At what age did you learn to retract the foreskin?

In these days that I have been browsing and participating here I have asked myself this question for those who were not circumcised at birth.

At what age did they learn to retract the foreskin? Were you taught or did you discover it on your own?

In my case, I was circumcised at 6 1/2 years old, and from the age of 5 to 6, my father began teaching us, all about the topic.

And I try to teach my children the same way.

As far as I know, my foreskin was quite tight on my glans, and could hardly be retracted. I don't think much action was taken until I was 6, when the doctor asked my mother to try to pull it back at bath time. Note that it was my mother who did it, and that no special cream was used. I was told it had been really painful; yet I don't recall any of it.

(Because this did not work, my foreskin was then removed.)

Can't remember how old I was, but would have been about 5. I'm sure I've read that generally until the age of about 5 the foreskin is still adhered to the glans and shouldn't be forced back as it can tear and cause scarring, resulting in more issues later on.

@MCurious It's quite possible that, in my case, the matter would have eased on its own, but that forcing it back without any steroids (as it's done today) resulted in scarring and in making the matter irreversible.

Sometime before age 7 when my parents moved us to a new house where I largely was raised. I recall after 7 starting to measure my erections, which included moving my foreskin, which never gave me any trouble in either direction. Now at age 72 it’s still working perfectly. Oddly enough, I had several congenital facial and ophthalmic birth defects requiring many rounds of corrective plastic and eye surgery, but my foreskin and other genital structures were always just fine. Thanks, Dad. 👍🏻❤️❗️

Eric

Mine was mostly retractable from the first time I had any memories of it. My mother (stay at home mom in those years) made sure to teach me to pull back and clean underneath every time I showered.

For me it was when i was around 7 following a school medical.

It was during this medical that it was made aware that my foreskin should pull right back and at that point i was diagnosed with severe phimosis as i could not expose any of my glans.

At the time , i didn't fully understand what was going on except that i was probably going to have to go to hospital. I then went to the family doctor and luckily avoided an immediate circumcision. From that point on i started daily stretching with cream and i think it took several years before i could fully retract.

I was pretty young, around 6 or 7. I saw circumcised boys in school and I wondered if my penis looked like theirs underneath the skin so I tried rolling it back and had very little resistance doing it.

I was around 6 or 7 when I was able to retract. There were still some adhesions which disappeared when I was around 9

I would have been about 5 or 6. My mam showed me how to do it in the bath to make sure I was able to clean inside. In turn I then became curious as to how it retracted, and when I played doctor and my female cousin wanted to look at my "boy parts" I would take my briefs off and unroll my foreskin for her to see me fully exposed.

The first time I remember having my foreskin retracted was at about age 7 when I was having a school medical. At the thine, the Dr said it was tight. After that, I had interacted in school medicals until I was 18, and some stretching until I was 10 or 11.

I was cut at the age of 4. So I never learnt to retract my foreskin, before I lost it.

at about age 7 when I was having a school medical. At the thine, the Dr said it was tight.

Did the doctor seriously expect boys to get fully retracted at such young age? That's strange. I imagine it shouldn't be an issue before puberty, much less at 7! And to forcibly peel it back would be painful and perhaps damaging.

@Easternexam My foreskin didn’t retract very far at all when I was examined at 7, although I had no idea what was happening at the time. I found it embarrassing and upsetting. By the time I was 11 my foreskin was much freer and retracted easier. Fortunate that I wasn’t circumcised when younger.

Did the doctor seriously expect boys to get fully retracted at such young age? That's strange. I imagine it shouldn't be an issue before puberty, much less at 7!

The idea is undoubtedly made much of, in order to promote circumcision in certain countries. Some doctors seem to be circumcision crazy, can't abide the idea of a male having one.

So it's the any-old-excuse approach. Make a big huge issue and production of something unnecessary, scare parents and you're guaranteed to get the results you want. And ring up the cash register while you are at it.

Unethical and shameful to a disturbing amount.

@agracier The pressure to have a child circumcised was also what came to my mind reading this account. I mean, instead of making a big deal out of it at 7, the doctor could bring in lots of factors which would solve the issue without any intervention at all: it could literally be waited out. Sooner or later, the boys would also start masturbating which loosens the foreskin. I'm not against circumcision if pressing need for it truly exists, just don't agree when it seems to be the first choice the doc will jump to.

@Easternexam I think that boys masturbating especially prior to puberty was quite taboo back then.

My foreskin was originally to narrow to be retracted, but at age 10 I learned to gradually stretch it wider, and after some weeks it could be retracted, which I began to do regularly.

I don't remember when I learned to pull back my foreskin. I had partial phimosis, but the foreskin could be retracted. It only failed when I had an erection.

I think that the foreskin can be retracted around the age of 6-7. However, I don't remember anyone teaching me this. I don't remember it being a great discovery for me; it was natural.

I only retracted my foreskin in the bath. While masturbating, I rubbed my penis against the sofa. I did not use the masturbation technique of retracting and stretching the foreskin.

I was never taught anything about foreskin as a boy and I had no idea that my penis had different parts until I was about 10 and found a book in a library in the childrens section about sex. I was curious about how girls worked and I flipped through it to see if it would shed any light on that mystery and found a page that showed two boys side by side with one circumcised and the other intact. There was some brief text that seem to go to great lengths to make a point about the two conditions being exactly the same, which even to a naive 10-year-old seemed like thinly veiled mendacity. I found a cartoon of a vulva further on and that temporarily satisfied my curiosity, but the circumcised penis lingered in my mind for a while. Sometime later while in the bathroom peeing I recalled the image and noticed that the tip of my glans visible at the front looked just like the picture, so I started pulling the foreskin back to check. Little by little it started coming back and I was certain my penis was just like the circumcised one underneath the skin. Suddenly the glans popped out and the foreskin quickly settled behind the head. So much was going on that my mind was swimming. First, the sight of my purple glans was pretty shocking. I was 10 years old and had just discovered a new body part! How insane was that? Second, the sensation was delightful. The air hitting my glans for the first time in my life was breathtaking. Third, it _stank_. There was some smegma and it smelled strongly like urine but muskier. After a moment I began to get an erection and the skin behind the glans got tighter and tighter until it started to hurt. I suppose I had phimosis? It took a bit of effort to push the skin forward again, but before I panicked I managed it, and washed my hands. I recall the stink lingered in the bathroom for a bit. From that moment I was obsessed with that feeling. I began washing my glans at bathtime and quickly developed an obsession with keeping my glans exposed as much as I could. It was a bit difficult a first dealing with the sensitivity when it rubbed against the inside of my underwear, but I loved the feeling and couldn't get enough. I wondered why anyone would want to keep their glans covered and began to wish I had been circumcised as a baby. I tried unsuccessfully to keep the skin retracted for long periods of time, but overnight it would swell. I gave up on retraction when I was 14, but as soon as I was 18 and could get medical procedures done privately, I went to a urologist and got a circumcision.

I did learn myself. Although I got the idea of retracting after a school exam where the doc tried if it could be retracted.

As I didn't really grasp what was happening, I did try it later not long after the exam. And I also did find out that touching it felt quite nice and retracting it also, so I started to retract it quite often in my bed after going to sleep ...

So, nobody really learned me how to do it, but it felt 'interesting' and nice enough to try it myself almost immediately