A Personal Account of Adult Circumcision

My  story starts back in my teenage years, before I had started to have sex. Everything was fine when it came to solitary pleasure, as an intact boy I had no difficulties pulling my foreskin back. Yet since the day a friend of mine showed me the first truly adult films that went beyond eroticism, i.e., which entirely showed the anatomy of both sexes, I asked myself questions about my own penis, for those I saw onscreen were different. Mine was bent downward 90 degrees when erect. I had a bent pipe instead of a straight one.

So my GP had me see a sexologist because of the curvature. The sexologist had me see a urologist who said surgery was necessary. He explained my condition was most probably a congenital deformation of my penis. He explained the surgery (imagine straightening a banana by removing a piece from the upper side), how my penis would lose 1 to 2 cm in length, and how I needed to be circumcised so that my foreskin did not extend too much, beyond my shorter penis.

It’s important here to mention that when I was intact I would always use my foreskin to masturbate. I rolled it over my glans back and forth, in a fast or slow motion, thus stimulating my glans entirely (I had enough foreskin to fully cover my glans). I derived pleasure from each forward and backward motion, and most of the time I reached orgasm in a fast motion. This control over speed meant control over my own pleasure. I also remember when I pulled back my foreskin, my penis would smell musky, not in a bad way I thought, rather in an exciting way. To me that smell was the smell of arousal.

So when the surgeon talked about circumcision, I thought I might as well say goodbye to masturbation. I was wrong, but what came next was far from satisfactory.

The operation was carried out, and it proved successful as far as the curvature was concerned.

The first impressions resulting from the circumcision itself was a feeling of discomfort. Now that my glans remained uncovered the whole time, I could feel it rub against my underwear, which was not pleasant. Before the surgery, if my foreskin happened to be drawn back and my glans exposed, I slightly squeezed the tip of my penis through my clothes in order to pull the foreskin back again, and protect my glans. That I was not able to do any more, having no more foreskin!

When it comes to the look of it, I found my permanently uncovered glans quite indecent and sort of ridiculous as well, as something incongruous. No line was drawn anymore between the covered and uncovered state. No more line either between visible and hidden – the exposed glans is that of the sexual act, so now that it remained ridiculously bare even when flaccid seemed like a deep and cruel contradiction. That’s how a feeling of vulnerability took hold of me, and settled in. On many scores, I just did not recognize my penis anymore visually, and because it had lost its unique smell, as if sanitized.

Furthermore, my glans looked dry in contrast to its shiny and smooth aspect back when I was intact when I had an erection. It seemed so strange to me, and so different from before, that I even saw a dermatologist about that who just told me that’s what happens when you’re circumcised. Just great… When flaccid, I felt I missed the feeling of having my glans covered. My glans, which now rubbed against my underwear, lost in sensitivity.

About a month after the surgery, I started masturbating again, and I felt the difference even more sharply.

When erect I could not feel pleasure by rolling my skin back and forth. I could not stimulate my glans like before. I was left with little possible motion of my skin over the shaft of my penis. I had lost nuance, had downgraded from 3D to 2D, from technicolor to black and white.

There were psychological consequences as well. There was frustration, a feeling of loss, including feeling less manly (had not someone cut away a part of my genitalia?). I felt also very bad seeing an intact penis, like when classmates came back from the shower after P.E. or on television every now and then. Porn on the internet was even worse. When I saw an uncut actor and an actress playing with foreskin. I felt jealousy, a great deal of anger to the point when I thought « the bastard isn’t even circumcised! ». I wished every men were cut so I did not have to go through my own anger of feeling mutilated. Even though I knew that reaction of hatred was irrational, I just could not help it. So in order to avoid that anger, that terrible jealousy, all that frustration, I turned away from porn with a man and a woman so I did have to see intact men again. Not long ago I saw a questionnaire on the NORM website that suggested that anger and jealousy were common issues for circumcised men. Only then did I realize my reaction was natural, and that other circumcised men feel the same.

Now, back after my surgery, as my penis was now straight, I could have sex. One of my first times revealed something quite unexpected, as the first time I explored female intimacy with my fingers so to speak, it struck me immediately how it felt so much like my lost inner foreskin – yet again something I missed.

Many years after the operation, I decided to start restoring, and finally found enough perseverance in me to keep restoring on and on. It is a very long process, but how do I love the first results! I expected to see some skin cover my glans at first, I’m still not there but I’m very happy that I can at least pull some skin over my glans. It feels better to me, and for my girlfriend as well as she can see it gives me more pleasure than before!

• Note for those who suffer from a bent penis or know someone with that problem:

Things seem to have change regarding the procedure I went through. A 2012 Italian study suggests that « circumcision must not be considered a mandatory time in Nesbit procedure: on the contrary, mandatory is the respect of the anatomical structures surgically attacked to avoid preputial resection« . Don’t hesitate to ask questions on the matter to your surgeon.