From Tight Phimosis to Full Retraction:

One Man's Stretching Experience



I grew up as the only intact boy in my area. I owe my good fortune to having unusually savvy parents. When a nurse came to take me to be circumcised, my parents said no because no male in my family had ever been circumcised or had any problems with his foreskin. Also, my grandfather was a druggist and had had to correct physicians' prescriptions so that the doctors didn't injure or kill their patients. At a time when most people treated doctors as if they were gods, my parents knew better.

My foreskin was long and tapered well into puberty. As a kid, I enjoyed looking into the tube and wondering where it went. I didn't see my urethral opening until I was about 12 and didn't see the corona of my glans until I was 16. Even into my 20's, the opening during erection was only about one-quarter inch across. I could stretch it but not enough to slip it back over the glans.

I let my foreskin develop naturally partly because I didn't know any other intact guys and therefore didn't know there was anything unusual about my penis. When I was a freshman in high school, I noticed one other intact boy in the locker room and was surprised that his foreskin wasn't long like mine. But I had no reason to think his penis was more typical than mine.

I was in no hurry to stretch my foreskin because I had enough skin to comfortably accommodate an erection and it was elastic enough that masturbation was pleasurable.

The first time I heard a circumcised college roommate masturbating in the upper bunk, I didn't know what he was doing because his masturbation was so violent that it didn't seem like the same peaceful, quiet activity as mine.

In my 20's, I was dating and enjoying sexual intimacy, including heavy petting, and wanted to begin sexual intercourse. I contemplated a moderate circumcision, just having the tight ring cut off, so that the remaining foreskin would slip all the way back. I didn't know at the time that this would have destroyed a great number of erogenous nerve endings. I also didn't know that doctors often ignore requests for a moderate circumcision and cut off the entire foreskin. In any case, before resorting to circumcision I wanted to try stretching. As a child, I had seen pictures of African Ubangis who had stretched their lips to six or more inches across. If they could stretch their lips, surely I could stretch my foreskin.

At first, I tried to retract it when my penis was flaccid but I became almost instantly erect. So I started stretching gently every evening with my penis erect. What I did was very simple. I didn't use lubricant. I encircled my penis between my thumb, which I placed at the corona, and my index and middle fingers, which I pressed against the underside of my penis in the area of the frenulum and urethra, and gently pulled my foreskin back. I pulled until there would have been discomfort if I had pulled any harder, then let it return to its relaxed forward position over the glans. I repeated this for about ten minutes, then masturbated to ejaculation. I let the semen remain in my foreskin until I showered the next morning. Perhaps hyaluronidase in the semen helped loosen my foreskin, because this enzyme is a potent skin relaxer. After about five months, I could retract my foreskin all the way with no discomfort.

That was over 30 years ago, and I have never had a single problem with my penis during all the years since. I've never had a problem with smegma build-up even though I couldn't wash completely under my foreskin for many years.

I have always been glad I stretched my foreskin because I've found that a fully retractable foreskin makes entering a vagina easier and more comfortable and sexual intercourse more enjoyable for both me and my wife. As I start to enter her, my outer foreskin, which has no natural lubrication, comes into contact with her outer unlubricated labia and is held there a moment by friction. As I continue to enter slowly, this friction causes my naturally lubricated glans to slip out of my foreskin and past my wife's naturally lubricated inner labia into her vagina. The smooth, lubricated inner foreskin follows the glans past the inner labia and into the vagina smoothly and pleasurably, without friction.

For many men, the foreskin undoubtedly slips back and forth over the glans during intercourse as they thrust in and out. But because my glans is unusually wide and my corona rather pronounced, once my foreskin retracts, it stays back until I slip it forward again. During intercourse, my foreskin remains behind the glans. Because of the abundance of supple skin on the shaft (both foreskin and shaft skin) and because we are both naturally lubricated, intercourse is very comfortable for us both.

Even if stretching had not worked, I now know that there are other simple ways to safely make a tight foreskin retractable without cutting, including, for example, topical application of the common steroid cream, beta methasone valerate 0.05%.

I hope other males with tight foreskins who want to be able to retract them find these comments helpful.

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