In the disappointed camp are men who parted with their dearly remembered foreskins at the urging of doctors. Stewart, now 40, was circumcised after a rugby accident at 19. The snip was botched, the skin on his penis hardened, and "less sensation in sex resulted," he said. "I really, really wish I hadn't consented to the procedure." Many men were circumcised because of phimosis, a condition in which the foreskin becomes tight and doesn't fully retract. While some found relief, others were dismayed when they later learned they could have tried another, less invasive treatment. One man remembered discovering masturbation accidentally as a child thanks to his "extremely sensitive" foreskin. A doctor convinced him to get circumcised in his 30s after treatment of a minor skin problem left his foreskin relatively inelastic. "I was afraid I'd miss that feeling," he wrote. He did. Charlie blamed his high-school sex-ed teacher for "making me feel even more of an outsider" by saying that uncircumcised penises were less clean and failing to address how uncircumcised men should put on a condom. Of his circumcision at age 20, he said, "The loss of sensitivity is my biggest loss to date." It doesn't help that when women he is dating learn he was snipped electively as an adult, "every single one of them sighs."
