[ ARC forum 2 ]

Re: phimosis

Written by halfclip at 07 Jan 2004 12:04:36:

As an answer to: Re: phimosis written by IA at 06 Jan 2004 19:15:09:

>Dear Halfclip,
>I like what you have to say. I've read so much that I am so confused. It's my
>understanding that between the age of 3 to 5 most boys should have a retractable
>foreskin. In your first e-mail you suggested that with proper education perhaps
>we should wait til my boy is about 10 or 11. If you were my son, is that what
>you would prefer?

At that age, a circumcision would not be "sexual" nor "desired" by the young boy, unless lack of circ would cause great deal of pain.

By age 10, when he starts to see peers nakes in showers/locker rooms, then he would be in a better position to decide. I think it depends a lot on his environment (will he be the only uncut at school, or will he have plenty of uncut peers).

The danger is that your son, based on the paraphimosis event, may now be scared to manipulate his penis properly.

As long as your son understand he must not FORECEFULLY pull the skin back, but can retract it as far as it can easily retract, he should be fine for the next 5 years, and by then, you and he can have a "long chat" to see if his penis works or not.

For your son, he will proabbly prefer you leave it alone for now since he sees no use for his foreskin to retract and wouldn't want any operation anywhere on his body.

When he starts to masturbate, he will then understand the need to retract and at that point, may desire at least a partia circ if his foreskin hasn't dilated by then.


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