My Nervous Owl

life-intact:

A diagram showing the normal development of an intact human penis.

“BPL” is short for the “balano-preputial lamina.”  It is also known as the synechia.  This normal membrane is similar in function to the membrane that firmly anchors your fingernails to your fingers.

This BPL breaks down gradually, eventually resulting in a fully retractable foreskin.  The average age of first foreskin retraction is at around 10.4 years, according to the majority of medical data on such matters, although it is not unheard of for this process to take longer (sometimes up to 18 years).

During the earliest years, there is no space under the foreskin, and no place for “germs” to get to, provided that the BPL is not damaged via premature retraction.

The BPL is something that should not be broken by involuntary premature retraction.

The BPL is something that is ripped apart during the typical infant circumcision.

It is a process similar to using a blunt object to separate your fingernail from your finger, and judging from how infants respond to this procedure, is just as (if not more) painful, even when anesthesia is used.