Opinion: Circumcision asks

Circumcision? Yes!

This is really more of a description than a question since I entered the ranks of the circumcised 4 weeks ago and thought it might help others who are considering circumcision.

Why?
I am a male 60 years of age and in excellent health. The reason the issue came up is that I acquired a fungal infection that did not go away with over the counter medications such Lamisil, Lotramine, etc. It did with a mystatin-triamcin prescription from my urologist but I seriously started thinking circumcision after doing lots of Internet research on the frequency of penis problems for circumcises vs uncircumcised males. The bottom line is that there are lots of good health reasons for being circumcised and those reasons become stronger the older you get. The drugs used to treat those problems are powerful and can have systemic effects including some on the immune system. Better to get rid of that little piece of skin.

Pleasure?
Health is a good thing but I like my sex and have been quite satisfied with uncircumcised sex both vaginal and masturbation. Uncircumcised masturbation has the advantage of rolling or sliding the foreskin over the head of the penis with or without lubricants which of course feels quite good. I thought "How am I going to do it after the circumcision?"

On the other hand, one of the things that always annoyed me about uncircumcised sex was the fact that the foreskin would slide back over the head of the penis when withdrawing thereby greatly reducing the desired sensations. I found this particularly true when using sex toys such as the Fleshlight. I decided that circumcised sex would be great after experimenting with lubricants and restraining the foreskin from withdrawing during intercourse and masturbation with and without toys. Now that I have fully recovered I can verify that I greatly prefer intercourse and masturbation as a circumcised male. The other big advantage is that the environment of the penis is cleaner because it is not moist all the time and does not provide a great growing environment for fungi and bacteria which in turn makes others more likely to enjoy sucking it.

Pain and suffering?
Circumcision is considered a minor operation and recovery is quick and not very painful. I had spinal anesthesia and was awake during the operation but do not remember anything. I am a software developer and took two days off from work to recover. I also took it a bit easier on the hard labor at home for about a week. The penis and surrounding area, when I removed the bandages the day after, looked like they had been kicked around in a football game but did not really hurt very much. I did not take any of the hydrocodone-apap prescribed for pain. The stitches were a pain in the ass because they poke at you whenever the penis gets pressed but are more of an annoyance that really painful.

The most annoying thing was that several nights, including the night after I had surgery, I had really hard erections that lasted a long time and yanked on the stitches. However, this only resulted in a small amount of separation and bleeding at one of the stitches and there are no signs of that on my recovered penis.

My urologist said no sex for 3 to 4 weeks but after the second week when all of the stitches had dissolved I was getting pretty horny and thought there must be away around that restriction. I zipped over to PurePleasure and bought some condoms and a few new masturbation sleeves with the thought that the most important thing was to not pull too hard on the recovering skin and not getting an infection by protecting it with a condom. That worked fine and only left me feeling slightly guilty about breaking the rules. As far as I can tell no harm was done :-)