I am a foreskin novice. I have never known a lover with an intact penis; my six sons, of course, are intact, but I do not examine their penises! (Nor clean them for that matter, they clean themselves.) So in researching this newsletter, I was looking at pictures of intact penises on activist websites... and my response to them startled me. I will share my experiences here, in the interest of at least one mother or father reading this thinks twice about circumcising their baby boy.

I used to think penises were rather bland and straightforward - nowhere near as interesting as the external female genitalia. But then I saw photos of intact, erect, adult male penises... and wow. Crazy arousal, sadness - mad thoughts ran through my mind, won't share them here, but my jaw was on the floor... I simply had no idea how luscious and sexy men could be. Intact penises look so hot... everything about them looks so wild and amazing. The foreskin adds such a level of sexy beauty to penises - a wild, sexy mystery. It is like a... veil that is drawn back, and slowly, dark, wet male beauty is revealed.

Wow. Apparently on some TV show women were talking about non-circumcised men (I think it was "Sex in the City" or something) and they said "eeewww!" Well I say "eeeewww" to their silly reaction!!! Luscious mystery; intact loveliness; beauty and wild ecstasy unveiled... wow. Intact penises are the sexiest things I have ever seen. Their beauty makes my head dizzy. They - say the women who have been intimate with them - feel like silk, and are beautiful to have inside them. Men say foreskins feel good for them too - like soft, long hair caressing their penises. But it's built in...

My husband is circumcised. Excuse me while I @%^$#%$&%&^*%&^%$$% out loud about that - what beauty have we both been deprived of? - what sweetness of ecstasy? Foreskins account for an enormous amount of the male sensory experience - and the female... sweet sliding skin that lubricates itself - wow. Wish I could have some, but I can't, never will, and it hurts. It really hurts. I am a one man woman, I love my husband. But my heart hurts. I wish so badly that he didn't get his penis cut apart as a baby boy - not just for my own selfish reasons of course, but also for his - can you imagine the pain of it - the foreskin, says one intact man, "isn't the wrapper on the candy, it's the candy". It feels good. So can you imagine the pain of having it sliced off???

My husband says it doesn't bother him that he is circumcised. Well I'd say the same thing if my clitoris were cut off as a girl, and I'd never know the ecstasy of it. I'd not let it matter. But it would!!! A comparison that many women will relate to: women who have episiotomies (their vaginas cut open by their doctors or midwives in birth) often have reduced sexual sensation afterwards - the cut permanently severs sex-receptive nerves. "At least I have a healthy baby" - they will rationalize their loss of ecstasy with that - but- what if it's not true? What if the cut was done so the baby would just pop out instead of ease out? (Episiotomies have been proven in mountains of research papers to be cruel and pointless.) How could she rationalize that? "I lost my orgasms so my doctor could get home in time for dinner" - can you imagine the rage that she would experience if she understood what was lost? (And does she dare touch the rage, and see what lies beyond it?)

Translate that into the male experience. If all those men who were ever circumcised understood that their penises could be have been particularly exquisite tools for pleasure (and that "health and hygiene" reasons for circumcising amount to nil) would they be so eager to circumcise their own little boys because it was "good enough for them"? Do they dare touch the sex that was so quickly and permanently lost? It's a pain beyond rage. Why are beautiful bodies medical platforms for invasion? Why do cut genitals equate "medical care"?

I am so sad that neither my husband nor I can ever know him in his most natural form: intact- perfect- beautiful. He is beautiful as he is now, but he bears the mark of the wounded baby... and a mutilated man. And for this I will always be sorry.

To see several of the photos that inspired this column, go to <http://www.foreskin.org>

To read about the cruel pointlessness of episiotomy, go to <http://www.gentlebirth.org/format/woolley.html>

Does one dare taste the rage that comes after violation? How can one get through it and come out the other side? Only by living it. Please read "Women's Pain: The Only Way Out is Through" at the end of the "Intact Penises are Beautiful" newsletter at BirthLove. <http://www.birthlove.com/bln/intact.html>

- Leilah McCracken
www.birthlove.com (registration required)