Penis anatomy and circumcision
You know what a penis looks like, or at least you know what yours looks like. However, unless you're gay or bi, or maybe if you had some teenage wanking experience with other boys - a very common thing among straight men - you may not know what other men's penises look like. Even if you've seen a lot of porn, you might still be wondering how normal yours is. But as any gay man with experience can tell you, there is a wide variety of shapes and sizes, just as there is with any other body part. So any diagrams can only show you a generalized picture. A better plan, if you're wondering how you compare, is to get on the Web and look at lots of pictures of other guys' equipment. Then you can see the variability for yourself. For example, have a look at this site (which also has a testicle/scrotum gallery): Images of Size. But do remember that the penis seems to be one of the most variable elements of the human body in terms of shape and size. If yours is giving you pleasure, and working well, you don't really have much to worry about. Here's a diagrammatic representation of the uncircumcised penis, taken from one of the sites listed in the links:
Basic anatomy - the picture
This picture is from Intactivism. Used by permission.
Basic anatomy - the words
Your dick isn't just a roll of flesh with a tube down the middle, although that is an important part of its structure, since it allows you to pee. This tube, or urethra, usually opens as a hole or a slit on the tip of the glans - both types of opening are equally common - although some men have a condition called hypospadias, where the urethra opens somewhere on the underneath of the penile shaft. Often there are two little lips on the glans surrounding the end of the urethra - these can be seen on the photos posted in the links below. These are full of with nerve endings that protect the sensitive urethra by alerting its owner to any intrusion into the body - although during sex play this sensitivity can be very exciting. The glans is the most sensitive part of the penis, as you'd expect, since it leads the way in sex. The coronal ridge and frenulum, which is a band of skin between shaft and glans, often missing in circumcised men, seem to be crucial in stimulating ejaculation at the right point in the vagina - see the page on male sexuality and orgasm for more information. [Hugh Young, of Intactivism, points out that the foreskin may actually be more pleasure-sensitive than the glans, which can produce sensations of pain in an intact male. Certainly, I think it is a common occurrence that after orgasm, many men find their glans is too sensitive to be touched. And many circumcised men say that the frenulum is the most sensitive part of their penis.]
All the way up the shaft, the urethra is surrounded by spongy tissue called the corpus spongiosum. This fills with blood from a network of small arteries during sexual arousal, and it is this increase in blood supply, together with a muscular constriction of the veins which drain blood from the penis, that causes and maintains an erection. In the light of this, it may not surprise you to learn that two common causes of impotence or erectile dysfunction - i.e. you can't get or stay hard - are, firstly, occlusion of the penile arteries by fatty deposits and, secondly, venous leakage. There are two other channels of spongy tissue, which you can see in the cross-section above, and they too fill with blood during an erection. It is an unfortunate fact that that as men age, the blood supply to the penis can decrease because of the increased amounts of fat which are deposited in the penile arteries - and it doesn't take much to block them, for they are only the diameter of the tines of a fork. The consequences are that the muscle fibers inside the penis, whose job is to regulate blood flowing through the blood vessels, begin to turn to connective tissue. The greater the amount of connective tissue, the greater the difficulty getting an erection - eventually it will be impossible to get hard at all.
Even in a penis with clear arteries, it seems that normal blood flow may not be enough to keep the tissues healthy, and it has been suggested that the need to ensure good oxygenation of the penis through increased blood flow may be one reason why men get spontaneous erections during sleep; in any event, it seems that to keep getting erections, you need to keep the erectile mechanism in regular usage. Make of that what you will!
The penis goes deep back inside the body, with its root reaching back underneath the prostate gland towards the anus. This is the sensitive tissue that some men find great pleasure in having stimulated through either their scrotum or their perineum (the area between scrotum and anus). It is this "hidden" part of the penis that allows some men, who show no penile shaft when their cock is soft, and just have the glans sticking out of their body, to achieve a sizeable erection. You might want to read the size page for an anecdote on one guy with this sort of physique.
The penis develops as a tube of flesh which seals gradually along its length during development in the uterus. Normally, the only remaining sign of this process after birth is a thin ridge of skin along the underside of the penis known as the raphe.
Strangely, the skin of the penis is infiltrated with muscle fibers that extend from the muscle of the scrotum. The strength or activity of this muscle in any individual male determines in large part whether he has a scrotum which hangs loosely or is held tighter against the body: the more active the muscle, the tighter and more crinkly the scrotum appears, although it is of course also stimulated into contraction by fear (as in the expression "that was a real scrotum tightener!") or cold. The muscle fibers are also largely responsible for the contraction of the penis in length and for the variation in size of the preputial sphincter - which is just a fancy name for the opening of the foreskin at the end of the penis. This opening is not always seen in its classic textbook form, located just beyond the end of the glans, because, like every other aspect of the penis, the length of the foreskin is highly variable, so that in some men there is only partial coverage of the glans, even when the penis is flaccid.
The frenulum is one of the most sensitive parts of the penis head, but it is often removed during circumcision. This is a picture of what it looks like, on an uncircumcised man with his foreskin retracted. The picture is taken from Chymmylt's Restoration site, which tells you all about the process of foreskin restoration, and is well worth a look if you're a circumcised man who wants to know if it's possible to restore things to the way they once were.
The outer surface of the foreskin is skin; the inner surface is actually sensitive mucosal membrane which contains sebaceous glands that lubricate and protect the glans from friction: many circumcised men complain that their glans tissue is too sensitive as it rubs against clothing. Generally, the foreskin is much larger than you might think: up to fifteen square inches in an adult man. Considering how much more innervated it is than the glans, one might guess that circumcision removes a great deal of sensitivity. The foreskin is tethered by the frenulum, which stops it retracting too far and draws it forward again.
Finally, the ridged bands shown in the diagram above are located on the inner surface of the foreskin near the tip; they merge with the frenulum, and have the highest number of nerve endings of any part of the foreskin. These nerve endings are of the type sensitive to changes in pressure and tension.
For a bigger view of any of the pictures below, click on the item you want to see
Left to right: Uncircumcised, erect, foreskin retracted / Circumcised, erect / Uncircumcised, erect, retracted
Left to right: Circumcised, soft / Circumcised, erect
Uncircumcised, soft / Uncircumcised, erect
Circumcised, soft / the same one erect
Uncircumcised, soft, retracted / Uncircumcised, unretracted / Uncircumcised, partially retracted
Circumcision
The issue of circumcision is a contentious one. Like any habit that has become ingrained in our culture, there is often little or no consideration of why it is being done and what the effect might be on the recipient. I think that this simple point is often overlooked - the parents are making a decision about the baby's body which is more-or-less irreversible, and they are cutting off a part of his genitals. Would they cut off a part of his ear, or finger, with similar impunity? The answer is of course "No", which raises the question of why it is acceptable to mutilate the genitals of a baby. Custom? Not good enough. Operating on a baby just because it is a social custom is hardly a justifiable act in an enlightened society. Religion? Even when there is a religious motivation, I feel we may be overlooking the effects on the baby boy. But the issue here is not a religious one, and I am not going to change the views of anyone driven by religious dictates. Hygiene? Not, I think, an argument that stands up, either on logical grounds or on scientific ones. Nature would not have evolved the foreskin if it was simply a redundant piece of tissue that harbors infection. It's there for a purpose, and the most likely purpose is male sexual pleasure. On scientific grounds, of course, hygiene was always the justification, but research done recently shows that there simply isn't any benefit on hygiene grounds. And of course, this attitude stems from the Victorians, who meant something different by hygiene, anyway: they meant "moral" hygiene, as in "no masturbation" and a minimum of sexual pleasure. Because everyone does it? Well, they don't, not any more. Even in America, where, by the way, the American Pediatric Association has recently changed its stance - it doesn't recommend circumcision anymore - only sixty percent of boys are now routinely circumcised.
But it seems to me that the really crucial issue is the most overlooked of all: the effect that parentally inspired circumcision has on the baby to whom it is done, the boy as he grows up, and the man as an adult. There are some very strong views expressed on the web, both for and against the practice. The strongest are undoubtedly from those men who resent intensely the fact that they were cut at birth, and it is their views which have been propagated most cogently on the Web. They seem to me - and I must say I sympathize with them - to be full of rage about this "mutilation" inflicted on them in childhood - and they have presented lots of information about why circumcision should be stopped as a routine practice. Another remarkable phenomenon is the development of foreskin restoration techniques, where men of various ages have developed various techniques to stretch the penile skin and produce a new foreskin.
But I think the worst thing of all for me is that the routine circumcision of babies has been done without anesthetic. This is barbaric. Imagine the pain you feel if your foreskin gets trapped in a zip, or something similar. Now imagine having it cut off without anesthetic. And then imagine it being done to a baby. As to the argument that a baby doesn't feel anything, or at least doesn't remember it, well, that just leaves me speechless. Furthermore, circumcision is rarely performed with an anesthetic, even now; but, even if it were, that would not in itself be a reason to see the practice itself as acceptable.
The foreskin of a baby boy won't retract because of the natural attachment between the glans and the foreskin. As he grows, the attachment becomes weaker, and eventually by about five, the skin is fully retractable. Sometimes, however, the attachment does not separate as it should, and it may remain intact until puberty. Information on this is included in one of the links below. The care and hygiene of a baby boy is quite simple - it simply involves washing the penis without retracting the foreskin. Later in life, for both boys and men, the procedure is just as simple: it involves washing away the build up of dead skin and sebum that produce smegma, a natural substance that can accumulate around the glans of the penis in uncircumcised men. Smegma does have a function, and you can find out what it is below in the CIRP pages. Circumcised men will never have smegma, for the rubbing effect of clothing on the head of the penis will change the natural condition and properties of the skin, and can make the penis head dry, rough and uncomfortable. Certainly this seems to be the biggest complaint of many circumcised men, myself included. Boxer shorts are out because of the irritation of dry glans on the cotton. In characteristically ingenious style, someone has even come up with an undergarment to soothe this irritation.
Finally, it is essential that if a boy is born with hypospadias, that he is not circumcised, as the foreskin tissue is often needed for repair of the abnormal penis. There is a link on this below, and you can read more about hypospadias on this web-site.
Circumcision and the foreskin - a personal contribution
Thanks to one of my readers, who contributed the piece below. His views, as they always say, are personal, and do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial staff (that's me).
I have been restoring my foreskin off and on for the past couple years, and I can tell you from personal experience... it works! And it is quite safe as long as one uses a modicum of common sense. (See links in the table below - Ed.) Here is what I have found on the Internet so far about the foreskin's functions.
Anatomically, the foreskin is far from being a redundant or useless piece of skin as many believe. Instead, it is an integral and multifunctional component of the male reproductive and sexual response system. The inner foreskin contains the primary collection of highly specialized sexual response nerves available to the male, with the majority being concentrated in a concentric band of tightly pleated and slightly ridged tissue called Taylor's ridged bands just within the tip of the prepuce. This band encircles the penis and connects to the frenulum on the underside of the glans, which has been referred to as the male G-spot. Since Taylor's bands and the frenulum are neurologically "wired" together it stands to reason that they work in concert to provide the intact male with an extensive sensory network. The mucosal tissue at the tip of the penis - i.e. the glans and inner foreskin - is extremely thin, typically having only one to two cell thickness' separating the underlying tissues, including the sexually sensitive nerve endings, from the outside world. The remainder of the penile skin covering, though thicker than mucosal tissue, is also quite thin when compared to other body skin. This thinness allows the nerve endings to be close to the surface making the entire penile shaft sensitive to a wide array of sensations. However the various types of nerves are not uniformly distributed through out the covering. The highest concentration of sexually sensitive nerves are contained within Taylor's band at the tip of the foreskin. The inner foreskin provides the immunological protection for the mucosal tissues at the tip of the penis. The glans has little, if any, immunological functions of its own and derives its protection from intimate contact with the inner foreskin. The outer foreskin provides physical coverage and protection for both the delicate inner foreskin and the glans, while the inner mucosal surface of the foreskin provides emollients, lubricants, and protective antibodies to keep itself and the glans moist, supple, sensitive and healthy.
The length of the penile shaft skin, including the inner foreskin, is not redundant but is specifically 'designed' to be longer than the penile shaft it covers. This allows the penile shaft to effortlessly glide within its own sheath during intercourse, preventing friction and abrasion for both the male and his sexual partner. This 'mechanical' function is frequently called the "gliding mechanism". When the skin sheath is in its forward position - like a shirt sleeve buttoned at the wrist and the loose sleeve material pulled forward over a fist, with the fist representing the glans - the sensitive mucosal tissues of the glans and inner foreskin are hidden and protected by a double layer of tissue... the skin sheath folded over on itself... much the same as the sensitive female tissues are protected by the labia closing over them. As the skin sheath is moved back toward the body it simultaneously exposes the glans and unfurls the sensitive inner foreskin along the length of the penile shaft so it may be exposed for stimulation... similar to how the female's sexual tissues are exposed by the labia opening during sexual excitation, or by manually separating them.
Since the penile skin covering is mobile and not attached to underlying structures, rather like the eyelid "floats" over the eye, it has some unique characteristics dictated by its functions. Because the penile skin is basically a "tube" of skin "floating" over the internal shaft (similar to the shirt sleeve analogy), all of its internal systems such as nerves, blood supply, lymph, etc. must enter and exit via the ends of the tube rather than from underneath as occurs in the rest of the body. Severing any portion of the skin tube disrupts these delicate internal systems. The ability of the free floating penile skin to remain relatively motionless at the vaginal entrance as the shaft moves to and fro within its own protective sheath during heterosexual intercourse, tends to maintain the natural sexual lubricants within the vagina rather than withdrawing them with each stroke. This eliminates friction, dryness, and the need for any artificial lubricants... especially important as the female becomes menopausal and her youthful quantities of natural lubricants tend to decrease.
Some people say the foreskin is redundant or extra skin, implying that it is of little or no use, and without any value or benefit to the male. Nothing could be further from the truth. Actually, the prepuce (foreskin) is a highly evolved portion of the male genital anatomy and is a unique specialized structure with important immunological, protective, mechanical, erogenous, and sexual functions. The prepuce is essential to normal copulation and allows the male to experience the full range of sexual sensations. As with females, all of the male's genital tissue structures have purpose and functionality. They are designed by nature to operate in unison as an integral system. Though several of the genital structures can be removed from either a male or female and still allow that person to function sexually and produce offspring, many of the sensory and protective functions are lost. Removal of any part of the genitals, particularly the male's prepuce or the female's clitoris, severely limits that person's ability to experience a full range of sexual sensations since the majority of sexually sensitive nerves are concentrated here.
If surgical alteration is done to the genitals in infancy or early childhood, the adult that child grows up to be will never know what sensations they are missing. They believe that what they feel and experience is the way it is supposed to be. They have nothing to compare with since the majority of highly-specialized, sexually-sensitive nerves and tissues were cut away. All they can experience with is the limited number of these nerves and tissue structures they are left with after surgical alteration. A complete set of intact genitals is the birthright of all children, both boys and girls. To surgically alter the genitals of either sex is to alter that person's sexual identity permanently and deprive them of a full sexual experience when they mature into adults.
33 Photographs of
The Intact Adult Male Foreskin By John A. Erickson 1 2-4 5-8 9-11 12, 13 14-16
17-21
22, 23 24 25 26-28 The Three Zones of Penile Skin 29-33
These 33 photographs were originally exhibited at the Third International Symposium on Circumcision at the University of Maryland, May 22-25, 1994. Some have been reproduced in Awakenings: A Preliminary Poll of Circumcised Men (NOHARMM, 1994), in Sexual Mutilations: A Human Tragedy (Plenum, 1997), on Dr. Dean Edell's website, and elsewhere. Attorney David Llewellyn (Atlanta Circumcision Information Center) told me that the five photographs that comprise the subset, The Three Zones of Penile Skin, helped the jury arrive at its verdict in the successful wrongful circumcision lawsuit in Birmingham, Alabama, 1995, in which he was attorney for the plaintiff.
Permission to copy, print, reproduce, transfer, and distribute, in whole or in part, without profit, hereby granted.
These 33 photographs, shown here in black and white, were originally exhibited at the Third International Symposium on Circumcision at the University of Maryland, May 22-25, 1994. Some have been reproduced in Awakenings: A Preliminary Poll of Circumcised Men (NOHARMM, 1994) and Sexual Mutilations: A Human Tragedy (Plenum, 1997), on Dr. Dean Edell's website, and elsewhere. Attorney David Llewellyn (Atlanta Circumcision Information Center) told me that the five photographs that comprise the subset, The Three Zones of Penile Skin, helped the jury arrive at its verdict in the successful wrongful circumcision lawsuit in Birmingham, Alabama, 1995, in which he was attorney for the plaintiff.
The Three Zones of Penile Skin By John A. Erickson
1 2 3 4 5
These five photographs show the three zones of skin on a normal, intact (non-circumcised) adult penis:
A. the skin covering the shaft (the area above the upper [blue] line in each photograph);
B. the foreskin's outside fold (the area between the two lines in each photograph);
C. the foreskin's inside fold (the area below the lower [green] line in each photograph), visible only when the foreskin is retracted.
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