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Circumcised I was ten when mum decided I should be circumcised. I’d become increasingly lazy when carrying out my visits to the bathroom. She was fed up with me missing the toilet bowl and I often departed unaware that I’d left a puddle of pee where I stood. This was because I had a very loose foreskin that, if I didn’t retract right back, often covered my pee-hole and sent trickles in different directions. Some pee hit the water so I assumed it all had but I didn’t check and a small (occasionally large) pool could often be left festering in front of the bowl and not in it. Also, as I was getting older, a lot of ‘stuff’ was beginning to gather under it, which in turn caused me some mild irritation. Mum would often say. “Terry, you’re at that age where these things matter, you must take much more care.” However, her constant nagging only made me care less and I became careless... I was ten and beginning to get insolent, not doing as I was told and thinking I knew best. I became a bit of a show off, not through any kind of theatrical talent but showing my contempt at authority to impress my school mates. As far as mum was concerned the final straw came when we had my Aunt Jen, Uncle Mark and their three children visiting. Of course, I’d used the loo last and uncaringly I’d left a rather large pee-slick on the tiled bathroom floor. My four year old cousin Tammy went and slipped in the puddle and banged herself pretty badly on the bowl. Of course her mum and dad thought she’d left the mess and although sympathetic to her injury blamed her for being negligent. Mum let it go, not saying it was my fault but letting me know by her looks that I should volunteer my culpability. I know mum was losing her patience but she never shouted, nor did she ever punish me, so I thought I was on relatively safe ground. However, it took a few of her fiercest stares for me to get the message and though reluctant I confessed my sins (I might have been becoming rebellious but not that rebellious). I saw the relief on mum’s face when I confessed (not a complete lost cause) and a strange feeling ran through my body. For the first time in quite some time, I’d made her proud of me... or so I hoped... and I liked the feeling. I was ten years old, I wanted to rebel and show I was growing up but that approval, that smile, made me briefly reassess the way I was acting. Alas, my aunt and uncle were furious that they’d blamed their sweet daughter, whilst mum, sensing an atmosphere, sent me to my room and was not allowed to continue to play with their two older boys Phil and Kevin. I’d been bragging to them that I could do anything before mum’s scary stare had made me lose a little face with my confession. However, they were equally fascinated and wanted to know why my foreskin caused so much havoc and sought to have a peek (apparently theirs not giving a moment’s worry). It didn’t happen because the next time they saw me I was minus that particular accessory. # As I left the room I could hear, in her anger, my aunt (who is mum’s older sister) lash out at what had happened and told mum in no uncertain terms that I should be in nappies if I peed indiscriminately, leaving puddles everywhere. Mum didn’t react badly (she never lost her temper) but quietly said that she already had plans to sort that particular problem out. She’d read that circumcision was healthier for a young man and that girls preferred a cut penis, whether any of this was true, that’s how it was sold to me. I wasn’t taken to hospital instead a Jewish medical friend of mum’s, who said he’d done hundreds of such procedures, volunteered his services. I hated the idea of hospital and any kind of operation, so, it’d be done in private and mum even swore that it would be “...but a minor inconvenience”. Oh, and yes, it wasn’t a painful procedure because “...babies had it done and they turned out okay”. Mum lied - There was a lot of blood, I was very sore and my poor little penis looked butchered. # With my penis cut and bandaged I found going to the toilet a harrowing experience. What was worse, at night, after keeping my bladder full because of the pain when I did pee, on several occasions I involuntarily wet the bed as I slept. Mum decided that until my penis healed, I should wear a nappy and argued that the soft fabric would be less irritating against my skin and I’d probably heal quicker. I wasn’t happy about this idea believing it was only because my aunt made such a song and dance about my peeing on the floor. However, my wounded penis was quite painful and I disliked waking up to a soaked bed so it seemed a temporary way round my soggy problem. Also, whether it was because of the nappy reference from her sister or not, mum had probably decided what would happen so really I had little choice. This time mum didn’t lie because the fabric was nice and soft against my skin; the padding keeping me snug so my injured thingy didn’t bounce about. Also, the antiseptic creams and various fragrant lotions that area was subjected to were very soothing. In fact, I was quite grateful for the cushion of relief it all offered. Because my penis was really sore, it was too painful to wear jeans or trousers, and although I didn’t feel comfortable about it, for those first few days I wondered around the house wearing very little below the waist apart from the ease of my padding. When I first thought about having to wear a nappy I assumed it was mum punishing me for my behaviour and to possibly placate her sister, as Aunt Jen had been quite caustic about what she thought of a ten year old still peeing on the floor. However, any seething resentment that I perhaps should have aimed at mum just didn’t happen because the nappy was a great help. Mum became very protective, perhaps, overly protective of me and went out of her way to keep me happy; my wellbeing of the upmost importance. Before the operation I would have shirked off any attempt from mum to coddle me. I was ten and growing up and didn’t need constant attention. However, after the messy business I felt wounded so quite pleased mum was lavishing all her attention on me. She soothed my soreness with oily creams and in truth I liked not fighting with her over everything and nothing. I don’t think I was that aware of it but things had changed as a result of my lost skin. Waking up in a soaked nappy was strangely a comfort because despite everything, my sore willy felt less sore lying in a damp fabric cradle. Whichever way mum had attached that night’s padding felt like it was doing its job because the experience was different. Together with a pair of plastic pants, come the morning my attention was centred on a piece of soggy material not a piece of my missing willy. She often said that despite everything I looked happy in a nappy. It was a catchphrase that kept on repeating in my head time after time and at the most inopportune moments. It was an ear worm that once started never seemed to stop and I’d find it gnawing away as I tried to get to sleep. However, no matter how annoying that was, I was always grateful come the morning when my night time awkward insulation had done its duty and saved me from a repeatedly soaked bed. # Despite the initial painkillers I was taking ‘it’ remained tender and swollen and became a bit of a problem when I returned to school as I certainly didn’t intend on wearing a nappy to class. Mum saw that I was struggling to keep my underpants dry so came up with some extra padding sewn into them for me to wear. Strangely, as I was under no pressure to pee because of being stood in front of a toilet, I could let it out in small, relatively painless spurts when and where I felt the need. Often just letting it trickle into the folds of the extra fabric where it was quickly swallowed up. So I wore wet pants regularly whilst I recuperated, and, despite my reluctance on wearing them, mum’s insistence on slick white vinyl pants were the key in preventing any visible leakage. Nevertheless, the problem continued at night, even after my newly circumcised penis had all but healed, because I was still waking up wringing wet... so to combat the nightly deluge the wearing of night time stuffing continued. # I was a little traumatised by the operation to say the least. I was taking an age to mentally recover and thought my recently pared-back boy part looked strange and inflamed and worried it would always be that way. With the constant reminder every time I looked at my red willy I felt responsible for its current state and, although it was the case I no longer left puddles in front of the toilet bowl when I did make use of the facilities, if only I’d taken more care I wouldn’t have been in this position. Meanwhile, I think mum seemed to connect the reason I was wetting to the pain and subsequent agony I’d been subjected to. I don’t know whether this was the case or not, but despite her ten year old boy needing nappies at night, she didn’t get angry about their prolonged use. In fact, she noticed that with the loss of my foreskin I also lost a lot of the insolence I had been beginning to accrue. The real reason - I felt damaged and wanted my mummy to look after me. I wondered why mum didn’t take me to hospital to have it checked out but I think she was disappointed/embarrassed/guilty about what the ‘doctor’ had done. I had nothing and no one to compare my situation to. I had no idea if this was how it went when a boy was circumcised and that I was just one of many. However, what I did know... her ‘friend’ disappeared from our radar completely. I don’t know if mum had words or what but I never saw him again. Good. # The comfort of wearing a soft thick nappy at night weirdly seemed to be the only relief I could count on. So, despite not wearing a nappy since I was three, the thought that I had to wear one to prevent any apparent complications, and soaked bed, seemed exasperating but inevitable. Although my logic wasn’t following any sensible path I became obsessed with keeping that area clean, covered and worried constantly that it just ‘didn’t look right’. Although I thought, and mum fostered that notion, I needed to wear a nappy to fight off any infections, what I really intended was to keep it hidden. I was ashamed of it always looking scarlet and deformed. It was ugly and I hated it and I’d brought it on myself because I peed all over the floor and in doing so had brought about the injury of a little girl. Guilt is a strange thing - how many other people might I have injured by my inconsiderate toilet habits? I needed that extra thick material to prevent anyone seeing it and also to avoid harming the rest of mankind. # At the start of all this I didn’t have much of a conversation about wearing nappies with mum. She just never let me out of them at night and often joked it was advisable to be better protected during the day if we went anywhere ‘special’. Although to begin with I wasn’t all that keen on going outside wearing a thicker nappy, mum made it seem that it was me who was making a big deal about it and no one else would even notice. She asked me if I’d been in the least bit bothered by wearing a nappy at night. As my foreskinless penis was healing I had to admit that it had been of benefit - so, no, it hadn’t been a problem. “And” she asked, “wearing one now... is that a problem?” She was quite intense and I found my days of lying under such scrutiny were becoming a thing of the past. I was wearing one at that moment, having just woken up after another soggy night, and in truth it had been soft and gentle with the plastic pants holding me in some degree of cosiness. “No, not really it’s just...” I shrugged. “Well then, what’s the problem? If there isn’t a problem, stop making difficulties when there aren’t any.” After all the jokiness mum seemed a bit annoyed that I was questioning her but I also detected she was a bit worried (although she never said anything to me about it) that it was taking so long to repair. However, she was correct about the padding; it was keeping me from any excess dribbles and made things nice and comfy down there. Perhaps weirdly I wasn’t unhappy about having to wear a nappy and it was at this point I psychologically began to associate these two words together - ‘Happy’ and ‘Nappy’. One morning I came down stairs to the kitchen, mum was just finishing pegging out the washing and my soaked nappy and plastic pants hung low between my thighs. It looked a lovely day and as I opened the door for mum because she was coming back carrying the laundry basket, a cool breeze took me by surprise and there in front of her I felt a sudden spurt into my already saturated nappy. The only thing was I couldn’t stop and mum watched as my nappy expand whilst it soaked up even more of my involuntary pee. “It’s a good job you’re wearing that,” she said pointing to my glistening plastic pants, “otherwise had you been wearing your school uniform yet... it would’ve been soaked.” I’d been rooted to the spot but incredibly embarrassed at peeing so publicly and it being witnessed by mum. I couldn’t think of an excuse or even what to say so I simply felt ashamed. Mum pointed upstairs. “Okay, take them off and I’ll get them in the next load... let’s get you ready for school.” Meanwhile, she’d bought a set of different coloured and loose-fitting shorts she thought wouldn’t put pressure around my injury like my school trousers and jeans had been doing. Since the operation I found such items very annoying to wear, tight and at times uncomfortably rubbing against my thicker underpants, so these baggy shorts came as something of a welcome relief. ##tbc##