsons I had seen in locker rooms, I could count with one hand. I drifted north to find work and landed a job with US Steel in Pittsburg. At the end of every shift, we had 25 paid minutes for a group shower. There I discovered that every man born before WWII had all the factory installed moving parts. Meanwhile I was one of only 2 Baby Boomers in the same state. Its the second world war that made the USA the land of the Bald Johnson as well as the Bald Eagle. Nobody ever talked about this generation gap of the genitalia. In any event, once you graduate from high school, no dude will comment on another dude’s tackle in the locker room.
I did feel that very embarrassed about coming on to your sex. So much so that I remained a virgin into my 30s. You see, in my high school and college days, there was ZERO support in print for letting a boy keep all the moving parts he was born with. Nobody wrote that it as easy to keep clean. Nobody knew how those tender bits make sex better for him, for sure, and often for her as well. One day, I met a woman whose past included several European and Asian BFs. I told her “I am uncircumcised and very embarrassed about it. But I love you anyway.” She took it all in stride and we’ve now been married for 21 years and have 4 daughters.
When I was a teenager, I swore that I would get myself cut when I was in college and able to order surgery on my own. But somehow I never got around to it. In my sophomore year, I read a doctor say in the local newspaper that there was no compelling reason to get snipped. 7 years later I was in Chicago, and the science editor of the Chicago paper wrote that the AAP had formally not recommended the snip in 1975. In 1983, I stumbled on a copy of a book by a Jewish atheist, Edward Wallerstein, that made a strong case that intact was fine. In 1985, I read another book, this one by a Seattle Mom, Rosemary Romberg, making the case for intact in even more detail.
Not all that many men defend the American foreskin. Many of those who do are either gay or angry about having been snipped. You are right, BTW, that the fraction of men who are sexually damaged for life because they were cut as babies is not trivial. Most Americans who are passionate about this are Moms. Facebook is blatantly revealing of this fact. It is supremely ironic that nowadays, most of what I learn about the penis and its moving parts is from stuff written by women, mainly from so-called “crunchy Moms.”
I think that intactivism is to some extent an unexpected consequence of sex positive feminism. If women are going to do what Kathy Bates died in Fried Green Tomatoes, namely slip out of their knickers and put a hand mirror between their legs, they will eventually come to reflect on johnson as well. If women do a lot of body acceptance homework (chub, small boobs, wide hips, long labia, what have you), they will sooner or later apply the same logic to Nature’s having put a long sleeve on the short arm.
A.) Have two boys who were circed. Maybe it was because of culture, maybe it was because of wives’ tales, maybe it was a long-ago smell of a stinky, stinky turtleneck, or maybe it was payback from the complete and total mess they both left their mama’s hoohaa in during departure and I wanted payback. Whichever the reason, I’m sure it will come up with their therapists one day.
B.) I love that you waste your time on my blog
Thank you all for contributing your thoughts! I have a friend who has a little boy diagnosed with phimosis. I believe he’s 10 years old. The doctors have ordered a circumcision. I’m not educated on any less invasive procedures as alternatives to circ, so if anyone has information on this, I’d appreciate your sharing.
Guys, I’m SO grateful that you took the time to share your personal stories on my blog. I didn’t anticipate getting a reaction from men! Most of my readers are female, and friends of mine, so to hear your opinions was especially fun, informative, and refreshing. You’ve made me feel so good about my choice! Please feel free to comment any time. And Restoring Tally, I will get around to looking at your site as well, as a friend told me she clicked your link and that I really ought to check it out.
If the boy is only 10 years old, this may be a case of false phimosis. There is a European study that found the average age a boy can retract his foreskin is 10.4 years. If the boy can urinate without problem and he is not in pain, he should be left alone until his body matures. Then he can decide if he wants to fix it. US doctors are not well informed regarding foreskins and often consider circumcision as the only treatment option.
If he does have an actual case of phimosis (doubtful, but…), there are several treatments for phimosis, none of which is circumcision.
The least invasive treatment is gentle stretching of the opening. They even make balloon devices to help with stretching. Check out the http://phimosis.com.au/ The glansie is another device to treat phimosis. Stretching may take weeks to months to be effective, depending upon the size of the foreskin opening. If stretching is not enough, he may need to use a steroid cream to thin out the skin as he stretches.
The next treatment is a dorsal slit, which is an incision through the opening to widen it. A slightly more invasive procedure is a preputioplasty, which makes a cut in the foreskin and restitches it so that the opening is larger. Although more invasive, it usually gives better results.
Circumcision is only warranted when the foreskin is diseased, such as with chronic balanitis xerotica obliterans (BXO). In this case the tip of the foreskin becomes hard and brittle. The skin cracks and typically has open sores. Such a disease would not be normal for a 10 year old boy.
Check out Wikipedia for phimosis.
THANK YOU SO MUCH for your help. I’m going to pass the info along. Here’s the email she sent me (edited, of course):
[Child 1] is 11 and is able to pull his skin back a little bit, when his penis gets hard, he can’t pull his skin back. There is no pain what so ever when using the bathroom or when having a erection. So I guess he’s been trying. LOL
[Child 2] is 9. There is no movement at all. He claims his penis get hard sometimes, but he hadn’t tried pulling the skin back. But next time he can try. OMG I didn’t mean to encourage him, LOL No problems using the bathroom and no pain at all.
You are right, Circumcision is not done in Germany. Military hospitals will perform them and the hospitals around Military bases. Otherwise only Dr. who know what they are doing, are actually doing it, mostly in big Towns.
I don’t understand; if there is no pain, why are they considering it? I’ll talk to her more and pass your suggestions along. I’ll be checking those links. And thanks again!
Thank you Raisin Girl. I am not your typical dude. I learned of your post thanks to a big intactivist group on FaceBook. I left a short comment there praising your post.
If a 10 year old boy can pee without trouble, has no itching or other discomfort under his foreskin, and cannot pull back his foreskin, what to do? The answer is: NOTHING ’cause there ain’t nuthin’ wrong with his johnson. There is no real need for his skin to be retractable until he is ready to begin his responsible sex life. It is perfectly normal for a 10 year old boy to be unable to retract.
When the time comes, and he still has a permanent elephant trunk, he can be prescribed a 6 week course of steroid ointment, to be applied to the very tip of his foreskin, morning and evening. While he does this, having him take a bath every evening may help soften the foreskin. After the bath, he should be encouraged to spend some quality time by himself
!
European urologists are taught a kind of very minor surgery that cures phimosis without taking any moving bits away. To many Europeans, the sexual value of foreskin is obvious. Too bad this technique is not part of the American surgeons repertoire.
I’ve posted on my blog an edited version of my long post above. Registration required to protect the innocent. Raisin Girl, if you want to replace what I wrote above with what’s in my blog, just say the word.
Oh I love your comments on here, Cosmo, and wouldn’t want to edit anything. I’d love to see your blog, though, and would also like to check out the facebook group. Over the weekend I’m going to do a lot of research for my friend to help her sons.
She’s German and just moved to the States in December. Her husband and all four of her sons are intact. I’m going to talk to her further about whether the boys are experiencing any pain or trouble urinating, and I’ll also get their exact ages. But I do know that German doctors suggested the surgery on one son, so I’m assuming his condition is pretty legit. She said for her surgery is the last option, so she’s willing to try anything else. Right now they are using a cream to try to loosen the foreskin.
She and I are going to get together for coffee soon, so I’ll find out more details and share your suggestions with her! Thanks again!
My blog (again, registration required because I’ve flagged the entire blog as adult content):
http://consa.blogs.experienceproject.com/389932.html
The first entry is the edited version of what I wrote above.
Hey Cosmo, I’ve been meaning to come back here and tell you I read your blog, a good bit of it. I admire the time some of you spend on campaigning for this issue. AND I loved the way you described me! “Saucy tongue” – lol, love it!
Also, if I ever do get the pleasure of experiencing intercourse with an intact man, I’ll absolutely blog about it here!
The gathering place on FaceBook of women of your generation who are passionate about johnsons with long sleeves is called Saving Penises. FaceBook management did pull it down for a few weeks last spring.
I am surprised and flattered that you had the time and energy to read more than a few thousand words of my blog. It is as big as it is because it is a warehouse, a central collection point for stuff I write elsewhere. I do most of my writing between 4 and 8 AM.
Married men like me seldom take part in this struggle. I suppose that guys who are snipped don’t want to be seen as feeling sorry for themselves, and those who aren’t don’t want to be seen as bragging about it. We live in an era made curious by the way in which American women understand the tender moving bits on the end of johnson better than American blokes do. That’s OK because after all, you ladies are the end users!
The fraction of baby boys snipped in the hospital was 56% in 2006 and only 33% in 2009. Looks like the 20 something new mothers of America have decided that long sleeves on johnsons are back in fashion.