As I write this disclaimer, I wonder if I’ll ever click publish on this very personal article, one of the hardest I’ve written. It was the beginning of self-loathing, ultimately leading to isolation, esteem issues and depression later in life. The details I’ll be going into below are personal and sometimes graphic. Those who know me might want to skip this so here’s a nice story about the moon landing, go there instead 🙂
When I was 9 (1975), I had an incredibly painful episode of a condition called Balanitis which causes pain and inflammation (swelling and irritation) of the glans (head) of the penis. It’s caused by not drying properly or cleaning behind the foreskin; it’s something a mom/dad would teach a boy to do, but my dad being absent and my mom being so ill, I didn’t get that level of parental care. Peeing was fucking extremely painful causing me to hold it in and, you can imagine, how this was for a 9yo. This resulted in a trip to the doctor, who had the bedside manner of an ’80s action movie villain. He pulled my inflamed foreskin rapidly down over my glans quite forcefully! I leapt off the examination table crying in pain. This did, however, relieve some of the discomfort and we left his surgery with antibiotics and cream, which soon eased the symptoms. I was terrified of letting go to pee and began to cry fearing the pain, but it had been about 12 hours since I’d pee’d properly, but pee I did and it was heaven, even though there was some burning. The doctor said I need to be circumcised but due to one thing or another (moms illness, wait times etc) it didn’t happen for a few year, just after my 12th birthday.
The one thing about growing up with a single mom is that when you have male questions or stuff going on, which you don’t understand yourself at 12yo, there is no one who ‘gets it’ or at least that’s how it was back in 77. Typically, talking to your dad about this stuff wouldn’t have been usual back then, but he would have some understanding of what it’s like to be a boy. I did have a good relationship with my Dad, but only for a few weeks a year, so it was more a friend/comradeship than a father and son thing.
At the time the appointment for circumcision appeared, Mom was still recovering from years of illness and the after effects of 2 surgeries to remove the brain tumour, and being her carer from around the age of 6/7, I’d grown up fast and by the time I was 12, I had an old head and already pretty shut down emotionally. So she was now learning to parent a young man who was quite independent, didn’t think he needed a parent, and all this while she was still recovering and with other health conditions.
I can remember near the last day of term in 1977 before going in for the procedure, at the end of my first year at Holly Lodge High School sitting on the grass with some friends (I’d still be 11 as my BD is in July). There were 4 of us, a mate and 2 girls, and It was a lovely sunny day. I can remember feeling great talking to girls properly for the first time, one of which I really liked. We were laughing and talking about our first year here. She, the one I liked, was asking me about my mom and her recovery. I can remember thinking how beautiful, intelligent and kind she was (no idea why she was talking to me!), and how nice and relaxed I felt talking to her. She then asked me what I was doing for the summer, and I said, being a little brave, I was going into the hospital to get circumcised. I made bad, awkward jokes about it, I’m sure they weren’t funny, and she laughed. Surprisingly, she knew about it, she wasn’t embarrassed, so neither was I. It’s one of the few positive memories I have of school and certainly of talking to girls in my high school and teen years, a perfect end to the school year.
I don’t remember the trip or being nervous going into Dudley Road Hospital on the day of the procedure. I’d been told how it was such a simple operation, and that I shouldn’t be scared or worried, in fact, being circumcised was a good thing. I can remember going onto the ward, almost immediately being prepared for surgery, moved to the theatre prep room, and soon after getting an injection that knocked me out, 100, 99, 98, 97, 96……
No idea what time it was when I woke up but I was very aware of the pain immediately, call me stupid, but no one had warned me about the pain, so it was a shock; there was also an very unpleasant taste in my mouth, a taste like the smell of alcohol, i recognised it from the dentists after having gas for an extraction, but it was stronger. The nurse came over to check on me, she gave me a drink, and I told her I was in pain, and I think she got some pain meds for me. At some point, a doctor came and checked the dressing. I don’t remember much else, but I was in and out, not feeling great, silently crying in bed. On the evening Mom turned up to visit. I became very upset and begged her to take me back to the flat. I wanted to be in my room, but of course, I was going to be in overnight after the surgery. I can remember it upsetting my Mom a lot, she wasn’t used to seeing me cry and didn’t really know what to do. She stayed a while and then visiting time was over and she left, I felt very alone.
I opened my eyes, needing the toilet, it was dark and I was in a room with another boy, it was late, for some reason I think it was 2ish, maybe the nurse mentioned it, I don’t know. I called for the nurse, and one came in a short time, the other boy complained about me waking him, I didn’t care and yet I also didn’t want to make a fuss. I said I was in pain and I needed to pee so the nurse said, ‘let’s try and go to the toilet rather than use a pan’ as I should be able to use that myself before going home. So slowly I got out of bed and walked gingerly to the loo with her. It was then I said I couldn’t do it because of the dressing, she looked and got me to sit down while she went to get someone. She came back with man, either a nurse or a doctor. It seems the dressing had going inside the wound and they proceeded to remove it by pulling the gauze out a bit at a time, it was so sore, uncomfortable, and upsetting. I was watching them do it, the female nurse was very unsure about it, asked if we should get a doctor but he said it’ll be fine. I was watching, the blood pooling where my penis should be, I couldn’t recognise anything in the poor light and in that mess of blood and bandage. Eventually he wrapped it and said thats fine now, I should try and pee which I did, into the toilet. She took me back to bed and get me some more pain killers, showed me how to use the nurse station button, and I feel asleep.
The next day, I was discharged. I don’t remember seeing a doctor, maybe I did, but I remember Mom coming to pick me up with Uncle Charley, who had an Austin Maxi. As soon as I saw her, I hobbled towards her in my dressing gown and NHS smock and, crying, asked if we could go home, and soon after we did, I still undressed in my dressing gown and in pain but wanting to get home, away from this place.
Healing took about 6 weeks, pretty much the entire school holiday. It was a horrible process; the dissolving stitches would catch on anything and everything. As I couldn’t wear anything, I lived in an open dressing gown, pretty much unable to see anyone, feeling very self-conscious around my mother or any visitors. I never went back to school fully after that. Looking back, I think that was a result of trauma; I dreaded the school showers and felt so different, and of course, the bullying.
I realise now, this was a big moment in my life. For a 12-year-old boy, just noticing girls, starting to have sexual feelings, probably about to start masturbating, and then I’m circumcised, a traumatic, awful experience. I think it put my entire sexual development on hold, but of course, I wouldn’t know that, my life had mostly been about surviving and looking after Mom. And sex, what was that? Something I’d seen in foreign films on BBC2 or in the odd discarded magazine? At the time, parents didn’t often do the birds and bees chat, I certainly didn’t get it and sex ed at school was a low-quality animated film on a VHS tape. As I was discharged from hospitals with dissolvable stitches in my penis there was no requirement for a follow up examination and certainly no counselling or support after the operation, a typical example of the ‘keep calm and carry on’ British mental health treatment. I think I just shut off from that part of my mind, for a while at least.
Some of my close friends know about this, all of my partners of course, but I have never replayed it like I have here, 48 years later. It has been a helpful, painful memory to process and reflect on; It’s been emotional (TY Vinnie: Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels). But why post this now? Well, I know how this has made me feel isolated and alone so many times in my life, every time the possibility of intimacy became a reality, and it always felt as if no one has ever gone through this or had similar issues. Now I know, after spending time on the internet and studying many forums, trauma similar to this is not uncommon. So I’m hoping, sharing this may help someone, like reflecting, writing about and revisiting this has helped me. No, it’s not comfortable, fun or easy to do, but the exploration of the self I locked away when I was 12 is part of me and to understand it I have to accept it. I’m still working on that, but this is a start; it’s not hidden anymore.
