I am a 20 year old man who has just realized the mutilation that has been done to me.

When I realized what I was ignorantly robbed of, it hit me like a brick and I cried for three days. I called my mom asking why I was circumcised. She was in disbelief why I would even wonder. Her defense was it’s much prettier, women hate foreskins (I’m gay, by the way), it gives them infections, and, “Well God commands it and God knows what he’s doing.” I am Christian, as well, but I see God much more caring and liberated. Needless to say, I am not speaking to my parents while I process my emotions. My dad’s typical response for subjects like this is, “It’s just the way to do things.”

Ever since I was seven I felt something was missing. Fortunately, I was one of few who was always able to pull the skin up over the head when flaccid and most of it (very tightly) when erect. I came into my mom’s and her boy friend’s bedroom and (more…)

I first found out about it when I was a kid at camp and didn’t like the idea that someone had cut off part of my body. Especially there. As I grew up, and learned more and more information through sex education, etc., it started to bother me more, to the point where by my late teens it would make me feel bad if I thought of it or if it ever came up. It always struck me as unfair, finding out the shabby reasons or being told it didn’t really matter much one way or the other. If it didn’t really matter either way, then why was it done to me? A lot of my friends weren’t cut. [Editor: Note how this young man has difficulty naming what was done to him.]

Physically, I haven’t known any different, but I suffered psychologically from the feelings that go with having a healthy part of my body cut off without my consent. I really feel violated by it. I also hate the fact that while discovering sexuality, like all guys do around puberty, involved me finding the scar and being bothered by the fact that I was cut. I don’t think discovering your own body should involve that kind of thing at all. A kid shouldn’t have to deal with that. It wasn’t done for any medical need but because my parents happened to think it was ‘cleaner’ or ‘healthier.’ I really don’t think I’d have had trouble having to spend an extra 5 seconds in the shower to clean it if it meant having my whole sex anatomy intact the way the male body is designed. I find it appalling that the medical community allows this to continue, whose body is it anyway? It still pisses me off to this day (more…)

At the tender age of six, I learned what circumcision was, and that I had been subjected to it. This has been an issue in my life ever since. At first I was curious about why this had been done to me and I felt somewhat disappointed that I did not have a foreskin like many of my friends. Over time I became more angry and I felt that I had been cheated out of something rather special. I swore that if I ever had children, they would grow up as nature made them. Intact.

Many years later, in the early eighties, my wife and I were blessed with a handsome son. She had grown up with two older brothers who were intact, and had babysat her three younger half brothers who had been circumcised. Although, she worked as a nurse and admitted to almost passing out during the first circumcision that she witnessed being performed, (more…)

I got circumcised when I was 18 because of various, stupid, and insecure reasons (got made fun of in school, etc), and not knowing at all the Hell I was getting myself into. Being young and naive, I did not look into the dark history or anything else about circumcision before I got it done. I did it strictly for the look, and of course the doctor did not tell me any of the consequences. I actually was told thatIi would have more sensation which I know now is the biggest lie in the world. After they did it I basically had no sensation or feeling at all in my penis. I knew something was completely not right but I thought if I just waited maybe things would change but it only got worse. I was in total denial for a while until one day reality hit me. And it hit me hard. When I called up the doctor to tell him how upset I was he said that it’s just me and that kind of thing does not happen. He cut me off and said he’s busy and not to call him again. Then he hung up on me. They never even charged me for having it done, which I didn’t understand at the time. I think he knew after I talked to him that he screwed up not telling me what the consequences were and they were hoping that I didn’t pursue legal action.

Sexually I went from a 10 to basically a zero and I did not really understand what was going on and had no idea what to do. I got into a deep dark depression and basically have been really depressed since then. I have gotten a little better and I am not so suicidal and self destructive anymore but it comes back to haunt me all the time. I have nightmares every once in a while. I just can’t believe people and doctors can completely ruin a person’s life like that and still get away with it. It does not make any sense at all.

I finally tried to sue but they said I waited too long. I wasted too much time locked up in my room being depressed and numb. If only I had known I could and looked into suing earlier. I joined the Pittsburgh chapter of National Organization of Restoring Men to get some kind of help. They assist men in non-surgical restoration of their foreskin. I’ve been restoring for 3 1/2 years, and have grown a lot of outer skin. I’m almost completely covered when flaccid. I started with t-tape and the pill tube method, and now using the Recap Inflatable and Recap Softy, which does a really good job at tugging. I have no increase in sensation, which is what I’m really worried about, and don’t know if I ever will. I’m just trying to be patient and to keep hoping that with time I will get something back. My brain still kinda remembers how unbelievably good it always felt being intact and how I so enjoyed it then, so that makes it even worse. I know it will never be like it was but any improvement of sensitivity is better than what it’s like now. This is definitely going to be a long journey and healing process.

I am choosing today, Mother’s Day, to share it with my friends and family. Sharing this information with all of you is my Mother’s Day Gift to myself and all of you.

I guess my story really started when I was young. Somewhere in my childhood I must have learned about circumcision as something that “gets done” to baby boys, “extra skin” that gets cut off the penis because it is “better” for them. I never questioned it as a child or teenager, it was the “norm”. Everyone in my family was circumcised (until I later learned that my mother’s father wasn’t!) and it was the expected thing to do. I too held the false thinking that boys who weren’t circumcised were “dirty”. I’m still to this day amazed that even as a young child, this thinking was so ingrained within me, as I’m sure it still is in those mothers/parents who continue to circumcise.

When I was in nursing school, one of my classmates did a presentation on the pros and cons of circumcision. I can remember her clearly saying, “Dude, there are just no pros to circumcision.” Even so, I can still remember thinking there must be since “everybody does it.” I remember being excited to have my turn to see a circumcision during my postpartum nursing school rotation. Please hear me when I tell you, I was horrified by what I saw. My role as a nursing student was to just stand there and observe. Now I am not somebody who gets squeamish or grossed out or anything, and I wouldn’t describe the procedure as gross, I would describe it as torture. It was a life changing experience for me and I need to tell you what it meant to me. I couldn’t believe what I was bearing witness to. This perfect new baby, his legs strapped down to a white plastic board called a circumstraint, betadine splashed on his genitals as the doctor jabbed him with a couple shots of lidocaine. The baby was screaming and as I watched the doctor quickly get to work with her tools a rush of weird sensations came over me. Every intuition in my body was screaming NO! It was like I was frozen and couldn’t move or speak. I didn’t want to look but I couldn’t look away. I watched the doctor repeatedly jam an instrument under the baby’s foreskin to separate it from the glans (which I later learned feels comparable to separating a fingernail from the finger by carving under it with a knife) After she separated it, she was able to cut around circmference of the penis and remove the foreskin. And then she tossed it in the trash like it was a worthless piece of skin.

When I got home that day, it was all I could think about, that poor baby and the glazed look he had in his eyes after the procedure, like he had given up, had been defeated. I couldn’t believe this procedure had become a routine thing to do to babies. I felt awful knowing that men in my life had endured this procedure. It was one of the first things they had had done to them. Some welcome to the world. And just because they can’t remember doesn’t make it right. I tried to describe to my husband that day what I had seen and told him that I could never do that to my baby. We didn’t really talk much more about it since we were still a few years away from starting a family.

Fast forward to when I became a post-partum nurse. Luckily, working nights I never had to deal with a circumcision taking place, but I did have to take care of babies in the nursery who had been circumcised earlier that day. You could tell which boys had been circumcised. They were the ones that awakened with a scream as they peed. No doubt it stung their fresh wound. It was during that time that I entered my second trimester with Noah. My motherly instincts must have been in overdrive. I remember knowing that I would never let my baby hurt like those poor babies. I took those weeks to do some internet research and my husband and I both read a couple of books that one of our doctors had donated to the postpartum unit. The Hidden Trauma of Circumcision, and Circumcision: What Your Doctor May NOT Tell You About. Everything I learned further cemented in me that circumcision is wrong. I remember the day we found out we were expecting a boy. We were so excited and felt so blessed. There was never a dilemma as to whether or not he would be circumcised. We were, and still are, at peace that both of our boys have their whole perfect bodies. It horrifies me me knowing what I know now, that had I not gone into nursing, I may never have explored circumcision and I would have “just done it.” I am so grateful I am a mother who found out before it was too late.

I have been researching circumcision information for 6 years now and try to keep up with the lastest studies and statistics. I have tried in the past to gently share this information with some friends and some family and some patients….and sometimes I just don’t have “the fight” in me or the know-how to talk to certain people about it. I am sad to say that there are some people I never even tried to educate, and now it’s too late. It can definitely be a hard topic to bring up with some people, it has taken me years to realize that sometimes social conformity is more powerful than me, but to not be afraid and to not be silent. I hate feeling sad when I hear someone is having a boy just because I’m sure they’ll circumcise him. I hate feeling that because as the mother of two little boys, I know that little boys are amazing little people with or without intact genitals. I’m not some “crazy hippy” and parents who don’t circumcise their boys aren’t part of some “tree-hugging cult” or bizzare stuff that pro-circumcision people sometimes spout off because the truth is too painful to fully comprehend.

I am a firm believer of when you know better, you do better. I’m sharing my story with you, because if life hadn’t taken me down the path that it did, I may not have learned the truth about circumcision. I just can’t fathom this barbaric “custom” going on for another generation. I can’t be silent anymore.

I have just started to see a man who was circumcised as a baby and was shocked when he told me that he has very little sensation at all in his penis and that he can’t really feel anything during penetrative intercourse as a result. This lead me to do some research on the internet and there is so much information and similar stories out there about this.

From what I can tell he has had the foreskin removed as well as some of the skin from the shaft rendering this area numb effectively. I was amazed too that he has never discussed his parents decision with them, as personally I would be angry and hurt that someone had made this life changing decision for me at such a young age.

From a woman’s perspective, I can see no benefit from circumcision. If men were not meant to have a foreskin they wouldn’t have been born with it and I truly believe you shouldn’t mess with what nature provides us. I’m saddened that men have to live with the results of their parent’s decisions and the impact that this choice can have on their sexual relationships.

(Ed: Circumcision regularly removes three-fourths of penile sensitivity.)

I began restoring my foreskin at age 55 because masturbation and sex with my wife was becoming more and more difficult due to lack of sensitivity. I had no idea it was because I was circumcised at birth. I did an internet search on improving sensitivity and found so much information it was mind boggling. After some thought and discussion with my wife I decided to try to restore some of the damage that was done. I found that the reason for the loss of sensitivity was the keratonization* of the head due to the lack of protection that a foreskin provides. Years of rubbing against clothing and having to masturbate without a foreskin caused most of the damage.

The method I chose to use to restore was manual tugging and t-tape. I did have a bit of a head start because I was cut loosely. After 7 months of restoration I’m happy to report amazing progress. When flaccid the shaft skin covers about half the head which has caused the keratonization to disappear and leave me with a very shiny head when fully erect.

The sensitivity that has returned is overwhelming at times. To be very frank I never used to get any pre-cum due to lack of sensitivity. I wasn’t even aware of that phenomenon. When fully erect I am beginning to be able to learn how to use the shaft skin to stroke with during masturbation. I need to do this at this point because it is almost too sensitive to directly stoke the area with the hand like I used to. I plan on continuing this process although it probably will be more difficult to get such great results as I continue.

*(Ed: keratonization is a response by the skin to external influences resulting in skin hardening and the growth of additional layers of skin. Similar to callusing.)

As long as I can remember even as a child of 3-4 years-old, I always hated the feel of the glans of my penis rubbing against my briefs. I hated the discomfort in the winter with the cold making my glans almost feel like it was burning. I used to place my penis inside a sock during the winter if I wanted to go outside and play.

I remember when I was 10 years-old my parents sent me to a summer camp. The first day of camp, when we all went into the bathhouse to change into our swim trunks, I saw my first whole penis. He was one of the counselors and I was just taken back by the looks of it. Then I started to look around and noticed a few of the other boys my age (more…)

I am only 21 years old. I got pregnant with my first child when I was 20. As soon as I found out it was a boy I started doing research on circumcising. I knew from the very start I didn’t want to do it. My fiance and I fought long, mean battles about it the whole time I was pregnant. In my heart I knew it was wrong. I had my baby boy on June 8th of this year! The best day of my life!!! HE WAS PERFECT!

The day after I had him my fiance’s parents and sister came to visit me and my son in the hospital. His father said to me, “I heard you ain’t gonna get him cut.” His exact words! (more…)

Circumcision. For many years I couldn’t say that word. If someone nearby said “cir… cumstance” my heart would leap into my throat, just hearing the first few letters of that word, and my fight or flight reactions would kick in a big way. Circumcision has had a profoundly devastating effect on my life, very much I would think like being repeatedly raped by your parents (more…)