English boy, circumcised at age 4, later finds his classmates following suit.

I'm a 27 year old male from the UK, I have vague memories of being naked at a beach or pool, like many other kids in the 90s, but the first proper memory with my penis was when I was about 4, I woke up with a sore penis and couldn't pee. My mum took me to the doctors that morning, and the doctor said my foreskin was tight, and I had a UTI. I think the advice must have to been to keep an eye open for if and when my foreskin would retract, and see what happens in a few months.

About a month later, as it turned out, my mum asked me to attempt to pull my foreskin back in the shower, and I was still in agony. The next day, she ran a bath for me, and asked me to do it again, in the bath, thinking that would maybe work, again, to no avail. She then took me to GP's and then I got referred for a circumcision. I recall going to the hospital, being driven up and the next thing I remember is waking up after the circumcision.

I don't really remember the recovery, but I remember when I started school, we all used the urinals, and due to the fact that it was in 1999, a lot of schools still had the old style wall group urinals, so there wasn't much privacy anyway, added to the fact that many kids that age at that time would drop their trousers and pants to their ankles. I noticed then that two of the boys looked the same as me. There was also a time in my 3rd year of primary school, we'd go to a pool for swimming, but not use the locker rooms at the pool for getting fully changed, we'd change into our swim costumes at school and put our tracksuits on top of our swim costumes so when we got to the pool, it'd just be a simple case of taking our tracksuits off and going in the pool. For this the boys would change in the classroom, and the girls would go to the female bathrooms to change as we'd obviously have to get naked to put our swim costumes on. During the times when the boys changed in the classroom, I noticed that there was 3 more circumcised boys in the class now. So a total of 6 circumcised boys in one class.

I later asked them about them being circumcised, they were all circumcised for the same reason as I was - a tight foreskin. There was a few boys in other years at my primary school who were circumcised too - we'd see each other in the showers after PE lessons or whilst using the urinal. There was less nudity later as we got to secondary school, unfortunately.

However, when it came to myself and my wife having kids I suggested, if we had a boy, we should have him circumcised as soon as possible to prevent any issues like I had. My wife agreed to it. We have a son who is now 4, and we got him circumcised when he was 3 months old. I wonder if he will keep the (now) tradition of circumcision in the family if he has any sons in the future.

CF     

Editor's note. For some reason English hospitals insist on waiting until 3 months for circumcision even though research in the US shows that there are fewer problems whan it is done earlier.