Until I graduated from high school, I had no idea I was supposed to be able to retract my foreskin. Then I saw a .gif of an actual foreskin being retracted. I looked at my penis and wondered what the hell was wrong with it.
All the penises I'd seen in porn were circumcised - or so I'd assumed. I figured the difference between those and mine were simply that I had a foreskin permanently covering my glans and they didn't.
My penile skin tapered to a pinkish "nipple" (called the acroposthion, I later learned) which got shorter and flatter when I had an erection. But it never opened wide enough to let me see much more than the urethral opening itself. Of course, there was a hole to let urine and semen out, so I never tried to explore. I had always masturbated by sliding the skin up and down so the glans got a good rolling massage.
Then I saw that .gif, featured on a foreskin restoration board. As the girl held the guy's penile skin between her thumb and forefinger and tugged it toward his body, his acroposthion shortened and thinned, eventually rolling open to uncover his whole glans. He looked like a circumcised guy then, except his glans was shiny and pinkish instead of rough and tan.
When I saw that, I wanted to know what my own glans looked like. But I couldn't even begin to get it out through the narrow opening. I looked up the symptoms and found "pinhole phimosis." Funny my family doctor had never noticed it. He referred me to a urologist when I told him what I'd discovered. I got an appointment for the next week.
Only when I got to the office did I realize the urologist was a female. That threw me a bit, but I figured an M.D. is an M.D. and there's no need to be embarrassed. I filled out the paperwork and waited my turn. Then a door opened and a woman called my name.
I got up to find a girl in scrubs standing behind the door, holding a tablet. She looked much too young to be the doctor. She gave me a big smile and motioned for me to follow her to the exam room. When we got there, she put the tablet down on a countertop and introduced herself.
"I'm Liz. Dr. McGinnis had to leave the office just now. Her son was hurt on the school playground."
"Is he OK?"
"Yeah, they think it's a sprained elbow. He's all in one piece, just hurting."
"Glad it's nothing worse."
"Yeah, me too," she picked up the tablet again, "So, let me explain why you're still here. I'm Dr. McGinnis' PA - physician's assistant. I started last week. I work under her supervision, and I'm trained in a many procedures. I was going to examine your foreskin first anyway, then if I thought you needed to be circumcised, I'd have Dr. McGinnis come in to look it over and see if she agreed. Then I could circumcise you myself, or Dr. McGinnis could. Since she's out, if it's all right with you, I'll go ahead and inspect your penis now, and if necessary, schedule her follow-up?"
The bluntness of her words left me stunned. She didn't speak in the euphemisms that most people use talking about genitals - "examine you" instead of "examine your foreskin" - and that, along with her eye contact and general attractiveness, triggered that "click" at the base of my penis that I always get just as an erection begins. I felt slightly cornered, and ... more than a little excited inside. She seemed to know me as well as I did. And she certainly knew plenty about my penis.
"Um, that will be fine, I guess," I said, and she smiled as if I'd just handed her a bag of money.
"Good. Go ahead and strip down completely, then put this on," she held up a folded paper gown. "I'll be back in five minutes to look at your foreskin up close."
Liz smiled again, turned abruptly, and left the room. I eased out of my clothes and draped the paper gown around myself. I wasn't sure which was the front or back, so I put the opening in front, knowing she would be looking mostly at that side of me.
One thing I was sure of, is that her words and manner told me this girl might be a little bit penis-obsessed. Maybe that's not uncommon among females who choose to work in a male urology clinic. At least I could be sure she wouldn't skip anything important out of embarrassment - mine or hers.
I had barely gotten situated on the table when Liz re-entered, this time with a small tray covered with a blue paper. She was still smiling as she set it next to the exam table and leaned back against the countertop.
"So, you think you have pinhole phimosis," she said, paging through her tablet. I nodded. "But it says here you don't want a circumcision."
"No, I don't."
"But are you prepared to be circumcised in case stretching doesn't work, and your foreskin won't open? I could circumcise you then. I'm fully trained to circumcise full-grown penises, like yours," she glanced down briefly. "I cut foreskins off with surgical scissors, since nobody makes clamps large enough for an adult male."
She raised an eyebrow: "Think you'd want me to circumcise you?"
"No, I think that would not benefit me."
She nodded slightly.
"Okay. So for now, I'll be examining your foreskin for diagnostic purposes. Go ahead and open your gown for me while I ready up my instruments."
I let the gown fall open, exposing my whole frontside. As she sorted items on the tray, she kept giving me a look, followed by a slight smile, as if she knew something I didn't. Then she looked at my penis, her eyes lingering for a moment before returning to the tray.
"Why do you need instruments?" I asked.
The question made Liz's face brighten.
"I'll show you," she said, holding up a thin, stainless rod with a rounded end. "This is a probe. I'm going to slide it into your foreskin and around the glans, to make sure your foreskin and glans are completely separate. Some little boys' foreskins are still adhered inside. Maybe yours is, too. And this," she held up something like a tube with scissor handles, "I will use to dilate your preputial opening. So I can see inside it better."
My scrotum shrank a bit at that. In all my diddling with my foreskin, I had never intentionally tried to force it open.
"Is anesthetic used with that?"
"Oh, no," she said, "It's not needed. I promise I won't hurt you with any of these tools." She rolled the probe between thumb and forefinger before setting it back on the tray. "Go ahead and lie down, please, so I can examine your penis."
The table was propped so that when I lay back, I was sort of reclining. I would be able to see whatever Liz did with my penis.
After snapping on a pair of gloves, she reached up for a light attached to the ceiling. It levered down on a series of arms and hinges so she could point it wherever she wanted, and it would stay there. She switched it on and aimed it directly at my penis.
Then she pulled a high, wheeled stool in behind her. As soon as she sat down, she began moving much more slowly and deliberately. She rested her elbows on my thigh and abdomen, then gingerly lifted my penis to study it.
"Have you ever seen your glans, the head of your penis?" Liz asked, rolling it around in her fingers.
"Not much of it. Just the end of the urethra, through the opening."
"The meatus. That's what it's called. Well, let me see what I can see, then."
She tried to roll the foreskin down. The nipple flattened out, but the opening would not stretch enough to expose the glans even slightly.
"Does that hurt?"
"No."
"Okay," she said, then gently squeezed the glans. She tried again to open the foreskin, and this time was able to see the meatus. I could feel her warm breath on the moist, exposed membrane.
She reached for the probe, pausing to lubricate its tip with surgical jelly. "Now, what I'm going to do is slip the probe in to see if your foreskin is attached to your glans anywhere. I won't try to force it."
Liz slid the cold, metal probe into the virgin space between my foreskin and glans, yielding a sensation completely new to me. She tested for depth, intruding slightly past the corona on one side, then the other. This sent a tingle down my right leg, causing it to twitch. Then she moved the probe laterally, very slowly.
"The smegma in there makes a good lubricant," she whispered, circling the probe around inside my foreskin until she made a full orbit around the glans. She looked up at me, her face slightly flushed. "Did that hurt at all?"
"No," I barely managed to say. The probe still felt hard and intrusive in a space that had never been touched from outside. My leg twitched every time Liz started moved the tool.
"I don't feel any resistance in there," she said gently, sliding the probe in another complete circle around my glans. On the third pass, she paused at the six o'clock point, edging the probe side-to-side. "Feel that? That's your frenulum. It's the most sensitive part of you."
"Yes, I do feel that."
"You have more nerve endings concentrated there than anywhere else on your body. And that's what will be exposed after we get your foreskin out of the way. You will feel that," Liz twitched the probe, "every time your penis moves inside a girl."
My back began to arch and I found myself barely able to breathe, the probe felt so intense riding back-and-forth across my tender frenulum.
"Now all we have to do is figure out how best to expose it," she said, and pulled the probe out. She swapped the probe for the scissory-looking tube device.
"Now, this is what I will use to spread your preputial sphincter a bit," she looked up at me, waiting for my nod of acknowledgment as she spread lubricant onto the tubular part, "I'll need you to tell me when to stop."
Liz tugged my foreskin straight up with her fingers and wedged the tool inside. When she squeezed the handles, the tube dilated slightly. With it in place, she held my penis up by the foreskin and rested her other hand on my scrotum.
She looked right into my eyes as she squeezed the device again. It made a clicking sound as it ratcheted wider. I felt my foreskin growing taut, but no pain. I matched her gaze and nodded for her to continue.
Two more clicks. Her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed. I nodded again.
Another click and I began to feel a strain. We both looked at my outstretched foreskin, a slight sheen of tension on its surface. The tool had opened my prepuce to a half inch in diameter.
"I should be able to see inside now," Liz said, and tipped the device toward her, peering into my outstretched foreskin as if it were a microscope. "Ah, there's the meatus, and I can see the frenulum doubled up just below it. Want to see?"