In this week’s Chronicle column, I discuss the essay in Best Sex Writing 2008 “How Insensitive” by Paul Festa (read aloud recently at a local reading), and go into the subject of circumcision. It’s a very tricky subject to cover because people are so divided about it, (no pun!) and the comments are already a little emotional. I’ve also already been criticized for not mentioning foreskin restoration, or going in-depth with the health issues — two things I purposely avoided in order to keep the conversation in my piece focused on sexual pleasure. Because to me, that’s the big question among adult males — “Could orgasm be better/more intense/different if I was (or was not) circumcised?” Here’s a snip:
When my longtime friend and writing colleague (and local filmmaker) Paul Festa took the stage for the “Best Sex Writing 2008” (Cleis Press) reading featuring West Coast authors, I was prepared to giggle at whatever he was reading. After all, this was the guy who made an incident-gone-wrong hook-up with an unnamed gay Hollywood actor at the Castro Theatre into a comi-tragedy in his “Best Sex Writing 2005” debut.
From his essay “How Insensitive,” Festa began:
“Late in the summer of 2005, I visited a nondescript medical office in San Francisco’s fog belt, lay down on an examination table, and had eleven regions of my penis poked by various gauges of monofilament. It wasn’t quite what I’d envisioned when I signed up for the Penile Sensitivity Touch-Test Evaluation Study — “Touch Test” had conjured something a little sexier than a retired MD coming at me with medical-grade fishing line. But by the age of 35, the human penis is nothing if not well schooled in disappointment, and so, for the good of science, I went through with the exam.
“The science in this case concerned one of the most controversial and common medical procedures practiced in the West: circumcision of the penis. The study, published in the April 2007 BJU International (the former British Journal of Urology) under the title “Fine Touch Pressure Thresholds in the Adult Penis,” is the latest research salvo on the war for the neonatal foreskin.”
Some people did laugh at the first bit, and it was impossible not to chuckle at the mention of “BJU International” (a profitable porn blog waiting to happen if the URL isn’t already, ahem, choked with offerings). And I’ll admit that my mind ran immediately in the other gender direction of Festa’s unrequited hot sensitivity touch fantasy, imagining myself with a hot UCSF boy in scrubs and gloves, feigning ignorance at which area of the clitoris is most responsive to sensation. But circumcision, and the decisions around it, has become a depressing and disturbing world war of dick politics, debate and sometimes conflicting data.
For instance, the Wikipedia article on male circumcision (NSFW) is locked and editing is disabled due to vandalism. (…read more!)
I was a victim of RIC but started restoring at age 53. Now, two years later, I have recognized a night and day difference in orgasmic pleasure. I now know a “whole body” orgasm. It most likely will take another two years of restoring to achieve my goal of what would equal what I lost. Well worth the effort.
Well it’s not exactly a scientific study, but I can offer an anecdote. I was circumcised three years ago at the age of 22 and I’ve found that pleasure during sex is roughly the same before as after. However, orgasms have been MUCH more intense post-snippage.
I’m still uncomfortable with the idea of newborn circumcision, but for me, getting circumcised was definitely a good thing.
We didn’t circumcise my son. If he wants the operation later, he can get it when he can make the choice for himself.