by FRIEDA KLOTZ
The foreskin-removal procedure raises tricky questions about medicine, consent, bodily autonomy, and sexual pleasure.
For years, Ron Low took pride in his ability to give his wife multiple orgasms in a single sexual encounter. This was possible, in part, because his erections lasted up to an hour. By the age of 38, though, he found himself wishing he could climax sooner. After one particularly unsatisfying night with his wife, he turned to the internet, where he soon found information that persuaded him that his troubles had a clear explanation: His penis was circumcised.
“I was missing the capability to experience the sexual sensations to the fullness that nature has seemingly designed us for,” Low recently told Undark in an email. In the early days of his research, he found material suggesting that circumcision affects penile sensitivity and sex. Then he discovered forums where circumcised men were discussing techniques for regrowing the foreskin.
Soon, Low was taking steps to reverse the surgery that had been performed on him as an infant — too young, he pointed out, to give informed consent.
Some men, meanwhile, have had a different journey. Lee Caddick was not circumcised as a child. He decided to get the procedure at age 48, after decades of suffering from a too-tight foreskin that made erections and sex both painful and embarrassing. Growing up in England, there had been few opportunities to talk earnestly about penises and sexual function. “I wish I had got it done earlier,” he said. “It might have made a big difference in my life.”
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