[ ARC forum 2 ]

Best way

Written by Paul B. at 14 Mar 2003 11:44:37:

As an answer to: Re: Best way of looking at it. written by mike at 14 Mar 2003 00:38:04:

> i never allow the head itself to touch anything; it's too buried in foreskin...so i guess my question is, is the lube created within the foreskin enough?

Well, perhaps I get a little too analytical here - such is my nature - but that is an interesting concept - "the lube created within the foreskin".

Now there are two things going on here. One is that when your foreskin is completely covering your glans (whether or not you can pull it back when you really want to), then that maximises the amount of natural lubricant present under the foreskin. Some people point out that "smegma", which is naturally somewhat greasy, is helpful as lubricant, but the major contributor to this lubrication is pre-ejaculatory fluid, or "pre-cum". This certainly varies from person to person, but I suspect varies much more depending on either the actual presence of a girl (and though I find it difficult to visualise personally, I presume those of homosexual bent would experience the same in regard to a male partner) or the effectiveness of visualisation of a girl (fantasy).

As I am fond of pointing out, this phenomenon of lubrication, appears to be quite distinct from and only loosely connected with erection - even for younger men. So the amount of lubrication produced may variously be imperceptible, pauce, or profuse depending on the circumstances. But unless it is profuse, which generally requires that the girl is actually doing the handling, it is unlikely to be adequate to continue stroking of the exposed glans. Guys sometimes try stroking with the exposed glans completely dry (generally possible only after circumcision), but even for such masochists, the smallest bit of moisture makes this pretty much impossible.

On this score then, my observation is that this "lube" is mostly enough, as long as the foreskin is not pulled back and it is lost.

There is however, another "lube" effect in play. When the foreskin is over the glans and stroked, there are two layers of skin over the glans and the inner layer actually tends to stick to the glans rather than move over it. The outer layer slides on this, and the "lube" that allows it to do this, is tissue fluid under the skin. Of course, where the skin is made to slide along the shaft, it does so by the same mechanism, the fluid in this case being between the skin and the corpora (erectile bodies).

Either way, this "lube" appears to be very effective indeed, and will permit a lot of stroking. It is equally essential to those circumcised and those intact, but there are some reports in these fora, of guys who must really give it a bashing, who develop an inflammatory swelling of the foreskin which distends with fluid. This is not a catastrophe, indeed it settles promptly, and is similar to occurrences on other parts of the body.

Echoing Jim's comment, yes, it's enough if it works for you, and it almost always will.


Answers: