When you were a kid, how did you learn the difference between circumcised and non-circumcised boys?

In my personal experience kids can be quite mean even unintentionally... A group of boys in the locker room noticing that one of them is a bit 'different' down there can lead to teasing and jokes all under the pretense of 'harmless fun'...

I understand the concept of youthful stupidity, about not understanding the consequences of jokes and kidding around. I was made fun of, joked about or teased for being bilingual or having one non American parent when we lived in the US. But never for my circumcision status.

I suppose i was the invisible kid in those cases, as in being the last kid left over when picking sports teams or group activities.

So it still surprises me to read about so much teasing/denigrating going on due to not being circumcised.

@agracier My experience was similar - it just was not done to look at other boy's privates when changing! (I heard that some boys engaged in exhibitionism, but that was in other settings.)

I learned about the differences in health class in both 5th and 9th grade (though 9th was a bit more detailed.). The first uncircumcised penis that I recall seeing was when I was an exchange student in Germany when I was 16. … my host brother who was only a couple of days older than me was intact.

My dad was the first to ever let me know that both of our cocks were uncircumcised when I was about 4/5 years old. He taught me about retracting the skin and keeping it clean during baths and showers. Before he showed me this, I had no idea that I was able to pull the skin back! He told me that some boys have it cut off when they’re babies and that both ways are perfectly fine.

Then when I was about 8, I was swimming with a friend and we were just being two young silly boys and showing each other our dicks underwater (we both had goggles on) and it was the first time for him seeing an uncircumcised and it was my first time seeing a cut dick. He asked me why mine looked like that and I told him that it’s foreskin that were all born with and that he probably had his cut when he was a baby.

During a sleep over, he asked me about it again so I showed him how I was able to pull the skin back and expose my head and we also looked at his.

So reflecting back, discovering the difference, meaning simply noticing, happened when I was 3 or 4. Actually learning the reason behind it didn’t happen until I was 7. I lived in a small group of apartments, and 5 out of 8 households had boys around my age or slightly older or younger; there were about 9 of us in all including me, aged 3 to 8. There was a wooded area behind the apartments, and all of us would play back there. It didn’t take long for me to find out that I was the only one with a foreskin, although one boy had what looked like a partial foreskin (meaning his glans was only half exposed). Needless to say his penis and mine were the subject of a lot of curiosity by the other boys. We all peed together at every chance we got, either in the woods or in toilets. I remember how our toilet seat was finicky and liked to fall down a lot, and I remember having to hold it up for the little 3 year old when he had to go; once I decided to pull mine out and go with him, but he grabbed my elephant trunk when he was done peeing; kinda scared me a bit because it caught me off guard but I didn’t want to yell at him. My friends and I had countless sleepovers, all having a ritualistic pre-bedtime “brothers’ peepee” but I distinctly remember one with my best friend in the group (6 years old). We were watching a movie that I was really into, and I didn’t realize he wasn’t in the living room until a few minutes after he ran to the bathroom. I went to find him, and he was pooping on the toilet with the door open. He asked me to stay with him because he heard a loud noise and was a bit scared (it was our dryer buzzing). I talked with him about the movie for a bit while he pooped. After a few minutes, I said I needed to pee. He opened his legs and scooted back saying I could pee with him. I was a bit confused at first, but then I pulled my pants down, and pointed my little trunk at the water; I started peeing and he started peeing too and we made a big “waterfall” into the toilet together. We then got into a more elaborate discussion about our penises. He was very curious about why my penis looked different than everyone else’s, I told him I didn’t know, but that I could pull my skin back and look like him. My friend got up and started wiping, and my dad walked by and asked what we were doing. My friend said that I had a different looking peep-peep. So my dad sat down on the bath ledge and started to explain to both of us why we looked different. He explained that my friend once had a foreskin just like mine, but the doctor cut his off when he was a baby. The friend looked a bit scared, he said “ow” then how come it didn’t hurt? He said he was probably too little to remember it, and it heals very quickly. My dad (circumcised) then revealed that he had a foreskin up until his 30’s and got circumcised right before I was born, but he still wanted me to stay natural.

There was a lot of discussion about my penis between the other boys for a few days after that. Every once in awhile, when we were in the woods, the boys would ask me to show them my “trick”, and I would pull my penis out and retract my foreskin for them. Sometimes we would have contests trying to see who could pee the furthest. I learned at some point that if I skinned my penis back, I could pee a lot further, and it made me win a lot of those contests.

I didn't. I only knew circumcised ones as a kid. The first time I saw and uncircumcised one in a photo was looking at porn after I'd moved away to college, and the first time I saw one in real life, I was 24.

When I was a child, I did not know anything about circumcision, how common it was, or what it involved. I learned about it when our new family physician recommended it be performed, and my parents agreed.

@pl3ric Do you mean your mother pressured him into circumcision?

@pl3ric Do you mean your mother pressured him into circumcision?

Possibly. I can't really tell, but it's quite possible. My mother is very dominant and my father is more the submissive type you know.

@pl3ric And your own phimosis problem, you solved it by stretching?

@pl3ric And your own phimosis problem, you solved it by stretching?

Nope. Still there.

@pl3ric Weren't you or your parents pressured into surgery?

I wasn't. I once demonstrated to my mom that I can pull my skin back somewhat and my parents never asked me again.

I also didn't have any other doctor visits that included a genital exam since age 6. I'm wondering what will happen if they'll have to apply a catheter some day.

I'm wondering what will happen if they'll have to apply a catheter some day.

Shouldn’t be an issue @pl3ric. The correct technique is to only retract the foreskin as far to expose the opening of the urethra, less than a fingernails width on most men.

When young I have no recollection of boys whose penises were circumcised, mine is not.

It was never mentioned by the Doctors when they examined me.

When I was 6 years old a neighbor boy and I got all muddy playing outside and the simple solution was to strip us down and put us in the tub.

I got in first and when the other boy took his pants off, I noticed that he had his foreskin pulled back. My mother would always push my foreskin back at every bath to wash my penis but always pulled the skin forward and admonished me not to do that by myself.

When were alone, I tried to pull his foreskin back over to be like mine but his skin would not move very much.

Later I asked my mother why he was allowed to keep his foreskin pulled back and I had to always keep mine forward. She then told me that when he was born, his mother asked the doctor to cut all of his foreskin off, he did not have a foreskin anymore. There was none left that would be able to move forward and the end of his penis would always be uncovered. She told me that he had been circumcised. I asked why I was not done and she said that it hurt him and she did not want to hurt me, so she did not have me circumcised.

That is how I found out, and I have never been the same since. From that day forward I wanted mine to be like his.

Finally achieved that goal when I was in college.

@cut4 Why did your mother admonish you not to do this yourself?

I had never really thought about it when I was young. My brother was circumcised, or appeared to be. I didn't know it at the time, but he was actually born without a foreskin. Circumcision was just normal when I was growing up, so I never really considered the difference between circumcised and uncircumcised penises.

It wasn't until I met a boy in my teens online. He was my age, and we played online a lot. When he sent me a picture, it was the first uncircumcised penis I had ever really seen, besides a little in porn here and there. I was intrigued. I never did get to play with it, though. We met, but we got interrupted. lol

Before seventh grade I didn't really have much of an idea what circumcised or uncircumcised was or meant. I thought they all looked the same. Before then I had done the occasional "show me yours and I'll show you mine" with other boys my age. One time was with two friends who lived across the street, they were twins, and they showed me theirs and I showed mine. I am circumcised and any of the boys I saw were also circumcised. Any time I saw other's in the locker room they were all also circumcised. It was in seventh grade health class when I learned the difference between circumcised and uncircumcised but I think I still didn't really know what it would actually look like and how it would be different.

I learned what circumcision was when I was young on the day one of my brothers was operated on due to phimosis. I remember wanting to know everything I could about it. I think this is where my interest in circumcisions began.

I went to an all boy Public school here in the Uk.

In my early years, aged from 8 years onwards, there were twenty one in my class, and only two boys were circumcised. I saw these when in the showers after games. Both of their penises were VERY small, and I always associated from those days that circumcised penises were small.

There was one boy I chatted to when I was about 11, after seeing his penis in the changing rooms, I asked him if he was circumcised.He responded by telling me that his mother had pulled back his foreskin in the bathroom and it had got stuck behind his glans! I think it remained that way for a number of years as I do recall seeing his penis again when I would have been about 16, and his glans was covered with his foreskin.

In school swimming at 5 years old I discovered there were two styles of dicks. I just thought that boys were born differently.

At 11 a new cousin was born and his circumcision was openly discussed amongst the family. That was when realised we were all born the same but some of us had the extra skin removed

@Amy93 Your remark about parents showing you "how to deal with the difference" aroused my curiosity. What did they show you? How different is it to babysit a circumcised vs a non-circumcised boy?

I grew up in the USSR. At that time, we were all the same. I had never heard of circumcision at birth. When I got older, I learned that circumcision was a Jewish practice. So in my life, I had never seen a circumcised penis anywhere in public.

@Al200 How about circumcision for medical reasons?

@Jacana

In those days, there were no such conversations. I think that in those days, it didn't matter to anyone whether you had a problem from birth. In adulthood, a person had to decide for himself that he had a problem that needed to be solved.

A story came to my mind. I had an employee, about 15 years ago. And once he told a funny story. He had a circumcision operation already in adulthood for medical reasons. During the operation, his classmates, medical students, came into the office. This is probably the only time I've talked about it, or heard about it.

Well the years I spent babysitting when I was younger helped a lot with the anatomy of boys.. and parents showing me how to deal with the difference.

I was babysat when young and living in the US. Never once did I experience/notice anything special about the babysitter needing any special instructions or treating me special because I wasn't cut or even being inquisitive and curious ... giving instructions sounds creepy, like they'd just be daring a sitter not to follow up on her own ... sounds like there's an obsession of sorts in play. Not healthy for real life.

But probably quite fun for role-playing when you're an adult.

I grew up in the USSR. At that time, we were all the same. I had never heard of circumcision at birth. When I got older, I learned that circumcision was a Jewish practice. So in my life, I had never seen a circumcised penis anywhere in public.

When I ended up in High School in Belgium, the same notions were current. Circumcision was a Jewish practice (unless you were unlucky with a medical thing). That was the end of the matter. And it was a horrid practice because it had been a marker that signalled people out for persecution and worse not that long ago.

There were even teachers who told anecdotes to reinforce that notion, about people going to a Muslim state like Saudi and having to show to (border?) officials they weren't Jewish as suspected by showing their intact status in a side room, much like undergoing a strip search.

I was born in the U.S. in 1973 and was circumcised. I never saw an uncircumcised penis until I was in 7th grade. Once I saw an uncircumcised penis, I became very interested in the procedure that had been done to all the circumcised guys and was fascinated. I became very interested in finding out the circumcision status of other men. I also became extremely proud of having undergone a painful procedure to make my penis more attractive. Any other circumcised guys proud of your status?

I think it was in my first year of school that I realised there were two types of penis. In the school yard one lunch break I came across a kid who was showing his penis off to a small group of (mostly) girls and boys, and I was struck by how different his looked to mine, even though I didn't really understand why.

Then I think later that same year or maybe a year later, my mother explained to me how some boys have their "skin cut off". I remember her saying it hurt the baby quite a lot which is why they hadn't wanted to do it to me. I can't remember what prompted that talk, although I remember that she knew the status of a couple of my friends from school, so maybe it had been discussed amongst the mothers and she felt the need to pre-empt any questions I might have come up with later on.