Childhood Foreskin Exams

@roscoe's message made me think about the following.

The similarity of the gestures for, on the one hand, pulling back the foreskin for enlarging it or washing under it and, on the other hand, masturbation, is obvious, and I reckon it has played a role in the following medical situations.

1) I once read that routine circumcision became popular among Mormons because many mothers did not feel comfortable washing their boys down there.

2) Some decades ago, when a boy had a tight foreskin, doctors would try to pull on it by force or ask parents to do so. Nowadays, they tend to ask the boy to do so. Maybe one reason not to suggest the boy do so back then was the similarity to masturbation. When I grew up, boys masturbating was still taboo; my mother was aghast when she walked on me doing so.

3) Nowadays, there is much the reasoning that there are high chances that if the boy pulls on the skin, maybe helped by erection, the foreskin will eventually ease up. But, again, back then, the idea to let boys rub themselves would seem shocking, and thus circumcision was often suggested quite quickly as remedy.

@roscoe's message made me think about the following.

The similarity of the gestures for, on the one hand, pulling back the foreskin for enlarging it or washing under it and, on the other hand, masturbation, is obvious, and I reckon it has played a role in the following medical situations.

1) I once read that routine circumcision became popular among Mormons because many mothers did not feel comfortable washing their boys down there.

That sounds like my wife but she didn't tell me until about 15 years later. She claims to have been abused when she was young so that's why she doesn't want to touch my penis or anything else including the boys when they were babies. I'm suspicious of that because she remembered her abuse when some TV whako did a show about it. They used to have these 1 hour shows where it seemed they must have spent a year searching the country to find a handful of people who had lived the same weird experience. Whatever the theme for the day/week was she decided our whole family had it and one week it was recovered memories. One week it was what her father did to her which lost her connections with her whole family many of whom still won't speak to her 30 years later. She uses that as an excuse why she doesn't want to touch me and unbeknownst to me why she didn't want to bathe our boys.

2) When I grew up, boys masturbating was still taboo; my mother was aghast when she walked on me doing so.

That didn't seem to bother my mother or father. She walked into my room when me and my two nephews who were my age were playing with each other sitting on my bed. She just said “supper's ready” and closed the door. Never heard any more about what we were doing. She never said much about me and my two girl playmates playing naked in the lawn sprinkler and we did that until we were about 12. The only reason we stopped was because we found kids to play with at school as most kids do.

3) Nowadays, there is much the reasoning that there are high chances that if the boy pulls on the skin, maybe helped by erection, the foreskin will eventually ease up. But, again, back then, the idea to let boys rub themselves would seem shocking, and thus circumcision was often suggested quite quickly as remedy.

Mine certainly didn't loosten up from masturbation or from the girl next door moving it. She thought that turtleneck made out of skin was very interesting and she liked to move it up and down whenever she had a chance and she liked to see and feel it grow larger and stand up straight. That began when she discovered it when we were about 5 or 6 and continued to about 13. Apparently her brothers were cut and she loved playing with my movable skin.

I'm suspicious of that because she remembered her abuse when some TV whako did a show about it. They used to have these 1 hour shows where it seemed they must have spent a year searching the country to find a handful of people who had lived the same weird experience. Whatever the theme for the day/week was she decided our whole family had it and one week it was recovered memories.

This falls under the category: monkey hear, monkey want have too …

The recovered memory game so often sounds like a sort of brainwashing scam. And it's great for eliciting sympathy from others.

This is a bit offtopic, but…

There was certainly a tension, decades ago, between the hygienic imperative of washing one's genitals, on the one hand, and the moral imperative of not encouraging masturbation, on the other hand. I recall reading recollections of women that, when young, spent time in some “reform schools” for girls in 1940/50/60s France. These places were run by nuns. One lady said that girls (or maybe only those having their periods) were to wash their privates on bidets, and that a girl had to spend enough time doing so so that she was not suspected of being unhygienic, but not too long so that would become suspicious (I suppose that would suggest that the girl was pleasuring herself).

I recall reading recollections of women that, when young, spent time in some “reform schools” for girls in 1940/50/60s France. These places were run by nuns.

My wife was sent to a nun's boarding school (in Belgium) for a time. Every now and then the topic would come and with extreme bitterness on her part she'd tell how girls were of course made to wash regularly, but had to do while still wearing a long night shift.

They had to soap up and wash themselves over the nightshift, presumably because of the nun's sense of modesty and what not. Nor were they allowed to change afterwards my wife said. That I found a bit hard to believe though I did ask how many colds or pneumonias she caught while in boarding school. None she said, though I know I would have succumbed.

I recall having to go to the family GP for a pre-school check-up at age 5. The GP always had you strip to your underpants regardless of reason for going so this was not unfamiliar, what was unexpected was when unannounced he pulled my pants down and retracted my foreskin. All very quick but did take me by surprise.

When I was then 7 or 8 I experienced problems with my foreskin. It was tight, painful and there were secretions. Following a painful examination by my GP (a different one by this time due to moving to a different area) I was referred to the hospital.

I recall being examined there by a doctor with at least two other medical people present and was diagnosed with adhesion to the foreskin. A lengthy debate ensued between the doctor and my mother about the two options available - a) full circumcision or b) a procedure to remove the adhesion. I don't think I was really involved in the decision making process but I had a friend at the time who had recently been circumcised and I wasn't too keen to have the same.

The final decision was that I was to have the corrective procedure to remove the adhesion. I don't recall too much about it apart from when being taken down to theatre the nurse made a point of asking me whether I'd removed my underpants.

It is the follow-up exam which I remember most vividly. On being taken into the exam room along with my mother I was instructed to remove my shorts and underpants and lie up on the exam table. I recall being completely erect, which of course at the time I didn't know why or the significance (this was the 70's, such things weren't spoken about) - I do remember raised eyebrows between my mother and the nurse. The Dr when he arrived looked a little surprised but following examination declared me ok for discharge.

Maybe this is where my enjoyment in medical and CMNM started?

@agracier I had heard of girls sent to convents / religious boarding schools indeed being made to wash while wearing some clothing, nudity not allowed, but I understood they were washing under the clothing, which is probably very inconvenient. The idea seems to have been to prevent them from seeing themselves and each other.

Interestingly, the gyn exam (virginity check) in “Les Diablesses" is done while clothed, with just the panties removed and dress pulled up.

Geez I thought it was bad when I was growing up. They sure went to extremes to make sure girls were hidden. To me seeing a naked girl my age wasn't really a biggy, they didn't have anything very interesting down there, just different. We only wanted to see it because they tried so hard to keep it hidden from us. They had much more to look at (and play with) on me and they sure did like that movable skin.

@darrenjames

I recall being completely erect, which of course at the time I didn't know why or the significance (this was the 70's, such things weren't spoken about)

A bit tangential, but for my memory, the 1970s were the highpoint of the sexual revolution. That's when it seemed everything sexual was talked about, sometimes a bit naively to be sure, but not much was taboo. The 70's were also the times when all the goody-goody folk on both sides of the Atlantic were convinced the world was going to hell in a handbasket what with hippies and sex an dens of inequity like Amsterdam and San Francisco.

Odd how perceptions differ.

@agracier Unfortunately some seized the sexual freedom opportunities of the 70s as a way to molest children. A friend told me how the “cool” friends of the family mocked her for being uptight and not getting naked (Th we’re nudist)They wanted to see her nude

@agracier Unfortunately some seized the sexual freedom opportunities of the 70s as a way to molest children. A friend told me how the “cool” friends of the family mocked her for being uptight and not getting naked (Th we’re nudist)They wanted to see her nude

Mocking is hardly the same as ‘molesting’. If the friend had been taken hold of and forcefully undressed, then that is indeed molesting. But mocking/joking is something different and happens in so very many settings: wear the wrong clothes, having a unfashionable hairstyle, watching the ‘wrong’ TV shows or whatever. Young people constantly get mocked and joshed about stuff like that. But nobody calls it ‘molesting’.

However the line on sexually related things, like as noted being too shy/unwilling to join in communal nudism, does seem to have shifted quite a ways since the 70s/80s.

@agracier When the mocking comes from an authority figure… But indeed this is tame compared to what people such as Gabriel Matzneff we’re doing

When I was younger at all my physicals I was always erect so when my pediatrician layed me down on the exam table he‘d say “I need to take these off buddy” and tap on my underwear and promptly take them off. Which left my cock sometimes flailing if he took them off roughly. He would examine my testicles and then he would retract my foreskin by pulling up and down over and over. He would tell me that I needed to do that every night in the shower

I had an examination of my foreskin at an early age. I have vivid memories to this day of being embarrassed.

I am certain this was one catalyst for my medical fetish.

I always had a foreskin examination during school examinations. It was always done at the end. We had to stand in front of the doctor and he pulled down our briefs halfway. Then he quickly pulled back the foreskin to see if it went back easily. Next he examined our testicles. This all took perhaps 2 minutes after which we were told to pull up our briefs and get out.

Wish I had one for them to examine. Would've been interesting. I always wondered if the very few guys I knew who were uncut had it pulled back by the doctor.

Wish I had one for them to examine. Would've been interesting. I always wondered if the very few guys I knew who were uncut had it pulled back by the doctor.

I am not cut and cannot for the life of me remember ever having a doctor pull back and examine my foreskin. And I am talking about (school) exams in both the US and Belgium back in the 50-60 and 70s.

Try as I might, I cannot recall even 1 instance. Of course there are so many things we forget or subconsciously suppress, but this being so intimate and sexual, you'd think it be memorable, something not to forget.

I truly do wish I could remember something of this nature.

@agracier said I am not cut and cannot for the life of me remember ever having a doctor pull back and examine my foreskin. And I am talking about (school) exams in both the US and Belgium back in the 50-60 and 70s.

Try as I might, I cannot recall even 1 instance. Of course there are so many things we forget, but this being so intimate and sexual, you'd think it be memorable, something not to forget.

Me either, never has a doctor checked under there at a physical exam. In the hospital last year a nurse came in for a “clean” urine sample, she did all the work I just stood there. She wiped it off with a wet wipe, retracted the foreskin and repeated with a clean wipe then stuck it in the sample container. When that was full she squeezed it off and brought up the “urinal” bottle to let me finish. That is the only time anyone other than girl friends, my mother or me had retracted it

Back in the early 1970’s here in the U.K., I remember several of my friends who went at another school, a comprehensive, used to be checked by a visiting Dr or Nurse. They would have to stand in a small room, stripped off to their underpants, checked over, told to drop their underwear so the nurse could retract their foreskins, maybe just to make sure none were suffering from phimosis or whatever. My friends would have been about 10-11 years old.

I went to an all male, public school, and unfortunately, I was never checked! Although I was fully experienced by then of having my foreskin pulled back frequently by my female cousin and her older girlfriend.

@belkinian

I went to an all male, public school, and unfortunately, I was never checked! Although I was fully experienced by then of having my foreskin pulled back frequently by my female cousin and her older girlfriend.

I forgot to mention my neighbor girl playmate who said mine didn't look like her brothers whereupon I retracted the foreskin and she said now it does. She was fascinated by that and asked me to let her do it. I let her of course and she did it a few times from the age of about 6 to 8.

@roskoe

Lucky boy. It seems the same things happened to us both when young, except that my foreskin was still adhered to the glans corona, and it was pulled and snapped away by the girls, which created a few small holes under the corona which eventually got bigger as the skin peeled away over the years.

The memories are still strong today, and it always gives me an erection thinking of it.

I was the youngest of 3 boys and we used to be given a bath together. Mum was assisted by a girl who was a live in help. We were stood in the bath and scrubbed down and then towelled dry. Then Mum would pull back each of our foreskins and the girl would apply a little vaseline to the glans with her finger and then gently slide it back and forth. I remember it as quite a pleasant feeling. We had this done until I was about 6 years old when I developed my first erection and consequently a severe case of shyness after she said something about it and she and Mum laughed. I refused to be naked in front of the girl and I was allowed to wash myself with the occasional supervision by Mum. The girl continued to do my brothers until their early teens as they had no objection.. She was only a couple of years older than my eldest brother. Every now and then she would ask me if I was still lubricating my foreskin, and I'd go all shy and embarrassed. Truth was I never stopped and I loved it so much I still do it to this day. Wish I could turn the clock back now, I'd definitely not object to her ministrations.

I've never had my foreskin or penis examined or checked in anyway child or adult. When I reached puberty and started masturbating properly a month before my 14th birthday a small tag of skin under the head of my penis got torn, there was a small sting and a little blood but after that my foreskin retracted much easier.

@DrPhilip,

That is what happened to me when I was about 11 or 12. There was a little bit of the inner foreskin - about 3mm - still firmly attached right on the dorsal side of the corona. I too would masturbate every day coming home from school sitting on the toilet. I would jerk my foreskin back hard, over and over as if to try and snap this remaining bit of skin. I took my thumb against the bottom of the adhesion, and forced it down.

There was a slight, audible “snap”. The corona on that part was incredibly sore for several days after, and I can still recall lying in bed with a solid erection. The pain on the corona seemed to make me have an erection.

@ belkinian and Dr Philip: I know this adherence effect from my son. In his case, the attached parts split up while he was cleaning himself in the tub. There was no blood at all but the corona and the inner foreskin around the formerly attached strip were quite sore. For a couple of days we bathed him frequently and afterwards always applied some wound ointment, and everything went fine.

And generally: My own foreskin used to be quite tight up until my late teens. However, with some effort (and discomfort) it could be pulled back when my penis was all soft (my mum did so for washing me there with a wash cloth twice a day when I was little, which was painful, at least always very uncomfortable. That is the reason why we always let our son do it himself). I remember that once my pediatric pulled back my foreskin during a general checkup when I was about 4 or 5 years old, however he did not mention anything about the tightness.

Referring to some other posts within this discussion: I realized very soon that my glans was highly sensitive (and even slightest touching of my bare glans would have hurt).

It was not before I was 13 when first a doctor diagnosed my foreskin being tight and suggested circumcision, also because she became aware of some hygienic issues during the examination. I have written some more details about all that in another discussion here about 1.5 years ago, covering more or less the whole story. Cutting it short: Being in panic because I was sure being circumcised some time after that diagnosis, I started stretching my foreskin, more or less forcibly while masturbating (sometimes I did it that heavily that, in retrospect, I consider myself really lucky that it did not tear). It still took some years for my foreskin becoming easily retractible, but in the end everything went fine. Can this be considered a positive outcome resulting from the fact that my foreskin became examined? I don't think so.

I am wondering if it also happened to others that doctors, parents or whoever became aware of potential hygienic issues under their foreskins?

My doctor always examined my foreskin until I was nine and they decided to circumcise me because of UTI's. The doctor had told my mom to circumcise me for several years mostly because doctors just wanted to do it as routine. My mom explained to me what it was and I told her I didn't want it and she agreed. She retracted my foreskin during baths and showed my how to keep it clean. The doctor finally convinced her, and so when I was nine, he did it in his office.

The doctor finally convinced her, and so when I was nine, he did it in his office.

I wish adult circumcisions could be a quick office procedure like that, just have my PCP do it instead of having to find a urologist whose office will actually call me back.

Nobody ever examined mine until this past summer when I had my first appointment with the dermatologist at the age of 82. I had been in the hospital where a nurse got a “clean” urine sample. She had to quickly shove the urinal bottle over my skun back penis as I still had plenty of urine left after filling the sample cup. In doing that she scraped the length of my inner foreskin and when removing the bottle she scraped the coronal ridge pretty hard. I actually had scratches/scrapes under there. I wanted the derm to check those scrapes which by that time I had figured out were done by the nurse in the hospital. Funny thing when she told me to skin it back so she could look at it the other two girls in the room moved in to get a closer look too. One was the derm's assistant but the other one was unknown. Sometimes I think she may have been one of the office girls who just wanted to see what a foreskin looked like “Hey I've got a foreskin in here, anyone want to see what they look like?” This is the USA and most of those useless things have been used for fish bait so most girls don't know what a “whole” guy looks like.

My mother told me the doctor asked if she wanted me circumcised and she said no. He then told her she would have to retract it at every bath to clean under it. I don't know if he had to remove any adhesions so she could do that but she did do it faithfully as shown in my father's home movies. I had an aunt who had 13 kids and whenever they came to visit it was bathe the baby time. The boys just disappeared but the girls all learned how to retract my foreskin and wash my skun back penis. This was done until the job was turned over to me when I was about 6. I don't remember my glans being sensitive until I was 8 or so. My frenulum was a little short so the tip of my penis would get pulled down if I retracted it with an erection. What a relief it was after it tore by itself during sex after marriage. Knowing nothing about lubrication thanks to our lack of sex-ed in the 50s It tore and healed back with the scar tissue making it even shorter. I reasoned that I had to keep the ends from reattaching themselves the next few times it tore so eventually there was nothing left of the frenulum and my foreskin can be retracted all the way back so my shaft is/was completely covered by inner foreskin even with an erection. I say was because I haven't seen an erection in years but I can still bare the whole inner foreskin leaving the glans fully bared but soft. Baring the whole thing and cleaning it with rubbing alcohol so my dry fingers will slide nicely over my dry non sticky penis feels really good when rubbing the inner foreskin on the shaft and rubbing the bare glans especially inside the coronal ridge groove. Sometimes that results in an orgasm but sometimes not. It still feels good rubbing the whole bare thing and pulling the foreskin back tight stretching it as much as possible.

Knowing the frenulum will be short and somewhat painful I don't understand why the doctor didn't fix that instead of leaving it to tear when I was older. I few small cuts with a scalpel would have fixed that when I was a baby or a little later painlessly after a little skin prick with the needle. Being able to pull that foreskin all the way back tight was wonderful and would have made masturbation much more fun. I wouldn't have had to tell my girlfriends to be careful during handjobs.

The tip became a bit tight as I grew older but that was easily fixed by inserting two fingers when bathing and stretching the opening. Just think of the fun having a girl do that for you.

At about the age of ten I recall my glans being sensitive to the touch. I can't imagine why that nurse of yours would squeeze and roll it with her thumb and fingers unless she just enjoyed doing that to hurt you and that doctor must have been a real sadist so the two of them must have really enjoyed working you over.

I later became tired of my glans being so sensitive and decided to fix that myself. I knew that the circumcised kids I played with didn't have that problem at all. They wanted me to really put pressure on their glans when masturbating them and enjoyed having it rubbed as hard as possible. Rubbing that between my thumb and fingers felt good to them. I figured their glans being like that was the result of it being bare since they were born and all I had to do was get mine used to being bared, dried, rubbed and used to being handled. I already had my foreskin fully retractable so I retracted it, cleaned it with rubbing alcohol and began lightly touching/caressing it with one finger. I increased the pressure as much as I could stand a bit every time. It began to feel so good that those times became much more often, 2,3,4, times a day until one time I decided to keep rubbing and masturbate with the skin pulled back and the head dry. Eeewww, what a feeling!!!!!!!!!!! I never masturbated again by rolling the skin up and down. After that I always did it dry and bare.

I don't understand why they would do what they did to you, there is no reason to give you that much pain. Those hemostats scraping your already sore glans and that nurse working you over with her specialized ones and that doctor doing what he did to your frenulum is unconscionable.

Back in the early 1970’s here in the U.K., I remember several of my friends who went at another school, a comprehensive, used to be checked by a visiting Dr or Nurse. They would have to stand in a small room, stripped off to their underpants, checked over, told to drop their underwear so the nurse could retract their foreskins, maybe just to make sure none were suffering from phimosis or whatever. My friends would have been about 10-11 years .

I went to an all male, public school, and unfortunately, I was never checked! Although I was fully experienced by then of having my foreskin pulled back frequently by my female cousin and her older girlfriend.

@belkinian

These examinations were performed at my school when I was there until the mid 1980s. I’ve seen that they were not universally practised, so it must have applied in some health authorities and not others. Public schools seemed to be more likely to perform the medicals, so you rather missed out! Having your foreskin pulled back by your cousin and friend must have been an interesting experience!