[ ARC forum 2 ]

AJ is his views

Written by Paul B. at 21 Jul 2002 00:57:33:

As an answer to: AJ and his views written by Jonathan Gaydon at 20 Jul 2002 23:12:49:

> Why does AJ have such a different view from all of you.

You need to read back and understand "AJ"'s story. He was circumcised because stretching "failed" for him. What this means, is that his particular interpretation of "stretching" failed to work. As a result, and being impetuous, he had a circumcision performed.

Now, consider the situation from "AJ"'s point of view. He cannot go back and try it again to get it right. Whenever we say that stretching will always work, if properly executed, we are indicating (honestly) that "AJ" was a failure in this respect, and let me tell you, almost all people resent being reminded of their failures. Some may simply learn to live with them, some may learn from them, but it is part of "AJ"'s nature (and not so uncommon, to be truthful), to spend virtually any amount of time and effort to "prove" to himself that he was not a failure after all.

> He says stretching only works a third of the time. The rest of you says it works all the time. Some of you are being either too optimistic or too pessimistic.

There is no "magic limit" to skin stretching. There is no point to which you can stretch, but then no further, given adequate time (in the order of weeks). This is what we are pointing out when we repeatedly refer to the "fat lady" analogy - common-sense and all experiences show no evidence of a fat person "exploding" or spontaneously "splitting open" from simply getting too fat. During the growth phase, the skin is comfortably snug - just as you expect it to be - young ladies who are chubby really look quite attractive. The continuing effect of gravity on heavy parts however, continues to stretch the skin, and any substantial weight loss results in sagging as the skin has elongated.

> Is forskin really as stretchy as normal skin, it can't be because I can instantly stretch skin but the forskin clearly is less elastic.

If anything, it is more elastic, but in your case, it is being asked a lot for its present diameter. But that's OK, just keep working on it. You may have come to a temporary limit, you may have to accept slower progress at this point or you may have to consider wearing a device (dilator), but you do realise that stretching has worked so far, and for you, this should adequately prove the principle.

Do not be confused about elasticity. You need, incidentally, to understand the meaning of "elasticity" - it refers to the property of returning reliably to the pre-stretching dimension. Normal, young skin is quite elastic - it has two sizes - the un-stretched size, and the stretched size. In the foreskin, some extra apparent "elasticity" is provided by muscle that pulls the skin in (wrinkling in the process).

> Is there anyway to make this stretching permanent?

Skin stretching occurs when the skin is held for substantial time at its elastic limit, or for a shorter time but on a repeated basis, a calculated degree beyond that elastic limit. The desired result is to make the dimension on the stretch, greater.

A word on the nature of exceptions. If we were to say as a generalisation that stretching always works, then we nevertheless allow that there must be exceptions to that. The point however is twofold - such exceptions will be rare - less than one percent of cases, rather than something like a third; and the exceptions which must be due to some sclerosing skin disease, will already be quite apparent to the sufferer in some other manner - it will be affecting other parts of the body, they will already have seen a doctor and been given a diagnosis. They will truly be expecting problems with the foreskin, so their question will be formulated differently: "I have scleroderma and a tight foreskin because of it - will it be possible to stretch . . .?").

> Which one of you is right, most docters recommend circumsison, are they all wrong.

You may have a context problem. The "most" doctors to whom you refer, are in America, where circumcision is a popular cult and undoubtedly, a money-spinner. To some extent, this is also true of Britain, Canada and Australia, where the cult has been, and is dying out, but lives enough in memory, including that of doctors, that it appears as a ready "cure" for any question regarding the foreskin (since patients, by and large, go for the "quick fix").

However, the concept that in some faltering fashion started back in the 1960s, that sexuality is actually important to people, and the discovery that a foreskin actually enhances sexual experience, to the extent that it becomes widely known (and remember, ignorance is truly an endemic disease in society), is likely to win over in the end. We certainly hope so, and work for it.


What irritates most of us is that "AJ" clearly has in fact, no base of experience on which to make his assertions, whilst others of us do. Jim and Korydon (also known as "rood"), for example, have substantial experience in assisting victims of circumcision (which includes themselves) to ameliorate some of the damage that has caused them, by skin stretching, to form a replacement for the foreskin, not the original with all its sensory function, but protective and assisting substantially with sexual function (both masturbation and intercourse).

Now if you can stretch the remnants of the foreskin to make a facsimile of the original, remembering that it was at least half of the penile skin, then stretching the opening of a genuine foreskin to whatever diameter is necessary to function properly, must surely be a less demanding task.


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