Metro Weekly

Circumcision at 25: “They had completely Frankensteined my dick”

Turns out that circumcision at any age can be pretty horrifying

“There’s a beauty and simplicity to a circumcised penis. Sleek. Functional. It now looks like what it was meant to be — a torpedo rather than an anteater.”

Lionel Willis, in an article for MEL, recounting his story of getting a circumcision at 25.

Willis suffered from phimosis, which affects about 1% of men over the age of 17. His foreskin was so tight, he was unable to retract it over the head of his penis, which led to difficulty urinating (“I had to, like, milk my dick like it was an udder just to get the piss out”) and in particular made sex somewhat nightmarish.

“My foreskin was so tight it would rip and bleed during sex,” he said. “Afterward, it would heal and scar. And scar tissue doesn’t have the same elasticity as normal tissue, so that would make it even tighter.”

The process of circumcision led to several fears for Willis, including that “they might make some terrible mistake and cut off” the tip. As it transpired, the reality was almost as horrifying.

“They had completely Frankensteined my dick,” Willis said. “In removing my foreskin, they removed the skin that connected the head of my penis to my shaft, leaving a gap of exposed penis flesh. So they had to stitch together the remaining skin on my shaft to my head to cover up the gap.”

Credit: 20th Century Fox
Credit: 20th Century Fox

As if that weren’t bad enough, the doctors misaligned where the skin on Willis’ shaft should meet the head. To paint a (rather horrifying) picture, “imagine putting a dress shirt on and the buttons are off by a hole, except it’s your penis.”

Thankfully, it was something of a happy ending (in more ways than one) when Willis was fully healed and able to have sex.

“There’s no ripping, even though I have decreased sensitivity,” he said. “But I didn’t even think about my new dick the first time I had sex afterward. I was just psyched to be having sex.

“It wasn’t like ‘Wow, having sex without foreskin is great.’ It was like ‘Cool. This works.’ Then I went back to focusing on the sex.”

[polldaddy poll=9442927]

Top GIF credit: Handimania / YouTube

Support Metro Weekly’s Journalism

These are challenging times for news organizations. And yet it’s crucial we stay active and provide vital resources and information to both our local readers and the world. So won’t you please take a moment and consider supporting Metro Weekly with a membership? For as little as $5 a month, you can help ensure Metro Weekly magazine and MetroWeekly.com remain free, viable resources as we provide the best, most diverse, culturally-resonant LGBTQ coverage in both the D.C. region and around the world. Memberships come with exclusive perks and discounts, your own personal digital delivery of each week’s magazine (and an archive), access to our Member's Lounge when it launches this fall, and exclusive members-only items like Metro Weekly Membership Mugs and Tote Bags! Check out all our membership levels here and please join us today!