Successive stages of circumcision

I was born in Feb. 1945 in England which, although it was wartime, most baby boys were circumcised, but I wasn't! I don't know why not, perhaps my parents couldn't afford it (pre NHS) or it was not in my mother's family tradition (my father was circumcised, which I discovered at about 4 years old when I saw him pee. I asked my mum why we looked different and she explained that he had had a small operation as a baby. At primary school I noticed that most other boys could pee further than me but didn't know that they were circumcised.

At ten years old I went to a very small 'prep.' school consisting of 36 boys. After sports we all showered together and saw each other at bath time.All the boys born in 1942 were circ'd except one who was Danish. Those born in 1943/4 were mainly circumcised, my year were mainly circ'd but slightly fewer than the older boys. The circ rate got gradually less as time went on. To start with I thought that a bared glans was a sign of maturity, (one of the boys had half a foreskin) and I was expecting to gradually grow the same way. It didn't take me too long to realise that this probably wasn't true. As most of the circ'd boys tended to be better at sports and the uncirc'd more artistically inclined I was afraid that if I were to lose my foreskin my musical talent would diminish and I was very afraid of that happening.

As I found masturbation I discovered that my foreskin was attached to three quarters of the glans. As I continued to masturbate it gradually came free. It stayed over the glans during erection until one evening it came completely free and would no longer stay forward. The horror of appearing at showers looking different was considerable. By the following morning it had returned to normal, but I realised that I no longer wanted it. Sometime later I decided to keep the foreskin back, which led to questions from one or two of the boys: wasn't it sore? Well yes it was, not because I had been circed, but because the glans and ineer foreskin were still very tender.

At thirteen I left that school and went to grammar school, living at home. I was still not sure about whether or not to be circ'd. I made sure that my family never saw my penis, not easy in the small house we lived in. My parents were quite worried about it and my father came to wash my back during my bath. I decided that I would keep the foreskin back. He never said anything about it and I still don't know if he thought I had been circumcised or not. For most of my teen years I tried to keep the foreskin back, sometimes using sticking plaster. When I started sex with my girl friend I would remove the tape, so she got used to seeing me with the foreskin back although being French she expected me to have a foreskin. In 1968 we moved to the Netherlands, she went first while I finished working. I wanted to arrive in the Netherlands circumcised and ready for action.

I made an appointment with my parents doctor and asked him if I could be circumcised. He tested my foreskin and said there was very easy movement so there was no medical necessity, but if I wanted it done privately it would cost about 300 pounds. That was about what I earned in a year, so out of the question. Three years later my wife had hormone problems from having taken the pill for too long at a strech, sex was out. I decided to circumcise myself as there would be plenty of time to heal before I would need my penis (and before my wife would see me). I had surgical knives which I used to voice harpsichord plectra. I put an elastic band around the base of my penis to restrict the bleeding, put plaster around the rim of the glans and a little bit of the inner foreskin. I sarted with a dorsal slit and then started cutting around the right side of the foreskin. At about a third of the way round I could no longer stand the pain and cut off what I had detached leaving about two thirds of my foreskin in place. I managed to contain the bleeding with waterproof tape. When I was healed enough to show my wife, did so. She was horrified. 'There's nothing left to play with' she said.

I couldn't remember her ever playing with my foreskin but so what. I had about 2/3rds of skin on the left of the glans. Most of the time it stayed back, but sometimes it moved down while I was sitting. Not a nice feeling. After we were divorced I decided to finish the job that I had left very incomplete. I was determined not to be put off by pain, but I went at a higher speed than I should and got all the way round but with a rather uneven cut, taking more off the back than the front.This time I could not stop the much greater flow of blood, I couldn't close the wound and so had to 'phone for an ambulance. Total embarrassment! The surgeon who sewed me up said that I had made one or two mistakes and he would tidy things up once I had healed. He also said that there were many men who wished to be rid of their foreskins so why hadn't I asked? I had no answer for him. I never went back to be tidied up. Now I had quite a lot of inner foreskin in front and not really enough behind. This meant that when soft there was quite a lot of bunching up in front, I also had some tunnels which collected dirt.

This is how I was at the beginning of my second marriage to a Dutch girl, who had only seen her uncircumcised brother and horses and dogs. She was not bothered with my status but still doesn't like my interest in the subject. After a few years I wanted to be tidied up to look like my school friends but needed a motivation for the health authorities as I still could not afford private medicine. I started to complain of erection pain at the back, where I had no spare skin. In those days in the Netherlands there was a society which dealt with peoples sexual problems, so I got an appointment. After being interviewed by a sexologist and inspected by a doctor I was referred to a urologist who had devised an operation to extend the penis for those who were not well endowed, though not my case, he was someone sympathetic to men unsatisfied with their equipment.First he suggested a Z plasty at the back to give me more room, but when I asked if it would be possible to take some off the front he said 'Oh so that's what this is all about' I've helped any number of young Muslims who had a flap like yours I'll recircumcise you. Which he did. When I looked at the stitches after my first shower I was surprised to see that he hadn't done the Z plasty but taken out the frenulum. At last I was the way I had wanted to be since puberty. It was quite tight, though I still had some movement on the front. After 20 years it has got a little looser and the skin comes over the glans while seated, so I am back to using tape to keep it out of the way! A fourth circumcision at 70 seems a bit OTT.

Christopher