I am scared of foreskins.

There.  I finally said it.  It's been a sentiment that has been eating away at me for awhile now, and when I can't find a socially acceptable outlet for my deep confessional feelings, i take to the blog.

Now I'm not scared of foreskins like i'm scared of large snakes (pun intended).  I don't think a foreskin is going reveal itself from a dark corner as it simultaneously uncoils to snap out and bite me.  I mean, i can see it happening.  But i know it's reasonably unlikely.

This is also not a homophobia thing.  I have no problem with penises.  Peni?  Hell, i even have one of my own that i like to give it as much attention and play-time as possible.  Sometimes I even procrastinate with it.  So, this isn't a simple matter of anti-penis bias.

So where does this aversion to the "natural" state of the human male sex organ at rest come from?  Well, first of all, it comes from a lack of exposure.
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When I was 6, I went to my first all-boys summer sleep away camp in the Berkshires.  The camp was about 40 minutes from my parent's house, but to a kid my age, that was practically out of the country.  Just like the movies, we had a lake, no working electricity except for in the dining hall, and a girl's camp just "through the woods."  Another staple of the summer camp experience is communal showers.   At  6, this was not as horrifying experience as it was educational.  We were still too young to really compare working parts at that point (kinda like trying to compare tree stumps), but it was still the first time I can recall seeing peers naked.

Pretty much what you'd expect.  Bunch of little kids rushing to get the hell out of the bathroom.  But, one image that i still haven't forgotten involves the "exchange" kid from Korea.  Now, I don't really remember who this kid was.  He wasn't in my bunk.  I realize the idea of an exchange student at camp is fairly silly, and considering my age, I could have just been a tiny racist and assumed the Asian kid was an exchange student (not a ton of diversity in the Berkshires in the mid-80's).  However, for some reason i feel strongly that the kid was an import.  Regardless of his origin story, when i looked down to where the little Korean kids ding-dong should be, i saw something distinctly foreign.

Where I expected to see a miniature Smurf-house on its side, was instead an entirely different shape.  The base looked pretty much the same, but then the tube quickly pinched off, almost to a point.  Then, at the tip of the point, was a ball of skin about the size of a small marble.  His pee came out said marble.  I was in a state of utter confusion.  At first i thought that maybe he had some sort of half penis-half vagina.  It would be another decade or so until i could properly compare this kid's wiener to a human vagina, and I correctly predicted that i didn't have that kind of time.  My mind raced as i tried to avoid been noticed staring quizzically at another camper's junk while soaping my underarms. 

I don't think i ever figured out the sphinx that was a 6-yr-old's uncircumcised penis.  And i haven't seen another another kid's uncircumcised penis since (not really a goal of mine, i might add).  So, somewhere in my grey matter lies that tan marble of fear for even, or especially, the tiniest of foreskins.
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The frequency of foreskin in my life hasn't increased much since.  If asked at this moment, i can only think of two of my friends who i know have penises untouched by carving tools.   Of those two, i have a long running joke with one of them regarding his uncircumcised scribe.  And, therefore, he has come to represent for me, "the modern uncirsumsized male."

I know this because of a dream i had about 4 months ago.  In said dream, this friend, let's call him Chris, and I are hanging out in "the city".  Now, i wish i remembered more details relating to the bigger picture of the dream, because it would create a more full reconstruction of the event, but instead I just give you the event:

For whatever reason, and somehow (don't ask me how while im conscious) in a non-homosexual way, Chris and I decided that we needed more "docking" in our lives, and then proceeded to dock one another like Marty McFly reconnecting the extension cords right before the lightning strikes.

"What is docking?" says every reader over the age of 40?   Sadly, i will tell you.  Docking necessitates two men; one circumcised, one un.  And, again, i apologize for being the one to tell you about this.  The two men take their non-erect (maybe, like, 25% erect?) penises and have them approach each other, head on, like one of them is going the wrong way down a one way street (which, in a way, they are).  Next, the uncircumcised man takes his foreskin and pulls it over the the head of his own penis and then stretches it out over the head of the other man's penis, forming a finger-cuff-like palindrome of penis.  The term docking denotes how the two penises, when approaching each other, sort of look like the male and female end of some strange human extension cord and/or person connection unit.

*I can't reiterate this enough to you people out there who don't know any gay people or have somehow barricaded yourself from the reality of homosexual america . . . this is not how gay men have sex!!!!!!!!* 

And so, there i am, awaking from a dream in which i become one in the absolute strangest of ways with a good friend of mine.  If this doesn't more fully explain my fear of the foreskin, i'm not sure what else to say.

Some clarification.  I do not think being uncircumcised is wrong in any way.  It is, truly, how we are made.  I actually think it's pretty hypocritical for the religious folks in the world to be all "we are created in God's image" and then the first thing they do to newborn boys is lop a piece of that God created image right off.  Kinda sends a mixed message.  At the same time i'm glad i've never had to have this call and response which i found over on Yahoo! Answers:

I'm 13 years old and I can fully retract my foreskin. But, yesterday I saw a white substance under my foreskin. I looked it up and it said that it was smegma. So how am I supposed to clean this?

-Demetrius

Hi Demetrius

I am a doctor in Australia, where most guys have foreskin, so I frequently answer foreskin-related questions.

Yes, this substance is probably smegma (or commonly called d*ck cheese). The best way to clean it off is to just rinse the penis and foreskin with warm water, perhaps some gentle body gel if you like avoid using soaps as they can dry the soft skin of the foreskin and the glans (head).

Other causes of "white substance" under the foreskin can be a minor fungal infection or pearly penile papules (a type of benign nodule), although these are far less likely then just smegma.

If things don't work out with just washing it off, let me know and I can advise if it might be something else.

Source(s):
I am a doctor [*editors note-i find this self citation badass and plan to rip it off]
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Now, i am aware that there are many other, even more superficial reasons to avoid face time (or god forbid FaceTime) with foreskins, but i'll leave those arguments to straight women, gay men, and everyone else for whom the penis plays a distinctly different role.  

As for me, I feel better.  This confession has cleansed me like the smegma off a confused 13 year old.