I am now a tugger. What this means is that I am using manual methods to tug and stretch the skin of my penis to induce mitosis in the skin and regrow skin, capillaries, and surface area to regain a semblance of an intact penis. I also bought a kit (pictured) from TLC Tugger for when I have more skin to work with.
I want the feeling of wholeness that I never had before. I don’t want to be reminded multiple times a day by the large, conspicuous scar around my penis and the keratinization of the glans and loss of glide and ensheathment that all mammals, male and female, are born with. Also in winter it will be nice to have cozy protection from the cold.
Non-therapeutic genital cutting is in the news thanks to a Michigan doctor who allegedly cut girls at her clinic. Some of the girls were Minnesotans.
I don’t believe the doctor, Jumala Nagarwala, is evil, demonic, or a child abuser, as so many commenters have said. She was just doing what is normal in her community. She was not trying to destroy the sexuality of the girls she cut. She does not deserve life in prison, although that is a possibility for her under the federal law that protects girls (and only girls) from non-therapeutic genital cutting.
She herself was almost certainly cut and is probably not aware of any ill effects. She may consider it part of her journey to womanhood. She may have been proud of it before the wrath and moral righteousness of an entire nation came down on her head in recent weeks.
Some of her defenders have pointed out that making one longitudinal cut in the girls’ prepuce might expose the clitoris and actually make sexual stimulation easier. But this is the absurdity of arguing about the risks and harms of forced genital cutting. In bioethics is it axiomatic that you cannot override someone’s rights by applying a risk-benefit analysis. Just stop cutting babies, people. Let them decide. (Spoiler: they will choose to remain intact.)
The mohel in new york city who recently transmitted herpes to yet another infant during oral suction circumcision (metzitzah b’peh) was doing the same thing. He is not evil, but his community’s insistence on penis cutting and sucking is causing serious harm. And no one is willing to stop it because of deep moral confusion regarding circumcision and the unquestioning deference to religious nonsense of all kinds that we observe in the USA.
My parents, too, were not aiming to destroy nerves, muscles, and glands when they opted to have me cut. They had no idea of any of that. I doubt the surgery was even presented to them as a choice. Rather, they did what was normal in US culture in the mid-1980s.
The doctor who cut me also was not evil. She was following the customs of an extremely conservative profession. I doubt “number needed to treat” was even a common metric to judge procedures by back then. Doctors who performed routine episiotomies and routine tonsillectomies and other discredited surgeries are also not evil.
Even parents who opt to cut their baby boys now are not evil. They just haven’t been reached. Those who do the research appropriate to a permanent, irreversible surgery quickly become appalled and choose not to cut their boys.
And I really have very little to complain about. I did not have to go in for corrective surgeries after I was cut, as many boys do. I did not suffer such horrors as a penile amputation, which I know occurs quite often thanks to my Google News Alert.
I would not be tugging without the supportive and information-rich online communities on Reddit (Foreskin Restoration), Intact America, and the gear at https://tlctugger.com. All these people are doing something practical and proactive in addition to their online activism. They and I are not going to sit and wait for Foregen to bring about true regrown prepuce tissue (although I think that will be wonderful for boys who are currently being cut).
I am optimistic about my own efforts at restoration. I am forgiving of the people involved in my own cutting. And I am encouraged by the steadily declining rates of non-therapeutic genital cutting of all kinds.
Stay tuned for regular, high-resolution images of my progress!
pseudoisaac 