I was not circumcised as a baby. When I was born in 1972 circumcision was no longer automatically offered to parents and it was not the custom in my family. My father is uncircumcised and as far as I know so is his older brother. Again, I do not think either of my cousins on my mother's side have been circumcised.
Nothing was said about circumcision either at home or at school. I was totally unaware of the meaning of the word until my mid-teens. At secondary school I noticed a few Asian boys in the showers whose penises looked different from mine, but took no real interest in this difference.
I was never taught at home or school anything about the need to retract the foreskin and wash regularly, although in my teens I started to do this when having a bath without any prompting. Similarly, I was not taught to retract the foreskin whilst urinating and so stale urine used to collect inside the foreskin.
A local club brought me into contact with a man who became good friends with me and my parents. When I was about 15 I started joining him in one of his other hobby interests. This involved several overnight stays and we naturally saw one another's penises whilst showering and dressing.
He noticed that I was uncircumcised and raised the subject with me. As I said, I knew nothing about it and so he explained what circumcision was and why some boys are circumcised. He told me that he had been circumcised as a baby. He also told me of the need to wash regularly and to retract the foreskin whilst urinating. I could retract my foreskin to completely expose the glans but if I pulled it back more it hurt as the frenulum stopped the bottom from going back very far.
At first I could not see the benefits of having a circumcision, despite being told about the problems suffered by some men with a long or tight foreskin. When I left school I went into catering and found myself working in a hot and sticky environment all day. Needless to say, I got very sweaty under my foreskin and it was sometimes quite unpleasant, just as my friend had predicted it might be, however I still didn't want to consider circumcision.
As I left my teens I got myself a regular girlfriend and at this point discovered that when I had a very hard erection my tight frenulum not only hurt but also pulled on the back of the glans and made the piss slit point down at right angles to my shaft. My girlfriend suggested that this was not right and could interfere with proper sex. I remembered what my friend had said and so I asked her if she thought I ought to be circumcised. She considered this to be a very good idea.
The next time my friend and I were together I told him that I had decided that I wanted to be circumcised. It came as a bit of a surprise to him since I had previously been so strongly against the idea. Once he had discussed it with me and determined that I was serious he set about trying to find a doctor who would do the operation as I wanted it, without fuss, and at a reasonable price. Fortunately, as a member of the Acorn Society he was able to ask for other members' recommendations.
It was clear that I was unlikely to get the operation from the NHS, and if I did I was still likely to have to wait a very long time and then have no choice in how or when it was done. Two suggestions only seemed worth following up. One was the Surgical Advisory Service, with prices at around £750 and the other was a Jewish doctor who charged £200. All the reports on this doctor were good and so we decided to go to him. This selection process took nearly a year since we wanted to be absolutely sure we got the right surgeon and my friend wanted to be sure that I really was serious about wishing to be circumcised. The more I thought about it though, the more I felt it was the right thing for me to do.
Eventually I went to see the doctor at his North London surgery at the end of November 1994. I had a long discussion with him and he examined my foreskin and frenulum. He agreed to perform a circumcision under local anaesthetic and we agreed a fee of £200. I didn't want my parents to know about my circumcision and also wanted to have a week off work to allow it to start healing. I therefore asked if it could be done in March, the earliest I could conveniently take leave, and this was provisionally agreed.
In February I wrote to the doctor confirming my desire for a circumcision and requesting the operation for Sunday 19th March 1995. This was confirmed by him within a few days and my friend and I each booked a week's holiday to start then.
By this time I had changed my girlfriend and the new one knew nothing at all about circumcision. I told her about it and gave her a booklet which my friend had given to me a couple of years earlier to explain it all.
We spent Saturday night in an hotel not far from home so that we could get some pictures of my uncircumcised penis. Not surprisingly I was somewhat nervous that night, but determined to go through with the operation the next day. In the morning I masturbated for the last time with an uncircumcised penis.
We arrived at the surgery at 2:15 in the afternoon, ready for a 2:30 appointment. The doctor was waiting for me and I had soon signed the consent form which he gave me. I told the doctor that I wanted my frenulum removed and a fairly tight circumcision with the scar line placed well back on the shaft so as to remove only outer skin and keep all of the inner skin. I undressed completely and got onto the couch whilst the doctor finished his preparations.
Meanwhile, my friend set up a video camera which the doctor had agreed we could use to record the operation so that my girlfriend could later see it. I didn't want to watch the operation directly but when I saw it on the small tv monitor we had connected to the camera I found it very interesting and watched everything except the initial anaesthetic injections.
My genitals were first swabbed with an iodine based antiseptic and then I was given the local anaesthetic (Bupivacaine) which was injected into the base of the shaft. The first two injections were quite painful, but I never have liked having any injections. As the anaesthetic began to work I didn't feel the remaining injections.
The doctor was soon clamping my foreskin and determining exactly where he was going to place the cut. He placed a large pair of forceps across the foreskin where he was going to cut it and clamped them tight. One quick stroke of the scalpel along the side of the forceps removed my foreskin for ever. As the forceps were removed a certain amount of blood spurted out over the plastic sheet which covered me. I don't think it was really very much, but it looked like a lot as it spread over quite a large area.
The places where I was bleeding were found and sealed, either with simple pressure from small forceps or by using an electric cautery device. After most of these bleeding points had been sealed the doctor released my frenulum from the back of the glans but didn't completely remove it. I had expected that this would be done first to make the foreskin more mobile. The frenulum was quite tough and the doctor had to use both scissors and scalpel to cut through it.
Despite all his efforts with the cautery device, the doctor could not completely stop me from bleeding where the skin had been removed. He placed a couple of stitches in there and then started to stitch the two cut edges together. He used a lot of small stitches, close together, and it took much longer to stitch me up than it had done to do the initial circumcision. Dissolving stitches were used so that I would not have to return to have them removed.
Once the stitching was completed the wound was covered with gauze and then tightly bound with bandage, from half way down my glans to just short of my scrotum. I was cleaned up and told to dress and sit quietly for a while. The whole operation had taken about an hour and a quarter.
I was given a glass of apple juice to drink and sat quietly whilst the doctor packed everything away (and my friend put away the video camera). About 20 minutes later the doctor again checked me to see if the bleeding had stopped. It appeared to have done so, but I was asked to phone later in the evening with a progress report, or immediately if the bleeding started again. I was given some co-proxamol pain killers and some gauze for later dressings and allowed to go.
On arrival at our hotel about an hour later the anaesthetic was starting to wear off, I took a couple of paracetamol tablets and crashed out on the bed for just over an hour before having a hearty dinner. All had seemed well just before dinner and so as soon as dinner was over I called the doctor to report I was ok. When I got back to my room I found that I had bled somewhat more, however this didn't worry me.
The glans was very bruised looking for about four days, but it looked particularly bad that first night. The bandage had been put on very tightly and it compressed my urethra somewhat so that when I had a pee there was considerable resistance to it coming out.
I took a couple of the stronger pain killers before turning in, but I was rather uncomfortable and I didn't get a good night's sleep. I got up twice during the night to have a pee so as to relieve the pressure. In the morning however there was no real pain at all and we set out for our week's holiday on the south coast. Although I had to take things easy, and for the first few days was walking with my legs apart as if sitting on a horse, I was able to do all I wanted on holiday and I resumed driving on the Thursday.
The initial dressing was to be kept on for 48 hours and so I soaked it off in the bath on Tuesday evening. It took about an hour to soak off, with me gradually unwinding it as each layer came free. Quite a lot of dried blood dissolved out into the water. When the dressing was off, the cut looked like a broad pink ring around the penis, with a wavy line of dried blood and the black stitches in it. The frenulum area however looked very bruised and sore. A new layer of antibiotic gauze was laid over the wound and held on with fresh gauze bandaging. We couldn't get this as tight and smooth as the doctor had done and it was rather bulky.
I had no real pain and, apart from the first night, very little serious discomfort, but I am glad that I took the week off work and would recommend this to anyone whose job is at all active. During the whole of the first two weeks I only took four doses of the stronger pain killer and about the same of paracetamol - mainly at night as a precaution rather than as a necessity.
The dressing was changed again on Thursday and Saturday nights. Each time the cut looked nicer and cleaner. It was, of course, still very tender and was somewhat painful to try to lift up to examine the frenulum area.
I went back to work a week after the circumcision. The first day was a bit of a shock to the system, but the discomfort had practically all gone by the second day. During this week the stitches started to come out and most were out by the end of that second week. The frenulum area still had a scab on it and the scar line was still rather rough, but I was already very pleased with the result.
The stitches had all come out by the middle of the third week and I had my first circumcised wank on the Wednesday. I found this highly pleasurable and shot loads all over my chest! The last scab finally came off the frenulum area the following Wednesday - three and a half weeks after the operation.
The doctor has done the operation completely to my satisfaction and I think it is very neat. When I am erect the colour contrast in the skin is very clear. The scar line has been placed 1.75" behind the rim of the glans on a penis which is 6" when erect. My circumcised penis also no longer bends downwards when fully erect.
I immediately found I was much more comfortable at work, and really experienced the full benefit during the following summer months when the kitchen got exceptionally hot.
I would recommend circumcision to anyone who has any tightness in their frenulum or foreskin, or who regularly works in a hot and sticky place. I hope that these notes will be helpful to anyone still trying to make up their mind.
The preceding account was written about five months after the operation and so I thought readers might be interested in an update now that a whole year has passed.
When I went back to work one week after the operation I had slight discomfort, having been resting for the previous week. However I was nearly healed by the end of that week and the discomfort just faded away.
The scar line is about 1/4 way back down the shaft from the glans, leaving the maximum amount of inner skin and taking off the maximum amount of outer skin. It is comfortably tight when erect but still fairly loose whilst flaccid.
My glans is fairly sensitive so it does not take long for an ejaculation to happen, whereas it took longer before I was circumcised.
When I look back at being circumcised I am glad that I was done, especially since I work in a hot environment and the weather last summer was exceptionally hot. I found it much more comfortable without my foreskin than other summers with it.
This account is based on articles written for the Acorn Society magazine soon after the event. The video of the operation is available from The Gilgal Society.
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