We are trying to prevent shrinking. How long before you noticed a change? How often do you recommend to be out to prevent?
Tom here. Turns out that I wrote something about this recently:
So many guys ask about shrinkage.
No, not the Seinfeld kind of shrinkage; this thread is about the concerns that some men have that short or long term lockups will have a bad affect on their manhood, either causing it to shrink, or causing one to lose the ability to have an erection.
First, let's set your mind at ease: If you're having fun being locked up, you'll be fine. Probably.
The caveat: there are many different types of devices and cages, and there are many differently shaped and sized penises. There are probably combinations that are not recommended, and stuffing your sausage into a cage that is a bad angle, poorly made, or overly small or large may have some impact.
The good news: removing the device and spending some time having normal ejections will probably bring everything back to normal.
Let's look at some of the concerns.
Shrinkage
It's important to remember something that you probably missed in biology class: the penis is not a muscle. In fact, there is very little muscle in there - it's mainly meat balloons that fill with blood, and a lot of connective tissue. Austin Powers notwithstanding, penis pumps won't make you appreciably bigger, and by the same token, chastity cages won't make you appreciably smaller.
Most anecdotal reports of men shrinking with cage use are unsubstantiated, and are frequently reported by guys who have a fascination or even fetish for penis shrinking. Their reported "loss of two inches" is probably wishful thinking, or intentionally measured in such a way as to appear smaller.
Some reports indicate that the long term lack of use of one's penis (in a medical situation) may result in tissue atrophy up to 10%. This means that an "average" man will lose about a half inch of length and maybe an eight inch of diameter.
However, significant weight change, age, and some medications can have an affect on penis size, affecting both girth and length. If you are taking hormones while wearing a cage, you might attribute loss of tissue to the cage. Weight gain could put fat pads in your groin, making it look like your penis has shrunk in length. And for those of us passing the mid-century mark, well, getting older just screws with your body in ways we can't explain.
Erection functionality
This one is more difficult to explain. Some men have reported an inability to have an erection or difficulty with erection after wearing a device for as little as a week or two. My opinion is that they are (if they are being truthful) acting out a fetish or fantasy, but I can't rule out that they may have squished themselves into a ridiculously small cage with no prior experience. Again, many of the reports don't give details, and are otherwise unsubstantiated.
That said, there are probably even more anecdotal reports that simply removing one's device and spending a few days or weeks with unfettered erections will restore your equipment to its former glory.
Some who wear a device for long periods of time (for some value of long) have reported experiencing a loss of elasticity of the skin (it feels like your erection is "tight"), but it seems to disappear after a few days of free range woody.
Medical science, as much as I can find over the last twenty years, does not present any hard data on long term wearing of chastity devices. However, we do have data on other aspects of penile dysfunction that may allow us to make educated guesses.
Abstract
"Even nerve-sparing radical prostatectomy damages the cavernous nerves and leads to temporary erectile dysfunction (ED) in men recovering from prostate cancer surgery. Historically, patients recovering from prostate cancer surgery have been advised that the return of erectile function (EF) can take from 6 to 18 months, or even longer. Unfortunately, the return of sexual function in these patients remains variable, but is generally thought to be dependent on the individual patient's pre-surgery EF, as well as the degree of cavernous nerve disruption during prostate removal. Recently, there has been a growing movement to proactively treat patients postoperatively for presumed nerve damage to stimulate nerve recovery and possibly reduce the degree of irreversible damage. This would reduce the on-demand therapy these patients would require, and hopefully remove the requirement for an implantable prosthesis. The underlying hypothesis is that the artificial induction of erections shortly after surgery facilitates tissue oxygenation, reducing cavernosal fibrosis in the absence of nocturnal erections, potentially increasing the likelihood of preserving EF. Vacuum erection devices (VED), because of their ability to draw blood into the penis regardless of nerve disturbance, have become the centerpiece of penile rehabilitation protocols. This review will discuss the pathophysiology of radical prostatectomy induced ED and the rationale for rehabilitation. It will then discuss current protocols, including those involving the VED."
The article above references the growth of tissue fibroids (which may affect size, shape, and quality of erections) after long periods of disuse, and the treatment of erectile function with vacuum pumps. While it does not apply directly to chastity usage, it does point up that the main factor is probably the lack of erections in the first place.
Many men trapped in chastity cages know that their bodies are still trying to have erections; the tissue swells up to fill the inside of the cage, and pushes back on the root (tendons and tissue) back into the body. As long as this kind of action is still happening, then your body is responding to arousal in the way it was programmed.
There is the possibility that an improperly fitting cage can cause a problem with a penis pre-disposed to Peyronie's disease - a condition resulting from fibrous scar tissue that develops in the penis and causes curved and/or painful erections. How do you know if your cage is not fitting well? My opinion is that if your penis is painful when you are getting aroused in your cage, then you may want to investigate that.
Again, the only actual data we have is on men who have severe erectile dysfunction as a result of other medical conditions. Chastity fans need to be discriminating when reading reports about the problems (or even the lack of problems) with wearing a device for longer periods.
