Preface
No man will deny that it feels pretty great to have someone gasp at your penis.
That’s what happened to me when I first moved to America and started to show people the contents of my underpants. But their gasping was not due to my gargantuan girth, (though no complaints so far, thank you very much!) but more to the fact that I, unlike the vast majority of American males, have not been genitally mutilated. I am intact. I have a foreskin.
The gasping was due to the fact that most people had never seen a real, unadulterated, uncircumcised cock before, and some of the people who were seeing had, to be frank, been round the block a few times so their reaction was all the more surprising and on refection, upsetting.
For not only did they have no idea of what a foreskin looked like, they also had no idea how to deal with it when we got down to business. I had to give quite a few seminars on how it worked. Can you imagine being in your thirties and suddenly having to explain to lovers how your genitals functioned, or having them gush that they’d never seen one like yours before, or, worse, recoil in disdain and say ‘what do you even do with that?’
It made me feel that I was the weird one, I was deformed, I was not normal, when of course it was they who had had a piece of the most sensitive part of their bodies removed. I was the intact one. I was complete, I told myself. They were the ones who were lacking, literally, and who needed to be counseled and awakened to these facts.
As you will see, we have a foreskin for a reason. Mine protects the most sensitive part of my body. Of course when I say this in the now many conversations I have had on this topic, there is always some guy who scoffs and says he couldn’t possibly be any more sensitive down there, if he were it might be some sort of problem. To him, and to you now, dear reader, I offer this little parable:
Say I am having a shower and as I am toweling myself off my foreskin gets pulled back, revealing the head of my penis. When I begin to dress, if the head is still out and it touches the fabric of my underwear, it is so uncomfortable and sensitive that I have to pull my foreskin back down immediately before I can finish dressing. That’s how sensitive it is. And that’s also how much sensitivity you lose when you are circumcised.
Of course no man wants to hear that he is missing out on sexual pleasure by something that happened when he was a few days old and is therefore irreversible as well as impossible for him to even conceive of the difference. That’s why I think a lot of men who are circumcised are initially defensive and protective of the procedure, and see any opposition to it by people like me as hysterical and cranky. I get it. Maybe I would be like that too if I wasn’t intact, and if I spent most of my life never encountering anyone who was.
So that’s why I decided to get this book together. In these pages you will find everything you ever wanted to know (and some stuff I daresay you didn’t) about circumcision. Why it’s done, how it’s done, the religious reasons, the social reasons, the myths, the facts, testimonials from those who’ve had it done, those who haven’t and also, how it can go wrong, horribly, horribly wrong. It’s the perfect read for anyone with a penis and those who love them, which covers the whole population of the planet so fingers crossed that this will be a cash cow for Intact America and Norm-UK, two organizations I am affiliated with and who are doing sterling work in educating and advising on this matter, and who, like me, really want above all to make parents question if they really want their infant son to be subjected to such a traumatic, irreversible and potentially dangerous medical procedure. Let’s get the conversation started, I say.
I have been trying to do that for years, ever since that first gasp as I dropped my drawers. Once, when I was working on Broadway in Cabaret, the girl who did my make-up confessed she had never seen an uncircumcised penis. I thought this was shocking and decided tonight was the night. She was understandably a little freaked out, but we had know each other for over a year and she painted a swastika on my right butt cheek nearly every night of that year so we were pretty close. And as I said, I was doing her a favour. Knowledge is power and all that. She stepped out into the hall. I pulled down my dance belt and presented the Cumming manhood. We had agreed I would call her in, she would take a quick look then go back out of the room again so I could rearrange myself, then call her back in and she’d get back to work. I shouted I was ready and the door opened slowly and I saw her little face full of trepidation. But only for a second!
‘Oh, I see’, she exclaimed, bounding towards me, all nerves gone, now caught up in a physiological field trip. ‘It’s not at all how I thought it would be!’
‘What did you think it would be like?’ I asked, feeling slightly objectified but also in the same moment acknowledging I had totally invited it.
‘Well’, she said, her eyes still fixed on my dick. ‘I thought it would be more like a flip-top bin!’
‘What, like you’d stand on my foot and my foreskin would pull back?’ I guffawed.
‘Something like that!’ she shrieked, and soon the two of us were bent double with the silliness of it all.
At that moment, a vision was hatched. I chose to accept a mission to lift the lid as it were, to educate and enlighten what a penis is supposed to look like, without having to actually get mine out every time to do so!
Enjoy!
DECIDING WHETHER OR NOT TO CIRCUMCISE YOUR SON?
Circumcision is a painful, risky, unethical surgery that deprives over a million boys each year of healthy, functional tissue, while wasting health care dollars that could be spent on medically necessary services. Learn more about the myths and facts of infant circumcision, visit our Resources page, read the "Ten Reasons NOT to Circumcise Your Baby Below" below – and learn why you should keep your newborn son intact.
10 Reasons NOT to Circumcise Your Baby Boy
Because there is no medical reason for "routine" circumcision of baby boys. No professional medical association in the United States or the rest of the world recommends routine neonatal circumcision. The American Medical Association calls it "non-therapeutic." At no time in its 75 years has the American Academy of Pediatrics ever recommended infant circumcision.
Because the foreskin is not a birth defect. The foreskin is a normal, sensitive, functional part of the body. In infant boys, the foreskin is attached to the head of the penis (glans), protects it from urine, feces, and irritation, and keeps contaminants from entering the urinary tract. The foreskin also has an important role in sexual pleasure, due to its specialized, erogenous nerve endings and its natural gliding and lubricating functions.
Because you wouldn't circumcise your baby girl. In the United States, girls of all ages are protected by federal and state laws from forced genital surgery, whether practiced in medical or non-medical settings, and regardless of the religious or cultural preferences of their parents. There is no ethical rationale for distinguishing between female and male genital alteration. If it is wrong to remove part of a baby girl's healthy genitals, then it is wrong to do the same to those of a baby boy.
Because your baby does not want to be circumcised. Circumcision painfully and permanently alters a baby boy's genitals, removing healthy, protective, functional tissue from the penis and exposing the child to unnecessary pain and medical risks –for no medical benefit. What do you think your baby boy would say if he could tell you?
Because removing part of a baby's penis is painful, risky, and harmful. We know babies are sensitive to pain. Many circumcisions are performed with no analgesic, but even when pain control is employed, the pain is not eliminated. As with any surgery, complications can and do occur with circumcision. These include infection, abnormal bleeding, removal of too much skin, loss of all or part of the glans, urinary problems, and even death. All circumcisions result in the loss of the foreskin and its functions, and leave a penile scar.
Because times and attitudes have changed. The circumcision rate in the United States is now below 40% (and much lower in some parts of the country), down from 81% in 1981. More than 60% of all baby boys in the U.S. leave the hospital intact, as more and more parents realize that circumcision is unnecessary and wrong.
Because most medically advanced nations do not circumcise baby boys. People in Europe, Asia and Latin America are often appalled to hear that American doctors and hospitals remove part of a boy's penis shortly after birth. Approximately 75% of the men in the world are not circumcised and remain intact throughout their lives.
Because caring for and cleaning the foreskin is easy. A natural, intact penis requires no special care, beyond gentle washing while bathing. Later, when the foreskin can be retracted (something that often does not occur until adolescence), a boy can be taught to pull back his foreskin to wash his penis. Forcible retraction of the foreskin results in pain and injury, and should not be done. Read our Foreskin Care flyer for more information.
Because circumcision does not prevent HIV or other diseases. Over the years, the claims that circumcision prevents various diseases have repeatedly been proven to be exaggerated or outright fabrications. Most men in the United States are circumcised, but our STD rates are as high as or higher than those in countries where circumcision is rare.
Because children should be protected from permanent bodily alteration inflicted on them without their consent in th...
