I had my laser (HoLAP) surgery 15 months ago for my enlarged prostate after I was diagnosed with acute bacterial BPH.  A lot has happened to my body in those 15 months. As told elsewhere on the site, my foreskin restoration is progressing. Now it is time to report on the state of my prostate.

My immediate recovery from surgery was uneventful. There was very little lingering pain. When I urinated, my stream was mostly normal colored. But, there were a few times the first few days when small blood clots came out with my urine. Five days after my HoLAP prostate surgery I had the surgery catheter removed. I have been urinating on my own ever since. Read more . . .

I really don't like cold weather. One nice thing about living in Knoxville, Tennessee is that the weather is moderate. It gets hot in summer, but not unbearably so. Wintertime will often see temperatures bouncing between freezing to t-shirt weather. It is about this time of the year, mid-November, that the temperature transitions to being more generally cool than warm. And, along with the cooler temperature comes PUCKER!

With cooler weather, my restored foreskin puckers tightly around my glans, just like my scrotum contracts and pulls my testicles toward my body. The pucker is so tight, that sometimes it takes a bit of force to retract my foreskin to urinate. Read more . . .

This is a new feature for me. Every week I will post blogs, articles, and websites of interest to Intactivists. Many are writing about routine infant circumcision and why they are not choosing it for their sons. It is often hard to keep track of them all, or to even find them. Here are the ones I like. Read more . . .

I just realized that I am blogging about foreskin restoration as if everyone knows what I am talking about. I am sure many visitors to the site wonder what I am talking about. Well, let me tell you about foreskin restoration.

Foreskin restoration is a process for creating a reasonable facsimile of the natural foreskin. To understand what that means, we need to know what an intact foreskin is. Because the United States has a circumcising culture, many people in the United States have no idea what a foreskin or an intact penis looks like or how it works. And, without knowing anything about the intact penis, people do not understand what is missing by being circumcised. Until I discovered foreskin restoration I had no idea what the differences were. Read more . . .

As of today, I have been restoring my foreskin for 15 months. I went from having tight erections to having enough slack skin that I can cover my glans when erect (if I pull the skin forward). If I don't pull the skin forward, my skin bunches behind my corona.

Even though it has been a long time, I don't feel like I have spent a lot of time working at restoring. My preferred method of restoring is to manual tug. When I started tugging, I spent up to two hours a day tugging. I spend less than an hour now. It does not feel like much because I multitask. I tug when I am waking up in the morning and have my morning wood. I tug in the shower. I tug for a minute or so every time I go to the bathroom. I tug when I am watching television or surfing the 'net. The minutes add up and I don't really feel like I am taking time out of the day to tug.

After a year and quarter of tugging, it does not feel right if I don't tug. I have been doing it long enough that it is a habit. One that I don't even think about. Read more . . .

I have noticed lots of benefits with having a foreskin instead of being circumcised. I wrote previously about the joys of masturbation with a foreskin. Now I want to tell everyone about another benefit of foreskin restoration, and it has nothing to do with sex or my penis.

I am very body aware. I have lifted weights since high school. At one time I had aspirations of being a body builder. I have long practiced yoga. I have studied some of the more philosophical or mystical avenues of life. All this has given me an awareness and understanding of my body. That includes the physical aspects, as well as the mental and emotional aspects. In other words, I believe it important to know yourself. These are the reasons that I am able to notice the more subtle, but important, changes and benefits of restoring.

I remember in my teenage years and when I was in my 20s. I did not like physical contact with others. Even though I was married, I did not like to be touched. It was a struggle to allow my wife to touch me. When she tried running her fingers through my hair I would move my head out of the way. Not only was I physically separated from others, I was emotionally distant. In my mid-thirties I divorced my wife and my emotional and mental well-being was in turmoil. I passed through that phase of my life by becoming more accessible physically and emotionally. As I entered my 50s, my life had settled down again. I was no longer physically and emotionally separate from others. Although, I still had close boundaries. Read more . . .

The World Health Organization has taken up the banner for circumcising men for the sake of reducing HIV infections. The WHO's position is that there is compelling evidence that male circumcision reduces the risk of HIV infection. That evidence includes the African circumcision trials.

Tim Trent has written a very insightful blog: Do I trust The World Health Organisation? He starts out discussing how the WHO seems to be gaming the system in order to declare H1N1 Swine Flu a pandemic. Displaying distrust of their actions, Tim then presents male circumcision as an example of why the WHO is not easy to trust. There is no reason to repeat more. Read Tim's blog here for yourself. Read more . . .

Prologue

Before I started restoring my foreskin, my circumcised penis semmed normal. My glans and shaft were the same color as the rest of my skin. I remember that years ago my penis would get irritated from rubbing against my clothes, but that has stopped. The skin on my penis has toughened up (keratinized). There was one spot on my corona that was a different texture and it was easily irritated if I rubbed it wrong.

As I got older, it took me longer and longer to ejaculate from sex. Sex was no longer as satisfying as it used to be and it was taking me longer and longer to climax during sex. My wife thought sex lasted too long. I had no trouble masturbating, but sex gradually became less satisfying. No question about it, my penis was becoming less sensitive as I reached my 40s and got worse the older I got.

Until I learned about foreskin restoration, I never knew that the glans and part of my shaft skin were mucous membranes. That is the same type tissue as under your eyelids. No wonder my penis was irritated from rubbing on my clothes. Over time, the mucous membranes develop a calloused layer or become keratinized. The calloused layer protects the mucous membranes by making the tissue less sensitive to touch.

In an intact man, that is, one who is uncircumcised, the foreskin covers and protects the glans and inner foreskin. These tissues in an intact man remain as mucous membranes and are susceptible to the full range of feelings. Read more . . .

I have been asked by several people about what they can do to help fight routine infant circumcision (RIC). As I noted in my last post, I am an Intactivist.

The way I look at it, the best way to fight routine infant circumcision is to educate people on what circumcision is. Until last year, I never thought about circumcision and I surely did not know what it meant to be circumcised. It did not take me long after reading a few websites to realize how barbaric routine infant circumcision is and that I could do something about my circumcision.

The following is a random list of things I do and things I have thought of doing. Every day I spend some time doing what I can. Each time one of us does something, someone else potentially learns about circumcision. Read more . . .

I am a pro-intact advocate. That is, I advocate that routine infant circumcision should be stopped and baby boys should keep their intact penis. Only in the United States is it common to routinely circumcise baby boys for non-religious reasons. This practice of routinely circumcising babies must stop.

I never felt strongly about any issue. I was too busy working and having fun. Even now, I am busy building my business and trying to enjoy life in the process. As a middle-class white guy, I never felt oppressed or was placed in a position where I felt society wronged me. Several years ago, I clerked for a criminal court judge. I read court records of the trials of child abusers. I reviewed the evidence showing the abuse. I got incensed at the things people would do to children. But, still, I was not motivated to be an activist for children's rights.

Then I learned about circumcision and how it removes the foreskin so that the glans is fully exposed. I realized that my exposed glans accounted for my penis being irritated from my underwear. The glans and inner foreskin remnant are mucous membranes. They are meant to be protected. Even after my glans keratinized, there was a portion of my corona that was still sensitive. I felt the irritation when that area brushed against my clothing or bed sheets.

I learned about the techniques for separating the foreskin from the glans of infants. The foreskin of an infant is attached to the glans, the same as a fingernail is attached to the finger. During circumcision, the foreskin is forcibly separated from the glans before the foreskin can be cut away. I realized that the scarring near my frenulum was most likely due to the doctor using forcepts or another appliance to separate my foreskin from the glans. That area of my penis always hurt to the touch and looked a lot different than the rest of my penis. Read more . . .