What I wish everyone knew about sex is that it is just as important to appreciate your own anatomy as it is another person’s.
The scene was set perfectly. My first real relationship, his first real relationship. My first regular partner, his first regular partner. I couldn’t have asked for a more candidly honest way to open up about our sexual experiences.
It was a slow start – we were both still young and awkward, after all – and we’d had sex a handful of times at this point. At this point, we started to get better at talking about what we thought worked and what didn’t.
I can’t quite recall how we got onto it, but he made a joke about wondering what it felt like for guys who were circumcised. Whether it felt any different, whether there was a visible scar, etc.
Understandable and ordinary discussion for the age we were at the time. If not for the fact that I was pretty sure (no, I was certain) that he was in fact circumcised.
Maybe it was nerves, or uncertainty, or not wanting to invalidate lived experience, but I didn’t want to shut him down just yet. I asked him what he thought was different about being circumcised, and he told me the head would certainly be smaller.
I’m a big believer that there is no wrong answer with sex. Except for perhaps this one.
At the end of the day, I am a giver, so I had to break the news to him. My mistake here was that out of an attempt to be as delicate and understanding as possible, I phrased it like an uncertain question.
“Hey, I’m pretty sure you actually are circumcised… I think foreskin looks different”. He took my delicate and put on uncertainty as an opportunity to defend himself.
We looked at google images, we looked at porn, we looked at reddit. All answers pointed to the very obvious conclusion which he nonetheless refused to come to.
We talked about it extensively, but no matter how hard I tried, he wasn’t convinced. His reasoning? He told me he would remember an experience like that.
Come. On.
Admittedly, after this long late-night discussion, I realized it was a hill I was simply unwilling to die on. His understanding of his foreskin (or, as I affirm, lack thereof) had no impact on our relationship, so I let it go. I didn’t want to embarrass him by being too pushy, and at the same time it almost gaslit me into taking his side on the matter.
The relationship lasted long after this conversation and it was never brought up again. To this day I’m unsure if any of his future partners have finally made him admit defeat on this one – for his sake, I hope they have.
All in all, the lesson to be learnt here is that it’s all well and good for you to understand the other person and know what works to make them happy, but for your own sake do some understanding of yourself while you’re at it.