An Aussie teenager's story.

When I was 11, I had to switch doctors when my family moved to Melbourne. Months ahead of the move, dad found a GP just up the street from our new house and booked a new patient appointment for the first Monday of school holidays. After he examined me at the first appointment, the doctor asked my parents if they'd considered having me circumcised. I asked what that was and the doctor said it was something lots of boys have done and went on to explain all the health benefits and why it's important to have the head exposed. I still didn't really understand but dad's only follow up question was when it could be done. I remember the doc saying he's normally booked solid during school holidays, but had a cancellation and could fit me in if we wanted to wait an hour. We waited in the lobby a little over an hour and I saw two other families go back ahead of me, one with a boy about my age. When he came back out, the doctor told him to give me a thumbs up which he did with an awkward smile. The doctor then ushered me back into a larger room than before, asked me to remove my clothes, and asked my parents to wait in the recovery room. He had me lay on the table, warned me about injections for the pain and gave me an ipad to watch youtube.

I asked what was going to happen and he was happy to walk me through how he was going to circumcise me. At that point, it was basically locked in that the circumcision was happening so even though I freaked out a little inside, I didn't object since it felt inevitable anyway. I didn't have any particular attachment to my foreskin and at times found it pretty annoying, but finding out it was being removed was still pretty shocking. Ended up angling the ipad up and watching most of the procedure instead of youtube out of sheer curiosity, especially after watching him painlessly clamp my foreskin and ask if I could feel anything. I distinctly remember feeling a strong but painless tugging sensation, then watching in a borderline trance as my foreskin got pulled forward and he slid forceps just in front of my head. He closed them, opened them to pull more skin through, then closed them again and moved my penis around before repeating this process once more. He let it sit for a few minutes, then pulled a scalpel off the tray and sliced my foreskin clean off. Seeing it laying on the tray in a neat ring all in one piece was surreal. I'm pretty sure he noticed I was watching at that point, since I gasped and he said my eyes got really wide. After getting stitched and bandaged up, I put my clothes back on and went to sit with my parents in the recovery room. A little while after the doctor came in and gave my parents and I the post op instructions, then we posed for a thumbs-up picture with the doctor and left. Walking back to the car I noticed a giant sign reading "Circumcision Doctor" taking up the entirety of the doctor's window. I hadn't seen it when we went in and suddenly realised the boy from before had been here for the same reason and the other boys in the waiting room as I left were there for it too. Ironically, I saw that sign nearly every day afterwards for the next seven years since that was the route mum took to drop me off at school, on top of seeing it every time we went to the doctor since he was also our family GP.

Healing was mostly painless and I was pretty well healed when term started a couple weeks later and had no problem playing cricket a week after that. Initially I was very confused and frustrated about being circumcised but I loved being cut almost as soon as the pain went away. No more issues peeing, heaps easier to clean, and having the head out all the time just looked and felt correct for some reason. It was better in every way. I'm so grateful my parents didn't wait any longer to have me cut, since puberty really started to kick in about 4 months later and that would have made healing really rough. Mum and dad obviously felt it was the right decision as well because my brother was born about 6 months later and they took him for his circumcision at the same time as his 1 month check-up. I asked dad a few times if he'd ever get circumcised but he seems to think most of the benefits to circumcision only apply to boys and young men.

To any parents even vaguely considering having their son or sons circumcised: Please do so, it is 100% for their benefit. I hated my foreskin and subconsciously saw it as a huge pain in the ass, but if dad hadn't gotten me trimmed I never would have fully realised it. Or if I had, I would have been far too shy to bring it up with my parents. Just please make sure you talk to them and explain what circumcision is, what its benefits are, and why its a good thing. Don't just spring it on them like my dad did with me, hey?

Sam, 19, Brisbane