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Ask Marilyn—Why Is Vigorous Masturbation Painful for this Intact Teen?

by
Ask Marilyn, Blog
July 25, 2022

The penis advice columnDear Marilyn:

This may fall into the category of TMI, but we are a sex-positive household, and no topic is taboo. My 14-year-old son is going through puberty and is worried that his foreskin pulls back only about half-way. He told me that it sometimes hurts if he “goes too fast” when he masturbates. Is this something we should be concerned about? Is it time to visit a urologist?

—Sonia, Grand Rapids, MI

 Dear Sonia:

I am happy that you and your son can talk candidly about sex. You can explain to him that, just as you cautioned him not to forcibly retract his foreskin, he needs to be careful with his foreskin when he masturbates. Here’s why: One or two millimeters under the penile skin is a smooth muscle sheath called the dartos fascia. The dartos fascia covers the shaft of the penis and extends to the tip. The dartos fascia muscle fibers near the tip of the foreskin form a sphincter-like structure—or a ring—that acts like a one-way valve and shields the urinary opening.

The muscle fibers of the ring will become elastic over time as your son’s foreskin loosens with the hormones of puberty and eventually fully retracts. Until then, tell your son to masturbate gently to slowly widen the opening. If he masturbates too vigorously, he can force the head of the penis through the opening and tear the ring, causing bleeding as well as pain. Gentleness is always important when the genitals are involved.

—Marilyn

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1 Comment

  • Vinthou

    Reply July 28, 2022 6:40 pm

    When I was about 12, I had a friend who was 14 and intact. He had a similar issue in that the opening of his foreskin was only about 1/4″ in diameter. When he masturbated, he was always careful to grasp his penis close to the base so that he did not put undue stress on the delicate opening and cause himself pain by stretching it.

    One other reason not to be too vigorous in pulling the foreskin back would be to prevent acquiring a paraphimosis. As we know, this can be resolved manually, but some doctors (who place little value on a foreskin) seem to employ surgery in the form of a dorsal slit, or worse – a circumcision.

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Marilyn

Marilyn Fayre Milos, multiple award winner for her humanitarian work to end routine infant circumcision in the United States and advocating for the rights of infants and children to genital autonomy, has written a warm and compelling memoir of her path to becoming “the founding mother of the intactivist movement.” Needing to support her family as a single mother in the early sixties, Milos taught banjo—having learned to play from Jerry Garcia (later of The Grateful Dead)—and worked as an assistant to comedian and social critic Lenny Bruce, typing out the content of his shows and transcribing court proceedings of his trials for obscenity. After Lenny’s death, she found her voice as an activist as part of the counterculture revolution, living in Haight Ashbury in San Francisco during the 1967 Summer of Love, and honed her organizational skills by creating an alternative education open classroom (still operating) in Marin County. 

After witnessing the pain and trauma of the circumcision of a newborn baby boy when she was a nursing student at Marin College, Milos learned everything she could about why infants were subjected to such brutal surgery. The more she read and discovered, the more convinced she became that circumcision had no medical benefits. As a nurse on the obstetrical unit at Marin General Hospital, she committed to making sure parents understood what circumcision entailed before signing a consent form. Considered an agitator and forced to resign in 1985, she co-founded NOCIRC (National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers) and began organizing international symposia on circumcision, genital autonomy, and human rights. Milos edited and published the proceedings from the above-mentioned symposia and has written numerous articles in her quest to end circumcision and protect children’s bodily integrity. She currently serves on the board of directors of Intact America.

Georganne

Georganne Chapin is a healthcare expert, attorney, social justice advocate, and founding executive director of Intact America, the nation’s most influential organization opposing the U.S. medical industry’s penchant for surgically altering the genitals of male children (“circumcision”). Under her leadership, Intact America has definitively documented tactics used by U.S. doctors and healthcare facilities to pathologize the male foreskin, pressure parents into circumcising their sons, and forcibly retract the foreskins of intact boys, creating potentially lifelong, iatrogenic harm. 

Chapin holds a BA in Anthropology from Barnard College, and a Master’s degree in Sociomedical Sciences from Columbia University. For 25 years, she served as president and chief executive officer of Hudson Health Plan, a nonprofit Medicaid insurer in New York’s Hudson Valley. Mid-career, she enrolled in an evening law program, where she explored the legal and ethical issues underlying routine male circumcision, a subject that had interested her since witnessing the aftermath of the surgery conducted on her younger brother. She received her Juris Doctor degree from Pace University School of Law in 2003, and was subsequently admitted to the New York Bar. As an adjunct professor, she taught Bioethics and Medicaid and Disability Law at Pace, and Bioethics in Dominican College’s doctoral program for advanced practice nurses.

In 2004, Chapin founded the nonprofit Hudson Center for Health Equity and Quality, a company that designs software and provides consulting services designed to reduce administrative complexities, streamline and integrate data collection and reporting, and enhance access to care for those in need. In 2008, she co-founded Intact America.

Chapin has published many articles and op-ed essays, and has been interviewed on local, national and international television, radio and podcasts about ways the U.S. healthcare system prioritizes profits over people’s basic needs. She cites routine (nontherapeutic) infant circumcision as a prime example of a practice that wastes money and harms boys and the men they will become. This Penis Business: A Memoir is her first book.