Re: Phimosis and Penile Growth

Written by Daveat 22 Jan 2000 15:20:18:

As an answer to: Re: Phimosis and Penile Growth written by Roxane at 19 Jan 2000 20:35:41:

Hi Roxanne.

Glad that my posting was of some interest. I have posted again – instead of email, because it is my thing to be open if at all possible. Doesn’t always work, but I try.

Firstly, I still see the penis size thing as a bit of a side issue for me, but can understand your questioning. The head of my penis has definitely grown in length and width. Therefore the overall length of my penis has increased, by about 10 to 15 mm. So there has probably been an increase in the length of the shaft also. I do not know the reason for this. When I had phimosis the skin could always be stretched more than was necessary to accommodate my erection, although I could see that it was very tight covering my head. Unfortunately there was not much I could do with it like this, so maybe I learned to masturbate when I was slightly soft, and this became my norm. I did suffer pain from the adhesions, so expect that this is very possible. It is also the case that I did not have sex until I was 32. For myself, I believe that this is more likely to be the reason for the late increase in my penis length.

I certainly don’t see your questioning as interrogation, more a sign of concern for you son. This would bring me to an observation. It is OK to worry, it is OK to be concerned, but please be careful as to where this will lead – for both of you. Your quote ‘doctors have made him feel that there is something wrong with him’ gives me concern. If your son really believes that, at the age of 10, he has something wrong with him, or that he is different, then the ‘heat’ must be taken out of the situation, and he must be helped to feel differently.

I can only come from my own experience on this – which is not always the best approach, because of personal hang-ups and bad experience, but it is all I have to go on.

I realized that there was something ‘wrong’ with me when I was 12. I found out that I was different, and with no outlet, I became obsessed with my phimosis and my penis. All through puberty I kept my problem to myself, through my early twenties and then to the time when I was circumcised. I cannot convey the depth of the psychological damage that ‘being different’ caused. All 14 years of it. In the end I took pleasure from the fact that I was different and couldn’t have sex.

So circumcision for me was a gigantic step back into the world of reality. It wasn’t an awful event. Sure it was painful, but short term. It was further 6 years before I had accepted my normality and found a sexual partner.

I know that at 37 the effects of this period are fading into the past, but part of me still yearns to be ‘normal’, and to have a normal foreskin. I live in the UK, and know of no other man of my acquaintance who is circumcised. Friends who find out are surprised. Obviously if I lived in the USA I would be normal. Unfortunately normality is very culture and nation dependant.

What my circumcision did for me was to rid me of an uncommon disorder of the penis to a state where I was not that different. My penis has desensitized, but it was so sensitive as to be painful. But I wish it was more sensitive than it is now. That is not to say that am very unhappy, just expressing a preference. Over the past 3 years my foreskin has stared to stretch – without intervention, and on occasion will cover the ridge of my head. I always feel a leap in spirits at this, so I am still affected. I always believed that man has a foreskin to serve a specific body function, otherwise why would we have evolved to have one.

Please don’t lose confidence in doctors, for they have a big part to play in changing your sons foreskin – by whatever method, which will help him feel good about himself.

I am loathed to give advice, and hope that I have not offended in any way. When it comes down to it, I always talk straight and speak my truth.

Good Luck.

Dave.


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