Cole Gamble, who has both a foreskin and a happy sex life, never thought his wife would demand that their son get circumcised.
I am an uncircumcised man.
This has never bothered my wife, Nicole. Or so I thought. “It’s like your penis is wearing a turtleneck,” she’d sometimes say, benignly.
As such, there was never any doubt in my mind that, should my wife and I ever produce a miniature me, he would also go uncircumcised. We would leave his little thing alone. No snip-snip, just like Daddy.
Until, that is, the late-September day when we brought our newborn son home from the hospital. It was chilly, and the tightly wrapped baked potato of a boy felt warm in the crook of my arm.
“We’re getting Dalton circumcised,” my wife said as she fastened the potato into his car seat.
“What?” I said. “Since when does he need that?”
“Ever since uncircumcised penises are weird.”
She paused before adding, a little backpedally, “Except yours, of course. Yours is OK.”
This is how I learned my wife’s true feelings about the type of penis I have—by comparing it to our infant son’s. She thinks—has always thought—“OK.” I knew what “OK” meant, of course. “OK” meant weird, just like she’d said.
She’s not the first person to feel iffy about foreskin. Just look to the message boards, where uncut penises are routinely denounced as “gross.” “I honestly saw one and almost passed out,” reads one poster’s typical response. On Seinfeld, Elaine once bemoaned the uncircumcised penis’ lack of “personality.” I’m well aware of this uniquely American repulsion. But my wife? I’d just assumed she was a freak for the foreskin. Turns out I’m the freak, and she’d just learned to live with it.
♦◊♦
Confronted with this bombshell, I began to obsessively review the entire history of our relationship with half the self-esteem and twice the paranoia. Our wooing period, our first sexual encounter, our wedding day—behind those smiling, devoted eyes, she was picturing my uncircumcised penis and thinking, My God, that thing’s strange. Am I really going to spend the rest of my life with this bizarre dick? Suddenly my genitalia—to my mind, a cornerstone of our relationship—was not a resplendent totem to celebrate, but a deformity to grin and bear.
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All my anti-circumcision arguments—the barbarity of the procedure, the theory that it lessens sexual sensitivity—withered in the face of one multiply confirmed assertion: foreskin is weird.
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“There were plenty of girls before you who voiced no complaints,” I cried, a bit desperately.
“Not to your face,” my wife responded. Touché! “Besides, people are going to make fun of Dalton. Boys in the locker room will tease him.”
Nicole’s dad backed up this theory.
“Oh yeah, we’d give a guy like that hell,” Rick told us at dinner a few nights later. I always treasure opportunities to discuss my penis with my father-in-law. Rick’s assertion didn’t jibe with my own experience. I never had a guy in the locker room say to me, “Dude, I’ve been staring at you for a while and just wanted you to know: you disgust me.”
But were they thinking it, and thanking God that their own parents had the good sense to slice and dice theirs at birth? And do the guys at my current gym steer around me in wide arcs, fearing my elongated foreskin is contagious? And what about the girlfriends? Did all the girls who permitted me to get past second base titter together later, sharing horror stories about the first time they saw that thing in the moveable sheath?
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About Cole Gamble
This article is garbage, ignore it.
Cole, I have a great way for you to redeem yourself, at least partially: Undergo the procedure yourself. After all, it’s only a little bit of skin (and in your case, probably -very- little).
There are three good reasons for you to get circumcised: 1) If you do, your wife will love you more. Just think — she won’t have to hold her nose and gag any longer, when “it” gets anywhere near her sweet, prim face. 2) Doing so may spare resentment on your boy’s part later in life, when he realizes that you let it be done to him, without his having any say in the matter. And 3) You will reduce the chance of your spreading HIV and chlamydia and other STDs by one or two percentage points.
So go ahead. Make that call, first thing Friday. You’ll be glad you did. Once it’s done, report back to us with regard to how you like it.
Just a little bit of skin?
Hate to prick your balloon, but:
BRITISH JOURNAL OF UROLOGY, Volume 77, Pages 291-295,
February 1996.
The prepuce: Specialized mucosa of the penis and its loss to circumcision
by J.R. Taylor, A.P. Lockwood and A.J. Taylor
read it and weep!
IF circumcision reduces the things you claim, why do we see the opposite effect in the real world?
As a circumcised man who likes being circumcised, I think you made a terrible error. The choice should be made by the individual when the penis has stopped growing (18-21 years of age). As I said I am very happy being circumcised, BUT the choice was not mine and the fact that I was “cut” before I had matured has left me with the skin of my penis being very tight during erections.
“BUT the choice was not mine and the fact that I was “cut” before I had matured has left me with the skin of my penis being very tight during erections.”
And you still like being circumcised? How interesting..this begs the question of just why you would like it, since this is a common complication of circumcision.
““It’s like your penis is wearing a turtleneck,” she’d sometimes say, benignly.” Well she can stop right there. Your penis HAS a turtleneck. It’s an integral part, contrary to a lot of circumcised thinking.
“On Seinfeld, Elaine once bemoaned the uncircumcised penis’ lack of “personality.”” I don’t know how to break it to you, but Elaine on Seinfeld is a fictional character written by – almost certainly – circumcised men. And which has more personality, one that just gets bigger, or a Transformer?
“my extra bit of skin.” Whaddaya mean, extra? You were born with it, it’s yours by right. (So’s your son’s) We call this “the circumcised mindset” but I haven’t seen such a severe case in an intact man.
“an extra half-inch of skin” (resists temptation to make personal remark) No in an adult man it’s a good 15 square inches (100 cm²) unfolded of not only skin, but mucosa, a thin muscle layer and ~20,000 nerves, specialised like those of the fingertips or the lips.
“I can only hope he will learn to forgive us.” I hope he does too, but if not, I’m on his side.
This article kind of makes me sad. How does “weirdness” justify genital mutilation? I’m not exactly sure what this man is trying to protect his son from.
He;s trying to protect his son from his mother, and his ready-to-bully the different grandfather. But this is really about protecting himself from the selfish, shallow woman that he’s married too. I wonder what the sex life is like now that the penis is out of the foreskin.
Marie layin’ the smacketh down! I wish I could “like” your comment more than once.
So, your wife said your body was ugly or weird and your not offended? Wow, roll over and take it. It’s your body, your decision. Babies can’t make that decision and circumcision is removing tissue with nerve endings without him being able to make a choice. Penile cancer? Really? Fear monger more please, Aids? etc, ? Really? I doubt the difference is significant and your still forcing mutilation upon someone. I wonder if female circumcision was shown to have benefits to men if it would be advertised as so beneficial.
Let him make the choice, you shouldn’t have the right to mutilate someone Else’s body because it looks evil, weird or wrong to you. This story is so sad……………..
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Task Force on Circumcision has been meeting to finalize the organization’s forthcoming statement, which may recommend circumcision.
We need to make sure it hears our message BEFORE it issues a decision that could be harmful to baby boys across America: Circumcision is harmful, unnecessary, and ethically wrong, and pediatricians need to remember that they took an oath to “do no harm.”
Send a message directly to the AAP task force now!
http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5922/t/6483/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=2547
If we successfully prevent the AAP from recommending circumcision, it will be a victory for baby boys – and it will help prevent dangerous recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), which are also considering revising their positions.
But there isn’t much time. With your help, we need to turn up the pressure on the AAP right now.
Send your message to the AAP task force today – before it’s too late for baby boys.
http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5922/t/6483/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=2547
Once you’ve sent your message, please go one step further and forward this message to your friends and family and ask them to join you in contacting the AAP. Please also share this message on Facebook and Twitter.
Time is of the essence, and we need to ensure that the members of the task force hear from as many intactivists as possible before they issue their statement.
At this critical moment, we hope you will continue to stand with us.
Thank you for your support!
http://www.intactamerica.org
I hope your kid gets to read this, and how you mutilated his genitals simply to satisfy your WIFE’s sense of aesthetics.
You, and people like you, disgust me. Child abuse for cosmetic purposes.
If there’s any justice in this world, your son will hate you when he grows up.
Male genital mutilation needs to be banned for infants and boys. Adult men can make their own choices. All children – regardless of gender – have a right to whole and intact bodies.
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why doesnt your wife have a blackeye? no WAY shes escaping a SEVERE beating from me if she uttered that. and thats because im such a fair and loving person!
seriously, DIVROCE HER. shes EVIL and quite clearly not fit to be a mother, or a human.
id honestly bring hitler back from the dead if it meant she’d be in line to die in a gas chamber.
EVIL BITCH!
imagine if men thought clitorises looked “ugly?”
Your reply is despicable, man or woman. You have no right to lay your hand on another human being. Your desire to hurt, humiliate and abuse another reveals your character -and lack of it.
You’re right. Circumcision is a brutal practice and domestic violence is the cure. You’re a fun one.
I think men who’ve suffered sadistic sexual torture and maiming from their infancy on have a right to vent some frustration and anger. Babies look to their mothers for protection instinctively; a survivor of this most evil of child abuse has to hear such trite, vile crap from *another* woman who solicits MGM upon another infant AND THE INTACT DAD ALLOWS IT (instead of putting his body between his son & the woman trying to injure him), and he’s supposed to stay CALM?
Get off your high horses; he used words, not fists. However, one person WAS sexually tortured here (oh wait- many of the responders as well), and there’s less fussing about that then one justifiably FURIOUS man’s pissed-off rhetoric?
I’ve seldom been so thoroughly disgusted in my life. It’s as if in an essay about rape by an author laughing off the sexual assault of her daughter because her husband said ‘she had it coming the way she was dressed’, one woman who’d been raped LOST IT and said that that husband ought to be castrated.
Except, of course, rape usually doesn’t leave permanent physical scars & amputate body parts; it’s for sexual sociopaths to accomplish that.
Hear hear!
Hi there Cole. Congratulations on the bouncing baby SCREWUP you just made for your son. Immediately head to your wife’s closet, stick on one of her dresses and complete the transformation from man to PUSS. If you hadn’t let your wife rip both your balls off of you, then perhaps you might have kept your oath to protect him from harm. Instead, you compromised your principles, subjected your boy to harm, even put him at risk of severe complications and possibly death and for what?
So some stuck-up tramp wont turn him away because of how his penis looked? Way to make such a grand decision, pal, stand up and take a bow! There’s a reason Male Genital Mutilation is dropping in frequency.
tell your wife i hope she gets breast cancer.
shes a sick bitch with no right to life or motherhood.
I hope you realize a comment like this doesn’t make you look like a good person at all. If anything, it makes you look like an utterly despicable human being.
YOUR WIFE IS A SEXIST AND A BRUTAL, DISGUDTING ANIMAL!!
the damage she did because it “looks weird”..sick
When my son was born nearly 28 years ago, I asked several doctors to explain to me why I should mutilate his genitalia. No one would recommend that it be done so I left him intact. It is a personal decision for any parent but not recommended by any doctor that I could find. My sister had her sons done simply because their father was done and she felt that they should look alike. Personally I prefer a natural penis but it is not a deal breaker. I am really surprised at the overall tone here.
Orgasm is in the brain, not the penis. What is unsaid and unspoken is that about 20+% of the male population is inorgasmic, painful organsm or difficulty reaching orgasm for unknown reasons. The mechanics work, but not the brain. These men mistakenly attribute, if they ever actually realize they are inorgasmic, this loss to circumcision. It is true that there are aesthetic botches and even functional botch jobs, and even excisions, but unlike female circumciscion, it doesn’t necessarily interefer with achieving orgasm in men.
The best attestation to this is the large number of Russian Jews denied opportunity for circumcision at birth, upon immigration to Israel sough out the surgical change and report no difference in sexual appetite or performance.
Nerve endings are in the penis.
For adults, it’s elective cosmetic surgery
For children, it is forced cosmetic surgery.
“Orgasm is in the brain not the penis”? How many men who have lost their entire penis can still reach orgasm?
If this “about20+% inorgasmic” figure is true, I wonder whether that correlates with circumcision status at all? There is certainly no reason it should not and every reason why it should.
“…it doesn’t necessarily interefer with achieving orgasm in men.” Not necessarily, but only sometimes? So in what proportion of men d o e s it interfere with the achieving of orgasm? And what proportion is acceptable – not just to you, but to the men involved?
And what a sad thing it is when someone reduces the ecstacy of sexual fulfilment to “achieving orgasm”! There is a collection of such statements by circumcised men here: http://www.circumstitions.com/Sexuality.html#still .
By removing ~20,000 specialised nerve endings (similar to those of the fingertips or the lips), circumcision is like cutting off the accelerator pedal and leaving an on-off switch. With less feedback, and hence less control, you can still reach the destination, but not enjoy the journey as much.
“The best attestation to this is the large number of Russian Jews denied opportunity for circumcision at birth, upon immigration to Israel sough out the surgical change and report no difference in sexual appetite or performance.”
Anecdotal evidence. A significant proportion of Russian Jews decline to be circumcised when they go to Israel – because they value their foreskins, perhaps? So your sample is self-selected before you begin.
Then, if a man finds his sexuality h a s been adversely affected, who is he going to tell? How will infant-circumcised men (you know, the ones who “aren’t missing anything”) react to his news? No, he’s going to keep it to himself, and If he was devout enough to go through with it, he’ll bite the bullet and “offer it up”, as they say.
I am circumsized. I found out that I was circumsized when I was eleven. I had just become interested in girls and began exploring my sexuality. I made a discovery shortly thereafter. The bottom half of my penis felt fine. The top half did not feel the same way. I looked at my erect penis and noticed the skin. I had a scar on my arm and the skin on my penis looked like the skin on arm. I was scared and I began probing my penis for more damage. I wondered what had happen and my mind came up with gruesome scenarios that I could almost feel. I went to my mom and asked what happened. She said I had been circumsized. I asked what that was and she said that my penis had been cut. I said What?!! Why?!! She said boys needed it done.
As for sex, I have to be rough, even violent to that area, to feel stimulation. One of my first experiences with a girl I got a little over excited and I thrust into her roughly. I really hurt her and I have felt bad about it ever since.
I had no choice in the matter, I was circumsized at birth. I never would let a doctor near my sons genitals with a scalpel.
Thank you for your blunt honesty in this forum. Hopefully someone will read your experience and not mutilate their son.
@Dean Blake, J. D. Orgasm is neurological but it is not in the brain. You can not have sex with badly damaged genitals.
@Denis – It is not cosmetic it is mutilation. 70 percent of erogenous nerves are removed plus the gliding function and protection of the penis.
Adults choosing circumcision for religious or social reasons might be content with what is left of their penis but men who lost their fore skin involuntarily for whatever reason are deeply wounded and feel an important part of their body was taken.
Some famous men lost their fore skin.
http://www.circumstitions.com/Resent.html
I hate my circumcision. The circumcised area has no response to stimulation. When a girl touches that area I usually lose all excitement.
> I hope I can raise Dalton to make his own decisions.
Sorry you already failed on that one.
You allowed your son to be mutilated because of your wife’s irrational prejudices. What a sad excuses for human beings both you and your wife are.
Men who have been circumcised have permanently raised stress hormone levels.
The incidence of adult men choosing to get circumcised is minuscule – what does that tell you?
> “You know, this means you owe me. I get to make a real big decision down the road,” I said to Nicole, scraping for dignity like a kid digging through the trash for his retainer.
> “Absolutely,” she said. “A day will come when you’ll get to override one of my decisions.” This, of course, we both knew was a lie.
Yes it is indeed pretty clear who wears the pants in your family.
By the way having a picture of you kissing your son is no indication of how much you love him. You showed that when you caved in to your wife and allowed him to be mutilated.
I’m a straight woman and I love foreskins! I’m in the minority among my friends, but I’m not the only one.
Sexual/Physical Integrity is not a parent’s choice, Cole. It’s just not. That choice belonged to your son, once he, too , became an adult. I feel truly sorry for your son, who will never know true sexual gratification because the most sensitive part of his penis is long gone… something that never happened to you. As for your wife… someone who is ashamed of their spouse’s genitalia, especially the intact, natural, fully sensitized penis, (And demands that she be allowed to cut your son) does not know, understand or deserve to have what she has. There are many women who adore their loving, attentive, circumcised husbands who have to bang away at them in order to ejaculate… and sadly, the ejaculation is not a true orgasm, it physically hurts the woman getting him there, causes physical damage in the woman, and is often unfulfilling for the women.
Making love is THE most sacred unspoken language lovers can can share… and your wife is ashamed and disgusted by the way you “speak” to her with your body. I can assure you… there are women out there who would not demand that you mutilate your next child… and who will love you all the more for being a whole man. And yes, when your son realizes what you allowed to be done to him that was never done to you… be prepared to do what ever he asks you to do to help him. Your wife… no hope for that one.
You made a horrible decision because as you yourself have stated your son didn’t have a medical problem that needed to be addressed with circumcision. Instead he had a sexist mother who thought less of him because he was born normal and a father who chose ignorance over knowledge. If your son hates you, won’t talk to you, completely cuts you out of his life for what you did then you deserve it because it was HIS body and HIS right to choose however you and your wife had cosmetic surgery performed on his PENIS which is not reversible as foreskin restoration doesn’t replace everything you STOLE from him!