Brothers should match

All About Being Circumcised

You may call your special ‘boy’ part a ‘willy’ or a ‘dick’ but the medical name for it is penis. Penises come in various shapes and sizes but all boys are born with a sleeve of excess skin called foreskin covering the head of their penis. The head is named the glans. The foreskin hides the glans for most of the time so it can’t be seen. Most doctors in the U.S.A. will recommend that all boys should be circumcised shortly after birth. When a penis is circumcised, the foreskin is cut off, so the glans is always seen. There are many reasons to promote circumcision.

Worldwide, people circumcise their boys to show they belong to a particular religion, race or tribe. Modern countries like the United States, circumcise most boys because it’s cleaner and prevents or cures health problems. Many people think it looks better too. Like the appendix and the tonsils, the foreskin is a part of the body we don’t really need and it can cause problems. So, no foreskin, no problem. It is easy to cut off, and usually done when boys are babies, so they don’t remember it. What you never had you never miss.

If you weren’t circumcised as a baby you may now want to have it done, or your parents have told you that you need to have it done. This may be because you had or have a problem which the doctor said it will put right.

There are other reasons to circumcise boys as well. It’s neat and tidy without loose skin over the end and it looks much better. If you can’t, or don’t pull it back, your foreskin gets in the way and causes spray and you may miss the toilet. Mums often ask for their baby boys to be circumcised to prevent this.

You need to pull back your foreskin to wash under it. Lots of boys can’t do this because it is too tight, or they are lazy and forget to do it. Then it can cause painful problems like infections. Parents get fed up with checking and asking if you’ve done this. Sometimes boys can be a bit sneaky and say they have when they haven’t, especially if it hurts them. If you are circumcised you don’t need to think about it because your penis get washed every time you shower or have a bath, and it doesn’t get dirty from all that nasty smegma that the foreskin produces.

Another reason you might be circumcised is because your dad had it done. Usually parents like all men and boys in their family to have penises which look the same. Often, when one boy needs circumcising, his brothers are circumcised as well.

Why foreskins can be a problem

The space under the foreskin around the glans is naturally a bit wet. This is because it sweats and also because every time you pee with the foreskin forward, some pee creeps back there. Often, tiny bits of fluff and dirt from your clothes, get in at the opening and become trapped under the foreskin. All this soon makes it smell. Worse, if it is left unwashed, it can start an infection which will make it all very red and sore. When you are young it is not always easy to pull back your foreskin. For most boys, early on, it is sealed to the glans and tight but sooner or later this seal breaks apart and you have to start to take care of it. The best way is to just get circumcised so you don’t have to worry about the foreskin anymore.

1. You need to pull back the foreskin every time you pee and make sure you shake or dab the pee drops off before pulling your skin forward again. 2. At least once, every day, you need to pull the foreskin right back as far as it will go and gently wash around the glans. Take care, this part and the inside of the foreskin is very sensitive. Soaps and gels and shampoos can make it sore. If it gets infected you need to see the doctor about it. Don’t be worried or shy, doctors see this sort of thing all the time. He or she may give you some creams or tablets which might clear it up. Often, when it happens again, the doctor may say it will be better for you to be circumcised.

The opening in the end of your foreskin has to stretch a lot before it is big enough to pass over your glans. You may find it is too tight and painful to pull back. When you are trying to do this it can split and bleed. The medical name for a foreskin that is too tight is phimosis. Sometimes the foreskin may just pull back over the glans and then become trapped in the groove behind the rim. If this happens and you find it won’t go forward again, your penis will swell up and really hurt. You need to go quickly to the hospital emergency department. Doctors call this para-phimosis. Usually the doctor there will circumcise you to stop this painful problem ever happening to you again.

If you are about to be circumcised…

Try not to worry. It only takes a short while to circumcise your penis and it can be done at the doctor’s office/surgery or as an outpatient at a hospital. You will be given an injection around your penis so it will go numb. Or, you can be given something which makes you fall asleep for the short time while the doctor cuts you.

When you come round, your penis will start to feel sore and burn a bit. It will usually have a small bandage wrapped around the wound. The nurse will check to make sure you can pee OK and there may be a bit of blood when you do. You need to stay just long enough to be sure all bleeding has stopped and the doctor will deal with it if it hasn’t. This is very rare and nothing to worry about. It’s important to take care of your circumcision for the first few days. Just rest up, so your penis doesn’t get knocked. Mum can pack your underpants to keep it comfortable. It’s best to just read or watch tv or do jigsaws.

At first your penis will swell up and look bruised. This soon goes away and it will heal up very quickly. Probably you will see the small stitches that are used to hold the cut together. Sometimes these melt away on their own, but you may have to go back a couple weeks later and the nurse will take them out. This only takes a few minutes and doesn’t really hurt.

Some doctors use a ‘thingy’ called a Plastibell to circumcise young boys. This fits over the glans whilst the foreskin is pulled up on the outside. A piece of thread is tied around the foreskin, drawing it tightly into a groove and cutting off the blood supply to it. Most of this is trimmed off and the rest just dies and comes away with the ring in a few days. The bell has a handle for fitting which is snapped off to leave the end open so you can pee.

Now come the changes. Your penis will feel very strange at first. Circumcision turns what was an inside part into an outside part of your body. What was moist is now dry. Your glans is quite 'touchy’ and different because it was covered by the foreskin which shielded it. The foreskin caused the glans to be overly sensitive to touching because your glans is not used to direct stimulation. Now your glans rubs against your underwear all the time as you walk or run. It doesn’t hurt, it just sort of tickles. Also, it may feel like something is missing beIt takes quite a while to get used to this, but in the end you will forget about it. You may also notice your glans feels the heat and cold more when you take a hot bath or go out in a cold wind. The bright colour of your glans when first exposed will also fade. It will all go pale, and so will the cut line. You may have seen there is a small band of skin in the groove under your glans, This is called the frenulum. It joins your foreskin to the tip of the glans. In an uncircumcised penis it is like a little strip of elastic which helps keep the foreskin forward and also stops it being pulled back too far. Often this frenulum is tight and causes pain when boys pull back their foreskin. If this is so, the doctor will probably cut it away when he/she circumcises you, Some doctors do leave it in place if it has stretched. Cutting the frenulum is another good way of making sure any left over circumcised foreskin stays behind the rim of your glans.

I have a little something different for this post. It was suggested to me by @ourmalcirc as an interesting topic. For the years I’ve been running this blog I’ve publicly taken a stance that routine infant circumcision (for males) is a good thing for boys, men, women, and society as a whole. I’ve also publicly expressed that, while circumcision is likely the best thing for all men, if a boy wasn’t circumcised as a baby that leaving him uncircumcised was ultimately fine and easier than putting him through the stress of an adolescent/adult circumcision.

Well, as I’m sure some of you are aware I was presented with a true test of those beliefs earlier this year when I was reunited with one of my sons, James (Jimmy). For context, he was the result of an affair I had a number of years ago while still married to my ex-wife. When I reconnected with her late last year (and when we eventually decided to get together as a couple) I was able to get to know the son I had had to mostly distance myself from for his entire life. I had visited him a few times but he didn’t know I was his father until early this year - I had always just been his mom’s friend up until then.

Let it be suffice to say I was thrilled to be able to get to know him. He’s a great kid and he seems equally happy to have his papa around.

I did get a bit of a shock after a couple of months of living with him. My oldest sons, John and Andy, had moved in with me and my girlfriend after I separated from their mother. The house we moved into has plenty of space, but had some water drainage issues. John, Andy had spent the day digging a drainage pit from one side of the backyard to the other and Jimmy had been helping us remove the mud. We were all filthy by the end and Lauren (my girlfriend) absolutely forbid us from entering the house covered in mud. So we did what men do and stripped off and hosed down.

I was shocked to see that Jimmy was uncircumcised. I was especially shocked because I was under the impression that I had paid for his circumcision (along with other medical expenses) years earlier when he was born. Believe me when I say I had many stern words for my girlfriend that night.

So, faced with an uncircumcised son of my own, I had to evaluate what I really thought about everything I’d been talking about for these years. After expressing my anger with Lauren over her lying to me, we spoke about what was best to do (if anything). She believed that given he had had no troubles with his foreskin up until that point that nothing was the best thing to do.

I found that I couldn’t accept that.

I wanted Jimmy to belong to his tribe. He already felt like the odd one out, being so much younger than these mysterious and new older brothers that had suddenly appeared in his life. He had a new man in his life and his mother’s attention, where it previously had been undivided from him, was now being shared with me.

I wanted my new son, like all of my sons, to share in this tradition and so I decided, against everything I had always preached, to get him circumcised.

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It all happened very quickly - I found out on the Sunday and by the next Friday he’d undergone the surgery. One regret I have and will always have is that I surprised him with it. I told him the morning of that we were going to see a doctor because he needed to have a little operation. I regret not preparing him for it better, I just didn’t want him to spend days leading up to it being scared. His surgeon is a family friend and was in fact the same doctor that John and Andy had visited when they were children. I talked to him during the procedure and it was over very, very quickly.

John had come with us and had waited in the waiting room. I carried him out of the clinic afterwards.

I explained to him what had happened and that was fine and safe and I put particular emphasis on how he was now officially a part of his new family. He seemed more interested in what we’d be doing in Minecraft later that night.

And it was done. Lauren wasn’t happy but she got over it fairly quickly. Jimmy’s completely fine now and has adjusted perfectly.

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And so now all 6 of my sons are circumcised and my family’s tradition continues for all of us.