The cold, stainless steel urinal is a place where many men feel self-conscious. I know I certainly did when I was at school. But size wasn’t my issue. Appearance was.
Growing up as a 1980s Greek kid in an Australian school of children descended mainly from the British Isles, I felt my background acutely. I was ashamed of my long surname. I was embarrassed by my parents’ foreign tongue. I wanted to bleach my brown hair blonde and swap my brown eyes for blue. But above all, I wanted an inch of skin on my body gone. My foreskin.
It was a reminder of my difference in the most personal and intimate of places. A new feature-length documentary on Netflix , explores both sides of this controversial and taboo issue.
For me, it’s a topic which remains very personal.
"Eww, why does your willy look so weird…?!" was a refrain I often received.
I already had enough angles from which classmates could attack me. I didn’t need one more.
The majority of my male classmates had been circumcised. It was the practice at the time in Australian hospitals, but not in the Greek one where I was born.
At first, I tried to hide my shame. I went to one end of the urinal and turned away. When that didn’t work, I had to avoid the toilet during recesses and lunchtimes altogether, and time my visits to within class hours. This annoyed my teachers no end, and sometimes my bladder as well. But they didn’t understand.
The majority of my male classmates had been circumcised. It was the practice at the time in Australian hospitals, but not in the Greek one where I was born.
As a last resort, I retreated to the confines of the cubicle. It was the only way I could get any privacy. To avoid suspicion, I sat down on the toilet and pretended to do a number two, even ripping toilet paper at the end. A basic human function was taking up far too much time and energy.
Entering my blossoming teenage years, and despite my hopes, the hormone-charged teenage brain began to focus even more on the teenage groin. Embarrassment morphed into fear. What the hell would I do if I was ever with a girl? Would she avoid touching me there? Would she recoil in disgust? Would she tell the other girls? In my mind, the answer to all these questions was a resounding yes. Fortunately, a pair of thick glasses, bad frizzy hair, and a bumfluff moustache meant I was rarely in with a shot.
As a consequence, I stayed a virgin until my twenties. But by then, another fear had taken over – disease.
My foreskin wasn’t just embarrassing – it was congenitally tight. I was unable to retract it and stay hygienic inside. The medical term for this condition is phimosis. The word is from the Greek phimos meaning “muzzle”, which I found both highly appropriate and utterly charming. According to the Medical Journal of Australia, phimosis is common in young children but . I was in the remaining one per cent.
Doctors warned me of the increasing risk of penile cancer as I grew older. There were also risks of urinary retention, urinary tract infections, and sexual dysfunction.
The signs weren’t good. The older I got, the more my anxiety grew. Finally, at age 23, I could take no more. I decided to face my fears and confront the one word which had struck the fear of God in me for half my life: circumcision. Even the sound of it was like something being brutally incised.
I consulted a urologist; he was softly-spoken and kind-eyed. He explained there were risks with the procedure, but that there were with any medical procedure. "It’s a little more complicated at your age,” he explained, “but it’s still fairly straightforward.”
Reluctantly, I let him book me in. I told my friends that I was having a dental procedure and that they wouldn’t see me for a while.
Dressing into a paper thin surgical gown on the morning of the operation, I remember thinking, was I really going ahead with this? Was it the right thing? Was I mad? I had friends who had already fathered children. What if something went wrong and I never even got the chance to be with a woman?
I woke groggy from the anaesthetic. I had to brace myself to look down between my legs. They wouldn’t let me leave the hospital until I peed. Two weeks at home in baggy parachute pants followed, ambling around like an ageing cowboy. Sleeping was the worst. Unable to roll onto my side, I woke every hour with agonising muscle spasms, like an axe being plunged between my shoulder blades.
And then came the most painful moment of my life so far: the removal of my bandages. The young nurse at the local medical surgery was unlucky enough to perform the procedure. I screamed so loud that I swore I set off car alarms.
But then, there I was. All pink and smooth and circular, just like all the other kids. I wanted to find my old schoolmates and tell them – hey, I’m just like you.
Regular salt baths facilitated the rest of my healing. But was I functional? Losing my virginity not long after was a good sign. Eventually fathering kids of my own was an even better one.
Both my children are sons. I wanted to have them circumcised at birth. Fearing something genetic, I hoped for them to avoid my fate. But I had it explained to me that babies weren’t really circumcised in Australia any more. After circumcision peaked at in the 1950s, 85% of boys now started primary school with their foreskins intact. According to the American Circumcision documentary, circumcision still remains the most common surgery in the US, and America remains the only industrialised country in the world to routinely practice non-religious infant circumcision.
To my boys, I hope my condition isn’t hereditary.
If not, I apologise in advance. But at least now, you’ve nothing to hide, no shame to feel. You look just like the vast majority of your schoolmates. This is, at least, something more than your dear old dad had.
Peter Papathanasiou is a freelance writer. You can follow Peter on Twitter
