Time to put the stigma to rest once and for all.
Between bonneted and intact, uncut and unclipped, there are tons of slang terms for uncircumcised penises—ones that haven’t had the foreskin that covers the tip of the penis surgically removed. Unfortch, if your partner isn’t circumcised (or you, yourself, aren’t), you’ve probably heard more myths about uncircumcised penises than nicknames for them. Heck, even if you’ve never even come into contact with an uncut pecker, you’ve probably heard lies that say they’re “less clean” than circumcised ones, for example.
But the truth about uncircumcised penises is pretty anticlimactic in that they’re totally just…regular penises. As Hello Cake’s senior medical advisor Justin Houman, MD, a board-certified urologist who specializes in sexual health, infertility, and erectile dysfunction puts it, “both circumcised and uncircumcised penises can be healthy and function well sexually,” so long as their owners employ proper hygiene, practice safer sex, and receive regular medical check-ups, that is. Among other things, that means if you’re getting it on with someone with an uncircumcised penis, you’re at no greater risk of contracting a sexually transmitted infection or coming down with a UTI in the aftermath than if you’d slept with someone circumcised.
It’s time, once and for all, to put the rumors about this slight anatomical deviation to sleep for good, so we created this myth-busting guide to uncircumcised peens with the help of urologists and sexual health specialists. Here’s what they had to say.
Myth: Uncircumcised Penises Are Less “Clean” Than Circumcised Ones
A person’s regular hygiene practice (or absence of) is the best indicator of cleanliness—not whether or not their penis is uncircumcised, says board-certified physical medicine specialist Dr. Michael Meighen, MD, author of A New You. “Both circumcised and uncircumcised folks need to regularly clean their genitals to prevent infection and odor.”