8/14/12
Wise Guys: Do Men Know Whether Their Male Friends Are Circumcised?

photo via Flickr

Advice from three of EMandLO.com’s guy friends. This week they answer the following: “Do guys ever discuss circumcision with each other? Do you tend to know whether your guy friends are circumcised or not? To ask the guys your own question, click here.

 

Gay Single Guy (Justin Huang): Gross. I don’t know whether any of my straight guy friends are cut or not (repeat, gross), but I’m sure they’d be a bit freaked out to know that I probably know their penis size and if they’re any good at using it if they’ve hooked up with any one of my girl friends. It’s not like I want to know — in fact it’s the exact opposite! My straight boys are like my less evolved younger brothers (whom I don’t share a bathroom with!). But margarita night with my girl friends does tend to stray into penis talk, and penis size is always something fun to giggle about over a mixed drink.

When it comes to my fellow gay friends, I’m sure there’s a common misconception that all we do is talk nonstop about dick, but if you drop in on us at Sunday brunch, we’re probably debating Lana del Ray or trash-talking Nicki Minaj, not whipping it out and comparing. So when it comes to the penises of the men in my life, I have no idea about whether or not they wear hoodies, nor do I particularly care. Unless, of course, I’ve seen it for myself and gotten a chance to get to know it 😉

anonymous_suitStraight Single Guy (Max): Totally. Remember, public showers used to be quite common. I’m guessing that some groups of friends are too homophobic to discuss it, but nakedness happens. Whether it’s skinny dipping, walking in on a buddy’s sexy situation or just straight talking about it, your true friends will come to learn the status of your foreskin. A bit of a tangent: Can you imagine the first man trying to convince all other men to cut their son’s foreskin off? I don’t care how you feel about the cleanliness and aesthetic aspects, you have to admit that it must have been an awkward conversation at first. Also, did the man who invented circumcision do it to himself? Or was it invented by women to get us back for millenia of mistreatment?

wiseguy_benStraight Married Guy (Ben)I never discussed circumcision with anyone until I had a son. Then, I pretty much only discussed it with my wife and other moms. I never thought about that til now, so I guess it’s something guys don’t really ever talk about. I’m also not sporty, so I generally don’t know anything about my guy friends’ dicks. Except for the few I know a LOT about. 😉

Our “wise guys” are a rotating group of contributors, some of whom wish to remain anonymous and some of whom like the attention. This week’s Straight Married Guy is Ben, a writer and artist living in Los Angeles who runs AdultParlorGames.com; our Gay Guy is Justin Huang, an LA-based freelance film editor, producer, certified personal trainer and the voice of IAmYellowPeril.com; and our Single Straight Guy, Max, is a recent college grad in New York City. To ask the guys your own question, click here.



7 Comments

  1. i’m a bi man and I know the circumcision status of most of my friends, and they know mine. It just comes up in conversation occasionally. I’ve chatted with a number of gay male friends about being cut (almost all the guys i know in their 30s and 20s are here in the NE USA) and our infrequent experiences with foreskin. I’ve also talked a number of times with girl friends, including a number of moms and moms to be, about circumcision at length. Most younger women have an opinion about the topic (and most are in favor of circumcision), while not many straight guys seem to care much one way or the other. Gay guys, while sometimes fetishizing the ‘exotic’ and ‘dirty’ foreskin, generally prefer their partners to be cut too. After spending the last three and a half decades seeing (skinny dipping, changing, showers, etc.) and hearing about circumcision status, I would say 95% of the straight guys and gay guys I’ve know growing up and living in the NE are circumcised, and all but one of the hundreds of guys I know of are very happy being circumcised. I know of a few formerly uncut guys (myself included!) who are now happily circumcised as adults.

  2. If you give me the age of a non-Muslim, non-Jew, and tell me where (country is a good start) and approximately how old he is, I can tell you with a high degree of probability whether or not he is circumcised. Guys don’t discuss this much, but I must have seen every male friend and schoolmate before the age of 22 nude and I probably still remember which ones were and were not circumcised. Visual inspection, however, is not definitive. I’m circumcised, and I’ve had many people, including a couple of medical doctors think that I’m uncircumcised.

  3. Pinkrose: I suspect it’s about the tortoise being able to retreat into its shell, like a penis into its foreskin.

  4. It has been several days, and I still can not figure out what a tortoise has to do with circumcision.

  5. This is a good question. Given the (substantiated) rumors that men tend to notice each other’s penis size in the shower or at urinals you’d think we’d notice circumcision as well. But again while we’ve got a lot of social conditioning to compare sizes I’m not aware of anybody who compares the state of their foreskins to others.

    So anyway I’m with Justin: it’s not so much that we do or don’t know if someone else is circumcised. Or that we don’t notice in locker rooms or on beaches where clothes aren’t needed. But I’m pretty sure we mostly notice the way we notice whether someone parts his hair or tucks in his shirt or if they’re right or left handed. In other words I don’t think it’s something most men pay more than passing attention to.

    figleaf

  6. The older men get, the less we discuss sex with each other. Whether it’s because we’re more mature, we’re pretending we’re more mature, or because we’re more experienced and there are fewer questions and surprises, there’s just less sex talk.

    So, I don’t know the penile stats of my newer, more-aged male friends. I do know the penile stats of my longer-term friends whom I’ve known since we were young. Approximate size, circumcision, pitch, yaw, std status, extent of pubic grooming… all that.

    1. I waited 21 years for my circumcision. Until that time always was embarrassed to be seen unclothed’ it seemed that everyone I knew was circumcised. I tried to pretend by keeping my foreskin retracted, but that really didn’t work. So I finally had the snip. I know that lots of guys don’t like to discuss the topic. Not me. My boys knew that they were circumcised before they were in middle school because I explained it to them. Want to talk about? I do

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