DR THOMAS STUTTAFORD
A: Ascribing your problem to a lack of a foreskin is an unusual take on a trouble that has afflicted young adults since the dawn of time. The usual complaint after circumcision in childhood is that removing the protective sheath provided by a foreskin has resulted in the skin of the penis becoming toughened and less sensitive.
Circumcised patients sometimes blame lack of stimulation — and as a result, a lack of potency — on an imagined failure of the sensory nerves of the penis. They suggest that the penis nerve supply may have been blunted by years of rubbing against trousers.
Conversely, the uncircumcised occasionally feel that the foreskin deadens the stimulation provided by contact with their partner and ask to be circumcised. There is also a group of uncircumcised men who believe that if they were only circumcised their penis would become so insensitive that they would no longer have premature ejaculation.
In the great majority of cases, removing the foreskin makes a minimal difference, if any. The nature of the skin covering the penis is different in the circumcised. Toughening it by circumcision has the advantage of reducing the likelihood of infection. The uncircumcised penis is more vulnerable to the HIV virus. Being uncircumcised doesn’t give enough protection to qualify as being a path to safe sex, but a circumcised man having sex with a woman known to be HIV positive is only one eighth as likely to pick up the virus. Circumcision also provides some protection against warts, thrush and other sexually transmittable infections.
Just as circumcision isn’t the alternative to safe sex, nor will it have much influence on sexual responses. Whether circumcised or uncircumcised it is not going to influence the likelihood that a 17-year-old can smooch around the dance floor all evening, safe in the knowledge that his sexual desires are not obvious to bystanders. Having embarrassing erections without deliberate genital stimulation is much more likely to be the result of what is happening in your brain than to your genitalia. It is not the abrasive action of your over- tight trousers that is giving you the exciting fantasies that are resulting in an erection, but the normal hormone surge of late puberty.
It would be possible to stretch your penile skin behind the penis, so that the skin is gradually stretched and in time gives the semblance of a foreskin. The penile skin is stretched by the attachments of small weights. In my opinion this is an even more pointless exercise than that practised by some tribeswomen who stretched their ear lobes until they were inches long. The tribeswomen’s actions were understandable because their men had been conditioned to regard long ear lobes as a sign of beauty. But few Western women regard foreskins in the same way. Your worries are reasonable because your problem is a real one even if your answer to it lacks medical credence.
Whenever a problem — anatomical or physiological — becomes an obsession, and there are no obvious grounds for it as far as others can see, it may be symptomatic of dysmorphobia, body dysmorphic disorder.
Women frequently fix their irrational anxieties on breasts, men on their penises and both sexes on the nose, mouth, eyes triangle of the face. These patients need careful psychological assessment.
SUZI GODSON
A: Of course it would be possible to stretch the remaining skin over the tip. And you could probably graft your left buttock over it, too. But neither procedure would do anything to help you because the condition you describe is nothing to do with being circumcised and everything to do with being 17.
Random, inopportune and inexplicable hard-ons are one more side-effect of the hormonal cocktail that your body has been adjusting to since you hit puberty back in Year 7.
Although they are undoubtedly awkward and embarrassing, they are completely normal and as your body adapts to your changing levels of testosterone, these automatic erections will subside. In the meantime, try wearing baggy jeans with long T-shirts or sweaters and if you feel yourself start to get an unwanted erection, put your hand in your pocket and discreetly shift your penis so that it points to the side. This will make it less noticeable and if you keep your hand over it sometimes it will subside. If not, sitting down will make any bulges less obvious, particularly if you have a bag you can put on your lap.
The most common way of keeping unwanted erections under control is to wear tighter underpants. Though tight underwear has been accused of heating up the testicles, thereby causing a decline in the male sperm count, this is a myth that originated from a tiny Dutch study which demonstrated that wearing tight leather trousers and tight plastic underpants could affect sperm count, but only when both were worn together.
Cotton Y-fronts look great and provide support in all the right places. On your behalf, I have checked out several styles at www.figleaves.com and would recommend the Levi’s, the Calvins and the Hanro models. To anyone.
Although spontaneous erections are a sign that everything is functioning normally, they can leave a teenage boy feeling as if he has lost control of his body and real confidence comes from greater awareness. Boys who are informed about the physical and psychological changes they will experience through their teens tend to have a much easier time than those who have to muddle through myth and misinformation on their own. Teenagers are often too bashful to ask questions about sexual development and although parents ought to initiate these discussions, they don’t. Boys are particularly poorly treated in this respect. They don’t have the same obvious physical stages of development as girls, and mothers, who traditionally give most advice about sex, often know less about male development.
Fortunately, teenage boys can find the resources that they need online. Sites such as teenagehealthfreak.org and jackinworld.com offer down-to-earth advice on pretty much every topic that a teenage boy might need help with. The FAQ sections on both sites are a wonderful illustration of the crazy paranoias that haunt teenage boys. “I can get an erection only when I think of Britney Spears. Is this normal?” and “I have noticed that my penis has grown since I switched from briefs to boxers. Do you think the extra room has made my penis grow?” If only, love.
E-mail your sexual dilemmas to body&soul@thetimes.co.uk or write to Body&Soul, The Times, 1 Pennington Street, London E98 1TT
