I write to tell of the circumcision in my country (Italy) where the most of population is uncut, but in the south regions (Sicilia, Calabria, Basilicata, Puglia) circumcision was practiced from the time of invasion from Greek and north African people, about 1000 years ago. So now about 85% of males in Italy are uncut and 15% are cut (with all the African and Muslim people who now live here for many years and they are Italian in all ways.
Angelo (Italy)
All Italian guys must do one year military service sometime between 18 and 30. Because Italian boys are rarely circumcised at birth and live at home where their families never discuss such subjects, usually doing military service if the first time they are away from their families, living with other guys.
Also all medical attention is freely provided by the army doctors and one of the major surgical operations they perform is circumcision as all these boys can finally talk to a doctor about their phimosis and all the other problems associated with not being cut. So a lot of guys get cut during their military service and once one guy gets cut others begin to admit that they also want rid of their foreskin and a lot of cutting takes place - about 15% of Italian guys get cut in the army. They end up very beautiful as the army doctors in Italy perform an extremely low cut removing all the inner lining to just under the glans and also completely excise the frenulum often making a deep incision to make a nice smooth excavation. Very attractive.
As said an Italian economic newspaper, Capital, some years ago (1999?), in Italy circumcision rate is 12 - 13 %. I suspect it is increasing based on conversation with friends and observations in public showers.
Alessandro
When I was circumcised in the Italian army the doctor did a lot of explaining first. I had wanted to be circd ever since I lived in the US for five years as a teenager and was practically the only uncut guy at school. I had thought about it on and off but never done anything until the army.
Shortly after arriving in the caserma, about two weeks into the year, one of the guys who had been off 'sick' for a few days turned up after some training in the showers with shaved pubes and a circd dick! Naturally we were all curious and wanted to know what had happened. He explained that he had never been able to rectract properly and was relieved to finally have been circd by the doctor in our caserma. Not surprisingly, word went right around the unit of this and also not surprisingly, of the hundred guys in our unit, three were off 'sick' the next week only to return also cut and shaved! Very erotic in the showers indeed. The main impetus of course was that the op was free and that Italians are never circd and the family would never talk about it, so all these boys with problems finally coming clean. As there was now ample precedent I took the plunge and went for the same thing the next week.
The Doctor asked me to take off all my clothes and jump on the bench and then proceeded to examine my cock, and started to retract the foreskin, as he did so he realised that I didn't have any problem retracting and so he asked me why I wanted to be cut. I blushed and confessed that it was just something I had wanted ever since I lived in the US where everyone was cut. I was worried that he would say No and that I was a bit crazy, but instead he said he completely agreed and was very pro circumcision and lamented the fact that it was hardly practised in Italy.
He said he would happily circumcise me and said first he would explain the various ways that this could be done. He explained that one could be cut 'high' or 'low' and tightly or loosely. High meant that the inner skin was kept and the scar located up the shaft. The advantage of this was the sensitivity of the inner skin but the disadvantage was a very obvious cut line. Or the cut could be very low, right under the glans which did mean a loss of the more sensitive inner skin, but the look was much better as there was no obvious cut line at all, just a long continuous shaft of dark skin with the pink glans at the end. The other advantage he thought about a low cut involved the frenulum. Unless asked otherwise, he always did a tight cut with the complete excision of the frenulum as in his opinion this was a proper circumcision. With a very low cut, the complete removal of the frenulum ended being more attractive as the scar at the back of the shaft between the glans and the outer skin was much shorter.
He said that the decision was mine. Generally he found that a low cut was preferred as most guys didn't want to look like americans, that high cut look that most europeans associate with americans through porno mags and videos. Instead they preferred the very low cut under the glans as, especially with their darker skin colour, the result was much more consistent and attractive as it avoided the glaringly obvious cutting line on the shaft.
I took the plunge and went for the same as my army buddies with a very low cut and the complete removal of the frenulum and it looks very very good, although sometimes I have a nostalgia for that US look of the high cut.
Roberto
I was recently in a gym on the outskirts of Rome which was a really serious bodybuilder's gym with many professionals and prize winning amateurs. I was offering to take posing shots of the guys for their portfolios for free as it would also help my portfolio of good photos.
I hadn't quite realised before just how American inspired the world wide cult of bodybuilding is. Most of the guys had American gym gear and posing pouches and many of them had trained or worked in the US, some for considerable periods of time.
Like all bodybuilders, all the guys at this gym were completely shaved, including all their pubes, but five of them had actually had their armpit hair and their pubic hair permanently removed by electrolysis while in the States, so they looked fantastic as they had no razor burn at all, just incredibly smooth genitals.
The other thing that completely amazed me was how many of them were circumcised - over half, despite circumcision in Italy running at 5%. It turned out that there was a general agreement that the total bodybuilder's look should include a clipped cock. Of the 12 guys who had worked in the US for quite some time, 9 of them had been circed there - they said that when they were there they had realised that all the US guys were circed and they came to love the look and had had themselves done. The other three had had themselves done after they came back to Italy when they finally had the courage to do the op. What was also interesting was that three of the other guys who had never been to the States had also had themselves cut as they thought their pals looked great, and they also associated being cut with the look of a professional bodybuilder.
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| M Cinioni | K. Stefano | V. Luca | Marcus |
I came across your web site today and wanted to drop you this note and let you know about my recent experience while on the beach in Italy. As you may know, the US has several military installations in Italy. My husband was transferred to one of them for two or three years, and I went along. Shortly after arriving on the base, I had my second child (another boy). The Italians are a friendly people and it wasn't long before I was invited to the beach with our neighbor and her children. Babies (usually under age 8) go without any swimming suits or diapers. Women are always topless. Even though my husband had warned me of this and indicated I shouldn't remove my top, I felt out of place with it on and proceeded to go without it. Likewise, the boys took off their underpants. As you would expect, all of the American military boys where cleanly circumcised. Both of my boys, born in military hospitals, had been circumcised with the Plastibell. During this, and every subsequent visit to the beach, Italian mothers always commented on my sons' circumcisions and seemed to think of it in a positive manner. Several indicated they thought it was better, and would try to have their own sons circumcised.
I met about 10 Italian women who had actually had their sons circumcised, mostly because of the influence of American military wives (and their sons) at the beach. After telling one of my beach neighbors that I had never actually seen an uncircumcised penis in real life (meaning on a man), she actually pulled her son over and showed me his foreskin, peeled it back and told me how both her son and husband always have a distinct and unpleasant odor under their foreskins. This was, as you might imagine, more information that I wanted and I was glad that the US Military had taken care to circumcise all of the men in my family. One signature when I checked into the hospital took care of all routine procedures for the newborns. They called it "Well Baby Care".
I would guess that the circumcision rate in Italy, and in many other countries where military bases are common, is higher than in the general population. Hopefully this important little procedure will continue to be promoted by our military presence around the world.
