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Written by Paul B. at 10 Nov 2001 21:38:20:

As an answer to: Question written by Mark at 10 Nov 2001 20:04:12:

> Hello. I'm 15 and I've just retracted my foreskin for the first time.

Great! As Jim says here, you need to get used to pulling it back on a regular basis, such as when you pee (it might even aim better, though it might not!) and when you shower.

> When I try to touch the tip of my penis or anywhere on the glands it is painful.

OK then, think about this a moment. Is it painful if you touch either eyeball? Is it painful if you stick something up the inside of your nose? Yet you open your eyes most of the day, and breathe through your nose nearly all of the time. Point is, these areas are simply not supposed to be touched, except under particular circumstances, and without something to facilitate touching. The same is true of your glans penis.

> Any idea what I can do to relieve the pain?

It's not so much about relieving the pain, but rather not causing it - don't touch it - at least unless you have plenty of some sort of lubricant on your penis tip and hand. Now this (lubricant) might be the "pre-cum" you make when you are thinking about girls, if there is enough of it to keep things very slippery, or it might be a "personal lubricant" sold for this purpose, or it might be vegetable oil or something else (definitely not any form of soap or detergent however) available.

Now, consider this very carefully: As you probably realise, a girl's equivalent of your penis is her clitoris. Like your penis head, this is normally covered by her labia (vulval lips) and in part, its own tiny "foreskin". Because of this, a girl's clitoris is also much too sensitive to touch without using some sort of lubricant, and when girls rub their clitoris, they mostly do so as you have done so far and will most likely continue to do, by moving the skin over it.

Girls do however as they get sexually excited, produce plenty of vaginal lubrication which can then be moved up to their clitoris permitting it to be (gently) stroked directly. And of course that same lubrication means that when sometime in the future it is appropriate for you to have intercourse with a partner, you will do so only after she is sufficiently excited to wet her pants (or your hand, or whatever) with this lubricant so that your penis head can slip into her and the foreskin be pulled back (whichever happens first may vary) and feel extremely pleasurable even though it is still as sensitive as you now describe.

While it is necessary and appropriate for you to practice pulling your foreskin back frequently so that when in the future as I have described, it pulls back (generally, by itself) easily when you have intercourse, the concept that it should somehow be desensitised so that you can touch it whilst dry, is in fact an aberration (error or perversity) which comes from the popularity of circumcision, since a circumcised penis is forced to become insensitive by constant contact with clothing. The penis will adapt to this, just as the eye will adapt to the use of contact lenses, but it is not normal and not desirable if it is avoidable, as it reduces the pleasurable feelings in proportion.

I should be interested, Mark, to know if you follow this little lecture (:-) and if it has helped you, or whether anything is still not clear?


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