A couple of months ago, I became acutely aware that I was circumcised without my consent and that a foreskin might have been something I would have liked to have. I felt anger towards a culture that takes away natural pleasure, destroys intact working systems, and violates bodies, as I so often have, but perhaps never so personally. And I felt frustrated because couldn't see anything I could do to resolve my loss, except to resolve to never circumcise any future son of my own. But then, I read an article about circumcision that mentioned the possibility of foreskin restoration, with a link to a website providing a device to such an end. Hope! Or rather, if hope wishes for something over which I have no agency, what word can I use to describe the seizing of that agency?!
Circumcision became a popular practice among christians in the 1800s as a means to "cure" masturbation. Circumcision strips away the most sensitive nerve endings in the penis (in the ridge of the foreskin) and exposes the glans, a naturally soft, moist mucous membrane (just like the inside of your mouth), to the abrasion of the outside world, with the effect of making it dry, hard, and largely desensitized. While this really sucks for men, it does not, in fact, "cure" masturbation, not that I need to assure anyone of that. But it almost sucks even more for women who end up on the receiving end of a desensitized penis trying to still get off. From what I hear, when a man is intact, the rolling back and forth of the foreskin over the glans, which requires only a very subtle movement, provides so much pleasure that pounding never becomes necessary, and the two pelvises stay closer together for a much greater amount of time, with much increased pleasure for the woman.
None of the health or hygiene claims in support of circumcision hold any merit, according to both common sense and current medical opinion. The intact penis actually produces its own anti-bacterial cream (and lubricant), smegma (scroll 2/3 of the way down to reach the relevant section).
So, I am restoring my foreskin, as much as I can. Techniques for doing so work on the basis of skin under tension creating more skin to relieve the tension, just as in the bellies of pregnant women and the earlobes of people stretching their piercings.
Aside from the primary sensory benefits, I feel like I am getting a chance to physically revoke my membership to the Judeo-Christian tradition, and even to this American culture. I am rejoining the the 3/4 majority of the rest of the world as an "unchosen" pagan. yippee!
In a similar vein, but on a different subject, I recently learned that the use of hops in ales was brought on and enforced top-down during the Protestant Reformation, replacing a wide variety of herbs that were often medicinal, and also highly inebriating, and that such was done so expressly because hops is an anaphrodisiac for men (that is, it decreases sexual desire), as well as it being not nearly as conducive to altering one's state of consciousness (it actually just puts you to sleep and makes you need to pee). Hops is filled with phyto-estrogens, so it could be beneficial for a woman in menopause to consume, but not very good at all for men. So now I am wondering if anyone knows of a commercially available ale that does not contain hops? And if not, that's cool - I'm way excited about brewing my own gruit, anyway.
I am amazed by the hidden, subtle ways in which this culture negates sexuality, and with it, life.
Get your knife off my penis. Get your hops off my libido. You can't control me anymore.
