My hubby Levi** was from a Jewish family but because his mother wasn't Jewish, he wasn't circumcised. He wasn't very religious when we married at 20 but when he was 29, he wanted to become more active in the Jewish community and he decided to get circumcised at the recommendation of his rabbi. As a Buddhist, circumcision has always been against my beliefs but I believe that everyone's body is their own. I didn't want to hold him back in his spirtuality though and I supported him. Levi's circumcision was hard on both of us. We couldn't have sex (and we were VERY active with each other) and things turned scary when the wound got infected. Levi had fevers and nausea for over a week and his antibiotics made his stomach hurt. I felt so bad for him and there was nothing I could do for him. Because he was out of work, it really messed our whole schedule up. We fought a lot during that time but we worked through it and he got better.
The first time we went to have sex and I saw his penis, happy was not the word I'd use to describe my reaction. His penis, which previously had been so beautiful to me (I had always found his foreskin to be extremely attractive), was scarred to the point that made me just want to throw up in my mouth. Nonethless, I tried to hide my disastifaction and we carried on because I expected sex would feel the same. It didn't. Boy, it didn't at all. For the first time since our honeymoon, sex hurt. I wasn't tense or not turned on enough though. I didn't orgasm and the rubbing hurt (which it never had before).
I hoped over time it would get better but it didn't. Whenever we had sex, it felt like his penis was rubbing up against blisters in my vagina. Our sex life really took a hit from this. Our marriage almost crumbled because our intimacy was almost non-existent. We went from having sex AT LEAST 6 times a week having sex maybe once or twice a month. Even oral sex, which I used to find extremely erotic to perform on him, was not as pleasurable for either of us because he has no foreskin to play with. Levi was also feeling the effects of the circumcision. He had a lot less sensitivity after a few months. So we went to sex therapists and doctors. His penis was a little curved to the left as well, which it wasn't before the circumcision. It was straight as an arrow. So we went to a plastic surgeon to see if the curve could be corrected. The plastic surgeon also (thankfully) brought up the idea of restoring foreskin. Levi ultimately decided to try non-surgical foreskin restoration.
The restoration took a few years but a few months into it, I started to feel a difference during sex. The chaffing feeling I had gotten used to feeling had diminished greatly. Not entirely but it definitely took probably 50% of the pain out of sex for me. It's now been three years since he started the restoration and he basically has a full "foreskin" back. It's rekindled a lot of our former sex habits but not all of them. It doesn't have the same oomph it had before his circumcision but I guess the fact that we're getting older plays a part as well.
I think anyone who believes that foreskin is useless is either misinformed or crazy. Why anyone would want to destroy such a beautiful part of their body is unknown to me. What I want to tell people with my husband's experience and my own is that circumcision doesn't just affect a man's sex life negatively but a woman's as well. I'm currently pregnant with our first son and while we plan to raise him Jewish, we do not plan to circumcise him.
Submitted by Lucille from Manitoba, Canada. If you wish to comment on this story or contact Lucille, please post in the comments section below.
** indicates that name has been changed.
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