Dear Mum,
I realise that, back in the early 1960s, when you signed the consent form permitting a doctor to circumcise me, you had no choice. Something was wrong with my foreskin; I recall you telling me that it had turned septic. In those days it was customary to cut off the foreskin to cure the slightest problem and you never questioned a doctor’s recommendation. It just wasn’t done back then. I am also pleased that you feel relieved about my decision to regrow it, which has improved my mental health no end.
Unfortunately, it is not possible for any individual who has any part of his/her genital organs surgically modified to “get over” that modification, however medically necessary it may have been at the time. Women often have mastectomies to save them from death from breast cancer. They often have their breasts reconstructed subsequently. They still miss their original breasts. I love my regrown foreskin, but I still miss the foreskin that I don’t remember having. All most foreskin restorers want is parity of recognition with women who have breast reconstructions subsequent to mastectomies.
When I was a teenager, you repeatedly stressed the importance of “conformity” and of “not being different.” It was the 1970s and diversity was not a big thing back then. You chose my secondary school on the basis that its pupils were “like me.” Sadly, the operation to which you consented on my behalf left me with no choice but to be different. I was “like the other boys” in my class until the inevitable moment, twice a day, five days a week, when I stood elbow-to-elbow with them at the completely open urinal walls, unzipped my fly, pulled my penis out and started to urinate, and the second moment when, three times a week, I stripped naked and showered with these other boys. They found that I wasn’t like them at all. 99% of them had their foreskin. All were able to pass a straight stream of urine through it. In 7 years, not once did I observe a boy pull back his foreskin before urinating or whilst in the showers. A foreskin was an unofficial compulsory item of uniform at that school. And boy, was I body-shamed for not having one. It was considered character-forming, which was central to the ethos of a lot of schools at that time. In one religious education class dealing with the practices of Judaism, the teacher actually asked us all, “Who among you have been circumcised?” It is never possible to “get over” experiences of this nature and the more pressure is applied to do so, the more difficult the recovery process becomes.
Please don’t under-estimate the importance of the foreskin to the human male. It is a thing of beauty, to be cherished at all costs. I can’t tell you how spiritually uplifted I feel when I pee through my foreskin at a public urinal, just as my intact classmates did all those years ago. It’s 20 years since I completed my restoration process and I have not had a single urinary tract infection in all that time despite not once drawing my foreskin back to urinate. The head of the penis is an internal organ and I have no intention of exposing mine for anyone to see at a public urinal. “My body, my choice” means nothing if the individual cannot make a personal choice to put bodily integrity above personal hygiene.
I intend to devote the rest of my life to raising awareness of the trauma that circumcision causes. It is a subject which has been surrounded in taboos for far too long. Please give your unequivocal backing to my campaign; those males who have been genitally altered without their consent need to have a voice.
Lots of love,
XX
