I've been working on trying to get my foreskin to go all the way back away from the head for only a month or two now. I really haven't made too much progress (except when I'm in a bath or shower and flaccid) so i wanted to ask specifically what excersis should i be doing. And i sopose what should i NOT being doing?

Tell us first exactly what you have been doing. From there we'll see what needs to be done. Is there anything else going on, such as itching? Have you ever been able to retract?

I was probably able to completely retract it at some point but I never ACTUALLY pushed the foreskin back at all until recently. When I do pull the foreskin back now I see the head but the skin wont go much farther back. I only have enough room to pee comfortably. Itching is mild and I sopose it's normal that after I ejaculate I'm a little sore until the next day. I've mentioned before that there is a little redness that's visible underneath the skin in areas that I can't push the skin back to yet. I'm going to a doctor on tuesday to see whether or not it could be balanitis.

btw-Has anyone ever had trouble with doctors trying to push circumcision on you? I have no idea what to expect from doctors.

If you're American, or even Canadian American, your doctor may be ignorant of proper foreskin care, so yes, it's very likely he'll push the idea of surgery.

Balanitis can be a loose term, often really meaning yeast infection. Many times, it is misdiagnosed and consequently mistreated. You could actually start treating for yeast yourself to find out. Common over the counter yeast treatments are available just about anywhere, and although they are directed toward females, they'll work for you too. You would apply the cream or ointment to the affected area, trying to get some of it inside the foreskin. If no improvement is seen in a week, it could be a bacterial infection, but the chances are pretty good you have a problem with yeast.

BTW, your posts must be activated by me. I try to monitor the site at least once per day.

Since you have no insurance and there is no threat to health, it might be wise to cancel the appointment and try the yeast medicine instead. You'll know in a few days if you really need to see the doctor.

I thought I posted a reply to this but it didn't post so let me start over.

I was probably able to pull the foreskin back when i was younger but I never did it as a teenager. Now I'm only able to pull it back far enough to see the tip of the head and sometimes get a little less than an inch out in the open (if I'm flaccid and in a bath tub). As far as itching or irritation goes it's a mild itch from time to time. I'm not too worried about the fact that I'm sore for a while after I ejaculate but there is some redness visible around the skin in areas where i can't pull it back and my urethra seems to be a dark red.

Just out of curiosity, can you tell me why you would have pulled the foreskin back when you were younger but never did it as a teenager? I mean, did you figure it was a good idea or something you did not like doing? What were you taught by your mother/ your father/ your brothers or sisters/ friends? Were you taught to pull it back to pee and if so, did you like doing this or not? Was it "too much bother"? How did you learn to masturbate (and just incidentally, from whom) - did you experiment with different "methods" or not, and so fixed on one particular one which affects what you did (or indeed did not do) with your foreskin?

Please do understand in case you have not figured this already: almost always as soon as you ejaculate you will find your glans very sensitive for a matter of some minutes, this prevents most men (and indeed, most women despite whatever else you might read) from persisting with stroking to have "multiple orgasms", but is by no means the same as "soreness" due to trauma (though that certainly can occur as well).

And a relatively mild itch on occasion is "par for the course" in moist areas of the body and does not necessarily indicate infection. Your mother was just a little bit correct when she told you not to scratch it as scratching an itch while most pleasant in itself, can tend to provoke it. The point is, "don't sweat it" looking for problems that aren't really problems. If you get a bad itch, you may need some clotrimazole or similar "thrush" cream, but a bacterial infection is quite unlikely unless you really provoke it by using soap or "antiseptics" and such around the foreskin.

What exercises should you be doing? The two - the one for stretching the foreskin (with one or two when you progress, fingers inside) that we have described in so many previous discussions, and the one for stretching your frænulum. What exercises should you not be doing? I'm not sure, but I will say that simply pulling your foreskin back will not achieve very much by way of stretching, so I advise you not to waste time doing it but to allocate as much time as possible on the two we have described. Please read up a lot of previous "threads" to get all the ideas.

If you can see the glans (head of your penis) at all then you have way more than enough room to pee comfortably as I am quite sure you have been doing since (before) you were born!

Seeing the doctor? Look, (as Jim has said,) we suspect the doctor may not be helpful at all and if you are coming from a society that practices ritual circumcision such as America and parts of Canada, (s)he may well be positively un-helpful. Unless you have been poking your penis somewhere it should not have been, you are really unlikely to have "balanitis" to any degree which would need medical treatment (other than the over-the-counter ones I have pointed out).

As well as answering those questions for me that I asked first up, please do, if you still feel a desperate need to see a doctor on Tuesday (which I cannot see that you do but ...) tell us what (s)he tells you.

As a young child (under 10 somewhere)the doctor told my parents and me it was important that I keep it as clean as possible underneath the foreskin. But my parents tried to do this for me and I never became comfortable with it. In fact I became so uncomfortable with having foreskin that I never pulled the skin back again, honestly thought it made me unable to have proper sexual relations (fortunately those days are over), and made me generaly uncomfortable with myself. I just ignored the situation entirely for like a decade. It wasn't this past april that I fiinally decided to start doing something. How did I masturbate? I humped my mattress. (it's okay to laugh....just don't tell me your laughing at me). I didn't actually use my hand until I was like 20. I don't know, when you're the only person you know who has foreskin you feel so weird.

Anyway can you point me to a specific message or something that can tell me SPECIFICALLY what you mean by stretchiing the frenulum?

I see that picture alot here. So to stretch the frenulum I just have to tug on the end of my foreskin? How hard exactly? I kind of understand the other technique talked about on this site. I'll try that tonight but I gotta admit...that seems uncomfortable.

Thanks.

Pull on it enough to stretch it but not make it hurt. You can do this several times per day after peeing.

So I shall have to presume that the mattress-humping was self-taught. This of course makes eminent sense, as it is not the sort of method that is likely to be demonstrated to someone else and on the other hand, is rather intuitive - you do it, it feels good, so you keep on doing it and suddenly something rather remarkable happens.

One might further wonder just why you might have ended up in the doctor's office at that young age - or more to the point, why your foreskin and the misguided need for "cleanliness" became the focus of attention. (I suspect they tried to get you to use soap on it, which would have made any initial problem, even worse!) I have to suspect this (answer) may also explain why you developed such a negative "take" to the whole matter - foreskin, sexual relations, discussing it.

I do hope that had you read far enough back in the discussions here, you would have figured out the bit about frænulum stretching. The point is, the frænulum is only on the inside of the foreskin, it goes from the underneath of the meatus (pee hole) to a point just inside the opening of the foreskin. If you roll that part (the underneath) of the foreskin back a little and then get a grip on it, you should be gripping pretty close to the foreskin end of the frænulum. The other end is quite firmly "anchored" to the penis and as you have seen me explain recently, the penis simply is not going to stretch. This picture shows the foreskin end more clearly, but you don't need two hands.

And again - how hard? Tight enough to be uncomfortable - as it will be - but you are not attempting to break it. Is that clear enough?

Thanks. That's the most detailed explanation I've gotten so far of stretching the foreskin.

I sopose I'm still going to the doctor in a bit, in hopes that I'll get a perscription to that Betamethasone 0.05%. If I don't actually need it I wont use it but as I said before all that redness looks scary to me. I just hope that doc will be helpful and not try to get me to agree to surgery.

OK, if you see the doctor, remember - betamethasone 0.05% ointment. Redness? Hmm, have you taken a look at your throat recently? The redness is an indication of the moistness and transparency of the relatively delicate skin. We're all ears.

The doctor wouldn't prescribe any betamethasone. He said that kind of thing isn't recomended for adults and he never prescribes it to anyone. He said the redness doesn't look like an infection. And he said the only thing I can do if I want to see the head free from my epidermis is to get a circumcision.

He wouldn't even lubricate his gloves before he started poking at my little buddy. It was so horrible.

I told him about the stretching technique and he said, "you can try that if you think it'll help, but eventually you're going to have to be circumcised."

This whole thing has been pretty down heartening. I don't really know who's right anymore. Is there something else I can use beside betamethasone? I can't pay another $150 for a doctor to tell me to undergo surgery on my favorite body part.

OK, these guys have a one track mind, so quit trying to teach them something.

Yes, there is something you can use besides the betamethasone. They're called fingers. For several thousand years, there was no modern medicine, and somehow, boys and men got their foreskins to retract. You are no different.

However, you keep bringing up this infection idea. Try a yeast control product for a couple of weeks to see if conditions improve. Also, begin the stretching techniques which will work for you.

Okay so I'll buy something like that and see if it helps. I was using hydrocortosone 0.01% and might continue with that.

Um...what is phisoderm? My old doctor from when I was a kid said I should bathe or shower with phisoderm which I'm told is LIKE soap but not as harmful to my foreskin for whatever reason.

You don't need that. Here's something on Phisoderm: http://www.phisoderm.com/

We do not recommend using any kind of cleaning product on the inside of the foreskin. Rinse with clear water only and let the natural bacteria do their job of keeping things healthy. For now, use the yeast medicine to make sure there is not a problem with yeast.

As I pointed out in a previous comment to this thread, you seem to be buying into this thing about "cleanliness" instead of what is important - getting on with the stretching.

The fact is, there is almost certainly no problem with cleanliness - why would there be? Have you in fact, been doing something you should not with your penis?

Soap is soap ... is soap. According to Jim's link there, Phisoderm® soap is in fact, soap - which incidentally happens to be "buffered" for pH, but it still does the same thing, it removes the natural lubricating oils of the skin. If you are grubby, that's not a bad thing, but I can't see why your foreskin is going to get grubby and as I say quite often, it is a rather sensitive patch of skin. If you want foreskin trouble, using soap on it is a good way to provoke a problem.

What we have suggested, is quite specific. If you really think you have a Candida or "Thrush" infection, then you use the creams sold for this specific purpose (generally those sold for vaginal Candidiasis in women). If you do not have either a really bad itch, a gooey whitish "cottage cheese" discharge, or fissuring (cracking) of the foreskin, (and have not been having intercourse) then there is nothing to suggest an infection and it is most unwise to go "fiddling" with purported "cleaning" or "antiseptic" products; that is only asking for trouble. A bit of dry smegma does not count, nor does an itch the same as you often get in the groin area anyway.

Hydrocortisone (what you have should be 0.5% or 1.0%, by the way) will not be of any great assistance; I have explained this before not infrequently.

But ...

Well, look, it really is up to you to figure out who knows what they are taking about - that doctor or us. How to use potent steroid ointment (betamethasone), touching with lubrication, whether skin stretches or not (now how many fat people have you ever seen explode?).

I have to hand it to him - "eventually you're going to have to be circumcised" - that really is a class act. Did I not tell you he would say that? No, I didn't, did I - but somewhere, way back in the message board here I have said it on more than one occasion, and it generally takes place.

You are going to have to decide - are you going to do what we advise - get going on the stretching in the two forms, can't say we have not explained in detail - or are you going to sit and ruminate on what this "doctor" said? You haven't revealed it yet, but we're guessing you are in fact in America, or Canada, though you might be in Australia or New Zealand or South Africa. Ritual circumcision has been pretty much the rule in these places over the last century or so, and knowledge about the foreskin tends to be lost where the foreskin is lost by default.

However, I will give the doctor one thing - he told you to forget the "redness" which is as I explained, nothing more than an indication of the moistness and transparency of the relatively delicate skin which has been persistently covered. And the social phenomenon of men scratching their genitals is perfectly well known both in circumcising and more enlightened and ethical societies.

Now, Is there something else you can use beside betamethasone? How many times do you wish us to repeat it? More to the point, are you doing what we advise, now? Already?

Yea I'm in America. And all this time I've thought something horrible was going to happen to me for keeping my foreskin clean. All this information just surprises me.

Anyway, no I guess your right. There's no bad itch or anything. Just a very sensitive set of glans. And yes I've been using the stretching practices. I figure trying any of this is better than just running off and getting circumcised. It just takes some getting used to doing that all the time, and then you gotta get used to the sensitivity.

Aparently my grandfather was never circumcised and he never expressed any discomfort with it.

Oh yes, not only your grandfather, but the vast majority of the men in history (possibly over 90%). In fact, just about all except for the Jews, Muslims, various tribal primitives and - America in the twentieth century plus a proportion of the British, Australians and New Zealanders up until the 1970s and 80s.

Of course your grandfather never expressed any discomfort with it. Why on earth would he? Circumcision is not/ almost never has been performed to solve a "problem" because the foreskin does not cause problems; it is performed as a ritual. It was introduced to America in the late 1800s largely by a religious "crank" by the name of Harvey Kellogg (and yes, there is the connection with cornflakes).

It sounds as if you are getting the message about soap versus "clean". Do get back to us in a few weeks with your progress report.

Okay,

I know that the usa docs love to take foreskins so they can sell them for skin cell graft starter tissue.

The question is, how much does the doctor get for removing an intricate part of the male anatomy, that has never caused any man a problem since the beginning of humanity (these days more like inhumanity) unless they are extremely unlucky..... and I emphasize extremely.

Secondly, I really hope the majority of usa doctors are not just interested in making money above all else. Does that not totally go against their philosophy. 'First, do no harm" etc..........

Everytime that I come back here, I am reminded of how helpful Jim and Paul are.

For those of you who read this, you really should just do what they say, end of story. Don't argue, just do it!!!!!!!!

It is estimated that the practice of infant circumcision in the USA generates money in Billions of dollars. I'm not sure if that's quite accurate, but I know it's well in to muliples of millions.

The doctor himself does not profit greatly from every cut, but dollars tend to add up quickly if one is good at selling the procedure. Let's say that the delivering OB goes after the job. If he has a healthy practice, he coul easily deliver at least a baby a day, five days a week. That would be 260 a year, about half boys. Let's say 90% of the young and gullible parents fall for his pitch, he would cut 117 little boys. At $300 a clip, he'd generate an additional $35,100 gross income for his practice, spending only about 29 1/4 hours doing it. At $1200 an hour, that's not a bad return, do you think? The guy is already making a very good income just in prenatal care for the mothers as well as his gynelogical work. If I had no ethics, I'd be very tempted to go for that extra income. I don't know about you, but to me, that's pretty good bonus income.

Now, if this is done in a hospital setting, it's really very welcome extra income for the hospital. They sell the little kit of tools at a very high markup, and they really have no measurable cost for a surgical suite. A small counter top or table is quite sufficient space to get the job done. Ordinarily, the baby doesn't need any additional care, so nursing cost is not increased. If they're in the business of selling the foreskins, that added revenue at no cost (it's called theft).

Now, let's consider the companies making the disposal circumcision trays. The factory has a profit. The distributor has a profit. The sales rep makes a commission. All do very well financially.

What about the companies which buy foreskins? It is estimated that one baby foreskin can generate enough artificial skin for several hundred burn victims. The end product is actually measured in football fields! They're 100 yards long--300 feet!!! Imagine that.

Did you know that Oprah has endorsed skin care products made with baby foreskins? When is the last time you ever heard of a good deal on such merchandise. The beauty and skin care business never suffers, no matter how bad the economy gets. They make money in bigger buckets than you can imagine. Several huge brand names are using such formulas to keep the rich and famous from aging.

All of the hoopla you hear coming out of Africa is simply hype very cleverly designed to keep the wheels of a very lucrative industry rolling. As you have noted, man has survived for many centuries quite nicely with foreskin affixed till death. All of this mania is driven by something very simply called sin. The sin of greed drives it mostly. That's the one of those involved in doing it. Secondarily, those scientist involved in attempts at perpetuating the practice are driven by a state of denial. They deny their own sins. If they were to face the fact that they fall short of God's glory, they'd have to repent. Because they are in love with their deviant life styles more than they love God, they do anything necessary to avoid the truth. The truth is that AIDs is a product of sin. If the men of African nations plagued by AIDs were to become responsible for their own actions, the disease would disappear in a couple of generations. They too are in denial. So we have two groups of people, desperately clinging to hope that mankind can outwit God and somehow get away with avoiding His plan. In reaction to that hope, they commit more sins, namely that of victimizing helpless little people.

http://www.acroposthion.com/acroposthion_019.htm

This reminds me of the MasterCard ad on TV. Circumcision: $300. Value added: $100,000. Living intact for life: Priceless!!

I am not particularly religious minded, but I have my own set of thoughts/values and triggers regarding these $£$£holes that seem to be able to get away with so much in ALL aspects of life.

Oprah winfrey, having so much control over -mostly- women's, I expect, minds is an excellent pushing tool for most products. I don't want much television at all, I am glad to say, so I am unaware of how much of a 'drug' pusher she is lol.

So, my point is that, whether or not oprah understands that the foreskin cells are literally taken from 'stolen' foreskins, the people making the money from them at the end are the skin graft companies.

I can see by looking on the internet that a lot of men are incensed by finding out that their foreskins were stolen at birth of later on under dubious circumstances. I also note that the anti-circumcision stance is certainly growing. However, I can see that, judging by the fact that men are still finding your site, there is still a big lack of education/misinformation going on to make sure that the gravy train is still being powered.

I really do hate to think that this is happening in 2009!

What I also hate is that the American presidents love to use the term "god bless america" on most speeches.
I hate it because, they never extend any blessings to other countries... So selfish.. (remember, I am not religious anyway, but I still don't like that.)

Anyway, back to the regularly scheduled channel......

o.O

Outrageous. You think $100k per foreskin. Read further........

Circumcision is a multi billion dollar industry in North America and one doctor alone in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia claims having performed 20,000 circumcisions over the past decade, charging around $250 per procedure, which has earned this doctor an unbelievable $5 million. It is estimated that between the surgery and the foreskin's resale value, each foreskin is worth approximately $100,000. The number crunchers estimate the developed world's market for human-skin constructs is somewhere between $1 billion and $2 billion for the treatment of burns alone; for the treatment of chronic wounds (diabetic ulcers, pressure sores, and venous ulcers),

the market is roughly $10 billion.

Advanced Tissue's flagship skin-construct, Dermagraft (described on their website as manufactured from human fibroblast cells derived from newborn foreskin tissue),

Sells for $3,000 per square foot,

Harvesting 250,000 square feet of Dermagraft from one foreskin alone.

The math translates theoretically into a $750,000,000 transaction

, which is astounding, outrageous and atrociously sickening.Is it not? Foreskin Mafia indeed! This is the sort of information that everyone especially all North Americans MUST know about to curtail and ultimately stop this outrageous scam for once and for all.

Dare I say .................. oh FFS!

Lubrication Manufacturers have been making lucrative profits from circumcised men for quite some time now because they require lubrication to masturbate with and for penetrative sex because they dont have a foreskin. Circumcised men generally have to masturbate with lubrication because they have to generate the gliding action which a foreskin would otherwise produce to get the sensations required to ejaculate. Lubrication manufacturers can expect decreasing sales of their products when North Americans wake up to the Circumcision Industrys agenda and the rate of circumcisions decline further.

Sounds as if Andy here is becoming quite an evangelist (pro-genital-integrity/ anti-circumcision) in his own right!

Good!

It's no secret that Jim and I would both like to see this gross evil stamped out of society for good; it indicates how little "Western" society actually cares about child abuse - "It's awful - unless I want to do it to my child!"

Unfortunately, the practice is ensconced in a major and a minor world religion; there is little I need say about the former but the latter has a representation amongst doctors in most "Western" countries which is vastly in excess of their proportion in the general population. It is then no surprise to us that the vast majority of "scientific" literature touting "research" into "benefits" of ritual (infant) circumcision comes from this religious group and I can sympathise with their unenviable position - if your religion requires mutilation, you really would want to reassure yourself that there must be something beneficial about it, and as in so many other areas, people do try to convince themselves that what they are doing to "justify" their foolish behaviour really is "the right thing" despite its self-evident folly.

Oprah is an excellent example.

I suspect that (as Jim says,) the amount of profiteering by doctors from resale of foreskin tissue is in general, minimal and I also suspect that the "amplification factor" of tissue extraction is a little over-hyped. Of course, any degree of fraudulent activity based on legitimised sexual abuse is all the more reprehensible in respect of all involved, and a slur on the "society" that permits it.

Yes Paul,

I am not becoming................I already was....pro nature.
Who does not want to be pro nature..............? o.O

I am surprised at what is allowed in a "civilised" lol country like England and other Western countries.
No one questions it........although I think England is much less pro-circumcision but i expect that you and Jim have far more knowledge on the statistics about that................

It seems that you really have to push to make your point in England. Patient rights and all that..............blah blah.........

The common "not in my back yard" attitude is strong in England......Anything goes as long as it's not happening to "them"

I am too apathetic myself lol, must be something in the water........

What has taken place in England is a slow takeover by Muslims. They're virtually the only ones in that country still circumcising their boys. When you hear of increases in various European countries, that's why. Watch out for what comes next, for it won't be pretty. My suggestion is that you abandon your thoughts of religion and examine what Christ can do for you. The conception that Christianity is an organized religion is totally false and designed by Satan to fool everyone and keep them in bondage to him. Only Christ can set you free. Through him, even Jews and Muslims are relieved of their rules of circumcision and all of the rest of the bondage they are in. It's all in the Bible if you wish to discover it for yourself. You'll find that Christ actually despised the religious people of his days on Earth, so if you find religion distasteful, you'll be in good company with Him.

What we see regarding the circumcision of baby boys in the USA is really a pseudo religion in itself. The circumcised penis is the focus of worship by those who practice cutting their boys. If these folks were to surrender their lives to Christ and follow Him completely, circumcision would stop overnight. The problem is that, although they claim His name, they do not know Him.

I guarantee you, that if you follow my advice by getting to know Him and what He did for you, you'll have the greatest experience of your life, and what you think now that you'd be missing will become folly to you. Only through experience can you truly understand what I say. The alternative is not something you'd ever wish to endure.

Is it real? Well, what is written has never been disproven by anyone since the beginning of time. Try as they may, the best of the best cannot disprove any claim, and more and more discoveries are proving scripture to be the most accurate account of history ever written. If you wish to know more, I'll be happy to take this up with you privately.