I am an 18 year old male from New Jersey, USA, and I got circumcised three days ago. (As I sit here writing this the date is December 23rd 2000.) Before I tell you my whole story, I just would just like to say that I think my testimonial would be very helpful for people closer to my age, as all of the other testimonials on the website were from older people.

  I am uncircumcised because I was born outside the United States and moved here when I was 3 years old. Around the ages of 4-6 I remember playing "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" with the neighborhood kids that were both boys and girls. I noticed that the other boys had penises that looked "different." I just assmued that all American boys were born with different looking penises. The point is that by that age, I knew I was different but it didn't matter to me that much, until much later in life when I hit puberty.

  It was at the age of 12 when I first figured out the meaning of circumcision. It happened in History class one day when we were watching the movie "Roots" and were talking about the part when Kunta Kinte got circumcised. Then it all made sense to me, no longer did I think that my cock was different from all of my American friends just cuz American people are born with different penises. Anyway, as time went on, and I started to get interested in the opposite sex more and more, I learned some things that wasn't to my advantage. I always overheard girls talking about how disgusting uncircumcised guys were, and how they would never get with one. After hearing these thoughts, I was always hesistant to be really intimate with a girl to the point where we would have intercourse or oral copulation. I couldn't unless I really knew how the girl felt. And the girls who didn't care aren't many.

  Ever since the age of 14, I wanted to get circumcised, but didn't know how to go about it. I was to afraid to talk to my parents about it. I grew up in a family with traditional, conservative, and Old World parents. We didn't talk about these things. Nor did we talk about sex. So for the next four years, I had to be hesitant with girls.

  Around the age of 17, I really started to have irritation in my foreskin. It would cause a lot of pain and severe itching even though I put forth my best efforts to keep that area clean. I saw my primary care doctor and he prescribed some creams. They helped a little but for them to be effectivce I had to keep re-applying them throughout the day, and that wasn't feasable and I always couldn't carry a tube of the cream with me. Also, I tested negative for fungal infections. When I entered college, the problem still presisted and I saw a urologist. He said that the circumcision would make the itching of the foreskin go away since nothing else worked. I was glad to have the procedure done. The hardest thing however was talking to my father about it. I was really fearful of what he might say. I worked up the guts to tell both my mother and father that I was having some problems, and this was the only alternative. To my surprise they weren't opposed to it at all since I needed to have it done.

  On Dec. 20th of 2000, I checked into  the Same Day Surgery unit of a hospital near my college, and had the 45 minute procedure done under local anesthesia with sedation. When I awoke, I found that I was in little pain. Even after I was discharged from the hospital, the pain was very minimal, and it completely subsided a day after the surgery. There is however a lot of swelling, and that too is beginning to go away.  It is three days later and I'm glad that I got the surgery done. I was able to resume relatively normal activity a day after the surgery. In the future, I know that I will have better relationships with girls and I don't have to fear rejection just because I have an uncircumcised penis. To anyone that is around my age, (18) and are contemplating having this procecdure done, GO FOR IT!!!! Your biggest concern is probably the pain issue.  I can tell you that it is minimal, and only lasts ofr a day.

  R.J.

  If you have any questions, please feel free to E-mail me at rjnj2005@gmail.com