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| B ACKGROUND LACK OF INFORMATION For over thirty sexually active years, I was unaware that the movement of my foreskin was restricted by a combination of a frenulum breve and a mild phimosis. The phimosis was impossible to check for when flaccid. The frenulum could have been checked in five seconds and operated in twenty minutes, had the correct information been available to the medical profession or my parents. Any man or child today with similar problems to mine may end up as oblivious to their condition as I was. The first point to understand is that the frenulum is underneath and behind the foreskin. When the penis is erect, if the frenulum is too short it pulls the foreskin forward, therefore to a man with this condition it is hidden. To visually identify this physiological spring mechanism, involves the carrier in what are to him unnatural contortions. The second point is that in public literature there is only occasionally any mention of the frenulum breve. I have never come across an accurate way of checking for it, even in medical texts, (one is given under Prevention). Unfortunately the explanations in publicly available books, relating to all three conditions, are often fully inadequate for parents or any individual who has them. (see Appendix b). Only occasionally is the medical definition given, that the foreskin cannot be retracted, or this can only be done with pain or difficulty. Very rarely mentioned, are pain or difficulty by intercourse or masturbation, and there is never an indication about what these difficulties may be. Urological One reason for the lack of information is shown by a surgeon who comments "The request for circumcision to allieviate painful erections and intercourse and frenular tears is not widely appreciated in the urological literature. Being unpublished, these complaints can easily be ignored . . . " 12. |  | Urologists and surgeons are only aware of the practicalities: a man experiences pain difficulty or tension, and this requires a very small routine operation. Psychological Years previously I had consulted psychologists with a collection of anatomical, sexual, psychological and social symptoms. I was advised that to understand such problems would involve a long process of sorting out childhood difficulties. I never thought about consulting a surgeon or urologist about these behavioural disturbances, because our cultural knowledge interprets such matters in terms of upbringing, environment and psychology. Psychologists seem to have no awareness of the possibility that these anatomical conditions can lead to sexual, and thus psychological and social problems. A connection between psychology and this aspect of circumcision has apparently never been established. OTHER MEN'S EXPERIENCES (My Sample Group) At first I thought my situation must be a complete rarity. It was astonishing to question around fifty men over their experiences, six of these had personal experience of one or other of the congenital conditions at or after puberty. Altogether my direct sample group consists of nine men, I heard indirectly (mostly through women) of another fifteen cases. All the experiences are described, not one experience disagrees with my descriptions. The experiences at puberty and the difficulties encountered by love making are fairly well documented. They are consciously anatomically painful for the sufferer and therefore easy to explain. The more advanced behavioural experiences are not only difficult to describe, but also, here I have spoken with so few other cases. I cannot prove anything concerning these men, and therefore, I would argue that the conscious experiences at puberty and during love making, are occurring frequently enough, to make it worthwhile checking every child, previous to such problems occurring. |
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